DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: This is really strange and I don’t know where to start, but to get to the point I have herpes. Not oral which is common but genital which isn’t as common (HSV2).
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I am well aware of the stats with 1/6 people having it or the fact that it’s higher in certain countries or demographics but that’s not why I’m messaging you. I got it because I recently lost my virginity (I’m 20). The woman I slept with was a hookup and she claimed she didn’t know, but she ghosted me after asking about it further. I feel awful, suffice to say, and I feel completely dirty, and to be frank, I feel unworthy for any woman. I feel like I don’t deserve to have crushes or desires and that any woman who would maybe like me will automatically be turned off because of how gross I am.
I could date women with herpes sure but seeing how few people actually know they have it (I think 80-90 percent) makes that difficult and quite frankly I don’t know where to look. Part of me just wants to say screw it and lie about having it and just take meds and use a condom, but I know that’s wrong because of the risk of transmitting it and putting any potential partner in the same situation I was in. But since there’s no cure and the massive stigma against it I just feel destroyed and that anything I do is in vain.
I’m a bit disorganized saying this but it’s just truly heartbreaking for me because I know so few women would want to be with me including one I have recently talked to and vibed with if I disclose that I have this.
Thank you for reading
-Infected
DEAR INFECTED: OK, I’m going to start off with my usual statement regarding the herpes virus – a position that’s shared by Planned Parenthood, the Yale School of Medicine, the National Institute of Health and pretty much every medical organization: it’s a skin condition. It’s an uncomfortable one and one that’s unsightly, but it’s a skin condition and one that nobody even really thought about until the 60s. Consider how you would feel if you had a cold sore. Odds are, you’d be annoyed about it if you had a date coming up, but otherwise it’d be more akin to having a zit pop up at an inconvenient time. You wouldn’t be happy, but you wouldn’t be having this sort of “my life is over” reaction. You’d dab some Abreva or other over-the-counter topical treatment on it and hope it goes away in four days instead of seven.
Well, that’s basically the same for genital herpes. It’s unsightly and uncomfortable and it can be dangerous for a pregnant person to get infected. But otherwise? It’s just really inconvenient. The stigma is radically out of proportion to the actual impact of the virus and most of it comes down to the idea that it’s “incurable”. But the fact is that both forms of herpes are very common and most of the time, both of them are a non-issue. Many people who have HSV-2 never have symptoms, which is why so many in the population have it. It’s likely that your hook-up partner was telling you the truth when she said she had no idea. I suspect her ghosting you had nothing to do with her being dishonest and everything to do with the freak out you were having.
Right now, you’re reacting to the stigma surrounding herpes, not the reality, and that’s what’s making you panic. The problem is, this sort of freak out is part of how the stigma gets spread; treating having this virus like it makes you “dirty” and “unworthy” for having a condition that millions of people have is the issue. When you act like you’ve been cursed for some moral failing, then other people are going to follow your lead. So what you need to do right now is take a long deep breath, feel the f—k out of your feels, then acknowledge that this situation is less than ideal… but it’s not a life-ruining experience either. Quite frankly, an allergy to sesame seeds would have a much bigger and more significant impact to your life than this would. This just seems worse because it involves your junk.
You know how you talk about the stigma surrounding it? Well, now you’re contributing to the stigma. If you want to reduce or break the stigma around herpes, then that change has to start with you. You have to be willing to say “yup, this isn’t a big deal” in the way you live your life. You don’t need to be an evangelist for folks who have the virus, but you definitely should be one of the folks who say “enh, I’d rather not have it, but it is what it is.”
The first thing I suggest is going to your local Planned Parenthood, talking to a doctor or nurse there and getting a full rundown on what having HSV-2 actually means. Getting facts from a medical professional – not Doctor Google, not Doctor Reddit and certainly not a loudmouth with an advice column, an actual doctor with a sex-positive outlook – will go a long way towards easing the panic you’re feeling. I would also recommend getting on valacyclovir or some other medication to minimize both the likelihood of future outbreaks and reducing the risk of transmission.
The next thing I would suggest is to watch the TED Talk by Ella Dawson about being diagnosed with herpes, what it did to her life and how she learned to handle it. She also has a number of valuable resources on her website, including links to her memoir and advice she has for people who find themselves in a similar position as she did. One of the things that she’s very clear about is that this didn’t ruin her life; in many ways, it made things better, especially since it meant that she learned to be more mindful in her relationships and her approach to sex. I think that your hearing about another person’s experiences and why it’s not the end of the world will help immensely.
The final thing I would suggest is that you need to take a second and think things through. You have herpes. It’s just a data point about you, not something that defines everything about you unless you allow it to. If you treat it as definitional, then other people will as well. If you treat it as just one data point – something you have to take into consideration the way you would take allergies to peanuts into consideration – then other people will understand.
Yes, there’re people who won’t understand. There always will be. But there’re people who also think that having a peanut allergy or a gluten intolerance or who can’t have dairy products is a sign of weakness or moral failure too. We don’t treat those attitudes like they’re correct and we should be ashamed for having those conditions; if anything, we tend to get pissed at them for being assholes.
But pretty much everyone who’s sexually active has likely been in contact with someone who has HSV-2 without realizing it precisely because of this stigma. It’s the stigma that makes people less likely to disclose, less likely to recognize an outbreak when they have one and less likely to go to the doctor when they do. It also means that the people who do contract the virus are less likely to take necessary precautions to limit exposure and transmission… thus spreading the virus even further.
Now I want to be fair to the folks who will avoid dating you because they don’t want to get exposed to HSV-2. That’s not unreasonable; it’s not like having it is a great time with some minor drawbacks. It’s fair for people to say “ok this is a deal breaker for me,” just as it is for people to say that about dating someone with an inconvenient schedule, or whose politics or religion aren’t compatible or literally any other thing that they choose to filter people over.
The ones who decide that they don’t want to date you are people who are demonstrating that they’re not people you want to date. You want to date someone who understands the risks – which, with treatment and protection are low – and that they’ve been facing the risks before without realizing it. Sex is a full contact sport, after all, and it comes with risks. Anyone who has sex is accepting that these risks exist. We all do our best to minimize them wherever we can, how we can, to find a level of risk we find acceptable… but the risks are always there. They’re never zero.
Because here’s the thing: someone who’s worth dating is someone who is going to understand that this isn’t a big deal and isn’t going to act like you’re Ebola Eddie or Tuberculosis Ted. Someone who’s going to reject you because of this one aspect of your total self is someone who’s wrong for you. And while that can sting, it’s far better that they self-select out of your dating pool before they find out that they have herpes – likely from someone else they’d dated before you, especially if you’ve been careful about minimizing exposure and transmission – and blow up in your face about it.
I don’t expect you to turn around and be ok with having herpes right away. You’re going to need some time to process things. But right now, a lot of that fear is just fear, formed out of a lack of information and an abundance of misinformation. Taking time to educate yourself and seeing that you’re hardly alone is going to be the first step towards changing how you feel and making your life better.
It’s scary right now, I know, but it isn’t nearly as bad as it seems. You will feel better. Things will be better. You’ll be ok. I promise.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com