If you go beyond kissing and caressing, it’s important to have safe sex. To avoid getting sexually transmitted diseases, and if you don’t want to get pregnant, you should always have safe sex.

This is unsafe

• Intercourse (the penis inside the vagina) without a condom and another form of contraception such as the pill
• Penetrative anal sex (the penis inside the anus) without a condom
• Oral sex without a condom for a boy or a dental dam (also called a vaginal dam – a square of latex to cover the vagina) for a girl
• Using each other’s sex toys without washing them in-between

This is safe

• Caressing, tongue kissing, cuddling, massaging, masturbating yourself or your partner.
• Intercourse (the penis inside the vagina) with a quality approved condom.
• Intercourse (the penis inside the vagina) with a quality approved condom to prevent infection and another form of contraception such as the pill to be sure of preventing unwanted pregnancy
• Oral sex without getting sperm or blood (for example menstrual blood) in your mouth
   

Double Dutch
The safest way to have sex is "double Dutch" - using both a condom and another form of contraception, such as the pill. The condom protects you against sexually transmitted diseases. The other contraceptive, such as the pill, is to make sure you don’t get pregnant, because a condom isn’t 100 percent effective. See the section on birth control.

If you don’t get blood or sperm in your mouth during oral sex, you don’t run the risk of catching HIV. But you can still get other sexually transmitted diseases, such as herpes.

There are lots of different ways to have sex. To find out what’s safe, see Safe or unsafe. And to find out about how you can bring up the topic of safe sex with a partner, see Talking about condoms.