Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture by Susie Bright, Rachel Kramer Bussel Page B
Authors: Susie Bright, Rachel Kramer Bussel
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remains, which in turn can deter people from getting tested. People whom both Nack and I interviewed tell tales of women with herpes who, when actually outed, were told by officemates to use separate work equipment, and by family members to use separate toilets.
And if people you’re probably not going to sleep with react badly, imagine having to tell someone you like -like. For single women (and of course men) with STIs, the fizzy fun of a promising new date is often flattened, they say, by fear of the looming, dreaded Talk. Michele Bouffidis, 43, of New Jersey, contracted herpes—her “rowdy tenant,” she calls it, though she experiences only rare outbreaks—from an old long-term boyfriend who didn’t tell her he had it until it was too late. Over the next five years, she dared disclose to three men; none stuck around. One, at least, took the time to consider, eventually telling her—gently and thoughtfully—that he didn’t want to take the risk. She totally understood, she says, but it still smarted. Another said, “You seem like a very classy girl—I would never have imagined you having that .” (Translation: “You slut.”) By the time No. 3 rolled around, Bouffidis was dispirited enough that she presented her diagnosis in a negative, “You’re not going to want to deal with this,” light, almost deliberately pushing him away. For three years, she didn’t date at all. “It was because I have herpes,” she confirms. “I didn’t want to deal with the Talk anymore.”
Kalani Tom, 40, of New York, usually uses email to inform potential partners about her genital herpes (which she controls successfully with medication) to give them a chance to process the information on their own. Sometimes, it goes fine. “One guy said, ‘It’s gonna take a lot more than that to scare me off,’” she recalls. But the more she likes a guy, the scarier it is—and once, when the stakes were high, she choked. “He asked me if I had anything, and I said no,” she admits. “I was a coward. I didn’t want to be judged.” When she finally told him the truth, he was devastated—not just by her diagnosis, but by her dishonesty. (Fortunately, he tested negative.) Another recent prospect just bailed, too, upon hearing the news. But Tom—though quite contrite about her lie—remains hopeful, even defiant. “People may judge, but I know I’m not some repulsive horrible person,” she says.
Plenty of STI-seropositive men and women—Nack herself included (and Michele, above)—are in happy, healthy relationships with STI-free partners willing to take on the medical logistics of avoiding transmission. “Not all potential partners are going to reject you,” she says. And many women and men with STIs have found support, community, friends—and more than friends—in online communities specifically for them. There’s an interesting, and ongoing, debate about whether dating sites for people with STIs are godsends or ghettos, but experts say they are—at least—great places for the newly diagnosed to get their groove back.
Kristin Andrews, 30, of Michigan, contracted herpes from an unfaithful boyfriend who, when he heard her diagnosis, called her “a slut and a whore and complained that now it’s gonna be hard for him to date,” she recalls. “For that first few weeks it was awful. I felt like I was one of the worst people in the world, disgusting and degraded and gross.” Then she found MPwH.net (short for Meet People with Herpes), where she got her “newbie” questions answered straightforwardly and reassuringly. Eventually, she arrived at the distinction that our society clearly—and dangerously—still refuses to accept: “I have herpes,” she says. “But it’s not who I am.”
You Can Have Sex with Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them
Radley Balko
In spring and summer 2006, Eric Rinehart, at the time a 34-year-old police officer in the small town of Middletown, Indiana, began consensual
And if people you’re probably not going to sleep with react badly, imagine having to tell someone you like -like. For single women (and of course men) with STIs, the fizzy fun of a promising new date is often flattened, they say, by fear of the looming, dreaded Talk. Michele Bouffidis, 43, of New Jersey, contracted herpes—her “rowdy tenant,” she calls it, though she experiences only rare outbreaks—from an old long-term boyfriend who didn’t tell her he had it until it was too late. Over the next five years, she dared disclose to three men; none stuck around. One, at least, took the time to consider, eventually telling her—gently and thoughtfully—that he didn’t want to take the risk. She totally understood, she says, but it still smarted. Another said, “You seem like a very classy girl—I would never have imagined you having that .” (Translation: “You slut.”) By the time No. 3 rolled around, Bouffidis was dispirited enough that she presented her diagnosis in a negative, “You’re not going to want to deal with this,” light, almost deliberately pushing him away. For three years, she didn’t date at all. “It was because I have herpes,” she confirms. “I didn’t want to deal with the Talk anymore.”
Kalani Tom, 40, of New York, usually uses email to inform potential partners about her genital herpes (which she controls successfully with medication) to give them a chance to process the information on their own. Sometimes, it goes fine. “One guy said, ‘It’s gonna take a lot more than that to scare me off,’” she recalls. But the more she likes a guy, the scarier it is—and once, when the stakes were high, she choked. “He asked me if I had anything, and I said no,” she admits. “I was a coward. I didn’t want to be judged.” When she finally told him the truth, he was devastated—not just by her diagnosis, but by her dishonesty. (Fortunately, he tested negative.) Another recent prospect just bailed, too, upon hearing the news. But Tom—though quite contrite about her lie—remains hopeful, even defiant. “People may judge, but I know I’m not some repulsive horrible person,” she says.
Plenty of STI-seropositive men and women—Nack herself included (and Michele, above)—are in happy, healthy relationships with STI-free partners willing to take on the medical logistics of avoiding transmission. “Not all potential partners are going to reject you,” she says. And many women and men with STIs have found support, community, friends—and more than friends—in online communities specifically for them. There’s an interesting, and ongoing, debate about whether dating sites for people with STIs are godsends or ghettos, but experts say they are—at least—great places for the newly diagnosed to get their groove back.
Kristin Andrews, 30, of Michigan, contracted herpes from an unfaithful boyfriend who, when he heard her diagnosis, called her “a slut and a whore and complained that now it’s gonna be hard for him to date,” she recalls. “For that first few weeks it was awful. I felt like I was one of the worst people in the world, disgusting and degraded and gross.” Then she found MPwH.net (short for Meet People with Herpes), where she got her “newbie” questions answered straightforwardly and reassuringly. Eventually, she arrived at the distinction that our society clearly—and dangerously—still refuses to accept: “I have herpes,” she says. “But it’s not who I am.”
You Can Have Sex with Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them
Radley Balko
In spring and summer 2006, Eric Rinehart, at the time a 34-year-old police officer in the small town of Middletown, Indiana, began consensual
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