Dealing with herpes jokes

After being diagnosed, I encountered some friends who where making jokes about people who have herpes and I wanted to know how people deal with this sort of thing. I personally kept silent but on the inside I was beyond angry and hurt. How has everyone else been dealing with situations like this? I'm feeling very vulnerable right now since my diagnosis is very new and I'm still in shock over it.

Learn to take a joke and laugh if they are funny.

@hippyherpy I usually do but I'm just extra sensitive right now

Depending on how open I'm feeling in the moment, and whether my openness in that moment would violate the privacy of others in my presence at the time (like a dating partner, for instance), I might make a corrective comment on the content of the joke if it was based on a common misperception, or I might call out a shaming aspect of a joke, but then I might follow up with a joke that I can see the humor in instead. My favorite: "Almost everyone has herpes" is both true *and* what someone tells you right before they give you herpes. At least that kind of joke acknowledges how very common herpes is.

@optimist I didn't even know how to respond to it. It was more along the lines of calling some disgusting and being very judgemental. The down fall of working in an office with all women. I need to learn how to take things like that with a grain of salt and just laugh it off. It's true with the whole stigma part of H. I wish people could see that it could happen to ANYONE at ANYTIME. Like I said in my earlier post, I'm so happy that I stumbled upon this little community of compassionate people. Thank you for your input :-)

@Homewardxxbound I'm sorry to hear that. It is very likely a fair number of those women are infected, considering more women than men are infected. Those who are most judgmental about it may have the hardest time coming to terms with it if they should ever become infected or discover they have long been infected.

@optimist can you recommend any good reads on H? I already purchased Terri Warrens book

I sincerely hope no one ever makes a herpes joke in front of me. Especially at work. I just know I would say something defensive like, "I have herpes. Would you like to say that joke again, but this time to my face?" Definitely not the calm and confident response I fantasize about but still can't come up with!

@HikingGirl If you're going to take that route, how about something like "You know, roughly 80% of adults have herpes and some of them may be sensitive to these types of dehumanizing jokes, so you may want to keep that in mind in the future."

@Homewardxxbound I've only read Terri's book. Everything else I've read has been on the Internet. Mostly studies, but also blogs like Ella Dawson's (https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/herpes/).

@optimist I'll have to check it out. Thank you!

@HikingGirl I was a little taken back, but then I realized that most people are really dense and don't mean to be rude. I'm just going to avoid it and not respond. Thank god I can have ear phones in at work so I don't have to listen to it haha.

@HikingGirl If you're going to take that route, how about something like "You know, roughly 80% of adults have herpes and some of them may be sensitive to these types of dehumanizing jokes, so you may want to keep that in mind in the future."

Perfect! Are you this level-headed in real life? I want to be just like you when I grow up. :-)

@HikingGirl And I want to be like you! Yay! xox

Challenge all the ladies you work with to get a blood test and report back what they find out.

@GotWhat haha releasing a fox into the hen house. I should do it.

lol

Jokes are supposed to be dehumanizing and terrible etc. by making a big deal out of a herpes joke, you are turning into something much larger than it needs to be and feeding the stigma.

They probably do have herpes and don't even know about it anyway.

Yeah, most people who make jokes about the H probably already have it or have a great friend or family member with it and have no clue. Basically it's called ignorance really!!! I would probably be inclined to give the statistics. That's just me!

At this point, it's a question of who doesn't have some form of herpes.

Pro tip about herpes discussion: HPV is sort of like herpes, and almost everyone knows and agrees that we pretty much all have it. People can understand herpes as pretty much being in the same league as HPV- and actually it's safer than HPV (rare cases of HPV leading to cancer).

Herpes isn't all that different from HPV as far as it being a genital blemish goes. I've had disclosures that turn into a general discussion about STDs. In 2017, you can either be a nun, or just except that you are going to come into contact these non fatal, generally non-problematic STDs.

1 in 5 people have HSV, 80% of the population has HSV1 and 25% have HSV2. Up to 90% of the people with HSV don't know they have it because they get little or no symptoms. So the odds are your friend telling the joke has herpes too, he just doesn't know it.

Like stated above, friend probably has it too.

I definitely key more into things since my official diagnosis of 1 and 2, depending on my mood depends on how I take things.