Gonorrhea myths

Here you’ll find a discussion of the most common gonorrhea myths. A myth is a common misconception not based on scientific evidence. It’s important to your health to demystify the most common gonorrhea myths so you can get the right testing and treatment in a timely way.

Let’s talk about some of them!

Myth 1. You can get gonorrhea from toilet seats

This is very unlikely. Theoretically it’s possible, but it doesn’t happen in the real world, and here’s why:

A gonorrhea-positive person would have to leave discharge behind on a toilet seat, meaning their private area would have to touch the seat.
The same toilet seat area with then have to come into contact with another person’s urethra or vaginal area.
This would have to happen within a short period of the time, before the discharge dries up. Some lab studies showed that gonorrhea bacteria can survive on a toilet seats for almost 17 hours.

Myth 2. Gonorrhea can go away on its own

This is partially true. Sometimes a person’s immune system can get rid of the infection without the help of an antibiotic, but it might take weeks or even months. Meanwhile, the infection is being spread.

Most of the time the symptoms will get better, but the disease persists, which may cause irreversible damage—infertility and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID).

So, we put this in the myth category since it’s common practice for doctors to test and treat gonorrhea and leaving gonorrhea untreated is never considered as an option.

Myth 3. You can get gonorrhea only once in a lifetime

This is not true. Neither being infected with gonorrhea nor being treated for gonorrhea prevents reinfection. Moreover, about 4% of people diagnosed with gonorrhea are reinfected with gonorrhea within a year.

Myth 4. You can avoid getting gonorrhea by having oral or rectal sex

These are false assumptions. Gonorrhea spreads easily through oral and rectal sex. It affects the pharyngeal and anal mucosa the same way it affects the genital mucosa. Here are the statistics:

Oral gonorrhea

Almost 10% of sexually active females and 11% of sexually active males have had oral gonorrhea.
The per-act chance of getting gonorrhea through oral sex is 63% for those who perform oral sex and 9% for those who receive it.

Rectal gonorrhea

Almost 2.3% of females practicing anal sex and 4.2% of MSMs have had rectal (anal) gonorrhea.
The per-act chance of getting gonorrhea through anal sex is 2% for the insertive (“top”) partner and 84% for the receptive (“bottom”) partner.

Myth 5. You can assume you don’t have gonorrhea if your partner tests negative for gonorrhea

Not necessarily. One sexual partner testing negative doesn’t mean the other will test negative, and this is why:

You might be carrying an infection, but your partner hasn’t gotten it (yet). A gonorrhea-positive person doesn’t transmit it during every sexual contact.
Your partner might have just contracted gonorrhea and the testing was performed too soon to detect it.

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