Read: Finding Love with Herpes, Thanks to STI-Positive Online DatingSTIs get a bad rap, what with the rashes and sores and threat of jail time, but a growing body of research suggests that swapping microbes during sex could make us healthier.Although we know our bodies are chock-full of bacteria and viruses that can both benefit and hurt us—for example, naturally occurring yeast that can also cause yeast infections—Niki Wilson at the BBC reports that certain sexually-transmitted microbes (STMs) target and minimize the effects of other diseases.Take GB virus C (CBV-C), an STI often found in patients with HIV. The thing with GBV-C is that, instead of further compromising HIV-positive patients' immune systems, the virus has been shown to reduce their mortality rate by 59 percent."Scientists think GBV-C does this by reducing HIV's ability to compromise our immune system cells," Wilson writes. "It may also stimulate other parts of the immune system to actively fight the infection."That's just one example—more helpful STMs have been found in other species. Mosquitos pass along STMs that live in their testes, gut, and eggs. These nourish larvae and cause them to mature days faster than larvae without it. Similarly, STMs in fungi can accelerate growth, as well as make their hosts withstand warmer temperatures. The same may be true for humans."What if it just felt better to have sex when you had a particular bug?" Betsy Foxman, the director of the Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan, asked the BBC. "That bug could increase mucus flow. It could be as simple as that."All that aside, there are obviously a bunch of reasons why condoms are still a thing. Just because you might pick up STIs that don't put a tangle in your dangle doesn't mean you should actively put your junk at risk—it's still like Osmosis Jones out there.Image via Flickr user MIKI Yoshihito
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