I'm kind of new to the game and one concern I have is that even with protection, you are bound to contract STD from a provider given the nature of their business.  Can someone please share their view on the risks involved and does it happen often?  thanks team.

for your own health and for not becoming a disease vector to anyone in your personal life *and* to other providers and therefor other hobbyists.

Educate yourself regarding risks. Stay within your comfort level regarding your choice of services.

and

if you are going to play this game, you owe it to yourself and to the rest of us to get tested regularly. Every *three months* if you are very active. I recommend tSTD.org

From what I can tell, I would be safer with reputable providers than I was with the serial cheater that wasted six years of my life when I was a young man.

The nature of their business? Legitimate providers practice safer sex than most women you would pick up in a bar.

I've caught stuff from civvies before, luckily antibiotics are science fiction quality nowadays.

the key is knowing exactly where your personal preferences and comfort level of risk is.

I've been hobbying for many years, and spent 23 years in the military doing it on 5 continents and I've never caught a damn thing...unless you count hangovers.

So does everyone have this long track record doing BBBJ without STD's since professional escorts are so safe.  Or does everyone or most everyone where a condom?

but if I had to give a precentage of CBJ vs BBBJ in my life, it would probably be in the neigborhood of 10% CBJ vs 90% BBBJ.  It seems to me that given the inhospitable nature of saliva, you stand a better chance of catching something while DATY (if you're doing it right) than you do from getting an STD during a BBBJ.