I remember working as a receptionist in a student health clinic when a young woman came in during her herpes outbreak. She was in tears from severe pain. I was shocked at the time because I'd never realized herpes could be so painful. It was obviously something that had a horrible impact on her life, and that's even without the issues of contagion, cancer risk, etc.

Do protect yourselves. Do work hard to educate the young and immortal. It's a horrible price to pay for "freedom".

I'm presently shocked by the regressive slip-back into a hookup game where even very smart, educated young women are inhibited about asserting that their male partners must use condoms. I don't know what happened but I think the pornofication of everything is destroying our kids. Culture is directly implicated in how most of them behave...so why would "bitches and ho's" deserve the protection of a condom anyway?

I think they internalize all this ugliness, and abandon themselves to risk because the media drums into tem that they're not worth anything anyway, except as bodies for titillation or gratification and now and then as murder victims for docudramas.

I'm rambling. But it's a real continuum.

I'll reiterate what others have said: Salon, please consider an indepth series on sex.

Our Moral Superiority about Sex is Proving Deadly

by Sarah Boseley, Guardian UK, 11/24/06

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1124-23.htm

My husband and I have been together for 13 years. He went out had an affair, supposedly a one-night-stand. He used a condom, never had a sore...I now have genital herpes. And because I have M.S.--a compromised immune system, it means I have sores 3 weeks out of every month, vaginal intercourse or stimulation is too paingful, I get recurrent fevers, post-herpetic pain, exquisitely painful burning pain, running down my legs. My sex life is done.

So yeah, people have a responsibility to tell their "partners".

--hapless victim

See American Social Health Association (ASHA) web site:

http://www.ashastd.org/herpes/herpes_learn_testing.cfm

Good resource for info about various other STDs/STIs as well.

Please people. No one who is having casual sex is going to tell their partner. It is Caveat Emptor folks! Face it!

A fact from someone who knows: passing herpes on without a sore is a MYTH. What isn't a myth tho is that some people (read: men) don't know when they have a sore.

Another fact: herpes is NOT really that big a deal. Quit making it one. You dont get sick or die from it. Some people have more and more painful outbreaks than others, and some go years without an outbreak and even when they have one is very mild.

And another one: lots of people have it.

And now, I know this, because I got herpes from a guy who just thought he had a little irritation down there mabye from his pants zipper (so he said). I was the fool who didn't use a rubber lo 20+ years ago.

I was devastated. All the shame around it made it very embarassing. So I told my partners. You should have seen the look on their face. Like I was a leper.

So I stopped telling and used rubbers every time. Ok almost every time. I wasn't always telling the truth but when you just meet someone and they are having sex with you, should they expect that kind of honesty? It is called a risk. BUT I know I have never transmitted it to anyone because I know when I am about to have an outbreak (those in the know will know the "tingly" sensation). Oh and trust me, when someone gives it to you, you hunt them down if needed to confront them.

On the other hand, when I have developed an intimate relationship (emotionally so that is), before we stop using rubbers, I DO tell.

That is the reality.

The difference is that you get over the flu. It's gone. You can't give it to anyone. You never ever get over herpes.

wrong. ignorant. incorrect. the viruses that produce flu and cold symptom are always present in your body, just like the herpes virus is always in your body. but you only go around saying you have a cold when you have symptoms. and you only have herpes, really, when you have symptoms.

hsv1 causes cold sores. you probably have this virus. do you go around telling anyone who wants to kiss you that you have herpes? of course not. you only warn people when the virus is active.

it's the same virus, idiot.

Thank you, Cary for your thoughtful, refreshing, funny and moral response to this very common dillemma. Recognizing the humor of the situation (or the potential for humor) for those of us that have this embarrassing condition, always helps put me at ease when that moment comes to have the cool herpes talk. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the reaction the other person will have (I have yet to meet my kindred soul who jumps up from the table, confessing, "Yes! I too have Herpes and didn't know how to disclose it to you, thought you'd be freaked out, wow, what a relief!" The we would have a great laugh, followed by gloriously protected sex, satisfied that we respected each other with our disclosures. I have my doubts of that remarkable large figure of people who "don't know" they have herpes until they pass it on to someone else. This is only an anecdotal observation on my behalf, but I think that the "I didn't know" song & dance may be an misused excuse for people who have too rough a time with the "disclosure moment" and sometimes will make new mistakes (the ones that got us Herpes in the firstplace) by endangering a new partner. As somone who has been sexually active with men even after I confessed the embarrassing disease I know how tempting it is to not want to deal with it or to think the conversation can be delayed as long as you are having sex with a condom. It is remarkable how my selfishness of not wanting to have to have one less-than-pleasant conversation with a new romantic interest made me forget that nothing less than full disclosure before getting naked is not fair to another human being. And fairness, disclosure, treating others the way you prefer to be treated, are all things that are paramount to an ethical, good person worthy of a romantic, sexual relationship. Most of us with Herpes understand that since many of our infections involved lack of disclosure or straight-up-lying from people we trusted with our bodies. Out of this entire mess, I at least know that I want to be a person with Herpes that is responsible and honest. I want to prevent anything that like this happening because of me, and I wholeheartedly take on that responsibility as someone with a lifelong, STD.