5/19/96 - Tainted love

5/19/96 - Summerland Beach

I guess I should just plunge in. I found out this week that I probably have genital herpes. About Monday night, I guess, I noticed three small, red sores on the base of my dick, above where my pubic hair ends (one of the few places where it does end). Tuesday and Wednesday, I noted it hurt somewhat to piss, and Wednesday night, I noticed another sore much closer to the glans.

I finally went after work on Thursday to the Medical Foundation clinic, where the nurse practitioner (a nice, sensible Asian guy who made me feel a lot more comfortable than the nervous, Dr. Fleischmann-esque doc I had during the Great Chlamydia Scare earlier this year) told me he thought it probably was herpes. He took a culture from the sores, had a lab tech take some blood, gave me a prescription for Zovirax, and said he'd call me in 7 to 10 days. It also could be syphilis or a staph infection, but Nurse Lee seemed pretty sure.

So...Robbie, obviously. I called him the minute I got home. I really didn't want to discuss it on the phone, but he was tired, so I just asked him point blank. He said he does get cold sores (simplex I, which I read can be transmitted to the genitals), and we did some pretty heavy oral sex last week. QED.

He's pretty upset about this. He's called me several times the last couple of days, but has had to break a couple of dates because of a cold. We're supposed to get together tonight, but I don't want to force him to "be there" for me.

Funny, I don't feel angry or resentful towards Robbie at all. I have felt down, which I think is normal. I went through what has been my first bout of bad loneliness last night, first since Don and I broke up. I was just STARVING for a hug as I ambled from the Earthling to Borders and back to my car in the Victoria Court parking lot. I felt just so alone, and like I'd been taken out of the game somehow.

I am, of course, out of the game for a couple of weeks anyway. The pills are supposed to speed healing, but my trusty Masters & Johnson text tells me to abstain for two weeks after the sores disappear. I feel (or felt last night; today's not so bad) tainted, like whatever innocence I had left is gone.

My brain is, as usual, working overtime to override the cultually induced feelings of immorality which this inevitably induced.

[Sheesh. Overwrite much? Fewer adjectives and adverbs, my boy.]

I know how common this virus is, and that millions of people carry on completely normally. I know I'm not an evil, whorish mess. It is a little hard knowing that the only times I've used my HealthNet benefits have been for STD's.

[The other being the Great Chlamydia Scare, which wasn't. Ben and I had a little "reunion" a the beginning of '96, and he called me to tell me that another guy he'd been with had the sort-of-big C. I got tested, it was negative.]

I discussed this with Rafe, which felt good, and had the bonus of taking his mind off his own problems. His homophobia is still a major dilemma. He hoped, I think, that plunging himself into the rich heartland of gay culture, he'd get over his distate for that culture. Instead, San Francisco has made it worse. He's been celibate for over five months, and has no interest in going out even for a one night stand.

The only thing I could think of to tell him was that there were plenty of gay men who didn't fit the Castro clone profile he so reviles, and that he needs to get on with pursuing the rest of his life, so that he can meet men with whom he has more in common than sexual orientation.

The ironic thing is that the whole Castro/club culture was created by people a lot like Rafe: libidinous, disco-driven, bitchy, people-watching fags who got tired of being solitary. Rafe's problem is that he distrusts institutions of any sort, even ones which reflect his own interests and personality.

[Interesting going back and reading that stuff about Rafe. He was my best friend until about a year ago. We "broke up" for reasons somewhat related to what I just transcribed. And for lots of others. One of my favorite current weblogs/'zines is Planet SOMA, where David makes an art form out of curmudgeonly iconoclasm. It's hard agreeing with so much of what he, and Rafe, have to say about gay culture, but being reluuctant to go all the way and just condemn the whole lot. I feel like there's so much more out there...there's more than just a monoculture, and that it's not hard to glean what strikes your fancy, and ignore the rest.]

[BTW, after I got the positive diagnosis for herpes, I never got another sore. Not one.]

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