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AIDS/HIV
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HIV from lap dancer's hands?
Originally Published: October 02, 1998
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Hi Alice, This web site is really informative, so thank you for making it available to people like me. I have an HIV concern. I went to a strip bar in Mexico City with a few friends. We decided to get lap dances. Unfortunately, the lap dancer put her hands down my pants and touched my penis. I removed her hands, but she giggled thinking that it was a joke. She did this a few more times. What are the risks of me contracting the HIV virus, if she touched herself (vaginal fluids) and then it got into the urethra of my penis. I don't know if it is possible for it to get to the urethra with less than two seconds of contact each time she touched me. I am circumcised as well if this makes a difference. Thank you so much for your time.
Dear Reader, Your chances of getting poison ivy or a skin-to-skin contracted sexually transmitted disease (STD), such as herpes, were greater than contracting HIV at the hands of your private dancer. (FYI, the risk of herpes transmission in this manner is much lower than from direct skin-to-skin contact). Here's why: although HIV can be passed via vaginal fluids into the urethral opening at the tip of your penis, your burrito would almost certainly have to be inside her fajita for this to happen. Secondly, HIV is a fragile organism, and its survival outside the body in the smoky air of a bar or anywhere else is estimated by scientists to be just a fraction of a second. Your mambo partner may have been quick with her hands, but not nearly quick enough to pass you HIV. Another critical factor at play here is the actual HIV status of the dancer. Alice can see how you might jump to the conclusion that she is HIV+, but reminds you that assumptions are not necessarily truths. It is a fact that not all bar dancers, strippers, and other sexual entertainers are STD/HIV carriers, as this wouldn't be very good for business. When you travel south or north, or east or west, of the border, there's more to think about these days than STD prevention. "Vacation head" understandably brings one's guard down, leaving travelers wide open to robbers, rapists, and murderers who have been spiking the cocktails of unsuspecting partiers with drugs like Rohypnol and GHB. These powerful sedatives leave men and women extremely vulnerable to suggestion, and without memory of kidnapping, burglary, sexual assault, and other events not on their itineraries. Hanging with people you know and trust, keeping an eye on your food and drinks, and never accepting the latter from someone unknown to you, seem to be the best tickets for preventing such crimes. (Read Rohypnol "Roofie" and Rape and GHB / "Liquid Ecstasy" -- Date rape drug of choice? [Reader's response] in Alice's Alcohol, Nicotine, and Other Drugs archives for more details about these drugs.) If your worries about HIV continue to hang like a cloud over your sunny Mexican vacation memories, you can always get tested for this and other STDs. Alice doesn't think you have much to be concerned about, but, in the end, you're the one in charge of your angst and the ways to prevent and export it.
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