My friend (who is too shy to post herself) had a question about herpes transmission. My friend is a lesbian, and had unprotected sex with another female whom she met at a bar. They had genital-to-genital sexual contact, grinding, and the whole enchilada. You get the drift...She is freaking out because the girl hasn't called her back, and now she's worried that she could have gotten herpes from her.

What the likelihood of transmission of genital herpes with girl-on-girl sex? Should she be concerned? What is the percentage of transmission rates with lesbian sex?

I don't know of numbers around lesbians and herpes transmission, but can tell you there is a risk with any genital to genital contact (be it heterosexual or homosexual). This is because herpes is transmitted by skin to skin contact, not fluid exchange.

The real question is whether or not the virus was active at the time of the contact...and even if it was, transmission isn't a given. Herpes virus can be active without symptoms, but the majority of the time is latent and not active. The problem is, since the virus can be on the surface of the skin in the absence of symptoms, there's no way to always tell!

Does your friend know if the partner even has herpes? There are many reasons a hook-up doesn't call back, and herpes is probably near the bottom of the list!

Best,
Fredo

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ASHA Moderator

The odds of transmission are very low in general.

So what does your friend do? Well totally up to her. The risk from a one time encounter alone aren't worth testing for. If she's never been tested for herpes before this ( it's not a part of routine std testing in general ),she can consider getting a baseline herpes igg blood test just to see what her status is. Otherwise she needs to wait 3-4 months after the encounter to pursue igg herpes testing to see what her status is. Should she develop any genital symptoms before then, she can be seen and examined and have testing done on her symptoms. If her encounter was unprotected, she should also discuss with her provider what other std's she should cover her bases with.

betsy

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ASHA Moderator