consider this a poll

[chhotii]

On koshmom's suggestion, I am asking a direct question. I've been too lame to sign up as a paid user, so I don't think I can do an official "poll", but your feedback is requested. (Anonymous ok.)

This is apropos nothing.

Please indicate which of these most closely matches your feelings/opinions on the subject of "herpes" (HSV-2, to be precise):

1. I would never date someone with herpes. Surely a blister on Mr. Happy would be a fate worse than death.

2. If the right person came along, a minor skin condition wouldn't stand between us. Not that I'd rush into being physical with someone with herpes-- better to take things slow, and be sure that they are the right person, before risking anything.

3. I am impervious! I have genitalia of stainless steel! C'mon and ooze all over me, baby!

Thanks.

Comments

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

2, shading towards 3.

This sort of thing can be managed and dealt with, not with 100% safety, but with a reasonable level.

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

I'm a solid 2. If the person is not wildly promiscous, and we can use appropriate protection/do everything we can to avoid exposure, then I wouldn't let that stand in the way of being with someone special.

FWIW, I don't have any STDs, but I have a heart condition and people have sometimes backed off from me because of it. I know it's very different, and there is more of a social stigma to STDs but it has hurt/been hard at times.

*hugs*

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Since I have genital herpes, I am obviously biased, but I'm pretty sure that before I caught it, if I wanted to be fluid-bonded with someone, I wouldn't let that stand in my way. After all, it can't really do you any harm. The worst part is the social stigma.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

There is also the difference between someone with herpes who doesn't have outbreaks foten or at all and someone in the first years outbreaking all the time. It's risk assesment.

2.25

[totient]

Something like 20% of adult Americans have asymptomatic HSV2 (and nearly everyone has HSV1). For all I know, I'm one of them, and I'm not too worried about it as I don't plan on getting pregnant :). I generally tend not to get skin lesions (this is nice with regard to poison ivy and HSV1 but made diagnosing the chickenpox difficult when I was a kid) so I'm not as concerned about the increased transmission rate of other diseases during outbreaks.

That said, I'll avoid direct contact with actual blisters, thanks.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Right, and someone like me, who takes Valtrex every single day. :-)

[tb]

I'm also in the 2 to 3 camp. I'd avoid certain kinds of contact with someone who is having an active outbreak, so it's not quite "ooze all over me", but I don't see it as something requiring a moon suit (unless that's your kink).

[frotz.livejournal.com]

2+. I'll skip the active sores, thanks.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

So a follow-up for you. Do you perceive much social stigma in THIS crowd? Who (besides Crash) leans towards 1 (that you know of)? (This is just for future reference. I am SO not looking for any additional involvements at this point.)

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

I would rather not name the fussy people by name, but I can only think of two other people in Elbonia (didn't know about Crash), one male, one female, for whom the fact that I had herpes meant that they refused to have intercourse with my lovers. I have only been personally rejected because of it once, recently, by someone who is new to the crowd. OTOH, I have only had one lover in this community who, bless his heart, was willing to go down on me without a barrier. *pout* In my experience, it's not risky behavior.

[dhs.livejournal.com]

Let's try this again. (I responded to this earlier, but didn't really answer the question.)

2.

I've dated several people who have had herpes. So far as I know I don't have it, but it is also possible that the tests just don't show it. (Last I checked the herpes tests were not particularly definitive.)

[quietann.livejournal.com]

2

However, if someone with (genital) herpes didn't tell me they had it, I'd be pretty mad. or, as was the case when I dated a guy with herpes (pre-elbows) and he told me that it was *my* responsibility to not get it from him, that he'd just do whatever he wanted unless I "examined" him and noticed something and told him not to... well, that was just completely unreasonable.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I'm a firm believer with 2. Respectful of outbreaks, to be sure, but I figure if I don't already have it, I'm probably going to get it in my lifetime.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

What an ineffective way to divide up the responsibility. Frankly, your ex sounds like kind of a jerk.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

oh, this was the *least* of his sins. It all makes for an entertaining (at this point, almost 10 years later) "Boyfriend from Hell" story....

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I'm one of the more squeamish people, it seems. I'm somewhere between 1 and 2, depending upon the situation.

In the case of me having potentially direct involvement with someone who knowingly has HSV (or HPV), if this person is someone special, then I'm in the 2 camp. This is an area where I can assess and assume the risk for myself.

In the case of my partner getting involved with someone who knowingly has HSV, however, I'm more in the 1 camp. It's not that it's "a fate worse than death," but I am currently not willing to let someone else assess and assume that kind of risk on my behalf. This is rooted in a couple of psychological issues of mine, and also in a physical issue that I have recently learned was, in fact, physical and not psychosomatic. In short, I feel that I have enough to worry about without deliberately courting another source of worry when I don't have to. It has nothing to do with what I think of people who happen to have HSV; I don't think that you or anyone else with it is "dirty" or "bad" or anything like that.

[maedbh7.livejournal.com]

Just found your journal today and thought to weigh in on this one.

2

The things is, as you probably know by now, a non-infected person is statistically more likely to catch HSV-2 from a person who *doesn't* know they have it, than they are to catch it from someone who knows that they do have it.

What I can't stand (as in, my feelings on the topic) is the hypocricy esposed by otherwise intelligent people who "will never sleep with someone infected becuase it's too risky", but who refuse to educate themselves on the diseases actual infection vectors, and yet who still continue to sleep with people-who-purport-themselves-to-be-disease-free in a blissful ignorance that this somehow makes them 100% free and clear of disease. Honeys, it doesn't work that way.

The best advice I can offer is Love who you Love. One thing having a communicable disease does for you is seperate out those who care unconditionally for your happiness/well-being and those who do not, whatever their selfish motivations. -H...

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you are more squeamish... you're answering a different question than most other people did in the other comments. Whereas other people are reacting to "what if someone I was interested in had HSV" you are reacting to "what if someone my partner was interested in had HSV"... a whole different calculus, because in that situation you get the downside but not the upside. Why take a risk so that someone else gets nookie?

Frankly, this whole second-hand risk thing is the hardest thing for me to deal with WRT poly, too.