Weekend Winddown

This was written by a friend of a friend and I have edited names out but otherwise left the content intact.  I am looking forward to many more stories like this one as people realize this is the right answer.

Hi Court,

I got your name and e-mail address from my friend.   He asked me to send along something I wrote for one of my profiles about having herpes. It’s got some obscenities and vulgarities in it, and it’s a bit long — I don’t know what the standards are for WeekendWinddown, but if it’s something you might want to publish on there, feel free to edit as needed.

I called it “Full Disclosure” on my blog.   Anyway, the copy is pasted below, do with it what you will. 

Enjoy the weather while it lasts.

I’ve been debating for a while whether to disclose something about myself … and how to disclose it. And I finally decided it was in my best interest (and the best interest of those interested in me) to just lay it out there, because there isn’t enough discussion about this issue in the U.S., and there’s a lot of fear surrounding it.

When I was 18 years old, my boyfriend at the time (the shitty one, for regular readers) gave me a present that will last a lifetime: the herpes simplex virus. I was in a closed, monogamous relationship (as far as I knew), and I was living with him at the time, but I still struggled for years with feelings of shame and guilt about this condition.

I broke up with the boyfriend a few years later and engaged in one of my favorite periods of my life: singledom. I had a great time, but (obviously), I was really careful about with whom I was sleeping. I guess that’s one good thing about herpes; you don’t (usually) end up sleeping with people you can’t talk to about it. I can’t say I was 100 percent honest with everyone who was allowed in my pants at that time, which I do feel bad about, but what can I say … I was young and nervous and thought it spelled The End of my sex life.

I had not discussed it with my current husband the first time we slept together. We’d been friends for years before we ever hooked up, and our first time kind of went straight from hand-holding on his couch to some serious fucking in his bedroom in no time flat, zero-to-sixty type situation. So we had sex before I felt I had a good opportunity to tell him about it. And then I was completely guilt-ridden. He was one of my best friends, and I knew he had every right to be totally pissed off at me and tell me to never call him again for what I’d done. I was really worried about that, but I also knew that if I didn’t tell him, we would keep sleeping together, he might come down with herpes himself, and then I would feel really terrible for not letting him know he was putting himself at risk.

So the next time I saw him, once we were alone, I told him that I had something I had to tell him, that it might piss him off and that I deserved it if he got pissed off, but I had to tell him anyway … blah. Blah. Blah. I finally got to the point. “I have herpes. The ex gave it to me.”

He paused for a while. Then he said, “Is this the part where I’m supposed to get mad and yell and throw things?”

My heart was pounding so hard, I thought it was going to leap out of my chest. “I guess so,” I said. Nerves much?

“Well,” he said, and pulled me closer and cuddled me, “we can skip that part, if you want.”

And in the seven years since, he hasn’t come down with any STIs, let alone that one. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t infected anybody (but that’s hard to tell, you never know about things like that).

I’ve actually kind of become known among my friends for being open about this condition and talking about it with people. Statistics say that one in four adult Americans have herpes simplex virus … and in my personal experience, among the people I’ve disclosed to, that sounds about right. You’d be really amazed how many people have it.

I’m also someone who talks to friends and friends of friends who’ve been newly infected with the STI, because I know how devastating it can be … but I also know it’s not the end of your sex life or your relationships, and there are good people out there who will listen to your disclosure and not allow fear or hysteria to affect their decisions to spend time with you. A couple of years ago, I spent about four or five hours on the phone with a man whose psychotic, cheating ex-girlfriend infected him; he was good friends with an ex-roommate, who called me and asked if she could give him my phone number, because he was having a really hard time with it. He’s now been dating a girl for about eighteen months and everything has worked out well for him.

Since I was diagnosed almost ten years ago, I’ve had a total of three to five outbreaks. I can’t really remember, because after the first one (which, I’m not downplaying it, sucked big-time, hurt, I spent most of it with my legs spread open in front of a fan … which, trust me, was not as erotic as it sounds), the following outbreaks were much lower in intensity and much, much further apart.

Statistics also say that by age fifty, about 90 percent of adults have been exposed to the virus. At this stage, I’m infectious about 5 percent of the time. Most people on this website, I’m guessing, have been exposed at some point or another. Quite a few people have herpes already and either don’t want to disclose, or they’re too afraid because they’re worried about others’ reactions. But I’m living proof that such a fear is unfounded. My situation with my husband was worst-case-scenario. If I hadn’t disclosed, I’m almost certain we wouldn’t be married today, because he would have found out eventually, and the trust we’d built up to that point would have been shattered. But I did disclose, he shrugged it off as not that big a deal, and here we are today.

I guess the point of my story is this: Herpes is not that big of a fucking deal. People (especially in the U.S.) see it as on the same level of some of the bigger STIs. I don’t want to downplay it: It’s not curable, and outbreaks can be very miserable. However, it’s not HIV, either … and most people have already been exposed to herpes without even knowing it.

Having said that, this is one very good reason why I don’t mess around with people whose partners are unaware that they’re getting some play on the side. The other very good reason is just karma — I’ve been cheated on before, I know it sucks, I’m not playing the other woman. And they play off each other … I would feel terrible if some cheating married man caught my STI and passed it along to his unsuspecting wife. That is not a karmic demerit I want on my record.

I’m not ashamed of my condition. I was young and hooked up with the wrong person. It happens to a lot of people. And maybe by being open about it, I can help educate other people and assist them to come to terms with it, because it’s not the end of the world. It’s just a new beginning requiring some honesty and straightforwardness. And anyone who is going to give you shit for telling them the truth about yourself and the risks involved in sleeping with you … isn’t someone you want to fuck anyway.

Aren’t I just a saint?

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