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?
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It really depends on what is there. The human vagina itself is acidic and has its own bacteria flora, so it’s not like adding oral bacteria to a clean petri dish. Some bacteria can be pretty environment specific and there’s bound to be competition in the human vagina. It’s not going to be a 1:1 transfer. A bacteria used to a certain pH, moisture, and substrate might not do so hot in certain areas. Also I am not too sure the human mouth is filled with harmful bacteria. What do you mean by this?
But for STIs like chlamydia that hide inside our mucous membranes and get inside our cells, that can transfer from oral to genital because both have mucous membranes. But this is not a native bacteria for humans.
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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
Another factor is that you’re not actually breaking the skin. Any bacteria left by the mouth will get washed away by the shower that will hopefully be coming relatively soon.
1. The areas that are most likely to have foreign bacteria have the best protections against them. Basically any area where foreign objects can easily enter your body. This includes your mouth, nose, eyes, ears, genitals, anus.
These areas will be *Much* better protected than a random cut you get, your body is absolutely not prepared to have a foreign object enter your kidneys. Now that doesn’t mean it’s safe to stick foreign things in these areas, but it’s saf-*er*. Also some of these areas – while better protected – are still more delicate, and thus more susceptible to infection, eg. your eyes.
2. It’s not safe. “*Relatively* safe” means you’re less likely to get an infection in your mouth or your genitals than if you somehow got it in your lungs, but it’s absolutely not safe.
If you’re not in a commited relationship you should always use condoms. In all-girls schools they teach the girls to use rubber gloves when engaging in same-sex activities to avoid spreading infections – I don’t know if any of them listen but this is the best medical advice. For oral sex on girls I don’t know if there is a good answer (*if anyone knows feel free to chime in*).
3. This will somewhat contradict my previous 2 points, but please don’t take away that there is no danger. The third point is that Human Beings have developed immune systems to deal with infections. Chances are you have some kind of infection or antigen causing you problems right now, but as long as your immune response can handle it you won’t even notice. You only start to feel sick/sore/feverish when the infection/virus/whatever starts to overwhelm your immune system. Once again though don’t take from this that you’re invincible. Mostly people are fine, but sometimes they end up in hospital with a story too embarrassing to tell their boss on Monday.
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What?
Maybe you heard about nasty infections caused by human bites? Bacteria in saliva enters the puncture wound which often closes up if not cleaned and dressed. From there, it’s got the perfect environment to take hold and multiply; warm, moist, nutrients, anaerobic (without oxygen) environment. It will form an abcess, there’s videos of that type of thing here, if you dare. If left untreated too long and or an antibiotic resistant strain of bacteria, you’ve got potentially serious problems.
NOW WHAT is this foreign bacteria that genitalia is “so sensitive” to, that apparently can’t be passed by felatio/cunnilingus? Cause bacterial as well as viral STIs/STDs can in fact be passed this way even of everything looks on the up and up at the time. HIV is unlikely, however there are numerous other viral STIs that do pass easily this way. Many are incurable, but they are preventable by vaccines. Vaccines that have been around a while. That actually work.
When it comes to the female bits, it’s an environment that needs to stay in balance, pH and stuff. Here you may be dealing with an entirely different kingdom, fungus. I’m gonna stop there and just say female specific matters would be best advised by females.
You said oral and genitalia, so that covers all THOSE orifices. Hope you have a great day!
Azithromycin + Doxycyclene stack will wipe out pretty much anything bacterial, cept syphilis, you don’t DY that one. Image search “neurosyphilis” or “tertiary syphilis”.
Get your vaccines. All of them.
EDIT: the changed to THOSE
r/ureaplasma and Mycoplasma however are two that are not as well known, but are known to be uncharacteristically small suped-bacteria that are infecting people more lately.
These are both present in humans and spread well between mouths and genitals.
An elephant won’t live long in the ocean. A shark wouldn’t live well on the savanna.
At the micro scale, seemingly small difference in the bacterium’s habitat can make a huge difference. The vagina is really acidic and lacks nutrients compared to the mouth. Bacteria in the oral cavity depend a lot on their ability to attach to things.
Other people have noted those differences. But another big thing is that there are a lot of bacteria in these locations already. Competition is really tough, and any new member of the microbial community needs to be really strong in order to carve out its niche in that new space.
Every professional I’ve heard talk about it says you should use a dental damn so it’s only kinda safe. But also dental dams are the least sexy thing in the world
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