Can he catch genital herpes if he gets cold sores?

[canziface23]

So I have genital herpes and the guy I'm seeing gets cold sores. I heard if you have cold sores then you can't catch genital herpes and if you have genital herpes you can't get cold sores. Is this true?

[MMissouri]

What type of herpes do you both have?

[WCSDancer2010]

Well cold sores are usually HSV1 .. so if you have HSV1, then the odds of him getting it genitally are much much lower (but not completely impossible .. ie: you still would want to be careful about playing during an OB or if he has any cuts/suppressed immune system/etc) But it does give him a pretty good resistance to it.

 

If you have HSV2, then while HSV1 will give him *some* resistance it won't necessarily completely protect him. I had cold sores from the time I was 4 but got HSV2 at around 17 genitally ... so you certainly still want to take precautions in that case ;)