I didn't even think about the stigma of having herpes, particularly because this guy had had it for 40 years, which in our generation is not unusual.

A lot of baby boomers got it in college when we weren't really thinking about using condoms until, really, the AIDS epidemic.

We never really.

I know when I was dating in high school and college, the only time I used a condom was to protect from pregnancy.

We never thought about getting any diseases.

Welcome to the taboo to Truth podcast, unapologetic conversations about sexuality in midlife.

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In this episode, I wanted to address Sti, sexually transmitted infections, and particularly, I wanted to talk about herpes.

I have had some interesting interactions recently, and it brought it to my attention.

It's something that I've honestly always feared and thought, oh, my God, that would be the worst thing if I got herpes.

Here I am, you know, I'm finally sexually active, a lot more so as in my fifties and sixties.

And what would happen, oh, my God, if I got herpes, it would be terrible.

And I've learned that that is, in fact, not the case.

Specifically as I went through this program and I got to know how people are handling it and learn that it is not something that you need to be embarrassed about.

It is something that people have or people get.

And hopefully, if you have it, it is not something that really is debilitating to you, but it can be.

And you can go on and live a healthy, the normal sexual life, but you do have to do things differently.

So what happened with me is that I went on a date with someone, and he came back to my house, and we were passionately kissing.

And he stops and says to me, I have something to tell you.

And I've been dating on and off for ten years.

This has never happened to me before.

I've always been very conscientious, and I'll talk about that in a second.

And he said, the way that he told me was, I just want you to know I'm impotent.

And so I sort of, like, did a little one of these.

Oh, what does that mean?

And he said, well, I'm not impotent, but I have herpes.

So he tried to lessen the blow to me before, you know, while telling me that he had herpes.

Now, I will just preface.

This particular situation is that somebody flew in from out of town to see me, so I needed to contemplate what to do about this.

I certainly wasn't going to get naked with him, and he, you know, had not had an outbreak at the moment that we were together, but I'd never been faced with this situation and known what to do with it.

I always ask any guy that I am going to get naked with, certainly, I check, obviously, for cold sores.

That's an easy one.

But I always insist on STI testing before I get naked with somebody.

And for this exact reason.

Now, nothing's 100% foolproof.

And testing for herpes, I'll talk about.

It's nothing, 100% unless you actually have a breakout.

It's kind of hard to know if you have it, but you would be.

If you did a blood test, you would be a carrier.

So just to finish the story, it so happened he was here for the weekend.

He stayed in a hotel.

The next morning, I happened to have a doctor's appointment, and I asked my doctor about it, and her response was that if he is on prophylactic Valtrex, which is the oral medicine that they give you when you have herpes.

And again, I'm not a medical provider.

I'm quoting my physician, the transmission rate is much, much lower than if you are not on anything.

So the likelihood of transmission goes down significantly.

But you still have to be careful.

Now, how I reacted was actually rather than.

And probably because of my training and understanding and knowing the stigma, I didn't even think about the stigma of having herpes, particularly because this guy had had it for 40 years, which in our generation is not unusual.

A lot of baby boomers got it in college when we weren't really thinking about using condoms until, really, the AIDS epidemic.

We never really.

I know when I was dating in high school and college, the only time we used a condom was to protect from pregnancy.

It wasn't, and we never thought about getting any diseases.

So I understood that for me and my situation, if this guy was willing to engage in a relationship with me, and we understood each other, and he, you know, they.

People who have herpes say that they can kind of sense when they're.

When they're getting an outbreak.

And if.

If you're intimate with somebody on a long term basis, then you can plan for these situations.

And I know plenty of people who have had herpes for many, many years and have never transmitted it to anyone.

So just keep that in mind.

Sort of contrast that where I was listening to a podcast about a sex party, which is, it's not something I've ever participated in.

And one of my greatest concerns about doing anything that is a group, a sexual group activity, of course, is disease prevention.

And I've talked to people who practice, whether it's, you know, going to kink parties or sex parties or swing parties, and they talk about the fact that often a good party planner, if you will, will require a certain amount of testing within 30 days of going to the party.

And you actually have to present your results.

What I also heard, though, is that herpes is not always tested for.

That is to say that most people have been exposed to or have either oral or genital herpes or both.

It is very common.

In fact, one in five people in the US have a sexually transmitted infection.

And the statistics I've read is that one in four women have herpes and one in five men.

So I don't know the exact numbers, but most likely you know somebody who has it if you don't have it yourself.

And so it's not something that is just, you know, that person who's doing caroin or whatever.

This is something that is common, and the person next door to you could actually have it.

I think the reason that it has not had as much research done in terms of finding a cure is probably because it's not deadly.

I have no idea whether that's a fact or not, but it isn't deadly.

It's unpleasant and it can hurt a.

And it can be transmitted to other people easily.

When you have an outbreak, if you're having a baby, you have to be very careful.

I think if you're having an outbreak, when you're having a baby, you cannot have a vaginal birth.

You have to do a cesarean section.

There are consequences of it, but it is not a death sentence.

There are two kinds of herpes, and the herpes virus is hsv.

Hsv one, which is the oral herpes virus, and hsv two, which is the genital herpes virus.

Now, you can get either one in either place if someone has hsv one on their mouth, and then they go down on you or they kiss you or any mouth to genital contact or if they have hsv two and you have skin to skin contact or exchange of bodily fluids, you are very susceptible to catching it.

The likelihood of transmission during an active outbreak is very high.

So you want to, certainly, if you know about it, you want to be very careful.

If you are not, if the person who has herpes is not in an active transmission, then you want to really think about one.

Do you want to put yourself at risk in general?

Because the thing about herpes is that the time leading up to the herpes outbreak, the person is still contagious, but you may not have know about it.

So the person may not know about it.

That being said, the people that I have spoken to that are positive for herpes, that have been living with herpes for many years, all say that they can tell when an outbreak is about to happen and that they have not transmitted it to anybody else.

So I think that that's a really important thing to note, that if you really are interested in somebody and they're honest with you, first of all, think about how much courage it must take for somebody to tell you they have herpes.

So I think that that is something you want to think about in the first place.

It is not a deadly disease.

And then you want to understand exactly what that would mean to you should you get intimate with that person.

You can also ask, you know, if somebody, you can have herpes and not be symptomatic at all.

And so there are tests that can tell you whether you have, you're carrying the virus even if you're not symptomatic.

I think the most accurate test is a swab test, where they take a swab of a sore.

So if you have a sore, then that is something you definitely want to check so that you're aware.

They can look for the HSV antibodies in your blood, and then if it's an oral herpes, same thing.

They can do a biopsy of the sore.

I would venture to guess that I can't even.

I'm not even going to say, I was going to say that if you do the blood test and it shows negative, that you don't have it.

I don't know if that's true or not, so I'm just going to forget that.

But what I am going to say is that you want your prospective partners to have done a test for all the major sexually transmitted infections, which include gonorrhea and syphilis and chlamydia and HIV, and the general ones that we know about the most common one amongst people in midlife, particularly because we didn't really know about it when we were very sexually active in our high school and college years, is herpes.

Now comes the issue, when do you tell your partner?

How do you tell your partner?

Do you disclose this upfront?

And I don't really know the answer.

That's really a personal decision and a personal choice as to how you would react to somebody who told you they were living with herpes.

The statistics say that only around 50% of people actually disclose that they have herpes.

The guy that I was dating that told me about it, his reaction to me was, I have told so many women I dated and their answer to me was, I'm so glad you told me because I have it too.

And that really shocked me because I actually know a friend who contracted herpes in the last couple of years, having gotten divorced and started dating again.

So I think that if you have it, I think it's incumbent upon you to tell any partners you're going to get intimate with when you tell them and how you tell them.

I think that's a really personal choice.

Some people, in my case, I was willing to open up to the possibility provided proper precautions were taken and we ended up in a relationship which we did not.

You have to be careful because you can really, if somebody catches it and doesn't know they have it, they can transfer transmitted to other people.

There can be other consequences if you, you know, you get it and the person, you tell the person and they react really negatively, that could feel pretty shitty if you're the person who has herpes.

And so your hesitation may very well be, you know, may be well founded.

But I do believe my personal opinion is that it is, it is my right to know, and it is incumbent on you to tell me.

Now, do you, how do you tell me and when is the right time to tell me?

So I go back and forth.

If I would have known upfront that he had herpes, I don't know whether I would have gone on a date with him.

I think I would have had to get to know him a lot more over the phone and through FaceTime before I'd want to actually meet him because put myself in a situation where we might have ended up in bed.

I think if you want to tell your partner before or tell the person you're dating before, I think you want to really get to know them, kind of read their energy if you're going to be telling them, if you're going to be getting intimate and you haven't told them and you're not having an outbreak.

Again, I think it's a moral decision.

It is entirely up to you whether you want to tell them or not, but just realize that you are starting a relationship based on.

I wouldn't call it a lie, but lack of disclosure, which is in some ways not allowing the person you are going to be intimate with to make the choice to consent to whether they want to have sex with you or not.

And I think that that is something you really want to ponder if you're going to tell somebody, you want to kind of figuring out when the time is in it.

Hopefully, if you're getting sexual with this person, you want to get to a point where you feel comfortable.

And I would just be honest.

This is something like my experience, which I actually really respect the guy for telling me and how he told me.

And it was like he had it for 40 years, so he got it in college or in his twenties, and this was how he lived with it.

And this is what happened.

And I asked him a bunch of questions and it was not.

My reaction was more of surprise than disgust.

And do believe some people have disgust.

And I know I had a partner a couple of years ago that found out after he had had intercourse with this woman that she had herpes.

And he kind of really blew up at her.

Where I would say I would be angry for someone not telling me, but I don't know that getting angry is productive.

On the other hand, if that happens to you, particularly for a woman, if you don't tell someone, tell a situation like that where you've already had sex with them, you better be careful because they could get really angry and violent.

Now, this guy wasn't violent guy, but he was pissed because once you have been exposed, I think it's like a six month period or I don't know how long the period is till you may actually show signs of having had herpes.

So you want to think about it from the other person's perspective.

In a truly open and honest and consensual relationship, it is something that is incumbent upon you to disclose.

And in a truly informed and educated world, it's incumbent upon me to understand that this is just something that you have and it doesn't define you and it isn't something that you're dirty or that I have to like, ew, you know, this isn't anything like, I can't touch you.

You can look into prophylactic treatments like voucher.

As I understand it, it's something you can take every day.

It's not something that you have to take, can take.

I mean, you are typically prescribed it when you have a breakout, but you can also take it prophylactically.

And of course, I would ask your doctor about something like that, but the thing, and I quote some research, is that there's no such thing actually as safe sex when you have herpes.

The quote I got was there's only safer sex.

So regardless of who it is, you are going to be at risk when you have sex with someone with herpes, with proper precautions, with an awareness of when, as someone who might have it, of when you're potentially going to have a breakout and being very conscious and caring and honest with your partner.

It doesn't have to be something that is comes between you.

If, you know, you want to get in a relationship with a person, you want to have sex with a person.

You want to be with somebody who is kind and honest and consenting.

And if they happen to have herpes, whether of their, you know, it was their fault or it was something that they, that they contracted unbeknownst to them when they were younger or even later in life, then you need to think about how you can be understanding.

And all that being said, to also say to you, if you do not have herpes and you are getting sexually active with new partners, I highly recommend asking for those tests.

Asking for the STI test.

It may be a little bit awkward and embarrassing, but it is your health and your safety, and it is your right to know if that person has anything.

And it's your right, it's your obligation to let them know as well.

Thanks for joining me on the taboo to Truth podcast where I'm spicing up midlife one episode at a time.

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