My doctor’s new lab declined to decline to test me for HSV-1 and HSV-2.
I tested positive for HSV-1, along with (apparently) 67% of the people in the world, and 54% of the people in the U.S., younger than 50 (that’s not me). So I’m apparently in good company. Me and more than half of the folks you’ve slept with. [Source: Bing – my current go-to.] FWIW: I’ve never had a herpes sore.
I tested negative (shocker) for HSV-2. Here’s what Bing* told me:
HSV-2 prevalence was nearly twice as high among women (20.9%) than men (11.5%), and was more than three times higher among blacks (39.2%) than non-Hispanic whites (12.3%). The most affected group was black women, with a prevalence rate of 48%. Prevalence increased with age and number of partners2.
Just to translate this into N-English: if you’ve slept with ten men, more than one of them had HSV-2. If you’ve slept with five women, more than one of them had it. Never mind if you’ve slept with a Black or Hispanic person. Whatever. People stress about dumb shit; I try to avoid driving.
* I actually know someone named Bing. She didn’t tell me this. When I say “Bing,” I mean the crappy Microsoft search engine that has figured out how to integrate AI to answer some questions better than Google.