>Get BJ on prom night
>Week later massive red spot on cock
>Herpes
>Fuck
>doctor say this shit is
uncurable
>No woman will want me
>Struggle with shame and depression
>Lose all interest in sex
>Go years without being with a woman
>Finally regain some self confidence
>Brainwave.exe
>Need woman who already has the disease
>Find old hooker on craigslist
>Looks pretty ragged on the blurred photo
>Has probably had a million diseased cocks in her
>Call her up
>Explain I have herpes
>Tell her I presume she has it too
>Silence
>Then she hangs up
I dont know where to go from here bros
i’m sorry that you’ve had that experience and i don’t mean to diminish what you’re don’t through, but it’s also very important to note that this is far from the normal for the very large majority of people
fear doesn’t help sexual health… all sex comes with risks, and unprotected sex comes with significantly increased risk but the reality is by and large this is not what HSV looks like without other factors effecting it
downplaying risks is bad, but equally bad is people thinking a condition is worse than it is. this leads to more risky behaviour, because if they get the “scary” thing and it’s not as bad as they expect, they can take risky behaviour because they discount all their other education
it also only reinforces stigmas. this is particularly common with HIV-positive people: these days, if you have an undetectable viral load (if you take your daily medications) you can not pass on HIV… however the stigma remains, and people still often choose to not have sex with someone with an undetectable HIV infection (again, undetectable IS UNTRANSMITTABLE)
muddying the waters is very bad at scale
calm, unbiased information is what is required for public health. individual anecdotes about worst case scenarios do not serve to make people’s lives better
Telling people it’s no big deal is doing them a direct misservice. By all means it should be destimized but you should also be honest about the risks and realities of what it can mean. What happened to me might be a worse case scenario but the average first breakout is still way worse than you would have people believe, and people should know what can actually happen. I’m so sick of people being dismissive of it