Male Genital Warts

Leslie W says:

Yes, animals and, believe it or not, even plants get sexually transmitted diseases. (Humans are of course animals, but very unusual animals). Here I’ve written a pretty complete answer from items that come to mind.

First, from the point of view of a disease germ (if they would have a point of view), there is nothing particularly special about the STD route of transmission. Four major entry/exit portals to and from an animal’s body are very successful ways for diseases to hop to another person or animal once they have reproduced themselves with an infected person or animal. These are:

1. Respiratory. Animals must breath, so any disease adapted to get in and out through the nose and lungs has a good path from host to host. This pathway has not changed much during the 20th century.

2. Oral. Animals must eat and pass waste, so any disease that can get from the waste of one to the food of another has a good pathway too. In humans this pathway becomes much reduced when modern sanitation replaces outhouses with running water.

3. Genital. Animals must reproduce, so any disease that can pass between genitals has a good pathway as well. These are the STDs. You see, there is nothing particularly different about them, just a different entry/exit portal.

4. Parental. Animals must take care of their young (at least many species do). Any disease that can pass from mother or father to offspring has a good path to the next generation forth. Transmission through breast milk is one path (as is used by HIV).

There can be important crossovers among these four pathways. For example, sneezing on food connects the respiratory pathway with the oral, in animals and humans. In recent decades in humans, but not particularly in animals, there an increasing connection between the oral and genital pathways. This is increasing formerly unusual forms of STDs. For example, the normally-oral HSV1 has now become the predominant form of genital herpes in some age groups. There is reason to believe that additional varieties of STDs not yet seen will evolve in upcoming decades.

Back to animals, there are several reasons that STDs aren’t noticed as much in animals as in humans: (1) We don’t pay as much attention to animals as we do to ourselves. (2) Many animals live in small groups, without global transportation, so transmission is somewhat more difficult. (3) For those animals that do have global transportation, such as migratory birds, many are largely monogamous for life. That essentially eliminates the genital pathway and drives STDs out of such species. (4) Most animals don’t mate throughout the year as humans do, but only during specific "oestrus" periods or at specific times of the year. (5) Most animals don’t live as long as humans.

Finally, as a point of interest, plants are different because they don’t breath or eat in the same way animals do, but they reproduce rather similarly. If you’ve ever opened an ear of corn and found an abundance of black powder mixed in with the silk hairs, you’ve seen such a disease. The ear is the female part, and the black power is an STD affecting female corn.

wghtrainer says:

Yes. The green monkey in Haiti is blamed for the HIV and AIDS virus. Dog, cat, horse, cow breeders all have their animals tested for std often. The answer is a resounding yes.

likeomgwhateverdude says:

YES. any animal can get an std …. even aids or hiv… but a human could not catch it from an animal…