This Chick Tells Everyone She Meets She Has Herpes Because She Finds It Empowering

(Source) -- Seven months after Ella Dawson says she was diagnosed with genital herpes, she remembers a young man at a college party offering her a sip of his beer. “Don’t worry,” she recalled him saying. “I don’t have herpes or anything.” Dawson, 22, was just learning to shed the shame that came with her infection, which affects one in six Americans. She could already tell this sense of isolation was worse than any outbreak. So, she spoke up — and shared the tale in a Women’s Health essay, published this week: ‘That’s funny,’ I said, with as warm a smile as I could manage. ‘Yeah, that’s really funny. Because I have genital herpes.’ His face crumbled. Not because I grossed him out — I could practically see the wheels turning in his brain as he realized he’d made an ignorant joke at someone else’s expense. The guy started apologizing profusely. Dawson, who graduated last year from Wesleyan University, didn’t take offense. Humor at the expense of people with STIs permeates popular culture, from Saturday Night Live’s Valtrex segment to Jennifer Lawrence casually joking about herpes. But Dawson said she felt empowered talking bluntly about her affliction. “I had seen in the flesh what a simple ‘I have herpes’ could do when said fearlessly, without shame,” she wrote. “Because when a real person — a woman you know and respect — casually mentions having herpes, it stops being a punchline and starts being someone’s reality.” Dawson, who lives in New York City, said she plans to keep blogging about dating with genital herpes, to promote normalcy in the face of stigma. She wrote on her blog recently that she interviewed a former boyfriend about what it’s like to date someone with the infection. His response, she wrote: “I didn’t see you as ‘Ella with herpes,’ I just saw you as ‘Ella.'”

“Casually mentioning” that you have herpes to someone is like casually mentioning you have AIDS. It can’t be done and you’re an asshole if you try. I’m all for people using their afflictions to feel empowered. Like that dude who got a tattoo of a shark bite on the stub of an arm he lost to a shark? Bad ass. Super empowering. Know why? It doesn’t make everyone else wretch then reach for a bottle of Purell. Announcing you have herpes to anyone within ear shot isn’t empowering, it’s being a pain in the ass. You know how when you ask someone how their day is going you don’t want to hear “UGH, you’ll never guess what happened to me today…”? You just want them to say “fine.” This is like that. “Hey want a beer?” doesn’t need to be followed up with “Sure thanks, by the way I have cold sores on my clit.” Bitch WHAT?! I asked if you want a fucking beer, I don’t need your medical history. Don’t need a lecture form Else with herpes about the stigmas about genital herpes. I went to sex ed. I know about condoms. Leave me alone and keep the beer. Don’t want to get pussy herpes from your backwash. Like I said, I know how it works. You’re not gonna trick me.