Hi, I’m Shelley and I’ve been living with herpes since 1987 and out about it in a public way for only the past few years. Passtheherpes.wordpress.com is an attempt to create a space for people to share their thoughts about living with herpes, ideas for pain relief and virus suppression as well as the experiences of coming out, responses from partners, family and health care people.
Anyone may submit a post by emailing me at herpesblog (at) gmail and i’ll post if it suits the very general idea of the blog. It would be really great if you indicated your herpes status in your post and feel free to post anonymously. This blog is open to folks who experience herpes on their face as well as genitals, I think both have their challenges and can cause a lot of pain and shame, though I acknowledge that having sores on our genitals is often considered to be more shameful than on our faces.
Blog entries
If you don’t have herpes, it’s likely you haven’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about where people get them. Yes there’s the mouth or the genitals, but there’s a whole lot more to consider than up or down.
I have genital and oral herpes—and I swear it saved my life. It sounds weird, I know, but it’s true.
I contracted herpes as an undergrad at Berkeley in the mid 80s. My boyfriend had a cold sore on his lips after the first sunny day of skiing.
As the owner of the Lisgar Street sex, health, and education shop, Venus Envy, Shelley Taylor has been spreading messages of sex-positivity and talking openly and educationally about all things sex-related for years. Recently, Taylor has given others the opportunity to speak up.
I hadn’t heard of this website before, but it covers a really broad range of topics about herpes. From treatment information to health studies to legal issues, this blog is an interesting collection of stories.
I find it is hard to meet others in Toronto who have herpes to share this with and get support.
There is only one support group in a city of 3 million. I tried going there but I didn’t feel connected. Anyway, has anyone in the Toronto area ever thought of starting up more support groups here. People are too quiet about herpes, we need to build strength with each other.
Tomorrow I leave for Paris for a week long vacation with my girlfriend. I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple of months and am so excited! But today I woke up with the tingly achy feeling that indicates I have a herpes outbreak on the way.
I heard Shelley on CBC’s All in a Day and thought, wow, finally someone is talking about herpes. My story is nothing special. I met my ex-husband almost 30 yrs ago through a friend. They were a couple and she told me she had herpes. This was 1982. She thought that the lambskin condom they were using was protection enough for him. They split up and I had done some reading about herpes.
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