Urban Beauty Myths from Your Momma Revealed

You can get diseases from toilet seats.

Truth be told, there are very few cases of people getting STD’s or any other type of ailment from toilet seats. Most STDs, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, and genital warts, are spread only through direct sexual contact with an infected person. Crabs and scabies, which are often sexually transmitted, can be passed through contact with infested items like clothes, sheets, or towels. Once they’ve left the skin, viruses immediately die. So another person would have to sit on the toilet immediately after someone with a virus, with an open sore, at the same exact spot on the seat to possibly catch something.

WebMD reported:

“To my knowledge, no one has ever acquired an STD on the toilet seat — unless they were having sex on the toilet seat!” says Abigail Salyers, PhD, president of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM).

Common cold germs, like most viruses, die rapidly, and thus may be less of a threat than you think. “Even if you come into contact with particular viruses or bacteria, you’d have to contract them in amounts large enough to make you sick,” says Judy Daly, PhD, professor of pathology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.