3 ms·

This is why downvotes are a stupid idea. So many mixed signals to misinterpret. Anyone downvoting this guy is part of the problem, because you're just locking h

This is why downvotes are a stupid idea. So many mixed signals to misinterpret. Anyone downvoting this guy is part of the problem, because you're just locking him in his own cage of ignorance, without explaining to him why he's getting downvoted. Anywho, the main error in your post really has to do with the fact that you'll catch this kind of thing from water fountains, silverware, accidentally sipping from the wrong glass, touching a paper cup against a fountain soda dispenser, after someone else did the same, and then drinking from said cup, sitting on toilet seats. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, instead of being locked in a prison of ignorance, you'll be locked in a prison of germophobia. Ah well...

throwawayt1me 11y ago
Thanks, this is useful, but isn't that a straw man? Aren't I basically just guaranteed to get it from kissing people who have it for long enough? I'm not a germaphobe in other cases, I don't mind lightly washing and sharing silverware or drinking out of a glass someone has drunk from. Maybe if they're a stranger I won't put my mouth to it. I think "locked in a prison of ignorance" is quite strong phrasing. Unless I'm wrong about how it's transmitted, if I regularly kissed total strangers I'd have it by now. are you saying I just shouldn't mind at all? (Like, I shouldn't even consider it?)
- chickumpox 11y ago
  It's not just a kissing disease. The direct, evident exchange of bodily fluids is not a prerequisite. You can get it from a hand shake. Sexual transmission is only incidental, or rather more or less nomenclature, indicating the rough interpersonal proximity required for transmission, and not the specific acts that precipitate transmission. People who spread it won't readily display symptoms while contagious. People have it and don't realize it. Doctors don't even test you for it, unless you specifically ask, since it's not life threatening, and most people who would test positive may have had it since infancy. Simplex I is the more common infection, that even your grandma probably has by now. Simplex II is the skeevy version that your cousin picked up in middle school. Technically speaking, it has to do with the tendency for each species to proliferate in different mucous membranes. The differentiation probably has something to do with the way the human body operates the immune system at different levels in different parts of the body, and over millions of years, each species has adapted to colonize one orifice more readily than another. Furthermore, HSV I can show up on the mouth or anywhere else. HSV II can ALSO show up on the mouth or anywhere else. You can have both on the mouth simultaneously or both on your junk simultaneously, or one on your junk and the other on your mouth. Each species of virus has a tendency to reside in one area and transmits from that area more readily than the opposing area, but it's really just a liklihood, not hard rules that one only happens here and the other there. That tendency to colonize the mouth is what makes HSV I so common and transmissible because our mouths are exposed to more environments and come into contact with various situations and aren't covered behind clothing nearly as often as elsewhere.
- chillacy 11y ago
  You might already have it. Many people who are infected are asymptomatic. General STD screens also don't test for herpes because so many people have it that the stress of finding out is more harmful that actually knowing you have it (or so the logic goes. I've also heard that it's because the test has high false positive rates). I spent a long time freaked out about this... then I realized that it's basically an inevitability. We'll all be dead in 80 years anyways :)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

throwawayt1me 11y ago

Thanks, this is useful, but isn't that a straw man? Aren't I basically just guaranteed to get it from kissing people who have it for long enough? I'm not a germaphobe in other cases, I don't mind lightly washing and sharing silverware or drinking out of a glass someone has drunk from. Maybe if they're a stranger I won't put my mouth to it. I think "locked in a prison of ignorance" is quite strong phrasing. Unless I'm wrong about how it's transmitted, if I regularly kissed total strangers I'd have it by now. are you saying I just shouldn't mind at all? (Like, I shouldn't even consider it?)

chickumpox 11y ago
It's not just a kissing disease. The direct, evident exchange of bodily fluids is not a prerequisite. You can get it from a hand shake. Sexual transmission is only incidental, or rather more or less nomenclature, indicating the rough interpersonal proximity required for transmission, and not the specific acts that precipitate transmission. People who spread it won't readily display symptoms while contagious. People have it and don't realize it. Doctors don't even test you for it, unless you specifically ask, since it's not life threatening, and most people who would test positive may have had it since infancy. Simplex I is the more common infection, that even your grandma probably has by now. Simplex II is the skeevy version that your cousin picked up in middle school. Technically speaking, it has to do with the tendency for each species to proliferate in different mucous membranes. The differentiation probably has something to do with the way the human body operates the immune system at different levels in different parts of the body, and over millions of years, each species has adapted to colonize one orifice more readily than another. Furthermore, HSV I can show up on the mouth or anywhere else. HSV II can ALSO show up on the mouth or anywhere else. You can have both on the mouth simultaneously or both on your junk simultaneously, or one on your junk and the other on your mouth. Each species of virus has a tendency to reside in one area and transmits from that area more readily than the opposing area, but it's really just a liklihood, not hard rules that one only happens here and the other there. That tendency to colonize the mouth is what makes HSV I so common and transmissible because our mouths are exposed to more environments and come into contact with various situations and aren't covered behind clothing nearly as often as elsewhere.
chillacy 11y ago
You might already have it. Many people who are infected are asymptomatic. General STD screens also don't test for herpes because so many people have it that the stress of finding out is more harmful that actually knowing you have it (or so the logic goes. I've also heard that it's because the test has high false positive rates). I spent a long time freaked out about this... then I realized that it's basically an inevitability. We'll all be dead in 80 years anyways :)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]