First, I’d like to acknowledge you for being the kind of person who wants to share this personal information and trusts enough to share this. Let’s give you an applause for being not only attractive to someone but also cool enough to share intimate, personal stories and experiences with. You rock!
Like being presented with any new vulnerable bit of information, I find it most important to meet their presentation with gratitude followed by curiosity. Curiosity first, followed by gratitude comes off as ingenuine. Think: Wait can I get it from touching you? Do you have it right now on your genitals? Who’d you get it from? The only gratitude after these kinds of comments are “Thanks for telling me” to avoid it from one more partner.
Gratitude first acknowledges the emotions that person might’ve experienced not only from their diagnosis initially, but the thoughts leading up to this moment of when and how to share their status. It’s important that we first express gratitude for that effort having gone into just saying the words, “I have herpes”.
The curiosity that follows can come from anything the person with herpes already has shared with you regarding their symptoms, feelings about it, and any additional information they may have presented to you. Follow up with curiosity based on what they give you to work with. I think this formula is foolproof. This gives the opportunity for the person disclosing to feel validated as the kind of person who can be vulnerable with others. I speak to the importance of identity validation, and here we see it validated as someone who can be vulnerable. This is important because rather than feeling like a person, this individual could feel like the most disgusting thing on the planet, and in worst-case scenarios, not even want to be here. Validating them as someone who can be seen for who they are wholly in the moment rather than identifying them exclusively by their presentation of their herpes status.
While this is coming off as way more complicated than it really is, let me sum it up with an example of meeting their disclosure with curiosity followed by gratitude:
Curiosity then gratitude example: Please reference the “How do I disclose my herpes status” article for reference of the STARS framework for safer sex talks.
Lee has herpes, and Lynn hasn’t shown any symptoms or been tested before (for context).
Lee: “So Lynn, I’m gonna tell you right now, I like how things are progressing. I’m super turned on by you and I normally wait until after a few more dates before having this conversation, but I don’t think I can wait any longer.”
Lynn: “I feel the same way. I didn’t wanna come off as too thirsty, but since you brought it up first, we can go back to my place right NOW.”
Lee: *Laughs out loud* “Slow down, slow down. First we need to have a real conversation. I know we talked already about how neither of us are looking for a relationship at the moment, but we’re open to it. I feel safe with you to further this discussion about what a casual relationship looks like and what we need from each other in order for us to get what we need out of it.”
Lynn: “Yeah, like sex?”
Lee: “Yeah, like sex.”
Lynn: “Oh I’m way ahead of you. I’m clean and have a ton of cond-”
Lee: “Let me stop you right there. I’ll tell you now that word *clean* has no space in the convo I want to have with you about sexual health. If you’re clean then by that logic, the other side of that is dirty, which I assure you does not fit for someone who has herpes.”
Lynn: “I’m sorry I said that, and see what you mean. Thanks for calling that out because I never thought about it that way. Doesn’t everyone have herpes?”
Lee: “A lot of people do, but many of them don’t know since it’s hard to test for without symptoms. I’m someone who doesn’t show symptoms or get outbreaks myself-”
Lynn: “So that means I won’t get it?”
Lee: “The honest answer is I don’t know. Condoms and meds help reduce the risk. I’ve not passed it on to any past partners who didn’t have herpes, but I can’t say for sure that you won’t get it from me. So with that said, I want to let you take some time to think about that especially since we just said we want to keep it casual.”
Lynn: “I really appreciate you telling me that. I wonder how many people have it and didn’t know, or know they have it but didn’t tell me for that matter. I’m sure I’ve hooked up in the past with someone who had it and didn’t know, but I’ll tell you what, the way you got me feeling from all this vulnerability right now makes me wonder how else you can make me feel when we’re doing that thing you mentioned turns you on.”
Lee: “You better stop that right now until we get back to your place *wink”.
Lynn: *Getting in the car from the restaurant “Do we HAVE to use condoms even if I can still get it?”
Lee: “That’s a whole entire other conversation. When was the last time you had been tested? I know it’s been a while for me”
Lynn: “Ooh, I haven’t had this conversation before.”
Lee: “Well check out www.spfpp.org and we’ll discuss next time how to talk about sexual health and testing.”
We’ll pick up on how to discuss STI testing/status in the next one! 🙂