Last night, my girlfriend and I had sex and were joined in bed by three of our male friends.
They all used condoms for protection during intercourse, but they removed their condoms and came on her at the end (on her upper body — breast, neck, face and lips). Shortly after they had left, she informed me that she felt a slight burning sensation on her face and neck.
She is quite sure this is where only one of the guys came on her, and it was a much larger amount of semen than she is used to. We would like to know what this could be due to and if there are any potential issues that could arise.
She was slightly red on the areas, but everything has cleared up today.
Could she be allergic to just the one guy’s semen? Could it have just been due to the amount?
We are not overly concerned, as they are our friends, but we would like to know anyhow.
Thank you for your time.
Yes, she is most likely hypersensitive to or allergic to one of the man’s semen or components of it. If she has allergies (e.g., to penicillin or whatever else) and he had ingested it, it’s possible she reacted to that.
Otherwise, some people are sensitive or allergic to specific people’s semen. If you have sex with them again and if the condom were to accidentally break or she had other symptoms, like hives or a constricted throat, make sure to take your girlfriend to the emergency room for a medical check-up.
Just a little reddened or itchy skin is not that serious, but obviously, if you noticed any serious reactions, you’d want to get her help (that is extremely rare with semen but it does happen).
If this person was your partner’s committed partner and she wanted to become less reactive to his semen, she could meet with an allergy specialist to try and resolve the issue.
However, treatments can take considerable time. If this is just an occasional thing with a friend, it may not feel worth it to go to all that time and expense when he can just keep wearing a condom, but I’ll leave that to your partner and you and your friend to decide.
Kinsey Confidential is a collaboration of The Kinsey Institute and the IU School of Public Health. Dr. Debby Herbenick is an associate professor at Indiana University and author of six books about sex including “The Coregasm Workout” and “Sex Made Easy”. Find our blog and archived Q&A at KinseyConfidential.org.italicize -sr Follow Dr. Herbenick on Twitter @DebbyHerbenick and Kinsey Confidential at @KinseyCon.
