Who I Am Now (This Is a Coming Out Post)

October 29, 2016.Reading time 23 minutes.

I wasn’t ready to come out. Then a stranger sent an email to my coworkers and I didn’t have a choice anymore.

Why Should I Date Someone With Herpes?

January 28, 2016.Reading time 9 minutes.

Here’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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The (Not So) Black and White Ethics of Herpes

December 13, 2015.Reading time 10 minutes.

I’ve been thinking more and more about writing a book and the many reasons I don’t know if I can. I haven’t written a single word of what this memoir could be but I have already Googled ‘defamation of character lawsuit’ at least five times. Have you ever noticed it’s only rich, white men who sue […]

To The Teenage Girls Who Have Herpes

October 20, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

I 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 […]

How I Lost My Post-Herpes Virginity

October 4, 2015.Reading time 16 minutes.

I 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 […]

The Herpes+ Writer Directory

September 4, 2015.Reading time 8 minutes.

Here’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.

TIME Magazine Ruined Herpes Journalism. Here’s How To Fix It.

July 25, 2015.Reading time 34 minutes.

In 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 […]