Wendy and the listening audience love to kiki about people with herpes, so Brandon, 29, who has been living with the sexually transmitted disease for two years, called in to tell everyone to grow up. He said herpes "isn't a bad thing" and the men he dates aren't turned off by it. After hearing Brandon's story, Amber -- a 40-year-old nurse who was diagnosed with herpes 10 years ago -- called in to drive home the point that the STD isn't the end of the world and to dispel the myth that only promiscuous, dirty people contract it.
Sidebar: Genital herpes cannot be cured, but there are medications available that prevent or shorten outbreaks. Sixteen (16) percent of Americans ages 14 and up are infected with genital herpes, making it one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. The report up to 90% of people with the STD don't know they have it. More women than men have genital herpes and it's more common among blacks than it is among whites. HSV-1 is usually passed from person to person by kissing. HSV-1 can also spread from the mouth to the genitals during oral sex (fellatio, cunnilingus, analingus). If this happens, it becomes a case of genital herpes. HSV-2 is most often passed by vaginal sex and anal sex. But just as HSV-1 can infect the genitals and cause genital herpes, HSV-2 can pass from one person's genitals to another person's mouth, resulting in oral herpes. HSV-2 cannot survive long on a non-living surface, so there is no real risk of getting it from a toilet seat or hot tub, for example. [ sources: CDC | Wikipedia ]
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