A short rom-com tackles the sensitive subject of STDs:
When Hairpin writer “An HSV-Negative Lady” was 22, she was diagnosed with herpes. Four years later, her gynecologist told her she tested “negative for everything.” So why the confusion?
Right now, a visual diagnosis—no tests, just a “you have herpes”—is the standard route for practitioners to diagnose a herpes outbreak. The CDC endorses “visual inspection” as a valid form of diagnosis on their website. Somewhere between 60-85 percent of the time, clinicians make a correct visual diagnosis, [medical director of North Carolina HIV/STD Prevention and Control Branch] Dr. [Peter] Leone said, but that leaves a pretty big possibility that it’s something else. Patients and their doctors can confuse irritated genital symptoms like herpes, yeast infections, and allergic reactions to vaginal hygiene products, [STD expert] Dr. [H. Hunter] Handsfield said.
Most people wouldn’t want to take a 20 percent chance that they’ve wrongly diagnosed a lifelong disease. So why wouldn’t doctors just conduct a simple test?
“They’re lazy, they’re ignorant, and they don’t like talking about sex,” Dr. Leone said. That reticence is especially alarming when it comes to oral sex, since more people are getting herpes through head than ever. “We’ve seen a decline in the number of kids growing up who acquire herpes labialis (of the mouth) in childhood,” Dr. Leone explained. Because these kids lack HSV antibodies, more and more are acquiring HSV-1 through oral sex in adolescence and early adulthood—and yet nobody talks about it. “That’s why I don’t necessarily hate to hear Michael Douglas talk about his cunnilingus in a macho, championship way,” he said. “It is good that there’s someone now who is bringing up oral sex in the general population dialogue, because we don’t discuss it.”
The Dish 