Debunking Common Assumptions About Herpes: What You Need to Know
We all hold assumptions and biases. Once we’re confronted with them, we have a few choices: 1) get uncomfortable, 2) work within our discomfort to unlearn them, and 3) remain stagnant despite a new finding.
If there’s anything 2020 taught us about STIs, it’s that people still feel invincible (look at the resistance to mask use & social distancing) and think it will never happen to them, or those they know. It’s easier to keep the self separate from the stereotypes and belief systems we uphold.
When we’re presented with a disclosure from someone with herpes, it can feel surreal. It’s easy for the misgivings from our sex education to arise.
If you’re someone facing this confrontation, I encourage you to sit with the data, facts, and your partner’s knowledge & self-awareness. Here are a few major assumptions I’d like to debunk and offer reframes around:
1. People with herpes have constant outbreaks
•Lots of folks with herpes are unaware they even have the infection because they are asymptomatic
•outbreaks often go unnoticed
•outbreaks typically decrease in frequency and duration as time passes
2. We have to use barriers forever
•this is a personal decision between you and your partners
•dependent upon self-awareness, frequency of outbreaks, & antiviral use
•once developing an awareness of herpes and what it really means and looks like, many may choose to forego barriers or decrease in usage.
3. I’m going to get herpes at some point
•maybe, maybe not. But if you’re sexually actively with multiple partners, there’s always a chance anyway.
•you might have herpes and not be aware that you have the infection. Whether through oral herpes (aka cold sores) or an asymptomatic genital infection
•one study found that an awareness of one’s HSV-2 status halved the chance of transmission (Thomas et al., 2020; Wald et al., 2006)
Knowledge is power, denying its existence is denying your growth.