*We (Gina, this guy, and I) got into a discussion about this. He says this girl didn’t need to know about him and Gina, since it was once, a year ago. Gina said that her friend felt deceived by him and was offended that he would say he hardly knew a woman he “knew” Biblically. He responded that she was just being high-strung and melodramatic, that he didn’t have to give her a full list of every woman he’s ever slept with, as that is insensitive and unnecessary.
What do you think? How much of your sexual history do you reveal at the beginning of a relationship? When, if ever, is it appropriate to reveal all about your sexual history? Personally, the less I know (as long as it doesn’t pose a health risk), the better, but…it’s hard to trust people.
*
There’s truth in both positions here. I think in general when the subject comes up, (and it usually does) one needs to be honest. Though how much one volunteers beyond the minimum necessary to ensure they’re getting all the facts they need would need to depend on how uptight and/or insecure ones partner is.
My last extended date (I can’t really call her a girlfriend) was terribly insecure about my even mentioning my previous girlfriend in passing once in a while. So obviously when discussing this issue I’m not going to tell her “yes, we fucked like rabbits and I made sure she got off three of four times every time she slept over, which was about twice a week.”
I shouldn’t be too hard on her I guess, since I have my moments like that too. Usually I find I’m usually happier not knowing things except in a general way. “X number of guys before you, one for a couple of years, the others for a couple of months” is about all I want to hear, really. If I want to know more, I’ll ask - but I generally don’t. It’s enough for me that things are good in the here and now and everyone’s happy. The past is pretty much irrelevant so long as the present is all good.
Now, I do tend to assume that anyone I like enough to date is a responsible adult and if they have any kind of STD they’re going to tell me. I would of course certanly tell them LONG before I slept with them if I had anything. Same goes for any kind of sexual abuse or anything - if they feel it might mess with the relationship, then they should probably tell me about it so we can be aware of it and make sure things work out okay.
Kevin Smith had a nice little line of dialog at the end of Chasing Amy about this subject. Silent Bob is explaining how he lost Amy…
*So there’s me an Amy, and we’re all inseparable, right? Just big time in love. And then about four months in, I ask about the ex-boyfriend. Dumb move, I know, but you know how it is - you don’t really want to know, but you just have to. Stupid guy bullshit. Anyway she starts telling me all about him - how they dated for years, lived together, her mother likes me better, blah, blah, blah - and I’m okay. But then she tells me that a couple times, he brought other people to bed with them - menage a tois, I believe it’s called. Now this just blows my mind. I mean, I’m not used to that sort of thing, right? I was raised Catholic.
So I get weirded out, and just start blasting her, right? This is the
only way I can deal with it - by calling her a slut, and telling her that she was used - I mean, I’m out for blood I want to hurt her - because I don’t know how to deal with what I’m feeling. And I’m like “What the fuck is wrong with you?” and she’s telling me that it was that time, in that place, and she didn’t do anything wrong, so she’s not gonna apologize. So I tell her it’s over, and I walk.
It was a mistake. I wasn’t disgusted with her, I was afraid. At that moment, I felt small - like I’d lacked experience, like I’d never be on her level or never be enough for her or something. And what I didn’t get was that she didn’t care. She wasn’t looking for that guy anymore. She was looking for me, Bob. But by the time I realized this, it was too late, you know. She’d moved on, and all I had to show for it was some foolish pride, which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I know that now. But I pushed her away…
*
It’s a difficult question. In general I would say that it requires a lot of self-knowledge to deal with the issue. Or to put it more bluntly, “Don’t ask questions that you don’t want to know the answers too.” Unfortunately too often people are like Silent Bob: “you don’t want to know, you just have to…”
Which brings me to another fun scenario (yes, I have messed up friends): another friend of mine, Pam, had a month-long affair with this guy. They didn’t use condoms b/c she’s on the Pill, and he told her he was “clean.” She found out recently that he, in fact, had unprotected sex with a girl who has genital herpes (the girl with the herpes told her). Pam flipped, talked to this guy, who said, “It was 6 months ago, and I haven’t had any sign of herpes, so I figured you didn’t need to know about it.”
Was Pam right to flip out? Or was she overreacting? Apparently the chick with herpes told the guy that “she wasn’t having an outbreak at that time,” which, I don’t know, man… you can have herpes on your cervix and not feel it until you’re well into an outbreak (I asked the health teacher at my school).
*
I think the guy is clearly in the wrong here. I admit I’m paranoid, but if it were me I would not sleep with someone with herpes, and anyone with exposure had better tell me. Herpes is not curable - once you’ve got it you’re infected for life. It won’t kill you like AIDS, but it’s not going to go away with a penicillin injection like syphillis or gonorrhea either.
After every time I end a relationship where I sleep with someone, I wait three months, and then I hit the clinic and get a full-spectrum test. It can be a bit embarassing, but it’s worth it to me. I want to be absolutely sure I’m clean. “Well it has been 6 months and no symptoms had appeared” is all well and good, but wouldn’t you rather have a test sheet in hand and know for sure? I would. Particularly because so few people seem to ever get tested in this fashion, so it’s a pretty good be that there are people out there with stuff they don’t know about. We’re in the middle of an epidemic of the Human Pampiloma Virus (HPV, not to be confused with HIV) and nobody knows about it!
I’m also rather careful about protection. I mean, STDs quite aside, I’m nowhere near ready to be daddy yet, and not all women want to take the pill. (Which is cool with me - birth control is as much my responsibility as it is hers.)
These things seem very common-sense to me, but then I did grow up in a pretty liberal place and time, with pretty liberal parents who didn’t shy away from issues like this.
So I’m torn now between the Reveal All position, which allows your partner to make a more informed decision about protection, skankiness of said partner, etc., and the Need to Know Only position, which avoids a lot of hideous, unnecessary and jealousy-inducing convos. Opinions welcome.
*
Tell them what you judge they really need to know, and leave it at that. If they want to know more, assume they’re a reasonable person and will ask about it. If they ask too much and get weirded out, that’s their problem and they’re going to have to deal with it.
Don’t be like Pam’s fling who knew that he maybe had something but kept sleeping with people and didn’t go and get tested. That’s called being stupid.
My $.02.
-Ben