Archive for the 'herpes' Category

Weekend

Published
by
Nadia
on February 15, 2009
in D/s, Uncategorized, depression, flogging, herpes and sti
. 1 Comment

So this weekend didn’t turn out like I thought it would. Alas we did not make it to Dark Odyssey (and basically we donated money to them as it was much too late to get a refund). The bacterial vaginosis I had last week brought on a yeast infection (or at least the antibiotics used to treat it did) and the medicine used to treat the yeast brought on a herpes outbreak like it usually does. So there’s no sex for me this Valentine’s Weekend. Yes, I have V.D. for V.D. (Gotta laugh about it.) I debated being open about it on here or not - I mean, when I don’t have an outbreak I’m very open about it and very into being an activist to destigmatize stis. When I have an outbreak, however, all that goes out the window and the weight of social stigma comes crashing down on my shoulders. I spent a lot of time Friday night and Saturday morning feeling depressed, not just for missing Dark Odyssey but I felt like the sum of my parts was an infectious disease and I felt humiliated and dirty. I actually had thoughts of suicide. Now, the rational part of me (heh, or MasterDoc that is) reminds me that it’s minor disease and I only get one outbreak a year (!), so this will soon pass and life will go on as normal. How horrible would it be to kill yourself over something silly like herpes? But the stigma is such that you really feel awful for having it. Even I, Ms. Positivity about living with herpes, gets super depressed about it. Please, if you know someone with an sti be kind to them, be rational about the risk - they have enough shit on their shoulders from the existing social stigma. They don’t need more from you. The stigma from herpes is always 100 times worse than the virus itself. (I’d also say that the stigma is more contagious, especially if you’re on daily suppressive therapy like I am.)

So after much crying and much depression (and man, was I negative during that time. I really picked on MasterDoc - you’d think I’m miserable with him the way I was talking.) I started to cheer up and realize that I still have a few days off from work, and I’m spending the weekend with MasterDoc anyway. (He’s working a few hours tonight, got an extra shift, but this just means I can take over his new Wii for a few hours. Ha!) Davey already had plans with one of his other girlfriends, and I certainly wouldn’t want him to cancel with her just because my plans had changed. Ultimately, it wasn’t the weekend I had hoped for, but really, how it goes is up to me. I can be depressed all weekend and miserable, or I can enjoy the various parts of it. Tonight I’m determined to enjoy some alone time.

Last night, MasterDoc and I went out to the local bdsm club. After all, my pussy was out of commission but I sure could still be spanked and flogged. I think sometimes I forget how much I enjoy bdsm in its own right, and not just as a precursor for sex. I thought maybe I’d be frustrated getting worked up and not able to finish, but I didn’t feel that way. I got dressed up in my fetish finest (a red pvc dress) and we packed a toy bag and went out.

We spent some time hanging out, watching the slave auction. (Thankfully MasterDoc did not put me in it - I was in no mental state to be given away. I’m sure he knew that.) I don’t know what I expected a slave auction to be like, but somehow it was different than I envisioned.  I think it was reality vs. fantasy at work. For the most part the slaves were pretty normal looking - not like hot fetish models. And some of the male slaves didn’t get bid on. (So sad.) Playing commenced after the auction and we walked around checking out the goings-on. There was a female sub getting flogged but good - two floggers at once even - although MasterDoc said the Dom had no follow through and he wasn’t hitting her as hard as he hits me.

I was anxious to play as after my depression earlier that day I really felt like a beating would do me good. We found a spot with a padded bench for me to lean over. MasterDoc put on my collar and had me pull down my panties and tights. He flogged me and my pain tolerance was pretty good. I enjoyed the feeling of being hit. Then he switched to his hand and hit the same spot on each cheek over and over and over again. Man, that hurt. Now one of the problems with playing at a club is the loud music - you don’t get the feedback from noises that you do in a quiet environment. I did cry out louder when it hurt too much. I felt pushed but ultimately after I felt really, really good. He flogged me some more and I hit subspace somewhere along the way. Afterwards, he sat down and I asked if I could sit down. He said not yet and I started feeling funny like I really needed to sit down. With the collar on I should have said, “I need to sit down, Sir.” but I felt so weird that all I got out was, “I need to sit down.” I got scolded for that, but he did let me have a seat. He held me for a few minutes as I recovered.

We moved on and found another place to play, this time it was a doctor’s examining table for me to bend over. (How appropriate!) MasterDoc remembered my none too subtle hints about wanting my hands cuffed behind my back and he got my cuffs out of the bag. He secured my wrists together behind my back and gave me a flogging. I liked the feeling of being helpless, but my shoulders started to ache after a while. Unfortunately they ached before my butt was done. The spanking was cut short. MasterDoc told me to stand up and I couldn’t with my hands behind my back. He tried to help me but my shoes just slipped out from under me. After a few moments of feeling completely helpless he uncuffed me and I got up. We enjoyed a soda, and then called it a night.

I’m hoping if I’m a lucky girl that I’ll get another beating this weekend. Fingers crossed!

STI Education

Published
by
Nadia
on October 19, 2008
in herpes, sti and stis
. 2 Comments

I have been known to talk about STIs (sexually transmitted infections) although not as often on this blog as my old blog. I’m very much an advocate for knowledge about transmission, risks, open discussion and a sane, compassionate approach to someone who has an STI. Fairly often there are threads on the discussion boards on collarme or fetlife where people talk about STIs and I find a pervasive attitude - there are many who will not play with anyone who does not have proof of a clear test to provide. I take issue with this for various reasons. Firstly, I take issue with notion that negative tests guarantee you don’t have something. Tests are imperfect. Please don’t read this to mean that tests are worthless - certainly regular testing is a good idea and treatment of anything that arises is advisable. However, a negative test does not guarantee that someone doesn’t have an infection. The example I like to use is how I’ve, from time to time, tested negative for herpes in the years I’ve had it. It’s possible for the virus to be dormant enough that it doesn’t show on a test. There’s also the issue that being tested “for everything” doesn’t necessarily include all STIs - herpes is frequently not automatically included in batteries of tests. (Not unless you have knowingly been exposed, and even then some doctors don’t think it’s worth testing unless you’ve had symptoms.)

Secondly, it is possible to play with someone with an STI and keep the risk to an acceptable level. Dismissing someone out of hand just because they have herpes, or HPV, or even HIV really eliminates a lot of good people from your life right off the bat. I’ve often said that the stigma against STIs is far worse than the STI itself (in my mind, this is true more for herpes or HPV or one of the treatable bacterial infections, rather than HIV which is a serious infection). People treating those with STIs like they’re pariahs, untouchable, bad people, etc. is really unacceptable. I made a poor choice with someone who was dishonest at one time in my life and I was unlucky enough to catch something. But you know what? Herpes is a really minor skin disease. People’s attitudes towards it are really blown all out of proportion. On a recent thread on fetlife someone pointed out that their partner wasn’t comfortable having intercourse with them because they had dormant HSV (herpes simplex virus), but this same partner had nearly died in a motorcycle accident, and yet he still rides his motorcycle. It’s funny to me the grand risks that people will take, but when it comes to an STI they flip out. It is possible to have sex with someone with an STI and not catch it. Condom use is very helpful. People being open and honest with each other, so that the one with an STI feels comfortable bringing up any outbreaks, symptoms, etc. in a non-judgmental environment, will go a long way towards preventing infection. I’m not saying you should ever take a risk with someone who is actively presenting symptoms of an STI - have them get treated, get the outbreak to clear up, get the warts removed before having sex. BUT, speaking as someone who has had sex with people who have HPV, it’s not an automatic deal breaker for me.  As long as we’re both not presenting symptoms at that time, I use condoms and take the risk (and as of my last test results I was negative for HPV). And with so many people the minor risk of infection is so worth spending intimate time with them. It’s possible to take care of your sexual health, while taking calculated risks. If you look at transmission rates for a variety of STIs they’re really not nearly as bad as you are led to believe. I’ll have to ask MasterDoc for the link, but he found stats about HIV transmission and the odds, even when one partner definitely has HIV, of catching it are not huge. Transmission via oral sex is actually quite unlikely. (Not impossible, but unlikely.)

We live in a society where anti-sex sentiment pervades, and the fear tactics used when discussing STIs are just anti-sex propaganda. Yes, there’s a risk. Yes, it’s great if you prevent catching anything because it’s a drag to have an STI. But no, your life will not end, you do not become a bad person, you are not “dirty” if you catch something. And no, you will not then pass it on to all your future sex partners. I’ve lived 10 years with herpes and to the best of my knowledge no one has caught it from me. I take an anti-viral daily, I know my body and avoid sexual contact when I have symptoms and I use condoms consistently. I’ve slept with a lot of people since catching it, and no one has come back to me to say they’ve got it. (I stay on friendly terms with many exes, so I would hear from many past partners if something came up.) When you look at the stats for sero-discordant couples (one has herpes, the other doesn’t) the transmission rate after one year of unprotected sex is only around 3-5%. I hope that my being open will help some people realize that the stigma against those with STIs is really unfair, and grounded in an irrational sense of fear. Just because something is transmitted via sexual contact does not make it a worse infection to get. Ignorance breeds fear - read up on non-biased studies of STIs and get to know what the real risks are.

A Moment of Activism

Published
by
Nadia
on August 1, 2008
in herpes and stis
. 1 Comment

MasterDoc encouraged me not to post this, to keep my blog completely sex-positive. But I find that I feel better being an activist for the reality of sex. I don’t really see this sex-negative, I see it as widening awareness about what can naturally occur as part of sex. After this I’ll go back to regaling you with tales of hot kinky sex. But for now, humor me and file this under “Nadia’s STI activism.” I’ve provided many links for you to find further information, or to back up things I’ve said.

I’ve debated writing about this topic on this blog, even though I was quite open about it on my old blog three years ago. The thing that tipped the scales for me was when I asked Jane’s Guide to update the link to my review, and rather than finding the review for my librarianbabe.blogspot.com blog that predated this one, they found the old review from my kinkylibrarian.blogspot.com blog, and there they mention that I’m open about my life with herpes. And so I decided to be open about it yet again.

As I’ve said before, I believe in writing about the good and the bad when it comes to sex. I can’t think of another sex blog mentioning sexually transmitted infections (STIs) any time recently. But the fact is STIs are a risk of having sex. How big of a risk depends on many things, such as consistent and correct condom use, how accurate your partner’s STI testing was, how honest they are about their status, how many partners you have, etc. If you’re serious about avoiding STIs then I suggest strict monogamy with lots of testing before becoming sexually active with each other (even that’s imperfect as testing is imperfect, there’s also the fact that most (nearly all) people catch HSV-1 orally in childhood, so oral sex is nearly always going to carry a risk). If you’re going to be a slut, you’re going to be exposed to herpes and HPV, probably many times. (Exposure does not automatically mean infection.) Both are prevalent enough that the odds are you’ve fucked someone who has one or both. They may very well not have known they had it. It’s estimated that 70-90% of people who have herpes don’t know they have it. 1 The guy who gave it to me swore that he had been tested for “everything” but here’s the catch: a) he could have been lying, b) he could have been honest but not known that his testing for “everything” didn’t include a herpes test (frequently doesn’t get included unless you know you’ve been exposed or have an active outbreak), or c) his test could have produced a false negative. In the 10 years I’ve had herpes I’ve tested both negative and positive for it. You can imagine what I think about the veracity of tests.

Herpes is relatively common (2, 3) with HSV-2 estimated being in 20-25% of the population; HSV-1 is generally listed at around 90% of the population. Now type 1 is typically found orally and type 2 is typically found genitally, but with the prevalence of unprotected oral sex, rates of HSV-1 being transmitted to the genitals are on the rise. (HSV-2 rarely transmits to the mouth and when it does it usually produces no symptoms at all. 4) Rates of transmission in couples where one has HSV-2 and one doesn’t are typically reported at 3-5% per year (not including those on antivirals and those who use condoms, both of which enormously reduce, but do not eliminate the transmission rate). That’s a pretty small risk. 5 So if you’re a happy slut, I recommend you continue being happy, just use your head and realize that there IS a risk. You could very well some day be diagnosed with an STI. I get really fed up with those who are slutty/swingers and yet act like they can’t possibly have been exposed to herpes or HPV (or chlamydia or gonorrhea or HIV for that matter). When I was going to go to my first sex party, I asked the host how disclosure is usually handled, and he had no idea so he went to a mutual friend, a sex educator, for advice. Her long rant can be read here. It’s worth reading. Before that blog entry, I disclosed to every single potential partner. That’s 7 years of full disclosure. Most people are okay with the herpes thing, a few freak out and never talk to me again (um, you can’t get it by just saying to me, “Sorry but I’m not comfortable with the risk.”). After reading Jane’s opinion I opted to go to parties, not offer the information as I was undoubtedly not the only risk there (after I stopped going to Jefferson’s parties learned a guy I frequently fucked there had dealt with bouts of genital warts, so yes, I definitely wasn’t the only risk in town), but I always promised myself that if anyone asked I’d be honest. And you know what? No one ever asks. Ever. So I take a daily antiviral, and use condoms without fail and don’t have sex during outbreaks or symptoms. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never passed it along to anyone. (3.5 years with Davey and 1 year with MasterDoc and both are, as best we’re able to tell, herpes-free.) Of course, testing being what it is there’s no hard proof that that’s true. I continue to tell many of my partners. I can’t see myself trying to start a friendship or relationship with someone and not disclosing before sex. That would be a shitty way to start a friendship. But the few totally random people at sex clubs? I will tell if they ask. And as I said before, they never do. And if they’re not asking me they’re not asking the other person they just fucked. And they really have no idea or hope of having an idea of the STI status of their partners. If you’re a slut you are putting yourself at risk! Assume that your partner has everything and take what to you are reasonable precautions. I realize my philosophy on disclosure at parties is controversial, but know that there are people like me out there, not to mention the ones who would freely lie about their status or the many who just don’t know their status. (Kinda like the guy who gave it to me, while his testing claims are debatable his saying “I’ve had that before it goes away by itself,” when I spotted blisters on his penis show a distinct lack of brains on his part. If he didn’t have any thing why did he have recurring blisters on his penis??) Assess the level of risk you’re okay with and act accordingly. You are responsible for your own sexual health. Since my behavior has been condoned by both a sex educator and a doctor (MasterDoc) I feel like I’ve taken advice from the best possible, educated (least hysterical) sources.

As for those of you recently diagnosed with or knowingly sleeping with someone with herpes, please realize it is, for the vast majority of individuals, a minor skin infection. Catching it is hardly the end of the world. Part of why I speak up is to help lessen the stigma attached to STIs. Infectious diseases are a part of life. Life is a risk. I have decided that the risk that comes from having safer sex with multiple partners is worth it to me (and I have an increased risk of catching something else because I have herpes). It might not be to you. Educate yourself and make the decision. And everybody, please realize that most STIs are not as horrific as they are made out to be. They are sexually transmitted so immediately people are scandalized because of their method of transmission. But most are curable (chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and in recent years they say that HPV often clears on its own), some are quite preventable with condom use (HIV, hepatitis – definitely the ones you want to prevent) and just herpes, a minor infection, is still incurable and transmittable even with condoms. But then it’s transmittable via unprotected oral sex, and how many people do you know have protected oral sex?? Be an educated slut.