Weekend Winddown

Dear Ananya,

Dear Ananya,

I’ve been with my current boyfriend for almost 3 years. He caught herpes from me. I really didn’t think I was contagious at the time but I should have been more careful. We spent a lot of time and energy working through problems in our relationship after he got the disease.

As a father of two daughters with genital herpes I cannot stress how important it is for there to be someone to talk with.  It is a way for them feel re-connected with the world, feel like they are not alone or out casts.  At first I wanted to blame the girls for not being responsable, but after doing a little reserch on the subject and talking with the doctor about it I soon relized that I was the one who was not being understanding, I was the one doing the blaming and not listening.  This condition can and will happen to anyone at anytime and the more you as a person understands it the better off  you as a  parent and your children will be.  Look the facts up on the net, 1 in 3 sexual active folks under the age of 25 have it.  This means look around you in a store and 1 in 3 of those folks have genital herpes and that number will only go up. All I ask is for people to take the time to educate themselves and be understanding.

Dear Ananya,

What would be the reasons to tell your partner/parents that you have genital herpes or HPV? It seems it would be easier to talk about the reasons not to tell them. I consistently hear the phrases I was too embarrassed to tell my partner or my parents, they would not understand, they would think I was stupid and irresponsible for getting it, I should have known better. The truth is no one got out of bed this morning and said “I’m going out and getting a genital virus today”, the truth is thousands of people every day are finding out that is exactly what happened. So the need for sharing that truth with someone is a must. That someone should be your parents or your partner. Of course this is not easy and maybe a good starting place is Weekend Winddown. The people here have personal experience on both sides of this fence, having to tell and having to be told. What I have found is the anxiety of thinking about it is worse than actually doing it. The fact is if you have it then your partner probably does also. They may not know it yet so get it out in the open and go see your doctor. If your parents are not supportive then I would ask you to have them contact me. As a parent of children who got genital herpes I am well versed in how to handle it. Bottom line is you are not dirty or irresponsible or alone, get online and let’s talk about it.

Concept of 698 friendly:

The concept of 698 friendly is simple, it is people with genital herpes or human papillomavirus (HPV) who are friendly and supportive and want to get back to living a normal life. We believe it is long past time that we openly talked about this.