Safer Sex Guidelines - Monogamy

Some individuals have chosen to use monogamy as a form of safer sex to minimize the risk of HIV infection. However, monogram is only effect if certain conditions are met. Once they are, then you may not need to use a condom during anal sex. Those prerequisites are:

FIRST, you and your partner have cleared the “window period” and are certain that you are both HIV negative.

After an individual is infected by the HIV virus that causes AIDS, it can take up to three months for HIV antibodies to develop to a level that can show up on a test. This three month period is know as the “window period” when HIV seroconversion may occur (when antibodies begin to be produced if you have HIV). You and your partner should get tested, and then get tested again in three months. If you are both negative on the second test, then forgoing use of a condom is possible provided the next condition has also been met since the first test.

SECOND, all sexual activity by both partners remains within the relationship.  In other words, that you are monogamous. This entails a commitment on the part of each partner to stay monogamous as well as trusting your partner to do so. As a result, you must maintain open communication and agree to disclose any breaks in the monogamous arrangement. Any sexual infractions necessitate redoing the HIV antibody testing procedures in order to ensure that both partners are negative. 

If these two conditions are met, then monogamy can work as a substitute for condom use to prevention the transmission of HIV. Of course, just as risk still exists with the use of a condom, that of breakage, so too risk exist with the use of monogamy. In this case, the risk that your partner will break the monogamous agreement and have sex outside of the relationship, thereby voiding its ability to reduce the risk of HIV transmission.

Because of the length of the “window period,” the use of monogamy in relationships of short duration, better known as serial monogamy, typically cannot serve as a substitute for condom use.