I really hate the idea of deep-kissing men with poor oral hygiene—bad breath, dirty teeth, and so on. I’m worried that I’ll pick up bacteria and other things and that it’ll affect my own oral health. Older men also seem more likely to have a lot of periodontal bacteria.

At a brothel, you’ll take a bath together, get washed, and be made to gargle with Betadine. That’s probably about all you can do to protect yourself. You can usually tell if someone has bad breath at the first meeting, so just turn them down then. If you don’t notice at the first meeting and only find out when things turn adult, breathe through your mouth, tough it out, and decline to meet again. Something along those lines, I guess...

The first time, you probably just have to hold your breath through your nose and endure it. For a second meeting, if the allowance is good, you could ask them to improve and continue if they’re willing to listen. I was careful to teach my own daughter about avoiding indirect kisses, and she hasn’t had a single cavity—even though she’s pretty careless about brushing her teeth.

That’s a good point. People have long said that cavities can be passed through kissing, and that parents can transmit cavity-causing bacteria to their children through kisses. As for cavities and gum disease, it seems the bacteria can be transmitted through: ☆ Sharing utensils such as spoons, forks, chopsticks, and cups ☆ Kissing or feeding someone mouth-to-mouth Apparently, cavity-causing bacteria can be killed by heating them to 120°C for 20 minutes, so sterilizing utensils that way might be a good idea. Still, it feels rather sad that physical affection, such as kissing between a parent and child, can also be the cause. That said, if we ask whether we should completely eliminate those things to prevent infecting our children, it’s a little frightening to imagine how children who never received affection might grow up. I feel like today’s topic is somewhat similar. In short, if you’re not comfortable with something, don’t accept that kind of affection or physical contact. Only do those things with someone you genuinely feel comfortable with. That seems to be the conclusion I’ve reached. P.S. You mean the idea that “newborn babies don’t have cavity-causing bacteria, and they acquire them from adults through things like shared utensils,” right? Exactly. It’s true that practically all adults probably carry cavity-causing bacteria, so there may not be much point in worrying about it. But since that seemed to be what you were concerned about, I focused on that aspect.

If you meet them and aren’t comfortable with them, you don’t have to go through with anything. One of the classic stories shared by sex workers is about customers who deliberately go several weeks without washing, showing up with their penis covered in smegma. When they encounter someone like that, they apparently ask whether he wants them to wash him properly before providing the service, or whether he’d rather be refused service and sent home. If the customer isn’t intentionally unclean but is, for example, drenched in sweat from working in work clothes, they’ll wash him thoroughly before providing the service. I don’t think it’s particularly effective, and sex workers themselves often say the same, but using Isodine or Grins antibacterial disinfectant soap seems to be the basic precaution. Sexual services at a brothel and relationships through a dating club are different. At a brothel, the people you serve may be determined by the establishment’s policies, but through a dating club, you can choose your own partner. After reading Mac’s answer, I’d like to add something about STIs. As far as STIs are concerned, I don’t think most sex workers take many precautions. I’ve often heard about establishments that supposedly test their workers, but the tests are done before a shift and the results don’t come back until the end of the shift—or workers are still allowed to come in and take shifts even when they’re infected. In many cases, the testing seems to be just for show. Personally, I take precautions by showing my test results to the person I’m seeing and having them show me theirs as well.