Who I Am Now (This Is a Coming Out Post)
I wasn’t ready to come out. Then a stranger sent an email to my coworkers and I didn’t have a choice anymore.
Read MoreI wasn’t ready to come out. Then a stranger sent an email to my coworkers and I didn’t have a choice anymore.
Read MoreHere’s another pet peeve of my email inbox: when a man (because it’s almost always a man) asks me if he should continue seeing this woman he’s been dating who just told him she has herpes. Sometimes the question is data-based, about what transmission statistics are real. Sometimes the question is esoteric, about whether or not […]
Read MoreWe’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 […]
Read MoreI 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 […]
Read MoreMost of my essays start with a text message: “Hey, do you mind if I write about you for my blog?” What I’m really asking runs the gamut from hey, do you mind if I write about our not-quite-relationship that defies definition but makes me feel all giddy to hey, do you mind if I write […]
Read MoreI remember the first time I was ever called a whore. I had just turned fifteen and this boy, this arrogant little fucker, was angry because I had “broken up” with him after one movie date in order to ask out someone cuter. Our group of friends was walking to the gas station after school to buy gigantic fountain […]
Read MoreI was eighteen when I lost my virginity. A few weeks into my freshman year of college, I met a hipster with gorgeous blond hair and an obscure instrument slung over his shoulder, and a few weeks after that, we had sex. It was not altogether a memorable experience. What stuck with me weren’t any romantic details […]
Read MoreHere’s a list of herpes+ writers you need to be reading, AND, if you’re a journalist or an editor, contacting about writing for your publications.
Read MoreIn 1982, TIME Magazine published a very special cover story: “The New Scarlet Letter.” In five dense pages full of salacious personal anecdotes and some incredibly horrifying doctoral testimonies, TIME set the standard for herpes journalism. I read the entire piece with my friend (and this site’s editor) Gabe Rosenberg so that you don’t have […]
Read MoreCan you have sex without condoms if you have genital herpes?
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