All About Herpes

Back when I was dating a girl that had genital herpes, I conducted endless research on the subject to educate myself about safe sex so I could prevent getting it. So now I’m going to educate you about herpes and after reading all the facts you can decide for yourself if dating someone with this contagious STD is a risk you are willing to take. 

Shocking Statistics

90% of the population have oral herpes and 20% of the population have genital herpes. There are two types of herpes, HSV1 and HSV2. HSV1 is usually oral and is spread through physical contact such as sharing a drink, kissing or putting your mouth on the water fountain, ew! HSV2 is typically on the genitals but can spread to the mouth in the form of a much more grotesque and hideous warts all of your lip, whereas oral herpes is just one occasional cold sore on the lip. Genital herpes on the genitals however, is a bunch of painful warts and rashes on the genitals. Outbursts are frequent and can last up to two weeks. Oral herpes outburts only happen every once in a while and can also last up to two weeks. Fortunately, there are over the counter creams for both types of herpes that will make the cold sore go away faster and lessen the pain. A friend of mine gets cold sores every 6 months and each time, they reappear in different places on your lip.

So cold sores are nothing to worry about, since everyone gets them! And those people that pick on you for having a cold sore and call it herpes are in for a rude awakening when they discover it on their lip someday. Oral herpes is so contagious which is why it is never a good idea to share a drink with someone. There was a religious event I used to attend where we would pass the cup around the circle and all drink from the same cup. That’s exactly why everyone has herpes!

Now let’s move on to genital herpes…

Genital herpes is something you never ever want to contract because it can be painful and the outbursts are frequent. So how do you prevent genital herpes? By having safe sex. Lesbians can use latex gloves and straight and gay couples can simply use a condom but you also have to make sure that the mouth does not come in contact with the infected genitals, because HSV2 can be spread through both genital to genital contact and mouth to genital. Also, if you have a cold sore on your mouth, do not kiss or have sex with anyone until the cold sore goes away. Cold sores are highly contagious when they are active and if you kiss or go down on someone while you have a cold sore, they then could get it on their genitals or mouth and transfer it to your genitals, giving you genital herpes. 

Genital herpes is also more contagious when it is active, meaning when there is an outbreak. But this doesn’t completely rule out the chance of catching it while there is no outbreak. You should still always practice safe sex. Be sure to clean and disinfect the sex toys before use, and put a condom on it if possible. And don’t get drunk around your partner that has genital herpes, because then you could completely forget about using protection and end up getting the STD. If you are dating somebody with genital herpes, there is a way around this. There are antibiotics they can get that make it less contagious. So good luck and choose wisely!