Eli5: if there are a ton of harmful bacteria in every persons mouth, why is it relatively safe to give/receive oral when genitalia is so sensitive to foreign bacteria?
In: 4241
u/mikeroscopic_ answered wonderfully. To expand on their point, a human bite is very dangerous if it penetrates what’s called our “1st line of defense”. This constitutes our skin, hair, nails, and our outer microbiome (maybe). (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35105981/#:~:text=The%20innate%20immune%20system%20acts,recognition%20and%20the%20resultant%20inflammation)[kinda related]
If it gets past that, it’s basically one of us, and up to our second line of defense, our immune system.
For reference, imagine a bad oral germ is Bob. Bob tries to get into our house through the front door. But we locked our front door, so he tries to break it down. Unfortunately for Bob, he’s a tini boi, so he crumples against our door. Defeated, he leaves to think of another way to get in.
Bob returns, and tries to enter through our basement! For whatever reason we open the cellar doors and let him in, but Bob faces a decision: break through the walls, or sneak up the stairs? Bob decided to sneak up the stairs. Unfortunately for Bob, we thought he might try this, so we put anti Bob poison on the stairs. Bob fucking dies.
Unfortunately for us, Bob has cousins. Bob’s cousins are just like Bob, but they’re hillbillies connected to a crazy person, and they somehow get a first class ticket straight into our upstairs hallway. Bob is now in the house, so it’s time to settle this once and for all.
For reference:
Bob = Bacteria
Front door is the mouth / skin
Basement = anus / vagina
+ colon / vaginal canal
Walls / stairs = ruptured colon / vaginal canal
Through GI / GU Tract
Upstairs = Vagina (internal). Relatively good at being inhospitable to intruders
Cousins = the same oral germ, via a bite that penetrates skin
Edit: misspelled name
Latest Answers