I was standing outside a lecture hall, waiting to go into class when I first heard it:

“Herpes is going around campus.”

I looked at my friend and smirked. Not because herpes is a joke but because the girl who had announced it clearly had not realized how loudly she did so.

Later in the week, my friend was talking about how she really wanted to have sex over the weekend and another friend starkly replied, “Use a condom; I heard herpes is making its rounds.”

This time I didn’t grin. I had never really thought about the reality of STDs and while I wouldn’t label myself as concerned — I tend to be pretty careful — the gossip was thought provoking.

While this rumor can neither be confirmed nor denied, STDs in general are common on college campuses and are things that need to be in the back of your mind regardless of whether or not they are “going around.”

Curious, I decided to debunk “the herp.”

Compared to many other STDs, herpes’ symptoms are considered pretty mild — that is, if you consider outbreaks of blistery, itchy sores around your genital areas to be mild. If this is not off-putting enough, herpes cannot be fully treated, so you are left to live the rest of your life not knowing when the next crop will bloom.

While that sounds dismal, and I am sure having herpes would be, it will not fully ruin your existence. According to Planned Parenthood, about one in every six American adults are plagued with it. Most of them live normal, healthy lives aided by numerous medications that help speed up the healing process when an outbreak does occur and help to prolong the time between outbreaks.

But just because most STDs can be treated or managed doesn’t mean you should throw those condoms out the window quite yet. For me, and I would conclude for many of you, it would still be ideal evade these infections completely.

Nearly half of the 20 million newly diagnosed STD cases each year are among people ages 15-24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which means condom use isn’t particularly high among young people.

And I get it — to some degree. There are so many factors that can play into the decision of not using a condom during sex. You could be so in the moment and forget, you could be scared that if you ask your partner to use one they won’t want to continue. You could crave the pleasure of not having anything in between you and your partner or you could not have one accessible.

Whatever the reason, it’s probably not worth troops of sores taking over your genitals when you least expect it.

If you are adamant about sleeping with someone without rolling on a rubber, it is vital that you have been tested and that you have a conversation with them about whether or not they are infected and who else they are sleeping with.

Often a problem in college is that people are not on the same page with the boundaries of a relationship. While one person could be convinced that their partner is only sleeping with them and be comfortable having unprotected sex, the other partner could be out doing the same with multiple other people — greatly increasing the original partner’s risk of contracting a STD.

While this may appear to be a malicious act, there is also something to be said about communication. In today’s hook-up culture, it can be hard to ask someone to define a relationship if you don’t want to scare them off with the thought of commitment. We feel that having someone is better than having nobody and will take them as they want to be taken, condom or no condom, exclusive or not exclusive.

While I am not trying to force committed relationships on anyone, I do think that we need to be better about communicating with whom we are sleeping with.

If you wisely decide you are going to have one of these conversations with your partner, it’s crucial to know your own diagnosis. This means if you have had unprotected sex before, you should get tested. Planned Parenthood offers easy, low- to no-cost screenings, as does SU Health Services.

If your partner is not willing to talk about their sexual history and current sexual situation with you, they’re definitely not worth the lack of a protection — and probably not worth your time. Didn’t you hear? Herpes is going around. Personally, I find condoms sexier than genital sores.

Alex Archambault is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. You can email her at ararcham@syr.edu or follow her @Alex_And_Raa on Twitter.

Published on November 17, 2015 at 10:00 pm