I am a divorced middle-age male and I date. I worry about people not telling if there is something I could get from being intimate with them. What I do is, once it is clear that there is the possibility of being naked and intimate (you know, when the kissing becomes foreplay and she looks at you the way she would look at a piece in a Tiffany’s counter), I jokingly share: ‘I just want you to know that I am healthy, I have no transmittable disease and the only STD I ever had was gonorrhea when I was 18, which was cured with antibiotics … (smile and small laugh and I then continue) is there any health situation I should be aware of (big smile and arched highbrows)? …. I think this approach has done more to keep me healthy than hopping the other person would come forward ….. and yes, some people did share their not-so-pristine health condition, including Herpes and Hepatitis C …

For Catherine: Herpes is a virus. Viruses live as long as you do. The Herpes virus is transmittable once active. It is active when it has visibly migrated to the original site of infection and you can see sores. It is active when it sheds it's skin. This active stage is not visible.

For people who on't have it who are in love with someone who does, see an infectious diseases doctor and discuss ways of protecting yourself.

Dear Salon Editors ~

Please assign one or more of your excellent writers to a multifaceted, in-depth series on sex. Social, emotional, medical, behavioral, economic, psychological, philosophical, developmental ~ all angles need urgent attention.

"Asymptomatic shedding" is a theoretical category invented by doctors/scientists who are trying to explain how some people contracted herpes when their infected partners were not undergoing an outbreak. But there is another, simpler, explanation for this phenomenon: the infected partners *are* undergoing a minor outbreak, and they are lying about it.

I've had herpes for fifteen years. Had a lot of unprotected sex with a number of girlfriends during that same period. Never had sex during an outbreak. And guess what? I've never given herpes to anyone. If asymptomatic shedding were a reality, then this would be close to impossible.

While I suppose I can't insist that asymptomatic shedding never happens, it must be extremely rare--certainly rare enough to give the lie to Mayo Clinic's claim that genital herpes, is "very common and highly contagious whether you have an open sore or not."

That is bullshit.

Sorry, but Asymptomatic shedding is for real. Drug trials of valtrex given to a mix of HSV positive partners as supressive therapy measured the amount of virus being shed by both women and men. Some were given placibo, others the drug. They found that women espechially shed the virus on a regular basis, weather they had an outbreak or not, but that using valtrex siginifigantly reduced viral shedding. When both partners used the drug, one positive one not, there was a 99% effective rate of preventing the spread of the virus. That number dropped to around 50% with the placibo group.

So if your using daily supressive therapy, good for you. Your protecting your partner(s). But dont be a fool and think you know better than science on this one. Knowledge is power.

If every single person who is infected today never had sex for the rest of their lives? I think that's the way we need to go. Everyone should be tested, and then all those who are infected can be sequestered for the rest of their lives, and when they're all dead, the virus will die with them. They can all have sex with each other, of course, because it doesn't matter.

I think it's a great plan. Who's with me?

And you wonder why I don't tell people? Because of people like the commenter below!

I contracted herpes in 1985 from my 'first true love' who didn't tell me he had it until after I got out of the hospital. Yes, my first outbreak put me in the hospital. It just happend to coincide with a meningitis outbreak. So. I had them both at exactly the same time. Ah, yes, I'll never forget the doctor telling me, "You'll either be alive tomorrow, or you won't" and I was laying on a gurney in a hallway because I wasn't go to be admitted anyway since I didn't have health insurance.

I hear about people that have the initial outbreak and never have another one ever again. I envy you.

There were times when there were only maybe 10 clear days A MONTH for me. My outbreaks appear in various location around my vagina, on my anus (insult to injury, on top of fissures/roids) on my spine/tailbone (nerve endings) And they feel like...migraines, for lack of a better discription. They ache. I remember my friend (who has the one outbreak and never again kind of hepres) and I drove out to a park for a hike and when we got there as we were sitting in the car I told her I was having the spine outbreak. I told her since I was sitting awkwardly. Then I asked her if she wanted to see the soar. It is about at the small of my back, in between cheeks. She looked and was shocked. "How do you even walk!!??"

It is what it is. I have to walk, hike, rune skip and play. Hepres can infect your eyes, your brain and can infect ANYWHERE there is broken skin.

I have been clean and sober for 15 years, so I have dealt with issues and challenges that were life threatening and I'm still here.

I tell my partners Before I have sex. I have found that red marine algae is an effective treatment. I am on a very limited income and I believe that dietary changes and learning to cope with stress with excercise are helpful.

But, some of use just have lame immune systems. I prop mine up the best I know how and go on with my life.

Having said that, I live alone, am single and don't date much...for various reasons.