New girlfriend opened up about having HSV-1 - advice and experience needed please!

Sexual health
1

I am a 22 year old male living in Japan, i have recently started dating a girl and everything is going really well. However when i suggested that she came back to my apartment, she very bravely told me she wanted to take things slow, then proceeded to tell me that she had received HSV-1 (usually oral) but a genital version (not HSV-2) while at university. Naturally at first i was taken aback because this was the first time that STIs had come up in my life, but i was also impressed and happy about her bravery and honesty in telling me about it all. I told her i was prepared to work around it, however i would have zero clue how to do that!

My first issue was deciding my own risk factor, as although i would like to be in a relationship with her, a life of abstinence was not for me, yet if i was to engage in sexual contact, my main worry would be passing it onto future (if any) sexual partners. I was wondering if anyone had any advice or experience with how to deal with this situation?

Secondly i would like to clear some info, naturally my first call was looking up exactly the difference in the two Herpes viruses and how best to approach this - this has led me to some questions.

1. If i had cold sores (which i thought was just very common) as a child does this mean i have oral HSV-1?

2. If i do have oral HSV-1 can i still get genital HSV-1?

3. What are the average chances of getting genital HSV-1 while there are 0 outbreaks?

Any advice or personal experience on this matter would be greatly appreciated as i like to think this could become something special, but due to my inexperience in these matters i was taken aback!

2

1. yes, you have oral HSV1, lots of people do!

2. technically yes but you are less likely to get the same strain in two different locations, though it’s not impossible.

3. genital hsv1 sheds less than hsv2 would. i think 5-15% of days she’s asymptomatically contagious. BUT, it is harder to pass genital herpes from a female to male than vice versa. if she takes a daily antiviral pill, your chances of infection are cut in half. using condoms on top of that cuts in half again. your risk is never really 0, but you can get it pretty close to it!

3

also i’d like to add that i’m very happy you are choosing to see this girl you’re dating as a whole person and not just the fact that she has herpes! (even though we’ve established you already have herpes too lol)