Navigating Masculinity and Genital Herpes Stigma: Insights from My Latest Research
Hi👋🏻! I only intended to take a weekend away from this space, but due to several end of semester projects, that quickly turned into a week.
This graphic speaks to one of the papers that I worked on during that time: “The Impact of Genital Herpes Stigma on Men and How Clinicians Can Support Masculine Identified Clients Navigating a Positive Genital Herpes Diagnosis.” My mom serves as the final reviewer on many of my papers, and after this one, her response was, “I felt like I was reading a textbook.”
This isn’t a topic that I’ve covered here, specifically, so I’d like to share some of what I discuss in my paper with you. But I also have to transition from textbook to IG.🤓
Let’s start here by reviewing what expectations of masculinity are in US America in comparison to genital herpes stigma. What does it mean to “be a man” living with genital herpes? Can these identities coexist? How? These will be questions I start to explore and breakdown.