[pcthrowaway]

I wouldn't put much stock in a lot of self-reported data, especially given the form design.

For example, HSV-1 is an STI, and 70-80% of adults globally have it (certainly more than 50% in pretty much every country).

90% of people have or will have had HPV in their lifetime (though to be fair, many don't know about it as it's not tested for in men)

16% of survey respondents said they have never had an STI, which is frankly impossible.

Every user apparently answered "age of first sexual intercourse" with a number?

"sexual intercourse" is poorly defined for our 6% of lesbians (does that mean vaginal or anal penetration with a toy, and if so does that require a partner?). Wikipedia defines it as "typically involving" and goes on to say:

> There are different views on what constitutes sexual intercourse or other sexual activity, which can impact views of sexual health

[apt-apt-apt-apt]

If we're counting non-sexually transmitted infections as STIs (HSV-1), we may as well include getting sneezed on and catching a cold during sex as an STI too, as it's closer to an STI than the previous.

Also, many people get cold sores from their mum or dad. You are basically calling us all mfers..

[pcthrowaway]

And you can get HPV from shaking hands, and you can get HIV from sharing needles or a bad blood donation, and you can get Gonorrhea and (more rarely) Syphilis from kissing also.

But these are all transmitted both sexually and non-sexually. HSV-1 and HSV-2 are only very subtly different, and both occur genitally (in Canadian provinces which studied this, more than 50% of genital HSV was attributed to HSV-1 [1])

Wikipedia considers it an STI[2], and I think the much more relevant consideration is whether it can be transmitted through sexual contact (genital-genital or oral-genital). Do you have any reason to believe a cold is transmitted through sexual contact (genital-genital or oral-genital) rather than just from kissing?

[1]: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/infectious-d...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexually_transmitted_infection

[piperswe]

> 90% of people have or will have had HPV in their lifetime

I suspect that number will soon become out-of-date, given that there's a widely available vaccination against HPV now.

[pcthrowaway]

I think at this point that 90% statistic is mainly carried by HPV strains which are not protected against by the vaccine (which does protect against 9 strains). I'm not entirely sure if that number has gone down due to the vaccinations, or if the strains protected against have just become less common relative to other HPV strains

[zahlman]

>16% of survey respondents said they have never had an STI, which is frankly impossible.

Even people who are being honest might not count e.g. oral herpes as an STI if they contracted it in a non-sexual way.

>Every user apparently answered "age of first sexual intercourse" with a number?

... As opposed to what?

[pcthrowaway]

> Even people who are being honest might not count e.g. oral herpes as an STI if they contracted it in a non-sexual way.

That's pretty much my point, self-reporting with vague questions leads to bad data. HSV-1 can be transmitted orally to genitally however, and genital HSV-1 is now more common in many places than genital HSV-1 [1] (likely from oral-to-genital transmission since HSV-1 is less active genitally, and barriers are far less commonly used orally than with PiV intercourse)

From [1]: "In studies conducted in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, cultures performed on samples taken from lesions of genital herpes indicated that more than 50% of infections were due to HSV-1"

> .. As opposed to what?

As opposed to... not having had sexual intercourse?

[1]: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/infectious-d...

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Creampie