However, if you feel your individual risk is higher or lower for whatever reason, it’s important to negotiate a testing schedule with your provider that’s appropriate for your situation. If you’re unsure about your own STD testing needs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers population-based recommendations. This can cause tension because patients have been encouraged to get frequent tests, but providers don’t feel they qualify, and over-testing low-risk individuals can increase the risk of getting a false positive.” “However, many poly individuals–like women who have sex with men but those men don’t have sex with men–actually have a low risk.

“In the poly community especially, there’s a very big, open discussion around testing status and STD status, and it’s quite routine to bring recent lab results to new partners,” Waldura says. However, it may not be necessary for all individuals involved in poly or kink relationships to be tested this frequently, and many providers may be hesitant to order such frequent tests because of prohibitive costs and the possibility of false positive results. Gay men who are sexually active with multiple partners, for example, are encouraged to complete STD testing every three to six months. If you are in non-monogamous sexual relationship, you should be tested for STDs but the appropriate frequency of testing varies from person to person depending on several factors. Open relationship: Can include polyamory, but also other non-monogamous relationships like swinging (i.e., the practice of singles or partners in committed romantic relationships engaging in sexual activities with others), and other forms of sexually or romantically open arrangements. Kink: Otherwise known as BDSM (bondage and discipline/domination and submission/sadism and masochism), fetish, and/or S&M, “kink” refers to a lifestyle or practice based on consent and mutually defined activities that, according to TASHRA, involves “eroticization of power via dominance and submission, role playing/fantasy, and/or intense sensory stimulation and/or physical restriction.” Polyamory or poly: Maintaining multiple sexual and/or romantic relationships simultaneously all people involved have full knowledge of the situation and are completely consenting.

While the concept of an “open” relationship may seem self-explanatory, there are many different forms of non-monogamy that can include a variety of sexual practices and philosophies.

Non monogamous marriage is healthy