NSFW - Would you ever knowingly have unprotected sex with someone who has herpes?

Not unless I wanted it, too.

no

Perhaps if I had herpes also.

Na, probably not even then.

No

For a few months, I was with someone who had herpes and hadn’t had an outbreak in 20 years or more. We sometimes had unprotected sex, and I tested negative after our relationship ended.

As to why, I guess I decided to trust her based on what of my better judgement was still remaining. It was a connection, so I went with it.

I dated a guy in college that only told me he had herpes when I got really bad ingrown hairs from waxing and went to see a doctor. He told me by saying “It might not be just ingrown hairs.”. Fuck that guy. I had been having unprotected sex with him for about 9 months on the pill. He had not had any outbreaks while dating me (according to that lying bastard).

I tested negative over 4 antibody tests in the next year. I have no idea how I escaped that one. I am not quite as careless anymore.

It would have to be my soulmate. And why did you put this in general. I have a bunch of lines from Johnny Dangerously that work so well here. Farging corksucker.

@Adirondackwannabe haha~ I’d move it for you if I could.

NO

No. Foolishness, ignorance and horniness are the holy trinity of V.D., as we used to call it back in the day.

@Esedess You can ask a mod to do it, but don’t worry about it. For now, Icehole

No.

It’s only communicable during an outbreak, but no, I wouldn’t do it myself even knowing that. I don’t have unprotected sex with anybody, but I would be especially fervent about protection if there was the potential to catch something.

But I’m not here to judge anybody else’s personal decisions; they don’t affect me, so why should I care?

People do it all the time. How many of you have kissed someone who has had a fever blister on their mouth in the past? That is herpes. Or, let that person give you oral sex? I guess people don’t tell people about their fever blisters on their mouth like they need to declare it as a sexually transmitted disease, but it can be transmitted through sex.

I wouldn’t like to take the risk either, I am just saying people do.

To everyone saying no. If you fell in love and wanted to spend the rest of your life with this person, would you always use protection during sex? Would you not stay with this person long term because they have herpes?

@jonsblond No babies if you are always protected. Unless you do it the turkey basted way or something more medically extreme.

YES. Absolutely. Especially if we are in love.

No. I have never kissed anyone with a fever blister on his mouth.

@JLeslie I think more people would take the chance for someone they really loved. It’s easy to say no when you only have to think about it when answering a Fluther question.

@jonsblond I agree.

@gailcalled Not while they had it on their lip. If they have ever had one. For those people saying they would not have sex with someone who has the herpes virus, would they have sex with someone who has had a fever blister? It’s the same. One is HSV I and the other is HSV II typically, but both can occur on the other part of the body.

Is there any chance she got the HPV vaccine and mistakenly thinks it prevents herpes infections as well as cervical cancer?
She might be thinking Gardasil or Cervarix. will protect her.

Wrong!

@Mariah Actually, according to the CDC, the herpes virus is typically shedding 10% of the time, with most of those shedding periods being asymptomatic. It is completely possible to spread herpes without an outbreak. Also according to the same source, this is how most cases of herpes are thought to be spread… Through asymptomatic contact.

@GloPro I have seen that information about shedding while not having an outbreak, and although I believe that the shedding probably does go on at times while asymptomatic, I really think many people ignore when they have outbreaks, especially men, and that is how it is spread most often. Just my opinion. I cant tell you how many men when their girlfriends wind up getting diagnosed with an STD the guy says something like, “oh yeah, it did hurt a little when I peed.” Or, “I felt a little itch.” We are told stuff all the time to try to increase preventative measures. Scare tactics like you can get pregnant any day of the month, you can get herpes without symptoms, are always being pounded to scare people about sex. I don’t disagree that people should be a little scared, sex is a disaster all too often regarding disease and pregnancies, and I think most people don’t have enough information or enough fear. But, the powers at be tend to say things so people will just protect themselves all the time, because the American public can’t be trusted to know the real medical ins and outs and they just make it as simple as possible so people are as safe as possible. That’s how I see it anyway.

@JLeslie Oh, I agree. And then you have people like my ex who know that they have it, but have decided that my informed sexual consent wasn’t necessary.

@GloPro It would be great if Americans would just always use protection until they are in a monogomous relationship, and if they cheat always wear a condom at least for the cheat. It wouldn’t get rid of STD’s but it would greatly reduce it. All too often people get STD’s from one night stands and an SO cheating.

I did a little research at the CDC site
One out of 6 people between the ages of 14 to 49 have genital herpes. There are about 250,000 new cases each year. The medical costs for treatment are almost $0.5 billion per year.
Wow.

@LuckyGuy Glaxo promotes that their drug can be used prophylacticlly so some people are taking the drug daily, not just during outbreaks. I have no idea how often doctors suggest taking the drug that way or what percentage of the .5 billion is from daily use.

Huh, okay, I can accept that I was wrong. I was speaking based on the fact that my mom has herpes, and her doctor told her it would be safe to give birth to me vaginally as long as she wasn’t having an outbreak at the time.

Now I’m curious what y’all think – my ex got extremely pissed off at me (when we were still together) for not having told him earlier when he found that out. I thought that was really unfair, but do you guys think that’s something I need to be disclosing? I am quite certain I don’t have herpes. Ugh.

As for the question about whether our answers would change if I were married to someone with herpes, yeah that’d be different I suppose. I don’t know that I’ll ever stop using protection simply because I don’t want kids, but if that weren’t the case for me then I’d be able to make an exception for my partner. My dad chose not to care about it, and still hasn’t caught it after all this time.

(Sorry if it’s weird that I know all of this, lol. My family is very close.)

I don’t think it’s strange that you know your family history in this case.

An outbreak during childbirth can be dangerous to the child, with serious complications even leading to blindness, which is crazy if you think about it. That’s why a doctor is concerned about an outbreak, more so than transmitting it to the child in general.

Your dad’s reaction isn’t so unusual, either. Many people believe that although herpes is incurable, that other than in the conditions of pregnancy it is nothing more than a pain in the ass. There seem to be no permanent negative health aspects other than very painful lesions (again: exception preggers). So your dad was willing to take that chance with his life partner. As I mentioned, I had plenty of sex for 9 months and didn’t contract HSV-II. I didn’t know it, but that’s not relevant here.

I see no reason why you should share your mother’s health history with anyone. The guy’s reaction of anger came from ignorance on herpes transmission and was unjustified. You could always retaliate just as immaturely next time and be shocked!, shocked! that he didn’t tell you he’s had the chicken pox (gasp!), which is yet another strain of the herpes simplex virus, as are shingles.

@Mariah Your boyfriend was upset you didn’t disclose your mom had herpes at the time of your brith? Did I understand that correctly? Infants that contract herpes from the birthing process typically have horrific outbreaks, they can die. The chance your mom gave you HSV is so close to zero it is ridiculous to even consider. I don’t think you need to disclose it to anyone.

Many of the people on here and in real life who say they wouldn’t have sex with someone if they knew, have probably had sex with people who are positive. They didn’t know, but possibly neither did their partner. 1 in 6 people have it according to @LuckyGuy and that sounds probably correct to me, if not understated.

You can get a blood test to see if you have ever been exposed, but most doctors don’t recommend it. Tons of people have been exposed and have no idea. If your negative then you would know for sure your negative, but if your positive I still don’t think you have anything to disclose since you have never been sick from it.

I think it is rather rare that married couple use condoms ongoing. It happens, but as I said I think it’s rare. I’d be shocked if it is over 10%, but I have no idea what it really is.

@JLeslie Yep you understood that. There’s a reason he’s my ex.