Should You Be Having Sex While You’re Fighting Illness?

92Q Jams Featured Video

Source: gradyreese / Getty

You’re sneezing and coughing and hacking up a lung, and your partner lies in bed next to you and goes “I don’t care if you’re sick, baby, I still want you.”

While the idea of being desired sexually with tissues stuffed up your nose may be thrilling, getting it on in the midst of a nasty battle of illness is not the best idea.

Text “RICKEY” to 71007 to join the Rickey Smiley Morning Show mobile club for exclusive news. (Terms and conditions).

“The big concern is transmitting your infection from you to your partner, or vice-versa, depending on who’s sick,” Eshani Dixit, sex educator and medical student told Refinery 29.

“If you’re in close proximity to someone else, you’re going to be breathing in each other’s faces and, presumably, kissing. Obviously, you can transmit a virus in that way.”Sign Up For Our Newsletter!

It’s best to spare your partner the germs, and find other ways to find mutual sexual relief while you wait for the cold or flu to pass. Dixit recommends using your hands for some simultaneous masturbation methods, or using protection.

“Basically, any barrier method will help protect against transmission of a bacteria or virus, whether it’s specifically a sexually transmitted disease, or something like a common cold or the flu,” Dixit explains.

If you’re sickness is prompted by something that is not contagious, like seasonal allergies or asthma, you are in the clear for some lovemaking.

“You should be fine if it’s not transmittable,” Dixit told R29.

However, even if it’s something that can’t be caught, like a UTI or an allergic reaction or a yeast infection, you should probably put the sex on pause so that you don’t agitate what is already happening in your body.

As a golden rule, it’s better to abstain and wait then to go full speed ahead and make your partner sick, or make your sickness last longer.

SEE ALSO