Katie is a senior editor and writer at Innerbody Research. A former English professor, Katie earned her Ph. However, dating with finding love while living with an STD can still be challenging.
Having an STD carries an unfortunate stigma, and people face discrimination because of misinformation or stereotypes. Luckily, there are online spaces — like STD dating sites — meant to help correct this issue. These sites cater to adults living with STDs and help them match with other singles living with the same diagnosis.
This removes some stigma and reduces the risk of potentially infecting a partner. But do these sites work? Can you really find romance? Sites do these sites stack up against each other? This guide will answer all of those questions and more, helping you find the best dating site for your needs. Read on for all the details, but here are our top recommendations for those in a hurry. Positive Singles is our overall top choice for STD dating sites.
The dating and support site for people that tingle*
Its large member population and community resources set this site apart from the rest. Positive For boasts over 60, member-written success stories and millions of member conversations. At Innerbody Research, we thoroughly evaluate free product and service we review, including STD dating sites. Our testing team has created profiles on all the top sites and used them for scrutinize interface design, dating pool quality, and more.
Through the course of our investigations, we also with various scientific journals to read up on the nuances, symptoms, and treatments for various STDs, as well as the ways attitudes are shifting around STD status, stigma, and dating life. Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this guide is thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Sites for accuracy. Over the past two decades, we have helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.
When people did this with the top STD dating sites, it revealed several dating that are top-of-mind for most users, and we used those criteria to pit the sites against one another. Specifically, we focused on privacy, dating pool, cost, and free features free and paid to determine which site is your best bet for an investment of time or money.
Winner: Positive Singles. Your STD status is your business. You should decide who to share that information with. Because of this, STD dating sites keep your privacy a top priority. Some use encryption services and other measures to protect stds personal information. Many offer discreet billing and secure payments.
The Best STD Dating Sites
To keep the community safe, people sites also allow you to report or block members you suspect are not living with an STD. Some competitors, like Meet Positives, actually charge you a fee if you want to delete your profile, which we do not appreciate from a privacy standpoint.
Positive Singles also lets you set who gets to see your profile and photos e. However, this is a paid feature that some other services offer for free. The more members a site has, the better your chances of making a stds. Many sites offer location-based searching, so you can find out how many people in your area are available to meet. In this guide, we prioritized sites with the most members, particularly sites where members are active, and success stories abound. Positive Singles has the market cornered when it comes to dating pool size with more than 2 million active members.
With a number that big, the company understandably advertises it. Others bury their user information, which forces us to calculate by various match searches and results comparisons to come up with reliable pool size estimates.
Insider Tip: Curious about how your hometown compares to other locations across the country when it comes to STD infection rates? Most STD dating sites allow you to try out the stds for free or at a low cost. But, to take advantage of the site's sites functionality, you must pay a membership fee.
As you can see, among generalized sites, Positive Dating has some of the best prices, while specialized sites for herpes or HIV tend to be slightly less expensive overall. STD dating sites have standard features that you find on any other dating site, like matching, searching, and messaging. Some also have additional features that help you hone your searches, organize your matches, and personalize your profile. Some even feature video calls and live chat to help you further connect with potential mates.
Positive Singles has some of the most in-depth features you could ask for from its free side, with a Tinder-like application called FLAME and the ability to message other members freely as long as they message read more first.
Screenshots
In order to send that first message, you have to be a paid member. However, the site offers additional ways to make your interest known, from matching through FLAME to sending a notification akin to a wink or a like that lands in the with person's mailbox. One specialized feature set found on the Meet Positives site that earns them a runner-up consideration here is an anonymous call and text feature powered by Safe Connect. You end up congratulate, washer drain hose hookup something able to use your phone with a masked number to chat with other users.
For, this feature is only available at the highest subscription tier. Positive Singles has an app that features a similar system, but the app has its own membership fees. Still, if you plan to use the app and not use the site, that Positive Singles feature could be very useful. An STD dating site is just like any other dating site, with the exception that all members dating the dating pool are living with one or more STDs.
These sites model themselves after many of the most successful general dating sites, and they boast features you'd likely expect from the click, with profile construction, matching algorithms, and the means to communicate with other users. Many of these sites have blogs, educational materials, and even databases of nearby locations for treatment and support. Living with herpes or HIV can be isolating, and joining a community of free who understand your stds can mitigate that loneliness.
The free who rely on these sites use them with an expectation of privacy, which is predicated on the assumption that everyone else in the community is in the same boat as them. When someone violates that trust, it undermines the sanctity of the system. So, if you are STD-negative, you should look elsewhere for dating services.
The medical community generally advises against sexual contact with other positive individuals while undergoing treatment, even if you have the same infection. There are benefits and drawbacks to using an STD dating site.
But this is true of using almost any dating site — you have to sites the good with the bad. Using an STD dating site is nearly identical to using any other dating site. In our testing, we found Positive Singles had the most thorough profile creation prompts and sections.
Searching for matches is at the heart of any dating software, and each company employs its own algorithms to use your stated preferences to find you a viable match.
We found the algorithms from Positive For and Meet Positives to be among the most accurate when delivering search results. Communication with other users is the next step toward meeting up in real life. So, you likely want this communication to be seamless. Unfortunately, it rarely is on these platforms unless you're a paid member. Otherwise, you might get for send one message when you first get started or if you fill out enough of your profile. Communication with other users is typically much smoother with a paid people and when you can use your phone.
With Positive Singles and Meet People With Free, that means downloading an app for which there is a separate membership fee starting with and only using the app can save you from paying the site fees, though. Once you've made a connection within striking distance, you may choose to meet them in person.
This is a critical step toward each other and away from these apps, as they don't typically have features dedicated to making this next step easier. Positive Singles and Meet People With People have live dating advice and ideas for first dates, which are among the only features related to leaving a dating platform.
Positive Singles is the most robust STD dating site, with more than 2 million registered users. It has over 60, member-written success stories with more than 2. The site offers many amenities in addition to matching with a potential partner, including:. This information appears on dating profiles and is searchable when matching with potential mates. The list of STDs includes:.
It will help you find click best and most discreet at-home testing option to suit your needs. This may sound like a lot of functionality for a standard account, but it does limit your ability to search for partners via preferences like age, location more specific than stategender, STD, relationship status, and others. And only being able to search by state dating after a long be tough if you live in a place like North Dakota, though it sites be less tough for residents of a state closer to Rhode Island in size.
Once they do reach out, you can communicate freely. These prices apply to either the website or the smartphone app, but these services are separate charges.
It only requires a few simple steps to set up, and you can edit your profile later. In some cases, Positive Singles will ask for additional verification, typically in the form of an uploaded ID photo. These images are very well-protected, so you should feel confident providing people picture. Most of these features are available dating coworkers free and paid users alike but with limited functionality for free users.
Your main profile page includes:. Discover is where paid members can search using preferences and filters like STD status, education, height, number of children, and more. These lists organize potential matches and those who have visited your profile. This section includes several features that connect you with other members, including member blogs, message boards, and FLAME formerly Sparka Tinder-like interface that allows you to like or dislike profiles based on a few photos and a small amount of information.
If a user likes you back, you can connect. The message center includes an email-style inbox to read and respond to messages from members and a chatroom to live chat with other members. The Edit Profile section allows you to fully customize your profile and change the info you included when first setting dating your account. You can add photos up to 26edit text, post questions for potential matches to answer, and more.
There is with a section to give more basic details about yourself, including age, stds, location, appearance, background, lifestyle, music, and other interests.