All names have been changed, to respect their privacy.

I was only ever in one long term relationship before I fell for one of the line chefs at the restaurant I was waitressing at. My previous high school sweetheart was the second person I had ever slept with, and I was his first. We had a great relationship that just grew apart, so I was underprepared for how terrible relationships could be. Enter Jesse, nine years my senior and someone who I felt was so much cooler and better looking than myself. Hindsight is a crazy thing; I can see now how he manipulated me and how much I was taken advantage of.

We were only three months in and I had no idea that he’d continued seeing his previous lover, or that he was having one night stands. Anyway, one night he didn’t want to have sex and said it was because his dick was sore. I wondered why it would be sore, but I kept to myself, as I was trying so much for this relationship already. After a few beers and a couple of bottles of wine to himself (I rarely drank at that point and had not realised how much of an alcoholic he was) he seemed to forget about the soreness and we had sex.

Fast forward a few days and I was in unbelievable pain. I had weird bumps on my labia, it hurt to walk or sit, and even wearing underwear was too much. After a few days of trying to ignore it, the bumps started leaking pus and I couldn’t go to work because of the pain. It was like you’re shaving downstairs, and accidently cut yourself repeatedly *shudder*. I went to the doctors, who did a STI and STD test, and I was diagnosed with herpes. He was my third sexual partner, and I was only 22 years old. I cried in the doctor's office, because I was so embarrassed, and I berated myself for being so stupid. I knew I shouldn’t have had sex with him that night, and now look at me. Now I have a lifelong disease, and I felt disgusting.

He was surprised when I told him and tried to initially say that I must have given it to him, because he had not been with anyone else. I will always wonder if he already knew and chose not to disclose it, because he didn't have the same reaction, although everyone is different. The relationship got worse and I also discovered more of his cheating. In this time I experienced chlamydia, vaginitis, yeast infections and trichomoniasis multiple times. I also had more herpes outbreaks, because of my anxiety and depression (diagnosed).

He even started sleeping with one of my close friends from work, and he would play us off against each other, so we stopped speaking. I tried to make it obvious that we were still sleeping together by making sure my snapchat location was on, and by making Instagram stories at his house with his housemates, because her and I were still friends on social media. He would get furious about it, even though he said he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else. Whereas she would hide her Instagram stories from me, and I would find out from the girls at work who would show me their date nights and so on. Eventually there was a “John Tucker Must Die” moment. We both came clean and realised he would pick fights with one of us so he could spend time with the other, or use his ‘mental health’ as a reason for needing a night alone, only to spend it with the other.

He would say “Hey, my anxiety is really bad tonight. I think I need a night to myself to lay in bed and watch movies” to which I would say ‘just message me if you need anything or want some company’. I realised he had done this our entire relationship and we were now three years in. This other girl also had no idea he had herpes, and luckily for her, she’d never caught it. I felt like I would never be able to get another guy that was as good looking or interesting as he was, and I didn’t think I would find someone that would love me despite having herpes. I couldn’t help but think that no guy would want to have oral sex with me. He had also made comments over the years that he usually goes for hotter girls but that my personality makes up for it, saying that my flaps are weird, or that I tasted bad when he gave me oral sex, and they gave me a complex I still struggle with today. His housemates tried to warn me but I didn’t see any way out of this. I was certain that I was so undesirable and broken that I was lucky to have some sort of relationship – no matter how toxic it was.

Eventually she ended their situationship, and he desperately clung to me, forcing me to have days off work, as he was so ‘depressed’ he was contemplating suicide. He had endured severe abuse as a child, was an alcoholic and was using other substances, so I knew he had mental health problems and I couldn’t have that on my conscience. He would randomly show up at my house late at night, crying and saying he needed me. One night I screenshot the "I'm going to do something stupid" messages and forwarded them to his housemates, who replied “He’s sitting on the couch with us laughing at the moment, we’re making plans to go to the pub”. This was a 30 year old, full time employee, who had manipulated me into paying his rent, buying new phones, and taking him out for expensive dinners. I look back now and realise he was also moving into physical abuse, which I had always made excuses for, despite him having assault charges from a previous girlfriend, and him saying “she’s just crazy”.

In a weird twist of fate when I was looking for new porn, I stumbled across Reddit’s 18+ groups. They were normal people with all kinds of body types, posting nudes, gifs, videos, threesomes and anything else your kinky heart desires, and the comments were positive and encouraging. So I started posting. I craved the positive attention and validation. I saw so many other people's bodies and came to the conclusion that I quite liked mine. I even built up a respectable fan base; countless messages and comments telling me how hot I was and how sexy my pussy was. I had people offering me money for private photos and videos. So I set up a fake paypal account which they would pay into and then I would transfer it to my normal paypal. It was my 'fun money', so I bought a Nespresso machine, jbl speakers and some men even brought me sex toys! One guy even painted my cooch and sent it to me! It gave me confidence like I’d never had before. I never even had to show my face – I was just a random girl in Australia.

I told my boyfriend that we couldn't be together but could still be friends, as an attempt at slowly distancing myself. This didn’t go down well and resulted in some of the worst verbal and emotional abuse I’ve ever received. He’d leave voice messages like “I hope your flaps flap around, get caught in a train and you get pulled under and die” and “I miss the old you, you were such a good woman and now you’re trash”. Unfortunately, he would message me a barrage like this before blocking me, and I couldn’t block him before he blocked me; meaning he would randomly unblock me, abuse me and then block me again.

After a while I set up tinder, hinge and the rest of them. I was very nervous about disclosing the fact I had herpes, so I didn’t for one nighters. I didn't want people to know that I had 'it' and gossip, judge, or treat me any different. I tried to keep up with the medication and live my best single life. As a girl who got an IUD because I never remembered the pill on time this was a recipe for disaster.

Eventually I found a guy I really liked and knew I would have to tell him about the herpes, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. So I told a white lie, “Hey I was feeling kinda funny downstairs, so I went and got a test and apparently I have herpes. I’m so sorry and completely understand if you don’t want to see me anymore”. He didn’t care one bit, and I was so relieved.

Before I could talk myself up to tell the next guy (we’d only slept together three times) he confronted me and was so sweet and said, “Hey I was feeling uncomfortable the other day and I got checked out and I’ve got herpes. How are you feeling?”. I was mortified and felt like I couldn’t own up and like I had ruined his life. So I lied, saying I would get a test to see. When the ‘test’ came back positive I admitted it was probably me, as I didn’t have any symptoms, which could mean that I had already had the first outbreak, and your first outbreak is usually the worst.
He was very kind and understanding as I bawled my eyes out apologising, he also didn’t seem to care. Sadly this fizzled out mostly due to the fact I was very secretive about the diagnosis whereas he had told his whole family, and I felt like I couldn’t look them in the eye. They were probably thinking I was a slut who slept around and ruined their son. I vowed never to not disclose after this, but sure enough when you’re in the moment on a one-night stand it's really hard to hold up a hand and say “whoa boy, just have to tell you I have a lifelong disease that will potentially affect your sex life, relationships and health forever - do you consent?”. I'm not sure if you're aware but condoms don't fully protect you - it's the skin contact around it.
Onto my current boyfriend who I’ve now been with for almost three and a half years. We’d had a couple of drinks, and had slept together a few times, which led to me blurting out the dreaded information, and giving him a way out if he didn’t want to continue seeing me. He didn’t seem to care, except that at the end of the conversation I stupidly said, “Don’t worry I take medication, which means you can’t catch it”.

I was never really a big drug user, but was in the early days of trying different drugs out, and I loved how they made me feel! One night out with the girls, early in my new relationship, I had a lot of alcohol and some drugs, and found myself making out and doing other things with a girl. I wasn’t thinking clearly, but realised that I had just done the unthinkable to someone I was falling in love with.

The new few weeks were a tense time filled with rough, sad and angry sex, and I forgot to take my medication. We were barely back on speaking terms when he started having issues downstairs. He blew up when he realised I had passed on herpes, and didn’t know if he wanted to continue our relationship. I had also passed on a yeast infection to him, and he was mortified when he’d explained to the chemist he needed medication, only for them to give him athletes foot treatment. It’s been a rough few years, and every outbreak leads to anger and harsh words, and I understand, I hated my ex for the same thing. I wonder if my current boyfriend is only with me because he doesn’t want to have to disclose or possibly pass on herpes to a new partner. He’s said as much drunkenly, and it hurts my heart to think about him choosing me as the easy option.

I have been looking out for a promising cure for years, and finally they are onto some human trials. Herpes is a disease that can hide in nerve endings for years making it extremely resilient. Side effects can include; making it easier to contract HIV, meningitis, neonatal herpes (which can be passed on during birth and can be very dangerous), and a list of other issues. The current ‘cure’ by Moderna (mRNA-1608) is under investigation and being tested alongside HIV, smallpox and other diseases that require a different type of vaccine. Trials should be concluded in June 2025. I am so hopeful for this; whatever the cost I will happily pay for both my partner and myself to get a chance at not having this between us. I want him to be able to freely choose me and know that I haven’t ruined his or anyone else’s lives.

I have become a lot more open and even found out that one of my close friends also has herpes; but the stigma of STI's getting used as entertainment makes me so angry. Between herpes and HIV there is always some shitty dumb joke in a movie or a tv show. My anxiety kicks off the second an actor/tress makes a joke because I know my partner is sitting beside me getting a reminder of who gave him a currently incurable disease, and that the general public thinks we are less than them and deserve to be laughed at.

It's a first world issue, I get that - other people have so much worse going on - HIV is much more terrifying. I have other things that are more pressing than this, but it's something that I can talk about and share my experience with. It can be hard to understand that someone will still love you, want to be with you, find you sexy, and want to lick you to orgasm.