[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