You’re right, dad. I’m just going to start banging men with wild abandon. So what if I see a sore when I go to blow 'em? It’s fine! So what if he’s fucked no one vs fucking 210, that doesn’t tell me anything anyway.
Thank you so much for this! I really feel like my life is going to really turn around because of this new awesome outlook in life I have. Think of all the time I squandered thus far not getting any stds! Man, I don’t know what I’m going to do with all this free time. Really, thank you :D.
Of Course. I’m not saying you should fuck people who have visible outbreaks. I’m just saying that you aren’t necessarily safe just because they don’t. If they’ve had the virus for more than a year, the odds are they won’t have visble symptoms. Some people (women in particular) can be completely asymptomatic for the entire time they have the virus.
My point is not that you should do people you know have the virus, but if you’re very active, about one in five people you do will have it, and most of those people won’t be showing any symptoms.
I’m not saying don’t do it either, by the way. I’m just saying it’s contradictory to set a bar that you won’t do people with herpes, but then not really do anything but a visual inspection to try to screen them out.
I just want to be clear that you’re arguing something that. . . no one argued in the first place. You’re right, it would be quite foolish to not do anything but a visual inspection to rule someone out.
And if it’ll make you happy, let me clarify my original post (which I thought was quite clear): I would not willinglychoose to fuck someone with herpes. As I originally said, statistics say I’ve probably fucked a person or four with it already, but even with my precautions, there was no way for me to know. But willingly? Absolutely, positively not. And me thinks that’s what the OP was getting at anyway.
Edit: Ha, apparently we posted that about the same time. Go figure.
Wow, I totally skipped over this thread until just now, and what do I find? I’m quoted in the OP!
To clarify what I said in the other thread about herpes being Not A Big Deal: Compared with other STDs, herpes outbreaks are pretty damn innocuous. Unlike diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis, which can cause sterility or worse, herpes (Herpes Simplex Virus) essentially only produces uncomfortable sores that heal pretty quickly. Would it be better to remain uninfected? Sure, but people who have the disease find it easy to manage. It is quite unfortunate that there is such a stigma surrounding people infected with herpes relative to the amount of actual physiological damage it causes, as opposed to a disease like AIDS which more deserves its (also unfortunate) stigma.
As to the actual poll question, I’m much like you AClockworkMelon. Being in my early 20s, I’d like to delay contracting herpes as long as possible if I’m so very likely to get it at some point. Considering that, if I’m having sexual contact with a casual partner, I would probably abstain from sex if the partner had herpes. However, if I’m in a long-term relationship with someone who has the disease, I would exercise a little caution, but I don’t think it would affect me that much.
Herpes is so incredibly common that it’d be absurd to rule out a relationship with someone just because they have it. Hold off on the sex during an actual outbreak? Sure. Outbreaks don’t last all that long. Call off the relationship entirely? Of course not.
Note that this answer does not necessarily carry over to less common STDs.
Is this based on the assumption that you won’t catch herpes if the person isn’t showing symptoms? Because, as some of us had mentioned earlier in the thread, that is not something you can count on.
In fact, since I imagine that most people don’t feel very sexy when they have sores on their junk, I’d even wager that MOST herpes infections occur when the carrier is not actively showing symptoms (though I have no cite for this before anyone asks)
Of course it matters. You yourself have said that you are diligent about avoiding communicable diseases from your partners. (All the way down from AIDS to a cold.)
There is no practical difference between oral and genital herpes. They are the same thing, excepting where they generally like to hang out.
You have said you have rejected potential partners for having genital herpes. There is no practical difference between the two. Yet, you reject partners with genital herpes? Why? And you don’t even ask about oral herpes. Why?
Furthermore, HSV-1 has potentially worse risks (rare, but worse than HSV-2).
Finally,
So, no real difference between the two, a worse outside risk profile for HSV-1, and recognition that genital herpes is more a “social problem” than a health one.
Yes, you are free to do whatever you need to to keep yourself free of whatever contagion you see as a threat. And I am free to think that you are contributing to a needless stigma about herpes (that causes real pain and suffering) and is unwarranted and unfair.
Yes, I was actually aware of that. I was attempting not to further derail the thread from the topic.
I’m not going to sit here and justify myself over and over. I’m sorry if it offends you guys that I try my best to avoid having partners with communicable diseases. I understand that this is a big, loving, accepting place and we generally frown about excluding any group for any reason, but this is my body and my sex life, thus I can exclude people from it for whatever reasons I chose. And frankly, someone having an open sore on their lip, dick, or balls really isn’t an illogical reason to choose not to engage in sexual activity with them. Maybe my criteria is ridiculous, but it’s mine and I’m allowed to have it. And interestingly enough: I’ve managed to get through almost 10 years of sexual activities with a good number of partners without contracting either oral or genital herpes (that I know of, of course. I go in for full STD testing every 6 months, so there’s not much more than that I can do). So, while I fully accept that I might just be totally off base in what I’m doing and interpreting the result, frankly, what I’m doing- thus far- has worked for me. You keep doing what works for you and I’ll keep doing what works for me. What’s weird is, I have never once said: I do X,Y,Z to make sure my partners are clean- I simply have given examples of things people do.
Aye dios mio. The Dope, the only place in the world where a woman would get chastised for doing her best to not contract an STD.
That’s not what I’m doing, and you would know it if you read what I posted.
You stated your opinion about herpes, I posted mine. And then you posted asking me if I’d sleep with someone with AIDS. I wasn’t challenging you personally by posting my opinion, yet you felt the need to invalidate my opinion by stating that all risks are equal or… whatever.
I never ever said you weren’t allowed to have your criteria. I think your criteria as it relates to herpes is hypocritical. I stuck to my point.
Perhaps I’m a hypocrite, but I’m a hypocrite who has never had an STD in my entire sexual life thus far (that I know of, which I screen to the best of medical ability, of course). So, it’ll do.
Nobody’s offended. We’re just trying to warn you that your screening protocols aren’t very effective. I don’t think most people would want to go down on sombody who has an active outbreak on their junk (or that people with an outbreak are really going to feel that sexy).
If not getting herpes is really important to you, than abstinence or exclusivity with partners known to be clean are the only effective way to avoid it. Just screening for visible symptoms (which is fine, as far is it goes, and perfectly normal not to want to go there if you see it) is not going to stop you from getting the virus. I think you’rte misunderstanding people as judging you for not wanting to do guys with stuff on their junk (who does?), when all we’re actually saying is that, if it’s important to you, you’re going to have to be a lot more careful than that.
And my point is that I still haven’t said what my particular screening protocol is. That said, I’ve also repeatedly said that I’m well aware that nothing is fool proof, yet, I keep getting lectured about the dangers of sex like I’m an ignorant teenager who recently discovered a Playboy for the first time (abstinence is the only way not to get stds! If you have sex, you will get STDs and you WILL die). Nothing anyone has said here is anything I am not aware of or even said myself in this thread, yet you guys keep arguing against a position I wasn’t ever arguing in the first place. Knock yourselves out though.
Which is really the same thing.