Herpes disclosure
Jan. 12th, 2008 05:41 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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vaginapaginaThe 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?
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?
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 07:21 am (UTC)Do you have a source that shows this actually occurs with herpes? This page (http://bodyandhealth.canada.com/channel_section_details.asp?text_id=1370&channel_id=1020&relation_id=10877), the one to which you linked, still only mentions 2 strains of the virus.
I'm also aware that risk reduction of transmission of STIs such as HIV or hepatitis is more effective than risk reduction for HSV or HPV. And I realize it's likely a personal judgment call, but I don't think I'd call reducing the risk by 70% not "terribly effective."
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 07:49 am (UTC)Studies have shown that a person with genital herpes can catch a new case of genital herpes, but other studies have shown that this happens only rarely. In most cases, if a person with genital herpes catches genital herpes while with a partner, they are catching it from themselves - having a recurrence. Type-specific antibody against your own strain of virus makes it very difficult to catch a second infection of the same strain from a different person.
This Harvard study also discusses different HSV-2 strains and possible resulting anti-viral resistance:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=154092
I would be surprised to find out that there aren't many different sub-strains of such a common virus.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 08:01 am (UTC)Well, no, not exactly. Given that genital herpes can be either HSV-1 or HSV-2, it's really not very clear at all what they're referring to there. I assumed they referred to "genital herpes" as a reaction site, not necessarily as a specific strain of the virus.
But thank you for the second link.