**Note: This post is sponsored by Luxurity, Luxurious Security for Sexual Pleasure.

Oral sex is one of the most common sexual activities in the United States today. In fact, a majority of American adults under age 50 say they have both given and received oral sex in the past year.

Despite how common oral sex is and the fact that several STIs can be transmitted through it—including gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, and HPV—few people take safety precautions when they engage in this activity. This is concerning, especially as we have learned more about how oral HPV infections can potentially lead to throat cancer.

So what steps can you take to protect yourself? For starters, there’s the HPV vaccine, which is a fantastic, but underutilized tool. However, even if you’ve received it, this vaccine only protects against one STI. A barrier method is therefore also necessary for more comprehensive protection, and this is only going to become even more important as the threat of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea rises, and as we see rates of STIs increase more broadly.

For mouth-penis contact, condoms are the obvious solution. But what about oral contact with a vulva or anus? In this case, dental dams have traditionally been the most-recommended tool.

In case you aren’t familiar, dental dams are thin latex sheets that are used to create a temporary barrier between the mouth and genitals. However, they are not often used, in part, because unlike a condom, two hands are really necessary to hold a dam in place, which can make them a little cumbersome and not very sexy to use. This is likely part of the reason why one study of women who have sex with women found that just 1 in 10 had ever used a dental dam before, while only 1 in 50 said they use dams often.