Herpes disclosure

[skeas.livejournal.com]

The recent post about herpes brought up some questions for me.

My question is: Is it always necessary for an infected person to tell a potential partner?

From a theoretical standpoint, YES! Yes, yes, yes! But consider a few scenarios:

You haven't had an outbreak since your first one--15 years ago. As most of us know, herpes is transmittable even when the infected person doesn't have a sore. However, plenty of us infected people just avoid sex/kissing when we have a sore, and the other partner is fine. Do you still let your partner know about an outbreak you had at 20, when you are now 35? Do you risk ruining the whole relationship (because people generally freak out when the word "herpes" in involved) over a nearly negligible risk?

You have oral herpes. Studies show that 80% of us have herpes antibodies, and might be carriers of the disease without even knowing it. Yet I've never, ever heard of someone fessing up before a liplock. Do you let everyone you are about to kiss know that you have oral herpes? I personally feel like everyone is aware of--or should be aware of--a certain risk that's involved with intimate behavior like kissing or sex. You could catch mono, a cold, the flu, herpes, et cetera. You do what you can to prevent it, but it's still there.

For that matter, is there a difference between disclosing about oral herpes (which you can write off under the more innocuous name of cold sores) and genital herpes? Do you have more of a responsibility to tell a partner about genital herpes? And why?

Comments

[heysmilepretty.livejournal.com]

"You do what you can to prevent it, but it's still there."

Exactly; you do what you can to prevent it. For a lot of people, the right of knowledge of a partner's past sexual history is indeed a factor in preventing it. But that "right" is also a responsibility; if someone doesn't ask a person he or she is kissing whether or not they have oral herpes, that's his/her own fault.

[emilia-romagna.livejournal.com]

So, before smooching on anyone, we should ask whether they have herpes or not, regardless of appearance of symptoms? Theoretically, its a good idea, but practically, seems a bit much to me. It also seems like this would put all of the responsibility on the person that may get infected. I think a better practice would be to make it the responsibility of both partners to open a dialog about potential or actual risks.

[skeas.livejournal.com]

I also think that it's theoretically a good idea for us to ask everyone we make out with, but sometimes we can be a little sloppy with our kisses (when drunk, for instance). Because the HSV test is more expensive and not many people have had it, most people probably don't definitively know if they have herpes anyway. I'm sure a good population of people with herpes are asymptomatic.