Overview:

The rates of sexually-transmitted infections among young Black people have soared over the last decade, due in part to states and school districts restricting sex ed in the classroom.

Oluwatosin Tubo is one of the hottest Black male performers on OnlyFans, and his handle — Gucci3rdLeg — is a big clue about the nature of his popularity. People pay to see his anatomy, not his acting.

But Gucci had a lot of drama on his hands this week after Danae Davis, a former OnlyFans porn collaborator, called him out for having sex with her on camera but keeping an alleged active genital herpes outbreak on his legendary third leg to himself. 

LEARN MORE: Syphilis Is on the Rise. Here’s What You Need to Know 

She then posted a tearful video to X accusing Gucci — whose so-called “body count” allegedly totals more than 3,000 partners — of exposing “dozens upon dozens” of women to HSV-2, a sexually transmitted infection that can’t be cured, only controlled.

First-Time Encounter

Back in February, “Gucci3rdLeg burdened me with HSV-2,” Davis sobbed. “He told me he was going to send me his test results and he never did. He’s done this to so many girls. There are so many girls with similar stories as me,” especially women without much OnlyFans experience. 

“He’s preying on the young! He’s preying on the new!” she said.

To push back, on Monday, Gucci did a live interview with DJ Akademiks and streamer Adin Ross and showed the camera test results on his cell phone from 2023. The image he showed indicated that he was negative for HSV-2, but positive for HSV-1, a common, less serious virus that causes oral herpes — better known as cold sores. 

He’s done this to so many girls. There are so many girls with similar stories as me.”

Denae Davis, Onlyfans creator

“It does not mean you have (genital) herpes,” Gucci said. He told Ross he has “never” tested positive for herpes, and said Davis mistook a small razor cut for a herpes blister.

Asked why he didn’t get tested in 2024, Gucci said, “Two out of three people already have HSV.” Because it’s so common among OnlyFans content creators, he says, “we usually do not even test for that because everybody already has it.” 

Gucci also said he has officially retired from OnlyFans, swore he got tested the minute he heard Davis’s allegations, and promised to reveal the results on Ross’s show within a few days. He hasn’t come back since. 

Davis first hinted at the scandal on Oct. 10 on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Just because that man has a ton of followers doesn’t mean collab with him… Genital herpes is spreading in this industry like wildfire.” The next day, Davis posted several emotional videos across her social media feeds about her alleged experience with Gucci. 

The scandal blew up on young Black folks’ social media feeds, putting Gucci, Davis, and STIs in a harsh spotlight. While a lot of people slammed Gucci, there was more online slut-shaming and victim-blaming of Davis, with many saying that, as an OnlyFans creator, she should have known better.

Fallout of Misinformation

But experts say the fallout of the Team 3rdLeg and Team Davis battle is putting a lot of misinformation out there about herpes and sexual health.

It also underscores the growing gaps in knowledge for Black teens and young adults. Some of them left high school with limited, restricted knowledge about reproductive health; others had no sex-ed classes at all. 

Dr. Eryn Wanyonyi, a women’s health expert and obstetrics and gynecology professor at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, says she sees that information gap on the job every day. 

“I interact with young people and people of all ages who have misperceptions about STI,” says  Wanyonyi, who is a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, a nonprofit public policy organization. “I have been able to share correct information through open conversations with the goal of people being able to make informed decisions about their bodies.”

But conservatives aren’t making it easy: 17 states, most of them red, require the teaching of “abstinence-only” sex-ed classes in high school. Meanwhile, 2024 could set a record for the number of state legislative proposals to cut or curb those classes. 

Filling the Sex-Ed Vacuum

That creates a vacuum where “social media and the lack of comprehensive sexual education in schools both play an enormous role in the spread of misinformation about STIs,” Wanyonyi says. Still, she says, without a core understanding of sex-ed among schools, misinformation will be “perpetuated in all other mediums, especially on social media.”

RELATED: How Sex Education Is Failing Black Youth

Shaming Davis doesn’t help: conversations around STIs, Wanyonyi says, “are successful when people know that the discussion is confidential and meant to be non-judgmental.”

In the meantime, Gucci has gone back underground, and Davis is coping with her new reality. After filming the scenes with him, Davis says she first noticed she had her own outbreak five days later when it became painful to have sex. She blamed Gucci, whom she says was the first non-romantic partner she had collaborated with on camera. 

“It was his job as a person who knows,” Davis said in a live interview with Ross not long after Gucci’s appearance on the stream. “I don’t care what you say, Gucci. Respectfully, you know you have lied.”

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