I can’t stress enough how important having great, fulfilling sex is. However, there’s something else equally important that I haven’t seriously touched on, and that’s sexual health. What does that mean? Sexual health involves preventing sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia, herpes and HIV, keeping parasites and warts at bay, and preventing or managing pregnancy.

Fortunately, maintaining your sexual health isn’t very difficult. This is a prevention game, so as long as you maintain good habits, you’ll be in a great position to ensure that you won’t have any nasty surprises later on. Let’s look at some of the basics.

Barriers

The most surefire way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases as well as pregnancy is to prevent the sperm, germs, and viruses from getting in there in the first place. I’m sure we’re all familiar with condoms, and they work wonderfully. However, did you know that female condoms also exist? We’ve got both the traditional male condoms and female ones, so check them out! Remember that oral sex is also a potential vector of STDs, so don’t forget the dental dams if that’s in your repertoire.

Birth Control

Hormonal birth control—the pill—is a tried and true method for preventing pregnancy. What’s not to love? The pill is cheap, easy to manage and highly effective, especially if you have regular checkups with your gynaecologist to ensure that you have the right prescription and dosage. You could also look into other forms of hormonal and non-hormonal birth control like inter-uterine devices (IUDs), Depo shots, implants, vaginal rings, and more.

Check Up Often

If you really want to manage STDs, then you’d do well by yourself to make a habit of not just having sex with condoms, but also actively monitoring yourself for diseases and encouraging your sexual partners to do the same. Fortunately, STD testing is easy to find at most healthcare clinics and is completely confidential. Personally, I get tested in between sex partners just to be perfectly sure.

Some Don’ts

Here are a couple quick notes on things not to do. Ever heard of pulling out to prevent pregnancy? It doesn’t work very well, because ejaculate is leaked in small amounts long before the big moment. Beyond that, the most important thing is not to practice these habits inconsistently. After all, it only takes one bit of bad luck to catch something that might be permanent, so remember to be careful all the time!

It doesn’t seem all that complicated now, does it? Again, there’s nothing more important than your health, and if you haven’t given it much thought in the past, these tips will help you a lot. Don’t forget about your physical safety, either! While it’s not technically part of the umbrella of sexual health, preventing injury, especially during kinky sex, is something everyone should think about.