A lot of y’all gotta grow up about this topic. As sexually active as y’all claim to be, you have been with someone with herpes or already have it. Unless you specifically ask for the test, you haven’t been tested. There are several blood tests available and most of them aren’t even accurate. The most accurate test is a culture, which means you have to have a sore/blister that can be swabbed to detect the virus? What makes this virus even trickier? The VAST majority of people with the virus are asymptomatic, or they had one MILD outbreak that they mistook for a pimple. These stories you hear about “crunch bar dikk” are very uncommon symptoms. Herpes is one of the few stds you can get even using a condom. You can transmit the virus even if you aren’t having an active outbreak, which is adds to the number of people who have it. So many people think they don’t have it because they never had bumps. Once again for the people in the back—only a small minority of people have bumps, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pass it to someone else.
There are two strains but it’s possible to get either strain on ANY part of your body. You share a drink with someone with the virus, then go down on someone the next month? Boom. Genital herpes, could be either type. There’s no functional difference between the two strains. You can get the “oral form” on your genitals and the genital form on your mouth.
These are all the reasons herpes shouldn’t be stigmatized at the level that it is. Protect yourself as much as possible, but y’all gotta stop running around acting like it could never be you—if you’ve never 1) taken an HSV IGG blood test (and even that’s not reliable unless you got tested when the antibodies are detectable), or 2) had a swab done and tested negative, then the reality is you don’t know what you have.
And yes, I’m prepared to be accused of having herpes for bothering to actually educate myself of the consequences of being sexually active.