STD Immunity

"588. Paladins are immune to STDs, but if I take advantage of this ability, I lose it. Wonderful paradox, isn't it?"

— Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG

Some stories will be absolutely blind to venereal disease.

Of course, many writers are aware of the risk of catching an STD, but since the plot of the story is not about somebody dealing with an STD they avoid bringing it up. This may have the unintended consequence that when a story is about catching/having an STD, the disease seems to be a punishment for a lifestyle, rather than a lapse in judgment or self-protection. Another consequence is that sex can be made to seem inconsequential.

This is no big deal if the story takes place in modern times (as it is usually assumed that they are using protection), but it can be downright egregious when the Ethical Slut and The Casanova live in an era before such protection existed and never catch the Great Pox or the Disease of Naples.

Of course, this can be justified if the story takes place in a fantastical setting where no STDs exist.

(Okay. Looks like we worked in the word "consequences" as much as we could.)

An obvious trope in most actual pornography. It helps that that genre offers wide latitude to Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

Subtrope of Ideal Illness Immunity. It almost always goes hand in hand with Unproblematic Prostitution. If this is part of a Free-Love Future, it may be related to We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future. Contrast the Tragic AIDS Story and Psychosexual Horror.

---

Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Panty from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt should have every STD known to man and some known only to monkeys with her sex life. Angel powers keep her safe.
• Duke Togo of Golgo 13 fame, a womanizer who never contracts an STD.
• Jeremy of A Cruel God Reigns. Despite the fact that he worked as a teenage prostitute, stating himself that he took on 5 or 6 clients a night, and turned to injecting heroin to avoid having flashbacks of his mother and the abuse he received from his stepfather, no one thinks to get him checked for STDs, and he never gets sick from it, although here it seems to be a Defied Trope: Jeremy also tells Ian that he carried condoms every time he worked. And Ian himself gets around pretty damn well.
• The world of Interspecies Reviewers enforces and invokes this trope thanks to magic, so no one has to worry about contracting any diseases from sex with succu-girls.
• Makoto Itou of School Days. Considering how often he gets around and his apparent refusal to use protection, especially in the anime, it's a wonder he hasn't come down with at least one of these. Also, considering that his mother is a nurse, it's a wonder that he hasn't even thought of getting himself tested, nor has she made him get tested...
• Averted in Gate. There's a scene where a prostitute in the Special Region's capital wonders to a modern medical officer why the Men in Green (the JSDF) don't patronize them at all. The medic glares at a very heavy report at her side, titled "A Report on Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the Special Region".
  • Later they rescue a Japanese girl who was used as a sex slave. One of the exams they do is give her an STD test.

Comic Books

• Top 10, a Police Procedural in a city populated entirely by super people features a prostitute called "Immune Girl" who has this as her superpower. Sadly, she's not immune to the local Serial Killer who's been targeting the city's hookers.
• In Uncanny X-Men (Chuck Austen), there is a passing mention by Husk that mutants apparently can't get HIV. This was never mentioned before, was likely meant to function as a Hand Wave for why Archangel's healing blood didn't carry the really obvious health risk, and has never been mentioned again. Angel also mentions it and a doctor confirms it.
• This is part of the package Wolverine gets with his Healing Factor. In fact, he can't get sick period. By extension, it also applies to Daken and X-23 — fortunate for the latter especially, since she spent time as a prostitute.
• She-Hulk must have this, as she not only has never had any known problems but any children as a result of her numerous lovers over the years, something that has been an occasional problem for her cousin. Said cousin at one point carried a blood-soaked HIV patient in his arms to the hospital with the hand-wave of "with my system, I'm immune."
• Subverted in Empowered; one issue has a founding member of the super-team reveal that his origin story is having sex with a beautiful alien princess, only to get an alien STD which reacted with his human biology to turn him into a Blob Monster. Two other core members of the team then say their story is very similar, though they caught nanobots that turned them into techno-organic beings. It turns out this problem is so common that there are actually support groups for post-human STDs, and these three actually met for the first time at one of the sessions.
• Discussed in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man. As vengeance for one particular hero stopping his capers enough, Speed Demon sets up the hero with someone known to have the clap. Beetle points out that the hero in question was Hercules, who is literally a god who probably can't get mortal diseases at all. All Speed Demon managed to do is get The Pornomancer laid.

Fan Works

• A Changed World uses the aversion for a joke about James T. Kirk's love life. During First Contact with the Bajorans (from the official novel Allegiance in Exile), he apparently did what no human had done before and came down with a case of banta fever.
• Guys Being Dudes: Averted. Before leaving Spark and Arlo to do whatever it is they do when Spark spends the night at Team GO Rocket HQ, Sierra interrogates them to make sure they've both been tested and are clean. Blanche also gives Arlo a lecture about safe sex during their and Candela's vetting of him as a love interest for Spark.
• Harry Potter fics:
  • Fan Fic characters will usually cast a "contraceptive spell" before getting down to business. STDs are rarely mentioned, though in some, wizards simply can't catch normal Muggle diseases. They occasionally get bizarre magical ones, but that usually involves comical consequences like one's face being covered with feathers and is fixable with potions or a trip to the hospital.
  • In a fanfic called "The Talk" where when it's Lupin's turn to teach Harry about the "facts of life", one of the most important things he talked about was the kinds of diseases people could get when not using protection (both Muggles and Wizards ones). One particular horrible case was where it caused tentacles to appear down there, pus-filled tentacles that moved!
  • Throughout Harry Potter Becomes a Communist, Harry engages in apparently unprotected sex with various partners. There is no mention of STDs or, for that matter, pregnancy.
• The entire Naked In School universe (which does not include How Hogwarts Became a Nudist Colony) has this as a requirement, as bodily fluid transmissions are inevitable. Condoms are therefore unnecessary, as all contraception is taken care of via inoculation.
• Teen Wolf fanfic authors like to claim that werewolves don't get STIs.
• The Dresden Files fanfiction often chalks this up to wizards having a low-level Healing Factor.
• Brought up at least in How the Light Gets In. In a flashback, a furious Laurel informs Oliver that after the Gambit sank she got herself tested for any STDs, concluding that if he cheated on her with her sister, he'd probably cheated on her with a lot of other women. It's indicated that she didn't have any (or if she did she's been treated by now), but the risk was acknowledged at least.
  Laurel: Now tell me, Oliver, was that an overreaction?
  Oliver:...No, it wasn't.
• Starlight Over Detrot: Discussed in an opening monologue: ponies never had many genuinely dangerous STDs in their history, so compared to other races, they have a tendency towards more promiscuous behavior.

Films — Live-Action

• In I Love You Phillip Morris this is played straight when Steven dies of AIDS and Phillip, his lover, wonders why he wasn't affected (condoms are never mentioned). Subverted when it's shown that Steven was only faking his death and Phillip was never meant to find out. Though Steven's previous lover did actually die of the disease, so straight again, as Steven didn't catch the disease from him.
• Two words: JAMES BOND. No STDs, no known condom use, no accidental pregnancy (at least until No Time to Die). (Saturday Night Live once did a sketch revealing that Bond has an unspeakably large amount of STDs.)
• Averted in Cabin Fever. When two casual friends suddenly decide to jump into bed together, in the middle of a flesh-eating disease outbreak, the man is aware of how dangerous their affair is, and remarks to the woman how surprised he is that she didn't care about using a condom — while they're in the middle of having sex. The woman tries to assure him that she's healthy, though she has no way of knowing this for sure and doesn't seem to care one iota about the health risks. As it happens, rashes — which are the first symptom of the deadly disease — break out from the woman's lover's passionate squeezes on her back while they're still having sex. Sure enough, the woman quickly deteriorates and dies thereafter, and the man later falls ill himself — confirmed by a scene where he pulls up his hospital gown to find sickly welts just above his crotch.
• In Dead End (1937), the protagonist's ex-girlfriend has become a prostitute and is implied to have syphilis. Her "sickness" goes unnamed, however.
• Fatal Attraction Dan sleeps with Alex, a woman he barely knows, without using a condom, as evidenced by him asking her about birth control. And the reason he's asking her this is that she's just told him that she's pregnant. Yet the thought that he might have caught something never enters his mind. And even if she thought she was infertile following a miscarriage, as she believed, that fact that she herself would still need to protect herself against disease clearly didn't occur to her either. Particularly glaring, since the film was made in 1987, a time when the AIDS crisis was in full swing (albeit it was often viewed as a "gay" plague).
• First Girl I Loved: Averted, since near the end of the film Anne gets a test for HIV, worried due to being raped by Cliff when no protection was used. The result is negative.

Jokes

• Sex in jokes usually plays this trope straight as bringing this up isn't usually important to the punchline — the aversions are the funny ones.
  • Three prisoners who are condemned to death are given the choice between a straightforward execution or being infected with HIV. The first prisoner opts for a quick death rather than potentially suffering for years. The second opts for HIV, saying that he'd rather live as long as possible. The third also opts for HIV. As the executioner injects him, he begins laughing maniacally. He continues laughing as they walk him to the gate of the prison and release him. Finally, a guard asks him what could possibly be so funny when he just got injected with HIV. The man answers, "You can't give me AIDS, you idiot! I'm wearing a condom!" and takes off running.
  • A beautiful young woman goes to the gynecologist, and the doctor is immediately overcome with desire for her. He begins caressing her skin and asks "Do you know what I'm doing?" She replies "Yes, you're checking my skin for rashes, etc." He begins feeling up her boobs and asks "Do you know what I'm doing now?" She nonchalantly replies, "Yes, you're checking my breasts for lumps." Overcome with lust, he climbs up on the table and enters her, saying "Do you know what I'm doing... now?" She looks him in the eyes and says "Yes, getting herpes."
  • An American man goes to China and sleeps unprotected with a prostitute. By the time he gets back to the States, his penis has turned green. He goes to his doctor, who shakes his head and says they'll have to amputate. Deciding to get a second opinion, another doc tells him the same thing. Suddenly he gets an idea — a Chinese doctor! The Chinese doctor looks at his penis and says he's seen this before. "Will you have to amputate?" the man asks — "Oh, no — not at all!" the Chinese doctor responds. The man is breathing a sigh of relief when the doctor says "Two more days and it will fall off by itself!"

Literature

• There are at least some amateur erotica writers who note (partially in humor) either in footnotes or in their profiles that all their stories are set in a world where STDs are non-existent or have been cured completely.
• Nearly universal in period Romance Novels. Some authors have noted that this is a deliberate choice: romance novels are meant to be fantasies that definitionally come equipped with a Happily Ever After ending, not gritty, in-depth explorations of all the horrible ways that sex could go incurably wrong in the relevant periods. (It's much like how rarely the fairytale marriages lead to the complete legal subjugation of the heroine, and how unrealistically abundant non-despicable noblemen are. If those had to be depicted realistically, the genre wouldn't really exist.)
• A Fox Tail has "Venereal Elimination of Diseases" shots that are good against most STDs in the known universe. They're expensive but then again the more promiscuous main character used to electronically rob banks for fun.
• The women in Harlequin romance novels seem to be immune to STDs while being simultaneously extremely fertile; if any negative consequence of a sexual encounter arises, it will invariably be an unwanted pregnancy, which will always happen if attention is drawn to them having unprotected sex.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset the "good" protagonist never has a problem with STDs, despite a very healthy sex life. Her "bad" daughter, however, gets some. At least the "good" protagonist does actually use condoms, although only for birth control. When she is pregnant or willing to have children with someone during "spouse swapping", she skips the condom. Yet the STDs know to leave her alone since she is "good".
• Never fully explained in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy books, though the ability to avoid pregnancy is. It may just be a D'Angeline thing.
• Averted in the Tom Clancy novel Without Remorse, where protagonist John Kelly contracts a venereal disease from the abused woman he rescues. The doctors cure him without revealing it after she is murdered.
• Averted in All American Boy by William J. Mann where the main character visits a friend/mentor of his who is dying from AIDS. He also reveals that his previous lover caught the disease, while he's "clean" because they had an open relationship.
• Painfully averted in Someone Else's War, a book about Child Soldiers trying to survive and escape their horrific lives.
• Averted in These Words Are True and Faithful when it's discovered that Ernie has been cheating on Sam:
  “Dude,” said Nathan, “you need to get tested for every STI known to modern medicine and six that aren’t. You don’t know where else our hero in blue has been sticking it, and besides, I’ll bet his new sweetheart is a walking Petri dish.”
• Thoroughly and constantly averted in A Brother's Price, where the fear of catching and passing on diseases seriously influences the culture and how it handles the rare men.
• Averted in Letters to His Son by British statesman Lord Chesterfield: He mentions "a whoremaster with half a nose". ^note i.e. caused by syphilis Maybe to Scare 'Em Straight.
• Averted in The Name of the Wind. In Kvothe's part of the world, it's rarely mentioned (because it's not really that relevant to him), but the Adem describe going to great lengths to avoid or remove venereal diseases. Kvothe notes how important this is in light of the amount of sex they have and with how many partners.
• Averted and played with in Youth in Sexual Ecstasy: The protagonist discovers that he has herpes right after having sex with the school's most attractive girl, then is told that given the sudden onset of symptoms it's unlikely he got it from her and more likely that he infected her. He is also given the serious advice of tracking down all his previous sexual partners to warn them about it. Then he later learns that the girl was indeed infected, but with syphilis; how he didn't get the disease from her is never explained.
• In Doctrine of Labyrinths, the POV characters have lots of sex in lots of ways with lots of partners (one is a male homosexual prostitute, one is a Good Bad Girl, one is a man who patronizes female prostitutes, and one is a man who patronizes male prostitutes), but nobody mentions disease or protection. Despite this being a high-fantasy series, magic isn't really a justification here, since much of the action is set in a country that bans the use of magic on people for any reason.
• Played for Laughs in The Adventures of Good Soldier Švejk, set during World War I — one character describes his futile attempts to catch a venereal disease in order to avoid military service. To his despair, he remained as fit as a fiddle.
• The Kingdom of Little Wounds is described by the author as "a fairy tale about syphilis." This trope is attacked savagely.
• Never Wipe Tears Without Gloves is an aversion, with most of the cast dead of AIDS by the end. Then again, the book is a semi-autobiographical look at the ravages of HIV/AIDS in Stockholm's gay community in the early eighties, and removing AIDS would have been missing the point in an epic way.
• The Witcher: One of the alchemically induced mutations involved in creating witchers includes improvements to their immune system that grant Ideal Illness Immunity, including to STDs. This, along with their sterility (a side effect of the mutations), is part of the reason they have a reputation for Really Getting Around.
• Averted in Guardians of the Flame. Doria in her Back Story caught an STD, was too embarrassed to see a doctor about it and the resulting infection left her sterile. And with issues about sex. Subsequent brutal rape does not help, either.
• "Human Remains" by Clive Barker: Averted. Gavin, a male prostitute, does not mind occasionally dealing with crabs but gonorrhoea, which he has caught twice, is really bad for business as it means three weeks off work.
• The Teresa Knight Trilogy: Averted. STDs are explicitly mentioned as a threat to people who have a lot of casual sex. The sex clubs portrayed all require members to be tested first before joining.
• Whateley Universe: while the risks involved in sexual activity and the importance of suitable protection are mentioned, both by the school administration and in Sara's Little Purple Book[1] (a sex manual for the superpowered which gets passed around in secret by the students), so far the only reported instance of someone on-campus contracting an STD came from a magical curse (which backfired, affecting everyone in one of the dorms except the target[2]) despite the rampant bed-hopping among these teenaged superbeings. Since STDs explicitly do occur off-campus (as does Teen Pregnancy; it is stated outright that Exemplars are far more likely to get pregnant than baseline girls due to their lack of impulse control and heightened fertility[3]), it has led to the fan theory (later substantiated in-story) that the school is secretly applying magical contraception and disease protection to the students.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Faith has been stated to have lots of casual sex with no hint of condom usage yet never gets pregnant or infected. This might be due to her being a Slayer, but it's worth noting at least one Slayer had a child (Nikki Wood). Vampires are also likely immune to STDs and are mentioned in Angel to be unable to have children (for the painfully obvious reason that they are dead).
  • Averted in an episode where Buffy has sex with Riley, who is shown reaching for a condom before they start.
  • Averted in the backstory with Darla. She was a prostitute dying of syphilis when she was turned into a vampire, which presumably "cured" her of the disease.
• Repeatedly averted in the soft-core series Red Shoe Diaries. Characters would often bring out the condoms just before getting it on. The show may be about casual sex, but it's about casual safe sex.
• Averted in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Mac and Dee have contracted STDs during the series. In Mac's case, it's a recurring problem (since he never uses a condom during sex). Dennis has much more sex than both of them but doesn't seem to have this problem, presumably because he's smart enough to use a condom. It also helps that Dennis typically sleeps with younger or less-sexually-active women whenever possible. Dennis's father Frank also never seems to get STDs, though he's (loudly) confirmed he always carries "magnum condoms for my monster dong."
• Averted in the fifth season of Supernatural as Sam is shown contracting gonorrhea and herpes. It should be noted that none of the STDs are ever acquired due to sex OR due to demonic blood-drinking. In both cases, it was due to Sam aggravating a supernatural entity (a witch and a trickster who's really an Angel) and being cursed. Both of the boys get hit with syphilis (along with scarlet fever and meningitis) by the Horseman Pestilence, although that's just his power instead of them sleeping around. They're cured not long after, though.
• Averted on Gossip Girl where man tramp Chuck Bass has contracted at least a few STDs in his day, and on one occasion bonds with his uncle over what medication they got for gonorrhea.
• Averted in Veronica Mars. That's how she guesses who raped her.
• In an episode of Stargate Atlantis, the doctor finds it very odd that the woman from a primitive village who they have invited back to the base (and have put under a med test) is completely healthy, including a lack of any STDs. Turns out she's actually an ascended Ancient taking human form, so she's kinda beyond that.
• Glee:
  • Puck regularly sleeps around with a lot of women and he admits to Finn that he never uses condoms, which he admits, has only worked out for him 99% of the time.
  • Averted with Artie, who after having a casual sexual relationship with two different women, finds out he has chlamydia. He's shocked, despite the fact that he says he never used condoms because buying them freaked him out.
• An odd aversion in an episode of Stargate SG-1, where O'Neill has sex with a local woman and is infected with nanites that cause him to age rapidly.
• ER:
  • Hospital stud Doug Ross managed to have drunken one-night stands with numerous women, yet never caught anything — a fanfic actually has him citing how lucky he was.
  • Averted with Jeannie Boulet, who caught HIV from her cheating husband and feared she had given it to her boyfriend. She hadn't, playing the trope straight again in his case.
  • Also averted with Carter who caught an unspecified STD from a random girl he picked up.
• Loving As Steffy prepared to seduce Clay, he rebuffed her advances, telling her, "I don't have any condoms". She assured him that she was on the Pill, completely disregarding that this would only prevent pregnancy, not disease transmission. Subverted a few years later on the Spin-Off The City (1995), after Sydney is raped by her husband Jared. When she goes to her doctor for an exam, she is very adamant about being tested for HIV and STDs (this is a standard part of a rape exam regardless), given Jared's penchant for infidelity.
• All My Children's Julia feared she had contracted HIV from her rapist, but ultimately tested negative. Also with Dixie, who angrily tells her husband that she went to her doctor to be tested for everything after discovering his infidelity, but fortunately received a clean bill of health.
• One Life to Live's Marty is warned during her rape exam that it's too soon for an HIV test and that she needs to follow up with her private doctor. Luckily, she didn't contract it or any other STD.
• Port Charles' Joe has a fling with a nurse. A few weeks later, she confides that she's tested positive for HIV. He promptly has to submit to three separate blood tests and wait until the final one comes back negative before sleeping with his girlfriend.
• The Young and the Restless' Olivia freaks out upon learning of her husband Nathan's affair, not just because of his infidelity, but because the woman has AIDS, realizing that she herself could be infected as well, but luckily she isn't. Nathan himself didn't catch it from his lover either.
• Although she's horrified to learn that the man who raped her had AIDS, As the World Turns' Margo fortunately did not contract it, despite him not using a condom when he assaulted her. ^note  Some graphic explanatory dialogue revealed that he withdrew before he climaxed and ejaculated on her leg rather than inside her
• Two and a Half Men, where not only does Charlie not get STDs, but it's commonly pondered why.
  • Of course, in one episode, he goes to the supermarket with Alan and is shown buying large numbers of condoms.
• Averted in Grey's Anatomy, when the first season finale was about quite a few of the doctors dealing with an outbreak of syphilis from constantly hooking up with one another. This also serves to reveal that some of the characters cheated on their partners.
• Lampshaded but ultimately left ambiguous with regards to Barney in How I Met Your Mother, where other characters often imply that Barney must be crawling with diseases after the number of women he's slept with, but this is never confirmed in canon. In one episode, after a stunt at the Superbowl causes dozens of girls to call him up for a date, he proudly tells the gang that he's going to sleep with every girl who calls him, but has hired Ranjit as his chauffeur rather than take public transportation, because "Ew, germs!"
• Similarly, Joey from Friends is often the butt of these sorts of jokes. For instance, Chandler notes that Joey's advice will be useful if it's about "pizza toppings or a burning sensation when you pee."
• In Deep Love it's noted that Ayu, a prostitute, and all other noted prostitutes use condoms with their clients most, if not all, of the time. Averted eventually when Ayu does contract AIDS and dies from it. It's also stated that Yoshiyuki's father has the disease at the end.
• Game of Thrones: Despite these being The Dung Ages, no one seems to get STDs. Not Queen Cersei, not King Robert, not Tyrion, not Theon, not Shae, not even Ros. The trope is averted the books at least in passing. A Tyrell camp follower gave a young lord an STI. One of the Targaryen kings allegedly died of an STD from a whore. Also, the prostitute enlisted to teach Dany how to pleasure men is implied to have been living with an STI, and she suffered a flare-up when she was weakened by hunger. Still, none of the main characters ever get any.
  • Season 8 averts it though with an extra rather than a real character; one of the prostitutes that Bronn intends to have an orgy with is diagnosed with a venereal disease by Qyburn, who notes she doesn't have much to live, much to Bronn's shock.
• Averted in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with the Section 31 virus afflicting the Changeling race. The virus is spread through linking, the closest Changeling analog to sex. To bring about a Changeling genocide, Section 31 infects an unwitting Odo, who unknowingly infects the Great Link. By season 7, the virus has spread like wildfire through the Great Link, threatening the survival of the species.
  • Before he knew he was infected, Odo also happened to link with Laas, another of the hundred Changelings sent out into the galaxy as infants. Laas left to go find the others and start a new Great Link, possibly dooming them as well, but nobody mentions him after they realize Odo was infected.
• Star Trek is usually big on this trope what with their advanced medical technology, but Star Trek: Voyager had an episode where Harry Kim turns out to be the only Starfleet officer to ever pick up a disease by sleeping with the Green-Skinned Space Babe. On top of that, he gets no sympathy from his superiors because he broke protocol with his interspecies liaison with a strange new race (not that it ever stopped Riker or Kirk, but they were senior officers of course).
• Averted in one of the Firefly comics. Jayne gets an STD after sleeping with a hooker off-panel. He has to go to Simon to get it checked out. Hilarity Ensues.
• Criminal Minds provides a strange case. In their world, people generally *are* aware of the risks of unprotected sex, so this trope is largely averted during the stories (e.g. "Paradise", "The Slave of Duty") — but the frequency of unprotected sex during the series makes one wonder if anyone even bothers with condoms to begin with. Surely some of the UnSubs might have gotten away if they did think about it.
• Averted in Torchwood: Miracle Day. No one can die anymore, and when Jack suggests a condom, his hook-up laughs it off about how no one can die. Of course, Jack, being better versed in the realities of immortality, insists.
  Jack: Forever just got a lot longer.
• In Private Practice, when Charlotte is raped, the possibility of her being infected is brought up (Addison gave her some pills just in case) and she gets tested, but she didn't have anything.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation had an episode where there was an outbreak of gonorrhea. Alex found out Jay was cheating after he was found to have the STD, and some girls also got it from having oral sex with him. This included Emma, who was to kiss a boy in a school play, but he gave her a fake kiss for fear of being infected. She didn't seem to care about infecting him, and was called out for it by her friend.
• One episode of Bomb Girls had Gladys' fiancé James be infected with gonorrhea (where it was referred to as "The Clap") after cheating on her with a woman who was known to have had many sexual partners. He was treated with penicillin.
• Averted several times over in How to Get Away with Murder:
  • In one episode, the husband and son of Annalise's client come down with the same venereal disease, since both had had sex with the murder victim.
  • Promiscuous Connor and his nerdy boyfriend Oliver get tested for STDs (at Oliver's insistence). Connor is clean; Oliver has HIV.
• Averted in Scrubs: "My Hypocritical Oath" had a man get treated for an STD at the hospital and ask JD not to tell his girlfriend, Kylie, who found out about it after noticing that her coworker/friend had similar symptoms. Kylie wasn't infected because she and her boyfriend hadn't had sex yet.
  • Dr. Kelso, who frequently cheated on his wife, went to a clinic to be treated for an STD at least once.
  • There was an outbreak of syphilis at a nursing home; two of the patients came from that nursing home and were being treated for it.
• Nancy Botwin on Weeds seems to have nothing but spontaneous, public, unprotected sexual encounters, and is none the worse for wear. Amusingly, the one partner she's heavily hinted to be using protection with ends up fathering her child.
• The aversion is actually a plot point in the Castle episode "The Final Frontier". Gabriel Winters' alibi for the murder of his former co-star, now-business partner, is that he was at the doctor's office getting treated for an STD.
• Averted in Law & Order: SVU, which deals with sex crimes. Victims are encouraged to get tested — in one particular Tearjerker episode, the rapist had in fact infected several of his victims. A similar episode of the The Mothership had a man deliberately infecting women via consensual sex and the prosecution trying to find a way to prosecute him for assault or murder.
  • In one episode, a man who was raped complains about the fact that he won't know for sure he doesn't have HIV until after his honeymoon and he doesn't want to tell his fiance.
  • In another, Olivia finds out a former boyfriend was HIV positive. They'd only slept together once, five years ago, but she still gets tested. Later, they're able to identify said ex's killer because he has the same strain of HIV.
  • In yet another episode, a man went on a killing spree because the brain damage from tertiary-stage Syphilis caused him to suffer from religious delusions telling him to kill. His wife is told that she'll have to be tested, but he most likely progressed past the contagious period before he even met her. The detectives eventually go after the life insurance company that didn't bother to inform him or the Center for Disease Control when they rejected his application.
    Cabot: A dollar fifty's worth of Penicillin would have cured Daniel Varney and prevented the carnage he caused.
• Law & Order: UK had the murderer of a prostitute turn out to be the wife of one of her customers. What pushed the woman over the edge was the fact that she'd contracted herpes due to her husband's shenanigans and had consequently infected their son, now mentally retarded as a result.
• Sam Malone on Cheers is apparently immune to all sexual diseases in spite of his Don Juan lifestyle. The closest he came to picking something up was when it looked like he might've gotten a woman pregnant but it turned out to be a false alarm. The writers of the show once considered addressing this by having an episode where it would've looked like Sam had contracted AIDS, though the plot never made it to air due to fear it couldn't be handled in good taste (The episode would have aired in 1988 when the AIDS epidemic was in full swing). Later episodes have Sam mentioning "going to the drug store", implying that Sam was conscientious about condom use.
• Averted on L.A. Law where Arnold Becker, notorious skirt-chasing divorce attorney, when asked by one of the other lawyers how come he never had problems with venereal diseases, admits he uses condoms.
• Dramatically averted in the In the Heat of the Night episode "Rape". The possibility of Althea having been infected with something by her rapist is brought up as the doctor is examining her.
• On Hunter, DeeDee has the same fears after she's raped by a South American diplomat. Nothing comes of it, fortunately.
• Without a Trace's Samantha Spade has a one-night stand with a guy whose name she doesn't even remember the next morning. Not once does the possibility of her having caught anything come up, even after she learns that she's pregnant as a result of this and therefore clearly had unprotected sex (at the very least, the condom ripped or slipped) with him.
• Lost Girl: The main character is a Succubus, and as such has lots of sex. Even if her male lovers used condoms (this is never confirmed), that wouldn't account for her female ones. However, she feeds during sex and can heal her injuries, so it's possible that if she did contract an STI she'd heal herself of it at the same time.
• Lucifer:
  • Lucifer and Maze both have ridiculous amounts of sex with both male and female partners, but STDs never get brought up. Justified given that they're receptively a fallen angel and a demon and have supernatural immunities that keep them safe.
  • Averted by Amenadiel in season three, who catches chlamydia after having sex with a prostitute (he didn't know she was a prostitute at the time) and then has to discuss this with Linda, who he's in a relationship with when he gets the news. Turns out it was a false alarm, though.
• The Sex Lives of College Girls: Leighton believed she had this due to only having sex with women, but then catches chlamydia. She's then told that no, having sex with women can infect her too. When she neglects to inform her sex partners as the doctor said to, one of the girls Leighton had given it to tells everyone later while she's seeking to pledge a sorority, embarrassing her publicly.
• Averted in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, when in the very first episode, local prostitute Myra asks to see her about "a female problem". Afterwards, Dr. Quinn tells her employer Hank that she needs to be "chaste" for several weeks. When he complains about the loss of revenue, she warns him that he'll lose even more if she has to treat his customers too. In a later episode, Hank himself alerts her to the fact that her sister Marjorie is ill, citing that she's displaying the same symptoms that he's often seen in his girls. The specific illness is never named, but given Myra's profession and Marjorie's unfaithful husband, it's still obvious what the problem is.
• High Fidelity: Averted as Simon caught chlamydia from Ben even though he had no other partners. Ben slept with one other man however, and got it from him. Simon at least avoids HIV, which is what he'd really worried about.

Music

• Frank Zappa referenced gonorrhea and pubic lice ("crabs") frequently in his songs, always in humoristic fashion: "Who Needs The Peace Corps?" (We're Only in It for the Money), "Our Bizarre Relationship" (Uncle Meat), "Road Ladies", "The Clap" (Chunga's Revenge), "Does This Kind Of Life Look Interesting To You?" (200 Motels), "Dinah-Moe Humm" (Over-Nite Sensation), "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?" (Joe's Garage), "In France" (Them or Us), "Attack! Attack! Attack!" (Civilization Phaze III). Less funny is that groupie Lucy Offerall, who played a role in 200 Motels, died of AIDS in 1991.
• Averted in many songs by Eminem on The Slim Shady LP. Yes, all on one record!
  • "Cum On Everybody"
  You thought I was ill and now I'm even more so
  Shit, I got full-blown AIDS and a sore throat
  (...) I told the doc I need a change in sickness
  And gave a girl herpes in exchange for syphilis
  • "I'm Shady"
  So fuck it, I've got herpes while we on the subject (uh-huh)
  And if I told you I had AIDS y'all would play it
  'Cause you stupid motherfuckers think I'm playin' when I say it
  (...) And I don't have herpes, my dick's just itchin'
  It's not syphilis, and as for being AIDS infested
  I don't know yet, I'm too scared to get tested
  • "Role Model"
  I've been with ten women who got HIV
  Now don't you want to grow up and be just like me?
  I've got genital warts and it burns when I pee
  Don't you want to grow up to be just like me?
• Early rap pioneer Kool Moe Dee is considered to be the very first rapper to avert the trope with his self-titled album's opener, "Go See The Doctor":
  Three days later...
  I woke up fussin', yellin' and cussin'
  Drip-drip-drippin' and puss-puss-pussin'
  I went to the bathroom and said
  "Mama mia, Imma kill that girl next time I see her!"
  • As well as "Dumb Dick", from the same album:
  When it came to girls, he didn't care where he went
  He'd hound 'em like a dog, so we used to say "fetch!"
  And it was no tellin' what he would catch
  He was in the doctor's office almost every week
  He became so popular, everybody'd speak
  When he walked in they'd say (Hi Rick)
  And when he passed by, they'd say (Dumb Dick)
• Slick Rick's track "Indian Girl (An Adult Story) does a twist on this trope at the end of the song: After having spent the entire song trying (and succeeding) to get into an Indian girl's pants, Davy Crockett learns at the end that she had genital crabs... spear totting, Indian-chanting crabs.

Tabletop RPG

• In 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, paladins were immune to disease by divine blessings, but they tend not to be the type to sleep around. However, Sune, the Goddess of love in Faerun, also promotes paladins, and like other divinely empowered beings, they are expected to promote their goddess' interests. Which admittedly sleeping around would go against (Sune is a goddess of love, not of sex. She's just as open as the edition in question allows about sex being perfectly fine if far from an obligatory part of love).
  • The 4th Edition push of Paladins to any alignment allowed promiscuous paladins of goddesses of hedonism, lust, and similar pursuits, who got a lot of mileage out of their immunity.
• In Pathfinder:
  • The Paladin still is immune to all diseases, but is now joined by the Monk, who gains immunity to disease through mastering his Ki as a class feature (though he gains it two levels later than The Paladin). Both classes use supernatural powers, so they are a case of a Justified Trope. People who are neither paladins nor monks are out of luck though (as a constantly-active inherent ability, anyway. There are of course magic items that grant the same resistance when you wear them).
  • If a character of any class ascends into Mythic status - Pathfinder's alternative to D&D's epic levels - there is a universal mythic ability one can get that grants them immunity to all non-mythic diseases & poisons.
• In the same vein, GURPS has the Resistant advantage. It allows one to resist better to a variety of hazards and can go up to immunity. "Immunity to disease" is perfectly valid (and if taken with the 0-point feature "sterile", allows one to not have to worry about consequences of sex, well, other than potentially having to deal with a Yandere of either gender). The next step up is "Immunity to metabolic hazards", which means complete immunity to things that would only affect an organic body. It is part of the "Machine" meta-trait, for obvious reasons. Ideas are forming...
• Also the case in F.A.T.A.L., which, despite its heavy emphasis on sexual activity and its claim to be "the most...realistic and historically/mythically accurate role-playing game available", never even mentions STDs.

Video Games

• The universe of The Spellcasting Series is STD-free. The narrator takes care to mention that fact, as Ernie Eaglebeak tends to shag every woman he can get his hands on.
• Literal example in The Witcher. A Witcher's mutations render them immune to disease and cause sterility. Geralt makes good use of both.
• Averted in Fable II, having unsafe sex can cause your character to get an STD. This is mostly played for laughs, though, as STDs don't actually do anything.
• Averted in Wasteland where sleeping with a hooker will always give the character "wasteland herpes". This does affect the character's health, though it can be easily cured at any hospital. Also noteworthy in that this is one of only six diseased/poisoned status afflictions in the entire game.
• Subverted in Dragon Age II, in which the absurdly promiscuous Isabela apparently gets STDs often, but she knows a long-suffering mage called Anders who can get rid of them with no real difficulty. One NPC even claims she's so promiscuous that there's an STD named after her. And...yes, she's a potential Love Interest for the main character.
• Averted in Elona, where encounters with prostitutes always leave you temporarily insane and has a chance to give you the "sick" status.
• Inverted in Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards, where having sex with a prostitute without wearing a condom will comedically kill you only a few minutes later!
• Fallout: New Vegas, for the player, who can sleep with several women (and men, and a robot) in the game with no consequence at all.
• In A Dance with Rogues, as the game is D&D-based, paladins are immune to disease. Unlike D&D, paladins in the Neverwinter Nights engine don't lose their powers if they lose their alignment, so a Princess who takes a level of Paladin early on can screw whoever and whatever she likes with no risk of disease, regardless of where her alignment will go. (As this is a game about thieves and thieving, maintaining a Lawful Good alignment is very difficult.)
• The Sims series has pre-made characters who are supposedly promiscuous, and promiscuity is actually a lifetime goal for some sims, but none suffer for it since such diseases don't exist in the world. This, however, can be changed with mods.
• Averted in HunieCam Studio, where sending girls to work as escorts has the possibility of them getting various STDs that can cause various debilitating statuses, some of which are incurable. They can even end up contracting AIDS, which is both incurable and prevents them from doing anything unless hopped up on steroids.
• Crusader Kings II has traits for herpes and syphilis.

Visual Novels

• Averted in Being A ΔΙΚ. Arieth has crabs, which is a problem for most of the male cast as she Really Gets Around; it is therefore easy to know who has slept with her. Played straight with the main character (who is notably the only major male character Arieth cannot have sex with), who engages in unprotected sex throughout the game (despite Neil's admonishment at the start of the game) and does not contract any STDs. Notably, in Tremolo's case, this is actually confirmed: on Jill's route in Episode 9, she insists that the MC get tested for STDs in exchange for her starting birth control, and, despite having potentially slept with over a dozen women without protection by this point, he always tests negative.
• None of the characters in Daughter for Dessert catch any STDs despite the amount of sex (all unprotected) that they all have.
• In Double Homework, everyone except Dennis has sex, and a couple of characters are pretty experienced, but STDs are nonexistent among these characters.
• Downplayed in Melody. Even though mostly the characters don’t use protection, most of them have little to no sexual experience (at least not recently). And Becca at least insists that the protagonist wear a condom for their first time together, though they don’t use any protection after that.
• Justified in Nukitashi. The SHO regularly carry out medical checkups on everyone in the island and punish those who skip them. No one has to worry about diseases no matter how much unprotected sex they have.

Webcomics

• Angel thinks you can only get an STD from contact between a penis and a vagina, which is convenient for her since she's apparently been banging every female who asks for the last ten years. Thea, a similarly-inclined woman who was similarly inclining Angel until recently and has caught restless leg syndrome, is understandably flabbergasted at Angel's delusion. Later, Angel does catch what is implied to be herpes or warts, as she shamefully reveals the damage by flashing Thea from off-panel.
  • Later, Thea's new girlfriend Mimi is explaining gloves and dental dams to Hazel, who is shocked to realize that fingering and oral are not just an STD risk for lesbians. Hazel, while straight, is also no stranger to casual sex, and the Alt Text for the comic is that she should have caught something years ago with how little protection she was using.
• Grrl Power: Dabbler mentions that she and her fellow Succubi are immune to most diseases, including STDs.
  Dabbler: Heck, I can cure people of some ailments by sleeping with them.
  Literally everybody: Like blue balls.
• Teahouse is set in a brothel, no protection is ever seen and there's no comment on STDs.
• Subverted in Times Like This: Cassie gets gonorrhea and herpes from fooling around in the disco era, but since We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future, she can go to 2205 and easily get medicine that cures both in a matter of hours.

Web Original

• Justified in Chakona Space, Chakats have genetically enhanced immune systems and well-defined estrus cycles. So despite their habitual Polyamory they never catch anything and rarely get pregnant by accident (as opposed to on purpose). And sometimes, on the rare occasion that a chakat is in heat and doesn't want kids, a brief mention of wearing protection is added.
• Likewise justified in The Journal Entries — Pendorians don't need to worry about STDs (or diseases in general, period) overmuch because they owe their extended lifespans to helpful medical nanotech inside their bodies in the first place and unwanted pregnancy likewise isn't usually a concern for them. The emphasis is still on not getting too reckless (especially in BDSM or otherwise 'risky' play), and safety concerns are explicitly brought up and addressed every so often.
• Subverted by Ask That Guy with the Glasses and later on, The Nostalgia Critic. Both Mr Fanservices with active and messy sex lives, both have suffered the effects.
• Subverted in Camp Camp: Quartermaster and his Quarter-sister don't have to worry about getting any STDs... because they both have all of them. There are no new ones for them to get.
  Quarter-sister: They named one after me.
  Quartermaster: Pfft. One.

Western Animation

• An aversion in American Dad!: A few episodes have implied that Hayley has herpes. And apparently has given them to Jeff.
• Family Guy:
  • Subverted by Quagmire, who is apparently the venereal disease equivalent of Mr. Burns in that he carries every STD known to man but shows no symptoms (as his diseases are so balanced with each other, a slight imbalance could kill him). In fact, the only sexually transmitted disease he doesn't have is an unnamed disease from an African insect that Peter personally flew out and tried to find.
    Joe: [after stabbing a hypodermic needle into Quagmire's arm] Gotcha!
    Peter: Ha! Hepatitis C!
    Quagmire: Joke's on you, I already got it!
    [Peter stabs Quagmire with another needle]
    Peter: Meningitis!
    Quagmire: I'm a carrier!
    [Joe stabs him with a third needle]
    Joe: Gonorrhea!
    Quagmire: Patient zero. You're gonna have to do better than that!
    Peter: I dunno, Joe, that's it. We're out of known diseases. Unless...[flies all the way to Africa to catch a mosquito in a jar] Alright, what this is has no name so you can't have it.
    [Peter lets the mosquito go and it bites Quagmire on the cheek, making his face swell up and turn red and his eyes bleed]
  • The series also parodied this with Fonzie's sex life.
    Peter: Hey, Fonz... You were with all those women... You ever get a sexual disease?
    Fonzie: ...Herpes twice. And the clap.
  • Averted and played for laughs in "Road to the Multiverse", in which Quagmire contracts AIDS...but since he's in a universe where Christianity never existed and science is far more advanced than the main timeline, curing it is as simple as taking a pill.
    "Oh, I got AIDS again. Better take my NyQuil Cold, Flu, and AIDS. [takes pill] All gone!"
• Somewhat averted in Archer. The cast has sex with each other and total strangers regularly, but we never actually see them dealing with a caught STD on camera. But the show often mentions in dialog that the title character has contracted diseases multiple times from his rampant sex life, and has had the clap so many times it's more like the applause. When his mother mentions he contracted an extremely aggressive disease that "was like nothing the doctors had ever seen before", most of the show's female cast were worried they might've picked it up from sleeping with him.
  Mallory: Trust me, if you had it you'd know.

---