Discosing questions - fair to say chance of passing it on is "small"? and talking about oral sex

[dani]

I was seeing a girl and I told her I have genital herpes, HSV-2. She thanked me for telling her and said, "yeah but if we use condoms it'll be pretty safe, right?" and I said, "pretty safe, but its not 100% protection,"... She said, "of course nothing is 100%, but I think the chance would be small..." That was the last we talked about it, then we had sex a few times (and the relationship ended for other reasons). But do you think I accurately reflected the risk or should I have broken down it further in terms of letting telling her know that technically it passes throug skin to skin contact, so it is possible to pass from outside the area of the condom? I guess my assumption was that she believed the risk to be small (which I think is accurate), and that by going into it more I might just unnecessarily frighten her, but just wondering if I had a responsibility to say more than I did...

 

Second thing, with the same girl, after we had sex a few times I asked if she would be interested in (unprotected) oral sex, but she said she was nervous about doing it because of the herpes. At this point maybe I minimized it a bit, because I asked why that would be a concern for her if she already has oral herpes (HSV-1), even though it is a different strand the medical effects are the same and HSV-2 transfers very rarely from genital to mouth. She said she would think about it, we never ended up doing oral before we broke up, but was I accurate this time in my description or does that sound like I was trying to minimize it?

 

 

[hwomanntexas7]

I mean if she already had oral herpes then thats kinda weird, maybe she just doesnt like giving oral sex to a guy so she used it as an excuse.

[hwomanntexas7]

Also I think you told her enough, she can do some research or ask more questions if she needed more details

[Birdsandbutterflies]

Hmm I don't know. You gave her info but not the full picture. And

honestly I personally was ignorant on the skin to skin contact thing, I thought a condom would be enough protection. So now I know it is anywhere in the "boxer short" area skin to skin.

It definitely would be smart of her to go and educate herself further on the topic.

 

I think for any future potential partner you might have to add that extra info about the skin to.skin and boxer short area.

Of course It might not go in your favor and the person could decline being intimate with you but you can have a clear conscience that you explained things clearly.

 

I think she was right to hold off from the oral though.

Though she had hsv1 oral already. True, It is not as easy to get hsv2 on the mouth as it doesn't favor the mouth environment as much as the genital region however With that being said it is STILL possible to get hsv2 on the mouth. So she was right in holding back. She doesn't need to have both strains if she can help it.

[dani]

Interesting (opposing) perspectives, thank you for the responses.

 

 

[dani]

Just one comment, though, in regards to the boxer-shorts things, and I don´t mean to minimize at all the fact that it is technically possible to pass even with condom use, but according to Terri Warren it is quite unlikely to shed in the thicker skin regions outside the shaft of the genitals, unless there is an outbreak there: https://westoverheights.com/forum/question/understanding-the-risks-of-spreading-the-virus/. Given that I am asymptomatic (since one initial outbreak two years ago) and on antivirals I don´t really think I was deceptive in saying that the risk was small, but not 0.

 

Obviously, I wouldnt have posted here if I did not want to hear others opinions so I appreciate the responses. I never want to deceive anyone, I just also think there is a risk in giving someone too much information that they don´t necessarily want/need about a virus that is fairly common (of course if I see her again and she wants more information I will happily give it to her).

[Birdsandbutterflies]

I hear what you are saying for sure. I understand. I think it's great that you disclosed to her what you did. I don't think you were deceptive at all.

 

[Katidid]

The risk is much lower with condoms and even much lower with condoms and anti viral combined and obviously no ob. Oral is like 1% risk. You can read my previous posts. I've never passed it on