Q:

I have never had sexual contact and neither has my boyfriend. We are thinking about taking that next step together and I was wondering if there is great risk involved for STD's if we don't use a condom. We started birth control but are just wondering how big of a risk there is overall if we don't use condoms.

A:

The question really is: what is sexual contact in your histories and are you both defining it the same way? You don't have to have had intercourse to have been exposed to, and possibly infected with an STD. If there is history of any genital/genital contact or oral/genital contact, even just external, there is risk of STDs such as herpes, human papilloma virus or other infections, so condom use allows some, not complete protection from transmission.