Would you enter a relationship with someone with genital herpes?
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Edit: Oh geez. I guess I might’ve just gotten worked up on just the stigma. Hell, I wonder if I gave it to her now. I’ve slept around way more than her.
Edit 2: I cut out the whole long story because I’m a bit embarrassed to have overthought it so much and I guess it’s not really relevant. I’ll leave the post up so maybe other anxious people can see the responses.
The spark notes version is: I loved a girl and let her go and when she came back, she and I worried about her having herpes.
No. It's life threatening to me since I'm on immunosuppressants.
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I think the thread overall has a lot of people talking about herpes in general instead of specifically genital herpes. I wonder if OP edited the title or what
Yeah sorry, I did edit the title from just herpes to genital herpes after like the first two comments. I didn’t want the post to just be all edit notes. I don’t know which type she has and I didn’t initially understand the distinction. I know she has it down there and takes daily antivirals. I think the general information is still useful however because there’s a heavy stigma and the uniformed wouldn’t likely understand the distinctions like me.
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Wow, that is quite the story. I have struggled with this question and how I would feel on either side of the equation. As a person who grew up in the conservative 90s who became a more balanced and freethinking person, I still have what might be an irrationally strong fear of STDs. This fear combined with religious conditioning around relationships kind of fucked up high school and early college for me. I was supposed to be boning the entire cheer leading team and I was learning about how angry Jesus was at my impure fantasies. My late 20s and 30s have been a lot better, but I still have a really hard time gaging risks and deciding how I feel about them so I tend to err on the side of being overly careful and miss a lot potentially great experiences with people. I think getting tested with a new partner is always wise.
One of the other commenters said "a lifetime of pills and difficult conversations". That's one of the scary places my mind might go to, but you could still reframe it as "I'm going to have get better at communicating needs and boundaries in my relationships, especially early on". That sounds less scary and more fulfilling. I still would like to avoid getting infected.
On a positive note, the fact that she was upfront and honest about it is a good sign. I'd tread carefully but if I really meshed well with the person abd saw a medium/long term future for us, I would probably try to figure something out to make myself more comfortable in the short term, like asking her to confirm she took her meds and using protection. If she cares about you and you make it about your feelings and not blaming her.
Lastly, none of us are perfect and you might have a few oddities she doesn't find particularly pleasant. Rejecting her for something that she can't change could make her feel like she's "not good enough" or "damaged" and even if you guys don't shaboink I wouldn't want a friend or crush to feel that way. That's the shit her ex did. I think it would be better to tell her how you feel about her (positive) and express that your apprehensive about the herpes thing.
Sorry for the wall of text. Thought about it a lot thanks to church school.
As some one who was also raised religious, I relate to this hard. Sex feels really scary, but at the same time it's something I'm really curious about. Any tips for dealing with that feeling?
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66% of people have oral herpes
13% of people have genital herpes
Then you have someone give their partner head and no one can tell which kind of herpes they have without tests, because as far as I know they supposedly present the same.
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I got a vasectomy, so in a committed relationship, I don't care.
wrote last edited by [email protected]You see that is rather pertinent information.
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Edit: Oh geez. I guess I might’ve just gotten worked up on just the stigma. Hell, I wonder if I gave it to her now. I’ve slept around way more than her.
Edit 2: I cut out the whole long story because I’m a bit embarrassed to have overthought it so much and I guess it’s not really relevant. I’ll leave the post up so maybe other anxious people can see the responses.
The spark notes version is: I loved a girl and let her go and when she came back, she and I worried about her having herpes.
It’s ridiculous that we don’t have a cure or at least a vaccine for Herpes at this point. Some scientists believe it’s a major contributor to Alzheimer’s.
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Edit: Oh geez. I guess I might’ve just gotten worked up on just the stigma. Hell, I wonder if I gave it to her now. I’ve slept around way more than her.
Edit 2: I cut out the whole long story because I’m a bit embarrassed to have overthought it so much and I guess it’s not really relevant. I’ll leave the post up so maybe other anxious people can see the responses.
The spark notes version is: I loved a girl and let her go and when she came back, she and I worried about her having herpes.
I wanted to date a girl that had it in college so I just talked to her about it, come to find out it's not that big of a deal.
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Edit: Oh geez. I guess I might’ve just gotten worked up on just the stigma. Hell, I wonder if I gave it to her now. I’ve slept around way more than her.
Edit 2: I cut out the whole long story because I’m a bit embarrassed to have overthought it so much and I guess it’s not really relevant. I’ll leave the post up so maybe other anxious people can see the responses.
The spark notes version is: I loved a girl and let her go and when she came back, she and I worried about her having herpes.
I've you have ever made out with someone, you are already likely a carrier even if you aren't showing symptoms of any sort. It's actually on the rarer side for there to be active sores.
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Not the genital one
It's been a long time since I read about this, but aren't they really just the same thing in different places?
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Then you have someone give their partner head and no one can tell which kind of herpes they have without tests, because as far as I know they supposedly present the same.
Well unless it starts showing itself downstairs
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It’s ridiculous that we don’t have a cure or at least a vaccine for Herpes at this point. Some scientists believe it’s a major contributor to Alzheimer’s.
I mean, it infects your nerve cells. That's a tricky place for medicine for obvious reasons.
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Well unless it starts showing itself downstairs
Both kinds can infect anywhere on the body, they just each have a zonal preference.
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Both kinds can infect anywhere on the body, they just each have a zonal preference.
Right but only 13% have it down in that zone.
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Right but only 13% have it down in that zone.
No, only 13% have the kind that specializes in your genitals. Where they have it and the other kind is not a part of the static. (However it's pretty likely the numbers sort of self-balance and it ends up that about 13% of people have one of the herpes virus on/near their junk.)
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You see that is rather pertinent information.
Why? We were talking about STDs, that's the only thing my comment aims at. Plenty of ways to ensure no pregnancy happens.
