Why Should I Date Someone With Herpes?

January 28, 2016.Reading time 2 minutes.

Does your dick get hard around her? Is she nice?

Bachelorella: We Need To Retire The Las Vegas Herpes Joke

January 25, 2016.Reading time 8 minutes.

I haven’t been writing Bachelorella recaps this season of The Bachelor because I am busy and tired and nothing interesting has happened. And then tonight The Bachelor put Ben H.’s harem of girlfriends on a jet (or, possibly, on a passive aggressive party bus) and dragged them to Las Vegas. And I cringed, because I knew what was […]

Why Having A Boyfriend Doesn’t Cure Herpes

January 24, 2016.Reading time 15 minutes.

We’ve all read that essay: the woman who gets herpes because she caves to temptation just once and has a regrettable one-night-stand, but goes on to find happiness because she meets that one man who loves her just as she is, STI and all. You can find it in glossy women’s magazines and anonymous chat […]

Why STDRegistry.com Is Disgusting, and Outing Your Ex as STI+ Makes You an Asshole

January 14, 2016.Reading time 18 minutes.

I stopped. I went back and read the paragraph again. STDRegistry. STDRegistry. No. Absolutely not.

Dear VICE, Stop Using This Photo of a Smashed Banana on Your STI Articles

January 7, 2016.Reading time 6 minutes.

Look, VICE. We need to have a quick chat. You’ve been on the STI beat this year, and I respect that. One of your journalists wrote a great piece about me over the summer and she was super lovely and considerate. It was a positive experience. But then the article used a repulsive image of […]

We Can’t Allow Sexual Harassment In The Herpes Community

December 21, 2015.Reading time 15 minutes.

UPDATE 4/21/2016: Although I will always stand by the contents of the letter below, I no longer feel comfortable endorsing the work of Rafaella Gunz going forward. While I wish her well, we have professional differences as activists and as writers. The headline of this post has been changed to reflect that. No matter the circumstances, the sexual […]

To The Woman Who Announced Her STI on Snapchat

December 19, 2015.Reading time 3 minutes.

I learned about you when I Googled myself—as a narcissist is wont to do—and discovered I’d been mentioned in an article about you on the Daily Star. I’m not entirely sure why my efforts to destigmatize herpes were mentioned in the article, which was a masterpiece of stigmatizing, sensationalized journalism that in no way respected […]

All of My Coworkers Know I Have Herpes. It’s Great.

December 16, 2015.Reading time 7 minutes.

Tomorrow I’m giving a short talk about the work I’ve done this year to combat herpes stigma. Here’s the catch: I’m doing it at my office. For my entire company. Including everyone who works remotely on an internal live-stream. That’s somewhere between 150 and 200 of my coworkers, give or take a bunch of interns. […]

The Selfie Tradition: 2015 Edition

November 21, 2015.Reading time 5 minutes.

I made a pact with myself last year to take a selfie and share it every November 21st. The date has special significance to me; November 21st, 2013 was the night I met some of my closest friends who put me back on track to being a smug, self-loving bitch after six months of struggling with my herpes diagnosis. I […]

Matt Lauer Asks Charlie Sheen What You Should Never Ask Someone With an STI

November 17, 2015.Reading time 7 minutes.

I don’t want to talk about Charlie Sheen. I have spent the past 24 hours talking about nothing other than Charlie Sheen, and I am very aware that there are HIV activists and experts who can say whatever I have to say more articulately. No one “deserves” to get HIV. No one should have his […]