Herpes: Not the angel of death, the angel of disclosure

I'm dating a girl who I like and she just told me she has herpes. She laid it on me when we were in the heat of passion. I made up an excuse and bolted. I didn't want to hurt her feelings but I don't want it and I'm not sure where to look for the 411. What's the deal with herpes?

Goddess gave us herpes to teach us to be honest with our lovers about our outside sexual activities.

Some things are clear about herpes. 1 of every 5 people in the US over 12 years of age have it. It's a lifelong disease with no currently-known cure. You can get oral herpes which results in sores on your mouth, you can get genital herpes which results in sores and pain around the genitals, or you can get both. Poor health habits and stress make an infected person have more breakouts more often. Some people have sores often, others go years without a symptom. Medicine helps the sores dry up and the symptoms go away, and a raw food diet has the same effect as the medicine. You can get it by touching an open sore - you can get oral herpes from another person's oral or genital herpes infection, and you can get genital herpes from another person's oral or genital herpes infection. Yes ... you can get it from oral sex.

Other things are less clear. Scientists think herpes can be transmitted when the infected person does not have a breakout. Many believe it won't be transmitted if you use a condom but that's not what the scientists say. They say an infected person "sheds" the virus onto another person even when they don't have a breakout, which pretty much makes the condom irrelevant. It might be hard to tell if you have it because you can carry it with no symptom and doctors can't tell for sure unless they test an open sore.

Now the most important part: If you have it, you must tell your sex partners you have it so they can make their own choices. She might not think its a big deal, but it IS a big deal to you, the person who doesn't have it yet. She was wrong to tell you in the heat of passion. She owed you the respect of telling you while you could think clearly, weigh the risks, and decide where your boundaries are. None of us think clearly during hot sex - the point is to turn our brains off!

You were right to give yourself space to sort it out. Do research on the web. Decide how you want to handle the risk of herpes in your life, then live by the boundaries you set for yourself. Decide whether you want to expose yourself. Decide how you feel about "shedding" and oral sex.

If you get herpes, you owe the rest of the world the same respect. Tell your lovers, before the heat of passion, that you have it and will respect their decisions around it. This means a safe sex talk before every encounter.

Herpes might be an angel in disguise. An open, supportive safe sex talk with full disclosure about exposure to herpes can provide an important opportunity to grow more intimate with your partner. During this kind of truthful, vulnerable, conversation you are likely to learn valuable things about yourself and the other person. After all, if you can't trust your partner to be 100% truthful about herpes, or you can't be 100% truthful about it ... what can you trust?