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 […]
Read MoreAs I write this, an article about me is the number two trending story on BuzzFeed. My friends have been texting me all day to say that their friends have been texting them about me popping up on their newsfeed. The daily traffic to this blog has spiked into the thousands. Two different TV producers […]
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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.
Read MoreI had a secret weapon when it came to dealing with my herpes diagnosis: my best friend. This interview is different from the previous two I’ve done—BFF is not a romantic partner, but she knows me better than any boyfriend ever could. We grew up together in those stupidly formative years of college, navigating hookup culture, […]
Read MoreI didn’t meet anyone else with herpes for nearly a year after getting diagnosed. That’s a lie—of course I did. There was the guy who have given me herpes in the first place, and statistically I knew dozens, hundreds, thousands of people with the same virus over the years. I learned after I began publicly disclosing […]
Read MoreSo I have writer’s block. That’s a lie, I’ve been writing a lot. My journal is hella packed with lyrical meditations on my feels. But in terms of polished essays and pop culture reviews, or wacky interviews about my vagina with ex-boyfriends, I am fried, dudes. Ella got nothin’. But that’s okay! Because the rest […]
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Can you have sex without condoms if you have genital herpes?
Read MoreIt’s a Saturday afternoon. I am sitting at a table outside of Usdan, Wesleyan’s student center, under a big black umbrella. The sun toasts my exposed shoulders. A student journalist with the school paper asks me questions about my recent, surreal herpes stardom, and strangers at nearby tables peer over at me as I answer because […]
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Picture this: you’re twenty years old, you’ve just been diagnosed with genital herpes, and you have no idea how long you’ve had it or who might have given it to you. You know you have to do the responsible thing and call everyone you have recently slept with—except eight months ago you had the most epic breakup of your life.
Read MoreI learned quickly after getting diagnosed with genital herpes that no one writes about having an STI. There are no memoirs about herpes. There are no academic studies about the literature of herpetic authors. There is a gigantic gaping hole on the Internet where herpes blogging should be, other than the herpes support community on Tumblr (which, […]
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