MRSA and intimacy: is it sexually transmitted?
MRSA is not on the standard STI panel, but it can and does spread during sex. The route is skin-to-skin contact with a lesion or a colonised area — not semen or vaginal fluid — and the same rules that stop household spread stop it here.
Not classical STI, still transmissible
MRSA is caused by Staphylococcus aureus — a skin bacterium — not by an organism that lives in genital secretions. It is not routinely tested for in sexual-health clinics. Even so, close physical contact during sex creates exactly the conditions that spread MRSA: skin-to-skin friction, minor abrasions, and contact with active lesions or colonised skin around the groin, buttocks and thighs. Clusters of buttock and genital abscesses caused by the USA300 strain have been reported in sexually active adults, including well-documented outbreaks among men who have sex with men.
Reducing risk with a partner
- Don't have sex while you have an active lesion. Wait until the abscess has drained, is dry, and can be securely covered, and you have completed at least 72 hours of any prescribed antibiotic.
- Cover any healing wound with a clean dry dressing that will stay in place.
- Don't share towels, razors, sex toys or lubricant containers with a partner who has an active infection.
- Shower before and after sex with soap and water, and change bedding after sex if either partner has an active or recent infection.
- Tell your partner. Concealing an active MRSA infection is how genital, groin and buttock clusters happen.
If lesions keep appearing
Recurrent boils in the groin, buttocks or genital area in a sexually active person are a strong signal to test for MRSA and to consider treating both partners at once. Standard decolonisation is mupirocin nasal ointment plus chlorhexidine body wash for 5–10 days. See why MRSA comes back for the full protocol.
Related in prevention
Back to the prevention hub, or read about preventing MRSA at home and why some people keep getting it. Background on how MRSA spreads.