STI Testing for Swingers (and why “safer sex” beats “safe sex”)

Transcript

Speaker1: We're super excited to announce that today's episode is sponsored by STD Hero. They're our new sexual health and wellness partner for Wanderlust Swingers as well as Libertine events. We're really happy to have them on board. They do STI testing discreet and at home. We would love for you to go and check them out. Head to the show notes today for a link directly to their website or just head to stdhero.com. Use our code LIBERTINE and you'll score 10% off. Now I've spent the time actually doing the comparison in between STI testing providers within the USA. I've used three different companies myself, and we're really, really happy with STD Hero. Taking on board sponsors for our podcast is not something that we do lightly. As you know, we've been podcasting for 10 years, so we're very, very proud to be partnered with STD Hero. Do me a favor, go and check them out, stdhero.com. And again, if you guys want to buy an STI test, use our code LIBERTINE and you'll score 10% off any of their STI testings. So thank you to the team at STD Hero. We're super proud to work with you and we can't wait to get into today's episode which is all about sexual health and wellness and more specifically STI testing. Let's get into it. You're listening to the Wanderlust Swingers podcast with Aussie hosts Kate and Daryl. If you're curious about exploring your sexuality or the swinging, hot wifing and non-monogamous lifestyle, you've definitely come to the right podcast. Or maybe you just love travel adventures. Either way, we share our personal, sometimes juicy, sexy stories as well as Swingers Club and event reviews, interviews, with other sassy people and of course our global swinging adventures. We try to bring you a look into the diverse lifestyle that the swinging and non-monogamous community has. We hope you enjoy. Now let's get into the episode. G'day everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Wanderlust Swingers podcast. You may be aware that this is Sexual Health Awareness Month. We are in September, Sexual Health Awareness Month and so today's episode is all about about STIs, testing, and the swingers' lifestyle. But I'm not doing it on my own because I am surely not an expert. So I have two fabulous guests joining me. First of all, I have Alan Brock, the founder of STD Hero. Alan has a background in diagnostic testing and laboratory services. With STD Hero, he's built a service that does make sexual health testing discreet, affordable, and tailored to the swingers' lifestyle, which we always love. Welcome to the show. Hey, glad to be here. We can't do this without a medical professional. We have Dr. William Budd, He's career on the front lines as a paramedic before training as a specialist and medical professional and then moving into leadership roles in clinical diagnostics over the past decade. He has overseen high-complexity laboratories across the U.S. from genetic testing and oncology labs to molecular diagnostics and he is the CEO of Alliant Lab Consulting. So welcome to the show, Dr. Budd. Thank you for having us here today. Very passionate about the subject matter and I'm excited to be part of your podcast. Well, thank you both for joining me. I always do appreciate when we have subject matter experts on the show because it's not just my opinion that I'm talking about something. I actually have some people to back it up with data and years of training. I want to start light. What is the funniest STI myth or question that you have ever heard? Oh, gosh, that's a lot of pressure to put on me. Thanks, Alan. Yeah, you're welcome. You know, I think probably the funniest myth I've ever heard is that you can get STIs from toilet seats. people that come into the clinics and into the laboratory. I think they can get STIs from toilet seats. Oftentimes when somebody gets the infection, not being honest with their spouse, you know, they've had an extramarital affair and they pick up the infection. And so they're trying to blame it on something that they picked up at a truck stop or a rest area. You know, I think that's probably the biggest and probably the funniest myth that we've heard. And it's very sad. You know what I love about that particular myth too, Dr. Budd? That actually made it not only multi-generational, but that actually even made it across the world as well. So that myth has made it everywhere. So whoever started that, how it got started, who knows? But yeah, that's definitely one that I've heard growing up many, many times as a kid. Yeah. One of my favorite STIs is the herpes infection. And I've been trying to get herpes for my whole life. Ever since Valtrex came out, I've watched the Valtrex commercials. And everybody thinks I have this exciting life. life, particularly being a firefighter paramedic in my career, that job was a lot of fun. But everybody on the Valtrex commercials just seems like they're having this exciting lifestyle, right? They're out rock climbing, parasailing, hang gliding, and I'm not going to do any of those things. So I've been trying to get herpes my whole life, and I haven't gotten it yet that I know of. And so I've been sitting on a lot of rest areas and a lot of truck stop toilet seats, and I have not gotten it yet. So I'm going to keep trying. I'm feeling, Alan, like there's a few gift voucher experience cards getting sent to Dr. Bud's Christmas calendar this year. So, you know, we may have you skydiving yet. I think we could work that out. Actually, there is a place in Atlanta where you can get in one of those tubes and it simulates it, but I'm not jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. I'm sorry, I can't do that with you, Bud. All I heard is let's send you up in a really old one that's duct taped together. All right, let's talk about why testing matters. So in 2021, the CDC reported 2.5 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis in the U.S., the highest ever. Alan, I'm curious, you created STD Hero, for starters, Madness, but secondly, what gap were you trying to fill in the testing space that you just thought wasn't there? After just kind of being out in the community and realizing the need, the largest growing sector of our healthcare system in the United States right now is actually concierge medicine and direct-to-the-consumer testing. And it's like every great idea, you fall into it. We do a lot of work with medical schools around the southeastern United States. I was talking to two physicians that do community outreach for their medical school where they take a bus and they drive around and they do free testing in communities. And after discussing with them and explaining, it's like, you know, we go back and forth about HIPAA all the time about there's no such thing as HIPAA in a small town. And I live in a big city and I can tell you HIPAA doesn't exist there because when you go to the store and you stick contact, condoms on there. If you're in the lifestyle and you want to buy some condoms, you go 20 miles across town to go up there so someone in your community doesn't see you doing it. It's like, well, you're married for 30 years. Why are you buying condoms? Why are you putting that on there? And sure enough, you'll be standing in line and your golf buddy's wife's two rows behind you looking, going, oh my God, what are you doing? But back to the point about STD Hero, when we were discussing about curbing STI rates in rural communities, after years of community outreach and rolling the buses around and doing free STI testing, which we were doing the testing for them. And I was kind of like the police car ride along. Hey, why don't you come with us? And then you can just kind of see where the rubber meets the road. So you know where you're getting your customer base from. I mentioned to the physicians that the reason why you're not curbing the rates is because number one, asymptomatic people are not testing. So you're not catching those people in the community and you're not getting a full picture because there are three, sites that you can get an infection, and you're just checking urine and blood, and with the testing mechanisms that you guys have in place, they're not complex enough to curb it, and you also have the small-town HIPAA mentality that people don't want to come to that environment, but if you had a way to send something to their home so that it could be discreet, that you could actually curb those numbers, and believe it or not, we're actually doing that. in the state of South Carolina where we're having a positive impact on curbing those numbers because we are making it easier for people to test so you know that that's kind of how we were born into doing what we're doing and you know my business partner Daniel and I we have a good team with Dr. Budd we have a good solid team to move forward. That's it that's interesting actually because my partner comes from a very very small town as well so just to give you an indication the local convenience store is also the takeaway the fast food like fish and It's the petrol station to get your fuel. It's the post office. It's everything. And yes, I can imagine if he was still living in that town of 50 people and went and bought condoms at the local store, for sure, you know, there'd be somebody at the counter wondering what's going on. And I imagine probably would be accusing him of cheating on me, actually. Yeah, of course. Now, Dr. Budd, those numbers that I just mentioned from the CDC, they said it's the highest ever. Why do you think those numbers are spiking year after year? 20 or 30 years ago, HIV and AIDS was a death sentence. And I think people had an inherent fear of AIDS back then. And now AIDS is not a death sentence anymore. Once you get the infection with HIV, you know, we have PrEP therapy. There are amazing treatments to prevent you from dying from that infection. Like you don't hear of people dying from AIDS anymore. So we went from a world 30 years ago where sex was. very fearful to now it's not as taboo again, right? We've got more openness around the sexual lifestyle. People are feeling free again. And so now we have lifestyle events. You've got LGBTQ community out really exploring their lifestyle. And 20-year-olds are having more sex than they've had, you know, 30 years ago. So I think the loss of fear from dying of AIDS has empowered people to have sex without protection that we were practicing 30 years ago. And for that reason, we're seeing increases in things like chlamydia, gonorrhea, and a reemergence of syphilis as well. At the same time, particularly in the United States, we've removed sexual education from the education system. We're relying on parents to teach kids about safe sex, about SCIs. And there's just an inherent lack of knowledge in our communities here, from my experience, particularly in the younger population. So we're seeing a lot of younger people that have a lack of knowledge around what's an SCI, how do I get it, what do I do when I get it. creating an explosive situation where these infection rates are increasing. And some of them are particularly dangerous. Like syphilis is life-threatening. Chlamydia and gonorrhea can be treated. Syphilis can cause a lifetime of complications and even death in the long run. So it's probably a combination then of people being more active, and I guess maybe our risk appetite has changed. And like you said, there's less fear-based education. Yeah, that is super, super interesting. And I actually have very close friends of mine who are in the LGBT space. And now because of PEP and PrEP, they've actually done away with the use of barriers entirely because of the ease of access of testing with PEP, with PrEP, with other medications that they've gone, you know, we're aware of our risk and we're just going to accept that risk and kind of live our life. But for the both of you then, please feel free to whoever wants to take this one first or just take it entirely. But people in the lifestyle, swingers, consensually non-monogamous couples, What unique risks exist for them in particular that would make regular testing so important versus perhaps a monogamous couple of 20 years or a younger person for that matter? I think anytime you're having non-monogamous sex with multiple partners, your risk factors obviously go up. But I think when you're practicing safer sex by either using barriers such as condoms, dental dams, and or practicing with partners that have had frequent testing, you can do it in a more safe environment. Neither of these two methods are completely perfect. There's always going to be a risk because there's incubation periods when you're dealing with these infections. Theoretically, you could have a test today and you could have been in the incubation period. So even though you have a test today, you could develop the infection in a few days. So it's not a perfect system. But it gives you more comfortability. The more testing that you do, the more likely you are to have a safer experience. What we've seen, particularly with the lifestyle community, is honestly what we've experienced going to events, hotel takeovers, things like that, and having conversations with couples and groups of people there, that it's conversations like this that create the safety net, right? It's having an awareness. and just open conversations about, hey, here's what I'm willing to do. I'm willing to get tested on a quarterly basis, a monthly basis, annual basis, whatever you feel comfortable with and sharing those results of your test with partners and potential partners and having that conversation about how often you've tested, what the results of your tests are, and what you're willing to do or not do with potential partners. I think that opens up the door to have a pleasurable experience and a more safe experience we are actually going to talk about testing risk incubation i'm actually going to also throw two lifestyle scenarios at you and ask you what in a perfect world but before we move on to those segments doctor you just said something that i i say a lot and i just want to make sure that the listeners heard this but you said safer sex that is extremely important to say today rather than safe sex when we talk about the use of barriers and we talk about testing. At the end of the day, yes, there is a level of risk, right? Whenever we do anything in life, there's going to be a level of risk associated with that. And it's down to your risk appetite and how you can mitigate it as much as you can possibly, but can you remove it entirely? No, which is why we do say safer sex, not safe sex, because at the end of the day, something could happen. But let's talk about testing, risk, incubation. Incubation personally is something that I have been trying to educate myself more on, so I'm keen to talk about that. I did pull some data from last month, so August 2025, and this is actually coming from adult performers being tested. And so it says here that 0.8% of adult performers tested positive for chlamydia in urine samples. 1.2% tested positive for gonorrhea in their throat swabs. Trike was at 0.3% and MGen was much higher at 3.3%. So that's the stats that I got from specifically adult performers from August, so fairly fresh. And I want to talk about how the lifestyle would compare to those performer numbers. In terms of your data that you're seeing at STD Hero, what are the most common STIs that you're seeing in your data specifically? Yeah, I mean, I can jump on that one for you. So we pulled that this morning so that we would just get the most accurate data possible. And the one thing that I will say is that when you look at those numbers, the safest sex that you can have in America would be with a porn star. Because those numbers, when you're looking at what performers are going to come up with, up with those numbers are going to be a lot lower than the general population and right now our number one positive at 25 percent is actually high-risk HPV which I'm assuming we're going to discuss later but a second on the list would be oral gonorrhea at four and a half percent and MGM at 4.2 percent so those are actually our top three that's interesting okay can you explain incubation period for myself let's just it down, I'm non-medical as you both well know. And I just, for people out there listening, if you're playing it on a weekend event, you're on a cruise ship, you're somewhere, we went to a weekend event, when should we realistically get tested to get the most accurate result possible? The incubation period, really the simplest way to think about it is if you contract a small amount of the organism, either the bacteria or the virus, that bug, once it gets into your body, you're We're probably contracting a few copies or a few hundred copies of that organism. And the level of testing that we're doing, it's unlikely that when you're giving us the sample, you're going to get that exact swab or the exact urine sample that's going to give us that few hundred copies that you acquired from your partner. So in the body, it has to replicate over a period of time once it gets into there. And each organism has its own life cycle. But on average, what we see is it takes about two weeks from the time that you acquire the infection until you're able to test positive for most of these infections. Mycoplasma genitalium takes a little bit longer. That's a slower incubation period because it's an organism that takes its life cycles a little bit slower. It's an intracellular parasite, so it has to work its way into the cell of your body before it can begin its life cycle, its reproductive cycle. And so it takes about three weeks to a month before you really truly be able to test positive for that one. So what we usually recommend after a lifestyle event is most people wait about three to four weeks before they start testing to see if they encountered an infection. And what you could say for people who think, geez, that's a really long time. I might have a date following up from that event. You can choose to do it sooner if you want and then take another test thereafter. Still have the conversation about testing. Still have the conversation about the last time that you were tested. Talk about your risk. You know, just talk about the fact that, hey, I just got back from a hotel takeover. I was with two different partners there. We did X, Y, Z. I haven't been retested. You know, have these conversations with people. I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that in the meantime. However, if also you choose to have no interactions with anybody else during that time period that you're getting tested, that's also obviously acceptable. Again, it kind of all comes down to your risk. Oral play, huge part of the lifestyle. Interestingly enough, I know Dr. Budd, you mentioned dental dams before and I can honestly hand on my heart say in my 10 years in the lifestyle, I've seen one dental dam in use at a swingers club. So oral play is often without barriers. I'm curious how risky, if I was What would you say to you on a scale? Is my behavior with oral sex risky? What would your response be to that? Your statement earlier about safer sex, when you're comparing penetrative sex versus oral sex, penetrative sex is obviously always going to be the more risky form of sexual play because it's more traumatic. You have an organ or a device going into an orifice where there's a thinner level of tissue that can disrupt and tear the tissue. Oral sex is always going to be safer than penetrative sex, but there is still risk with it. If somebody has an active infection like gonorrhea or chlamydia, you can encounter that. By the very nature of the way that our digestive system works, there's acids and digestive enzymes in our mouth that give us a certain level of of protection against a lot of these organisms, because we're always encountering bacteria and things in the foods that we eat. And so they provide a level of protection against those organisms. But we do see a relatively high level of oral transmission for STIs. Gonorrhea is a higher risk of infection compared to chlamydia, mycoplasma, genitalium, things like that. We see more oral gonorrhea than we do other Okay. Alan, I like to put people on the hot seat and it's time for you to go on the hot seat. You gave examples of some of the stats that you see. And specifically, you actually did mention 25% have HPV. I completed the ultimate test kit when I was actually in the States. So I had the opportunity to do that. And that was great. Thank you for that because I was actually due to be tested. So that was brilliant. HSV is not included. So herpes is not included in the ultimate. And HPV, you do have a test, but it's a standalone product instead of being bundled in. With you on the hot seat, why aren't those two items in the ultimate hero test? Primarily HSV, when we talk about it, virtually 50% of the population or a little over 50% of the population has it. It's an antibody test. And just because you're positive for the antibodies doesn't mean that you're going to transmit. In our opinion, it's nothing to be ashamed of. And we don't want to shame people into that, well, oh, my gosh, I've got the antibodies for it. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to pass it. There's no cure for it. If you have the antibodies or you have an active infection, then you know that. Don't play. But we just do it as a sidebar so that someone can test it. And we don't want people to be shamed. And every time they do an Ultimate Hero, they get a red X because, you know, oh, well, I have this. Well, virtually everybody has it. And kind of the same thing with HPV. We developed that test for a few good reasons, a personal reason for our oral HPV test, which we have Dr. Bud to thank for. I can't wait for him to break into oral HPV and kind of talk everyone through that. But Angela and I had a family friend. It was one of our children's friends that actually passed away from oral cancer from high-risk HPV. It was the primary driver for me owning a laboratory. to get a test developed to actually help people diagnose and treat. I spend a little bit of time on the message boards out there, and you hear positives and negatives and people being anti. Why are you doing HPV tests? For whatever reason, people come up with it, but when you're looking at getting that test that knowledge is power and knowing that you have high-risk HPV could potentially save your life if your body doesn't shed that and you get a sore on your mouth, which is what happened to our friends. She had a sore on her mouth. She was 22 years old. And three months later, finally goes to the doctor because she thought it was a cold sore and it was oral cancer. And had she had that test and known that she had a high-risk strain, you know, I'm not saying that it could have, but potentially it could have saved her life because when you get a sore on your tongue that stays there for three months, don't let that sit without going to the doctor to say, hey, I got something here. if it's a cold sore if it's there longer than a week or two you need to go to the doctor but that's why we developed that test and we actually enlisted Dr. Budd for that so when we wanted to bring that test to the market Daniel and I reached out to Dr. Budd and it's like hey we want to do this test can you do this and his passion is just as vigilant as ours when it comes to that but that's why we did those as separate tests and you know we feel really good about its efficacy and the need for it in the public and I will tell you it's one of our number one sellers. So there's a need for it and we're just trying to fill the need. So I'm actually vaccinated for HPV when I was in primary school or early high school in Australia. A bus rolled up and this is something the Australian government used to do. We got called into the bus one day and they were just a medical bus and they would just jab all the kids in that particular grade or classroom and that was your vaccination. So I'm vaccinated for HPV. Should I be sporadically getting a test for HPV? What are your thoughts on that? Depending upon which vaccine you received and what year this was, there could still be some high-risk strains that you could still contract. When the vaccine originally came out, they covered the two primary strains that were causing cancer. Now, most of them are, if I remember correctly, I think they're mostly trivalent now. They cover the four highest-risk strains, which is fantastic. 90% of the cancers that are caused by HPV are caused by four primary strains. But there are about 20 of them that can potentially cause cancer. So even if you are vaccinated, it is still worthwhile to take an HPV test on occasion. I'd like to add to Alan's comment about the herpes test in particular. You know, it is important to keep in mind that there is no shame if you do contract the herpes virus because it is so ubiquitous. It is all across the world. It's a very strong virus and it infects a lot of people. You mentioned earlier that you could contract it even potentially as a kid. We see children with cold sores all the time. We used to think about herpes being like HSV-1 being all head and neck, like oral, and HSV-2 being all genital. But we now, we don't think about it like that anymore. Herpes, we do have HSV-1 and 2 subtyping tests that we perform in the laboratory, but we see them both in both places. But the testing that's most often performed in the laboratory is the antibody test. And like Alan said, that tells you that you have been exposed to the herpes virus sometime during your lifestyle. The other test that labs can perform is a PCR test. And that only is beneficial if you have an active lesion. So if you do get that red X from most laboratories when they're doing the antibody tests, it's of almost no real value in the lifestyle community at that moment because it doesn't tell you whether you can play or not play. it's up to the person again to have a safe conversation to say look I've been exposed to this I don't have an outbreak but you know again there are times that you can still pass the virus on even without an outbreak there's early indications like right before you have an outbreak where you could be shedding the virus and we have to be careful with that. Yeah thank you for explaining that because I think that historically there has been a lot of talk you know misunderstanding I remember somebody saying as a child, like, oh, that person has a cold sore. And then growing up, hearing about herpes virus. And it was very confusing to me because I was like, hold on a second. But that's one of the symptoms of that. I actually had a session podcast many, many years ago with Courtney Bram. And he is an advocate for HSV in particular. And through that, we spoke about the interesting dynamic between a child, and that's just a cold sore, because we didn't want to relate it. back then to being anything about sex. You know, and then as you get into your late teens, early 20s, it's like, oh, that's a herpes virus, that's from sex. So I always just found that to be particularly interesting. And you're right, there was a high population. And I think one of the things with seeing the antibodies in particular is that it doesn't give me a snapshot in time. It doesn't tell me whether that was from, I contracted it from my mother at birth, whether I got it when I was one years old, or whether I got it a month ago from playing in a lifestyle. So I understand exactly what you're saying. Dr. Bud, I actually had an interesting question from one of my community members the other day. And they're a 55-year-old couple. They said, we haven't been vaccinated for HPV. Should we get tested for HPV? And it was a part of this conversation where I was talking about what's included in The Ultimate Hero and what's not. And through some research, I found out that they normally recommend people to get tested for HPV up until I think about 50 or 55 or 60. I guess the assumption at that point is you're probably having less sex, right? And so they say, hey, don't worry about testing for this anymore because, you know, at that age, you're probably having less sex. Not relevant if you're 55 in the lifestyle. What do you recommend? So as somebody who might be 50 without a vaccination, somebody like me who's 40 with a vaccination that could only be those original two and not part of the four, what would you recommend as generally for making sure that our health is where it should be? and orally for the male partner. The reason being is the incidence of cervical cancer for the female is obviously going to be, she has a risk of getting cervical cancer. The incidence of cervical cancer do decline as you get older. That's probably the reason the literature suggests that it's not as important to continue testing. You raise a very interesting point that almost all of the studies are done on monogamous couples. There's very little research done, particularly in the United States, about persons in the lifestyle community. There's one study that's done in Denmark on persons in the lifestyle community, and they've shown that HPV is more of a concern throughout somebody's life as long as they're in the community because it is a virus that's ubiquitous. We don't know what the cancer risk is, though, because they have not followed those persons for a long enough period of time, but we do know that the risk of getting HPV is higher in the lifestyle community. The other side of the equation is we do know that men who perform oral sex on their female partners have a much higher risk of getting HPV from their female partner and their risk of getting head and neck cancer is much higher too. What we don't know though is if a man has oral HPV, we don't know if the man can give HPV to his female partner. Like that hasn't been shown to go go the opposite direction. It's been shown very clearly to go from female to male, but not necessarily from male to female. That hasn't been studied well yet. Everything in the scientific literature is very male-centric still. We really care about, is the male getting sick? We don't really care if the female's getting sick yet. They're very passionate about this. And for our company here with STD Hero, because like Alan said, you know, there are examples of people that are dying from head and neck cancer. and it's a horrible process to watch when this occurs. It's really, really sad. It's very visible. They suffer through that process and it's entirely preventable with vaccination. We can prevent a lot of these infections. And if we can catch it early enough through testing, we can stop it in the early stages. And so what we do with the screening process is we identify And then you can do a more active screening process. If you identify that you have one of these high-risk strains of HPV, there are additional tests that you can have performed even at a dentist's office where they can do a fluorescent test that looks for abnormal cells in your oral cavity. They light it up with a fluorescent and they use an alternative light source to see if these abnormal cells can light up. And if they do light up, they can remove those abnormal cells before they spread and turn into a large tumor. And then it can stop the cancer in its tracks before it gets really significant. If I get tested every four months, doctor, would you recommend with HPV, like if I was to have that as an add-on, should I be getting tested every six or 12 months for HPV? How would that maybe change the way that I'm actually currently screening myself? What we've seen with HPV once a year is probably pretty good. If you get tested once a year for HPV, If it's positive, we recommend getting rescreened in six months because what's going to happen is a lot of those people, their immune system is going to clear that HPV infection. If you clear, then you go back to an annual screening. If it doesn't clear, you need to continue going to a dentist to get an active surveillance process where they continue to look for these cancerous lesions, continue getting screened for HPV because you can acquire more HPV strains as well. The more HPV strains you have, the higher your risk of cancer is. But that active surveillance is a very important part of this, where you're going to the dentist or your family physician, and they're looking for those lesions. Because if they identify those lesions, you want to get those taken out. Alan's point of if you have an abnormal ulcer or a sore, or a lot of times the cancer presents, as a canker sore. If it's staying around for longer than a few days, it's worthwhile to get that sore assessed and see why it's still there. Now, that's obviously a very heavy topic, and I'm not making the light of cancer. I actually do a hell of a lot of cancer fundraising, but to try and keep it a little bit light as we talk about some very serious conversations, I would just like to say to the gentleman in the lifestyle, that does not give you an excuse to stop oral pleasure on your female partners. Please, and thank you very much from myself and also just on behalf of every Evolver owner that is in the lifestyle. Let's give you some scenarios and I want you to tell me what we should do with these people. I came up with two couples in the lifestyle. I've got a couple that is 40 to 50 years old. They use barriers for penetration. They play maybe four times a year. Bisexual female is at oral without barriers and they play mostly at lifestyle. events. That's one couple. I've got a second couple. They're 30 to 40, so slightly younger. Both bisexual. They play 10 plus times per year, but mostly with repeat couples, house parties, and clubs. What testing regime would you recommend for couple one, and does that differ for couple two who play more often? I would recommend for couple number one, a quarterly or a biannual testing process. Particularly because they're practicing safer sex. Their biggest risk factor is going to be the oral play. If they're participating at lifestyle events, hopefully they're communicating with their partners to ensure that their partners have been tested as well. So I think they're going to be a safer couple and not have as much risk exposure. Couple number two, with both being bisexual, there's no mention here of barrier. I would say this group probably should test much more frequently. Yeah, probably monthly for a couple too. I would recommend probably a monthly as well. But guys, they're mostly repeat customers. So this is a very close-knit group of people that are all just having sex with each other. Wouldn't that make them the safer option? What we don't know though is are the people that they're having sex with, are they only having I was just playing with you that's exactly the right answer because I yeah 100% because one of the things that I think we often assume is I'm being safer and I'm only playing with say let's say two or three you know repeat players but unless you know exactly what they're doing with whom how often and what the other people's safer practices are that risk is still the same as it would be if I went on the right now and probably had sex with somebody on the street, still having the conversation with them about safer sex. I always like to throw that sort of scenario in because for whatever reason, we just think, no, no, but I'm only having sex with Bob, Jill and Joe. What is Bob, Jill and Joe doing on the weekends? I don't know. Another one that people talk about a lot, and I'm going to throw myself on my sword here. I've been known to say this, so I'm interested to see how much you both think they've ripped me apart. Sometimes in the lifestyle, we'll say, what about alternate testing? So for example, we're going to say that Daryl and myself, my husband, get tested four times a year. But maybe that's a lot. I want to try and split the cost out somewhere. So I'm going to get tested in January and I'm going to send Daryl for a test in April. Then I'm going to come back and get tested, you know, and kind of flipping it over that way. Is that safe enough? Is it risky? Are we giving people bad advice? What are your thoughts? Yeah. Bad advice. Go ahead, bud. That's bad advice. The reason it's not the safest option is everybody has their own individual immune system. COVID showed us how everybody's individual immune system plays into these infections. There are lots of examples of couples that would, a husband or a wife would come home with sleep in the room and everybody else in the house would get sick, but the spouse would stay healthy. And they're like, I'm right in bed with you. How come I didn't get sick? It's because their individual immune system was very different. We see the same thing with sexually transmitted infections. They might be feeling tired. They might have poor nutrition. It could be any number of things that affects their individual immune system. So one partner could be more susceptible to chlamydia than the other part. So we're not all on the even playing field when it comes to our ability to acquire these infections. So that was probably Kate and Daryl circa 2018, I want to say, that said that. They're stupid. Let's talk a little bit about STD Hero. Alan, I'll head over to you first. You include throat and anal swabs in your Ultimate Test Kit. Not a lot of people in testing include this. Actually, I did a bit of a competitive review of a bunch of some of the more prevalent testing sites or testing labs in the US, and many of them don't include swabs. Why is it that swabs are so important when we talk about testing? services? Physicians and laboratories don't look at site-specific infections. If you look at the adult film industry, for one, through the PASS system, they are site-specific, and it is the most accurate testing available. So if we're going to paint a picture for a customer, we want to have the ability to paint a full picture, not just a partial. That's 100% why we do it. Okay. Now, also, when I was looking at the variation between yourself and your competitors, I happened to notice that you include more in the ultimate, and I was looking specifically at, like, the most comprehensive. So I was benchmarking, I guess, your ultimate test against other organizations. Yes, okay. Your pricing was about $150 cheaper US than what I saw for, again, trying to do my best to compare apples and apples with what was included in the test. Right. We've been talking about sexually transmitted infections. here, but for some reason, I'm about to ask you a question that just feels a bit icky because it's about money. How are you able to actually provide that at a cheaper cost? It's very confusing to me. And people, I guess, would look at that and go, what's the catch here? Why is it cheaper? It seems on the surface level, it seems to be the exact same thing. Like, are you not doing the right thing? Is it dodgy? How are you able to compete so well with the pricing? Yeah, it's a pretty simple answer when you look at it at its core. We are the laboratory. So when you're looking at, and I'm not sure of the competitors, But the first question that I would ask is, are you the lab? Because there are companies out there that are even selling on multiple platforms that are not a laboratory. They're a marketing company, and they have to get their margin. So first and foremost, we are the laboratory. And the one thing that I would add about that, as it relates to kind of circle back and we look at those MGen numbers, you know, Daniel and I, over the last few months, we've been looking at the numbers. And right now, you know, MGen is our number one STI that we're reporting. So we've actually made the decision, which if you don't own the laboratory, you can't do with Dr. Bud's help. We're actually going to start including M-GEN on all of our tests. So when you get the common test, we just develop, put stickers on our packages. In a few weeks, we're going to be adding M-GEN to our common and not increasing the price. We're adding M-GEN to our advanced panel and not increasing the price. Because of its prevalence, we're trying to curb these numbers, and we're trying to be here to help. So for us, it's less about the money, and you get that through volume. The second part of that question would be, we are the laboratory, so we can do it at a lower cost because I don't have to just sell it and spend marketing dollars to mark it up. Number two is a volume play, so we're a high-throughput, high-volume laboratory, and you get strength in numbers. So if you have to make $100 off of it and do $100, a month to get your $10,000. I'm going to do $1,000 and make $10 and make the same amount of money through volume. And that's just really a business decision that Daniel and I made that seems to be paying off for us because you're going to get more testing numbers and because there's strength in numbers. Oh, well, thank you for being so forthcoming. I know that's like, it's always funny when you talk about religion, politics, and money, you're not at the dinner table, but for some reason we can talk about STIs. Dr. Buzz. The other strength is Daniel is a really good negotiator for pricing. I knew that was going to come out. I mean, I've been on the other with him in negotiating pricing with vendors. Like the guy gets pricing from vendors. I've never been able to see him, anybody else get like, so. Do you guys rent Daniel out if I'm wanting to fix some of my contracts? Let me tell you, if you want to go buy a car, take Daniel with you. If you want to buy anything, you have a great business partner and he's, he is, He is something else. When you watch someone negotiate prices, he gets everything cheaper. I might take him market shopping with me in Southeast Asia the next time I pop down there. Yeah, he'd probably be up for that. What's one STI myth that you would love to bust here on this podcast today? I think you've already started busting it, is that there is no such thing as safe sex. There is safer sex. An important component of safer sex is understanding your risk profile. To me, testing is part of that. Going into a relationship with full knowledge, knowing, hey, if I do have HPV or if I have herpes or if I have any of these infections, am I treated? How am I communicating that with my partner? I think that's really, really important. I think that's probably, for me, the most important myth to bust. It was interesting. I went through a divorce about 10 years ago now. And when I started out in the dating field, when women learned what I did, I learned a lot about women very quickly. And everybody wanted an SCD test when I started dating them because I learned that a lot of women, when they go through a divorce, go through a wild phase. And every single one of them was uncomfortable to go to their doctor to have these conversations. It was amazing how uncomfortable, particularly where I live in the in the United States and in the South, in the United States, where women just were not comfortable to have a conversation with a physician to go get an STD test. And so I'm very excited to work with a company like STD Hero that allows this testing to be done discreetly so they can feel comfortable to be secure and have these conversations. So I think that's very important. Definitely. Relationships. Yeah. And again, it is September is a sexual health awareness month. So although we talk about STIs, I am going to throw it out. because if you join the non-monogamous community, you're like yourself, Dr. Budd, you're back in the dating pool. You know, we're always talking about STIs right now, but there's your pH balance can be thrown off. You get BV, urinary tract infections. There's a whole host of other things that can be going on. So just generally, you know, making sure that you're looking after your health is so, so important. But it's one of those just realistic parts of, again, the risk that I'm dealing with as I enter lifestyle events. Now, let's play a little game. Let's talk fact or fiction. I'm going to rattle these off. I want quick responses. So let's have a bit of fun with this. You can't catch Gona Greer from oral sex. Fact or fiction all the way. Anal sex without barriers carries higher risk than oral. Fiction. No, fact. Sorry. Say that one more time. Anal sex without barriers carries a higher risk than oral. That's a fact. That is. Most people with chlamydia don't have symptoms. Fact. Swingers only need to test once a year. Fiction. Saying you are regularly tested creates a false sense of security. Fact. Fact, yeah. You can get syphilis from oral sex. Fact. Fact. Condoms protect against all STIs. Fiction. Fiction. This next one's a funny one, guys. I got this actual comment from something recently. At-home testing is less accurate than clinic testing. 100% fiction. Fiction. Swingers are more exposed to STIs than your average 20-year-old dating on Tinder. Fiction. Fiction, for sure. once before the lifestyle cruise covers you for the entire week. That's a hard one. That's tough. I would say for the most part. Fiction. What if you test and then you play after your test? Yeah, I'm probably going to lean towards fiction. All right, we're leaning towards fiction. He's off. He's off the fence. He's going for fiction. The comment that I got on Instagram, which I just want to go back to the at-home testing versus clinic testing. So this is a real comment that I actually had on my Instagram profile when I recently put my test results up. And I quote, people are getting tested, but the reality is that unless they were done by medical professionals in a licensed facility who checked your ID, then they don't mean anything to anyone else. What are your thoughts about that comment? So back in the day, I owned a drug testing laboratory and we did drug tests for tens of thousands of people and drug courts across the United States. Number one, cheaters are going to cheat. And I can't tell you how many devices would get brought up in a courtroom for things that would be holding urine, balloons up, orifices, and all of these different contraptions they put on. We do test for medical professionals. We do have doctors send us kits every day of the week, and it's the exact same test that you're going to get in a doctor's office. They can do the blood draw and check your ID when they do the blood draw, but they do not stand in there when you are giving urine. And that's always done behind the door. And if you've ever done this, you know this. You go behind the door. You pee in a cup. You sit it in there. Cheaters are going to cheat. That'll sit in the parking lot and go, okay, here, pee in this cup. Here's this warm. Keep it between my legs so it makes temp. If people want to cheat, they're going to cheat. So that's my answer to that. But it's the same test. And in some cases, it's going to be a better test because we're going to do site-specific testing that most medical professionals, When you go to other providers, they may or may not do site-specific testing, which is going to be less accurate. I just actually want the doctor to sit in the bathroom with me when I'm doing my anal swab, just so I can look at him or her just deadpan in the eyes as I swab my anus. I think the other thing about that comment as well, you know, you're right. How do you know the person is providing the information they should be? But I think at the end of the day, it just goes back to the concept of risk and safer. Because what we know is if I take a test today and then I go out and I have, I don't know, sex with 50 different people, including anal, without barriers, oral sex, penetrative vaginal sex, et cetera, that test could very well be a moot point, right? So I think that this person's whole comment, yes, it kind of does get thrown out the window. Because again, it's about doing everything that you can possibly do. And I'm not walking in there with something, that is an affidavit, signed, sealed, government stamped on saying, I am 100% have no detections. So yeah, I think that was an interesting comment on Instagram that I got. You think people are getting tested out of the garage? I mean, you think that you're buying this thing and getting it tested with somebody's lab equipment that's in his garage or his basement? We're a licensed laboratory and we do tests for physicians and have lots of years experience doing that. Or what I could do is take that swab and run it over the top of the toilet seat. and then send it in because for sure what we know from earlier conversations with Dr. Budd sitting on toilet seats gives you STIs. It gives you what you need. Yeah, there you go. Problem solved. I go to a concierge clinic because my health insurance stinks. And they don't ever check my ID there. I walk in, they're like, hey, how are you doing? Come on back. If I'm getting a test on there, nobody's checked my ID. And there's new people in there all the time. It's like, I just tell them who I am when I walk in the door. All right, so to recap everything here, thank you so much for joining us on the call today. Dr. Bud, Alan, really appreciate your transparency talking about STIs, and I know that's been a slightly heavy topic for everybody listening to this episode, but a reminder, Sexual Health Awareness Month is here, and it's important to have these conversations because it is all about communication, respect, and practicing safer sex. So if you want to talk about STD Hero, Feel free to drop me an email. Check the show notes. You can head over to their website STDHero. You can use our code LIBERTINE and you'll get 10% off the STI tests. Dr. Budd, as we get ready to head out, we're going to put you on the hot seat again because this is all Alan's fault. You're welcome. What is a one witty line of advice that you want to give to the swingers lifestyle community as we get ready to head out? Overall, our message here is not to scare people into not having fun and not playing. I want to kind of go back to what I said in the beginning here. Continue to go out, have fun, shoot for the moon, go out, try to get hang gliding, try to get herpes, have fun, enjoy your life, just be safe about it. Continue to play, continue to get tested, be open, have conversations, and just be aware of the risks and mitigate your risks. You know, every day you get in the car, you're taking a risk. We don't stop driving because of the risks. That's been great. Thank you very much, Dr. Budd. I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for having us on. I appreciate it. And Alan from STD Hero, thank you so much. I also really respect what you said earlier about the buying power and being transparent with your pricing as well. Having the opportunity to actually talk to the people who own these businesses is exceptionally rare, but so empowering. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. All right, everybody, that has been the Wanderlust Swingers podcast. We are talking about STIs, testing, Sexual Health Awareness Month. Thank you very much for listening. Join us on the next episode and we'll be back very soon. But in the meantime, stay healthy, stay happy and stay fun.