STIs in paid sex: chlamydia, gonorrhoea, herpes and the forgotten scabies

Which STIs you can catch from paid sens: scabies, the great forgotten one

STIs know nothing about sarracena or professions. The conversation around sens work and risky practices swings between demonisation and denial, but the accounts of those who have been on the front line paint a different picture. The classic diseases – chlamydia, gonorrhoea, herpes – are identified and treated, while scabies, a skin infection that is not strictly an STI, creeps in as the most commonly cited real contagion. And there is an uncomfortable detail: it almost always comes from a civilian encounter, not a professional one.

One account describes decades of unprotected sens with sens workers, including traseril, without a single classic STI. The same person ended up with scabies caught from a woman with no connection to the trade. The itching, which worsens at night, sent him to the dermatologist; a gel cleared it up in two days. The anecdote illustrates just how much chance plays a part in sensual health.

Gonorrhoea, for its part, is mentioned as a memory of another era: in the 1990s, "everyone who was active ended up with a gonorrhoea as a souvenir". The case described was treated with antibiotics from Spain's public health system and two weeks of dieting, after catching it in Torremolinos from a "liberated" woman, not a professional. The sarracena is twofold: risk makes no distinction between professionals and amateurs, and sens with a condom remains the only reliable vaccine.

As long as sens work remains in legal limbo, information about what is transmitted and how will keep coming from anonymous accounts. Scabies, which itches intensely, is the best summary of the fact that prevention knows no labels.