D.VICE Sex Q & A. Should I stop having sex?

I have a discharge from my penis, should I stop having sex?

Question

I recently noticed that I have a discharge from my penis. I’m too embarrassed to go to the doctor. Should I stop having sex?

D.VICE Sexpert Replies

Definitely stop having sex. Having a discharge from your penis or any kind of raised lumps is definitely the symptom of a potential STI. If you don’t feel comfortable going to your GP, go along to a sexual health clinic,  they have people who are really experienced and are not going to have judge you if you do have an STI.

What a discharge from the penis is most likely to indicate is having a bacterial STI such as gonorrhea, syphilis or chlamydia. Now all of these are on the rise, they can often be left undetected for quite a long time because they may not have  clear symptoms. If you do have discharge from the penis,  that is a very clear symptom.

STI's can generally be can be treated with antibiotics really easily, if they’re left untreated they can potentially have quite damaging effects, chlamydia in particular, can cause infertility in both women and men even after just one sexual contact. So very, very important to get that checked out.

If you have any kind of unprotected sex with somebody without knowing their sexual history, it’s really important to just cruise along to a sexual health clinic and get checked out for any STIs to make sure you are not infected.
Also you need to make sure that if you have had unprotected sex with anybody since you’ve noticed that symptom, and you can think back and think “OK when was the time I had unprotected sex?”  you may   need to contact them and actually recommend that they go and get checked out as well.

Now that’s a challenging thing to do but it’s a pretty brave move and I think that that is definitely the most responsible move because particularly chlamydia can cause infertility in women as well and not actually have any visible symptoms.

The moral of the story is always have safe sex, always have condoms and lube on hand, and if you are in a situation where you don’t have the time, or it’s not a situation where you want to communicate with somebody about their sexual history, always have safe sex.