118: Red Flag Responses To Safe Sex With Alexandra Harbushka

Life With Herpes

https://youtu.be/vhgx-zFJ1QE

Alright, I’ll just jump right to it. We hate having the “sex” talk and even worse we hate having the “safe sex” talk.

I’m sure we all could come up with some really classic responses. In fact, you should let us all know your favorite response to the “safe sex” talk. It’s like coming up with your favorite pick up line. Lol. Ok but in all seriousness having the safe sex convo is really important. I talk a lot about this in other shows so feel free to just jump around and tune in. For a quick recap, it’s your diligence to have the safe sex talk. It’s your body and you only have one body. If you don’t respect it then nobody else will. Look, we already have herpes because we didn’t have the safe sex talk or we did but then just put our guard down. So don’t let this happen to you again.

If you want to learn more about safe sex head over to episode 013 & 112.

Here are some of my favorite red flag responses to the safe sex talk. Oh, and when I say red flag I mean...take a second to realize that you’re putting yourself at risk. You might want to put the breaks on.

I’ve never been tested.

WTF? Really? In this day and age, you’ve never been tested? I mean maybe I can let this one go if you’re a teenager and can’t drive and you don’t want to ask your mom to take you down to the clinic. I mean maybe I can understand. But if you’re a grown up and have been having sex for a number of years with a number of people. Please! Grow up and get yourself tested. ASAP! There is zero excuse for why you’ve not gotten tested. You have no idea what you could be carrying and potentially passing to people. Just because you don't have symptoms doesn't mean you’re in the clear.

I don’t sleep with those types of people.

Another winner. Ok...so do I look like “those types of people” who have herpes? The thing is we all have a stereotype of the person who has herpes. We do. We judge people all the time and if you were to stereotype someone with herpes it would never be you. Right? But here’s the thing, herpes doesn’t have a stereotype. It doesn’t pick a race, age, socioeconomic status, your education level, what color hair you have, your personal hygiene, how many people you’ve slept with and so on. It doesn’t care who you are. All it cares about is does it come in contact with a new host?

I’m clean and you have nothing to worry about.

Great… I’m clean too. I took a shower today also. What does clean have anything to do with having herpes? I get it, “clean” is used as I don’t have any STD’s but still, I’m a really clean person. I’m actually a germophobe and guess what? I have herpes! So that response is pretty lame too. The person who uses “I’m clean” need a quick refresher in sexed. Having herpes doesn’t make you a dirty person. I mean I’m not dirty. I wash my hands like 35 times a day. We need to change the way we look at the demographic with herpes as being dirty people. Having herpes means that you had sex. Just like most of the adult population in the world. Are they dirty people?

Ok, as you can see we all need to have a wakeup call when it comes to safe sex and just having a conversation about sex. I’m totally guilty of believing the guy or stereotyping certain guys or thinking other guys would never have anything because I was soooooo infatuated with them. The truth is, you need to take care of you and set your own boundaries. When you hear a cocky response or an uneducated response use your intuition and require that you both get tested. That’s being an adult and that’s taking care of you.

Xoxo,

Alexandra

Here’s How I Can Support

Join our Life With Herpes Secret Society - //subscription-membership-sp/

Herpes Outbreak Toolkit - //herpes-outbreak-toolkit

Emergency Call - //emergencycall/

Keep in touch with Alexandra Harbushka

www.lifewithherpes.com

www.instagram.com/alexandraharbushka

www.facebook.com/lifewithherpespodcast  

www.pinterest.com/lifewithherpes

Join The Live With Herpes Community

If you are ready to join a community of people who are living with herpes also then you will want to join our slack group. It is FREE and it is a great way to find the support and comfort that you are looking for. Head on over to www.lifewithherpes.com and join our community. See you in there.

Ways You Can Support The Life With Herpes Show

If you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it for you than a subscribe would be a great idea.

Are you a YouTuber? Go ahead and subscribe to the show. It is a way to pay it forward to fellow friends who are living with herpes. When you subscribe it helps the algorithm in YouTube and it helps promote the show. If you are worried about your identity and your friends finding out you subscribed to a herpes channel then change your settings to private. And trust me I totally get it and would want to keep it a secret. Also, when you subscribe you will be notified in your inbox when a new episode is out or when Alexandra is live on Youtube Live. Subscribe Here

Are you a podcast listener? Please give the Life With Herpes show a review. It is a way to pay it forward to fellow friends who are living with herpes. You can Subscribe, Rate and Review the show through your iTunes app or on the desktop. Seriously, it helps out a lot more than it is a hassle for you. You see, iTunes has an algorithm that organically promotes the show, so the more ratings and reviews the Life With Herpes Show receives then the higher it gets ranked. This is your way of paying it forward and helping someone find the show who really needs it. Oh, and you can totally use a fake name, so don’t worry about a friend finding you in the iTunes review. Talking about herpes needs to be spread as far and wide as possible. You are totally a part of this movement so THANK YOU!   Subscribe, Rate and Review

[podcast src="https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/8244941/height/360/theme/standard-mini/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/direction/forward/" height="360" width="100%" placement="bottom" theme="mini"]