Because of misinformation and misconceptions, dating with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) can be challenging. You may wonder when to disclose your STD status or worry that your STD will be a dealbreaker for your new partner.
The CDC estimates that around 20% of people in the U.S. have at least one sexually transmitted infection (STI). If you’re living with an STD, you’re certainly not alone, and finding a partner with an STD may take away some of the worry associated with dating.
PositiveSingles helps with STD dating. To have a profile on the site, you must have at least one STD and be willing to date others who also have STDs. But is the site worth it? Can you find romance? Is the product worth the cost? Read our review to find out the answers to these questions and more.
Pros
- Over 2 million registered members, making successful matches more likely
- Create a profile and explore the site for free (with limited access)
- Community resources – clinic locations, blog posts, and message boards
- Protect your identity – verify your account and easily report other members
- Contact a live dating advisor to get help with matching and meeting up
- An equally robust mobile app with additional features
- Read over 60,000 success stories
- Create both public and private photo albums
Cons
- Limited gender options for profiles and preferences (woman, man, couple)
- Restricted search and message capabilities for standard (free) users
- Mobile app premium account costs more than site membership per month
- Choose between the site or the app – profiles are not transferable
- Slow site loading times
Bottom line
PositiveSingles offers those living with an STD the opportunity to meet others in the same situation for romance, friendship, and support. It is currently the biggest and most well-known STD dating site, expanding its dating pool and giving you the best chance to connect. In addition to dating, it offers resources that can help you receive care, get questions answered, and feel like part of a community.
PositiveSingles
PositiveSingles is our overall top choice for STD dating sites. Their large member population and community resources set this site apart.
PositiveSingles boasts over 60,000 member-written success stories and millions of member conversations. Odds are in your favor here if you’re looking for love within the positive community.
Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions involving staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.
Our team has spent hundreds of hours testing and researching your online therapy options, and we are constantly updating our reviews based on the latest developments. We try our best to provide readers with an unbiased analysis of the services we test. We base our analysis around adherence to quality, medical evidence, and health standards. We ask ourselves a simple question: would we recommend this product or service to our family and friends?
Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this review was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.
PositiveSingles is currently the most popular and most robust STD dating site. Established in 2001, the site has over 2 million registered users with over 2.5 million member conversations each month. Over 60,000 members have written success stories about finding love, romance, and friendship on PositiveSingles. It happens to be our team’s top choice among STD dating sites right now in 2023; visit our comprehensive guide to these dating sites to learn more about how they compare.
The site does not cater to a specific STD. Instead, choose your STD from a list when setting up an account. Your STD status shows in your profile, and you search for potential partners based on their STD status. The list of STDs includes:
- HSV-1 cold sore
- HSV-1 genital
- HSV-2 cold sore
- HSV-2 genital
- Herpes – unsure
- HPV
- HIV
- Hepatitis B
- Hepatitis C
- Chlamydia
- Thrush
- Syphilis
- Gonorrhea
- Other STD
Like mainstream dating sites, create a profile that includes details about your personality, interests, lifestyle, and any other details you wish to provide. Upload photos of yourself and customize your profile to attract potential mates. Browse member profiles, match with those that interest you, message other daters, and develop relationships.
In addition to assistance with dating, PositiveSingles includes many other amenities that members can use. For example, it offers live customer support for help with technical issues. Other amenities include:
- Live dating advisor: Provides advice about matching and going on dates
- Dating advice: Suggestions from other users about effective dating
- Treatment stories: Information from other members about STD care
- STD Q&A: A forum to ask your STD questions and get answers from the community
- Care locations: A list of STD-friendly clinics and doctors submitted by other members
- Blogs: Create your own blog or browse the 20,000 blog posts published per month
PositiveSingles also offers a mobile dating app for iOS. See the section below for full details about what the app provides.
Insider Tip: Are you due for STD testing? Check out our comprehensive guide to at-home STD testing to find the best option for you.
It’s free to create a profile on PositiveSingles. But, if you want to use the site’s full functionality, you have to pay a membership fee.
- 1 month: $29.95 (automatically renews each month)
- 3 months: $59.95
- 6 months: $95.95
A standard (free) profile allows you to explore some of the site’s features, but the types of searching you can perform are limited. You also can’t send and receive messages from all members. Here’s what you can do with a standard profile:
- Upload photos to a public and private album
- Search for matches by location
- Add profiles to a list of favorites
- Send unlimited winks – a quick way to let someone know you’re interested
- View which users favorite, wink at, or message you
- Respond to messages from premium members
If you pay for a membership, get full access to all of the site’s features. As a premium member, you can access all of the standard features plus:
- Send and receive messages from all users
- Use the 24-hour chatroom
- Enable security and privacy options
- View reverse matches – members who match your preferences
- See when a member last logged in
- Use enhanced search features
In our experience, membership is well worth the price.
Setting up a profile on PositiveSingles is similar to creating a profile on any other dating site. Enter some personal details and a profile photo. Then, verify your login credentials. Once you log in, go back and edit your profile.
Here are the steps to get started:
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Enter personal info. Select your gender, age, height, ethnicity, relationship status, location, STD, and the gender of your potential matches.
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Create a profile headline. This is the first bit of info other members will see, so make it eye-catching.
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Write the About Me and About My Match sections. Compose a few sentences that show your personality and let other members know who you are and what you’re looking for in a partner.
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Upload a profile photo. Choose a picture representing your personality since it’s the first picture potential matches see.
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Verify mobile number and email address. The site texts and emails you verification codes. Enter them into the site to continue.
Your profile includes many features to search profiles, create lists, match with other members, and send messages.
Profile homepage
Your profile homepage allows you to quickly search member profiles using gender, age, and location preferences. View other members’ latest activities on a timeline of profile updates, a listing of other new members, and profiles you might like.
Discover
Perform a more thorough search of member profiles using preferences like STD, height, relationship status, education, number of children, and more. Access these search preferences with a premium account.
My Lists
You may find yourself browsing and matching with multiple members. This section helps you keep track of your potential partners by organizing their profiles into lists. For example, you can see a list of members who have viewed your profile, winked at you, liked your photos, or answered your questions. Add profiles to a favorites list and see a list of all profiles you’ve liked. Manage your photo sharing by viewing photo album requests and private album access lists.
Community
Connect with the PositiveSingles community by reading member blogs, browsing message boards, or accessing the Help Center. This section also includes Spark, a Tinder-like feature that allows you to “swipe left” or “swipe right” on user profiles.
Messages
Access your inbox to read and send messages or use the chatroom to live chat with other members.
Edit profile
Customize your profile by giving more basic details, posting questions for matches to answer, asking the community questions, providing your COVID-19 vaccination status, and editing your headline, About Me, or About My Match sections. You can also add 26 public and 26 private photos and a video introduction.
Privacy settings
Personalize your privacy so you feel comfortable. Choose to show or hide your profile from certain members. Premium members can browse profiles anonymously and hide online status from other members. View and edit your subscription and notifications in this section as well.
Community resources
Access PositiveSingles community resources from your profile, including live customer support, a live dating advisor, a forum for dating advice, a list of care locations, and an STD Q&A.
PositiveSingles takes many steps to ensure that your information is confidential. They use a privacy safeguarder to protect users from litigation if disputes arise. The company won’t sell or rent personal information to a third party.
There are steps you can take to secure your info. Report profiles you suspect violate community terms of use, and verify your identity within 48 hours of creating a profile by uploading a picture of a photo ID.
If you pay with a debit or credit card, the purchase will show on your statement as SuccessfulMatch for confidentiality.
The PositiveSingles app is just as robust as the site. Its high ratings by users are a testament to how user-friendly it is. The app includes many of the same features as the website, with a few differences.
Download and try the app for free. A PositiveSingles app premium membership costs more than the web version and automatically renews. To upgrade, you’ll pay:
- 1 month: $33.99
- 3 months: $69.99
- 6 months: $109.99
Unlike the site, the app does not include:
- STD Q&A
- Live dating advisor
- List of STD care locations
In their place, the app includes several features that do not appear on the site:
- Voice chat – a private chatroom using voice instead of text
- Video calls – a private video chat between two members
- Drift bottle – a place to send and receive anonymous messages
This app is excellent. Our team only wishes that membership would provide access to both the website and the app, rather than one or the other.
You may have noticed that we use the term STD (sexually transmitted disease) in this article and other articles about similar dating sites. We do this because the sites we review also use the term.
However, we acknowledge that some people prefer to use STI (sexually transmitted infection) and that STD and STI are often used interchangeably. The difference is this: an STI can cause an STD. The word “disease” has negative connotations and implies that an illness has symptoms, which not all STIs have. It’s a nuanced distinction, but the terms do have different meanings and undertones.
At Innerbody Research, we customize our evaluation criteria depending on the type and nature of the service or product. For PositiveSingles, we have five areas that we use for our evaluation, including:
Quality: How well does the company deliver its core service(s) to the customer? Is the quality of the service high enough that we would recommend it to loved ones without hesitation?
Value: Are you getting your money’s worth? Are there any hidden costs or charges? Does the company offer discounts or free services to our readers?
Customer Support: How well does the company provide information about its product or service? How clearly are options presented?
Privacy: Will your data be stored securely? Could your data ever be shared without your permission?
Speed: How quickly will you be able to access the service from the moment you sign up?