Genital herpe Concerns (Pictures Included)

[priorpath 0]

I'm scared that these are genital herpes. I had unprotected sex with this person twice very recently. First time was Friday night. This is sunday morning. I felt that it was more sensitive the second time we had sex, although I'm very sure it could be overstimulation. I did touch/scratch these and applied q-tips to the point of drawing blood out of personal panic so I'm unsure if I've just irritated it or if it can be legitimate genital herpes. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/c1AXaAy

[priorpath 0]

Update: The person I did have sex with let me know that they were 6 months ago and clean, while the last time they had sex was 8 months ago

[inocula 4]

Most STD tests/panels don't check for herpes, so I would take what your partner said with a grain of salt. The fact is that herpes is so common (>70% of the population) that it is not regularly tested for. Pretty much everyone has it (mostly orally, genitally is about 20% of population).

You can get genital herpes from unprotected oral, vaginal, or anal sex. Unprotected oral sex is the norm, so much so that most people don't even think of it as "unprotected sex". That means any blowjob you've ever had could have given you herpes.

A herpes infection usually results in a primary outbreak within 2-3 weeks, but not always. In theory it could be dormant for months or longer. That's what makes herpes contact tracing frustrating and not very useful. If you've had multiple partners you can't easily deduce who gave it to you.

Point being, there are tons of ways to get herpes, and even if you just had an outbreak it's not necessarily your most recent partner.

With regards to your picture, I can't tell. I would expect it to be more red/inflamed, with a "crust" which I don't see. But I'm not a doctor, so you should see a doctor if you have concerns. You can probably wait until your next annual physical unless it's causing you pain/discomfort. Use a condom.

[priorpath 0]

8 hours ago, inocula said:

Most STD tests/panels don't check for herpes, so I would take what your partner said with a grain of salt. The fact is that herpes is so common (>70% of the population) that it is not regularly tested for. Pretty much everyone has it (mostly orally, genitally is about 20% of population).

You can get genital herpes from unprotected oral, vaginal, or anal sex. Unprotected oral sex is the norm, so much so that most people don't even think of it as "unprotected sex". That means any blowjob you've ever had could have given you herpes.

A herpes infection usually results in a primary outbreak within 2-3 weeks, but not always. In theory it could be dormant for months or longer. That's what makes herpes contact tracing frustrating and not very useful. If you've had multiple partners you can't easily deduce who gave it to you.

Point being, there are tons of ways to get herpes, and even if you just had an outbreak it's not necessarily your most recent partner.

With regards to your picture, I can't tell. I would expect it to be more red/inflamed, with a "crust" which I don't see. But I'm not a doctor, so you should see a doctor if you have concerns. You can probably wait until your next annual physical unless it's causing you pain/discomfort. Use a condom.

Thanks! Upon reflection I believe that the sex I had with my partner both times was fairly unlubricated causing pains especially at the start that I tried to ignore. That caused my penis to feel a bit more sore and gave it a red tint at the time which scared me into irritating it more and overanalyzing it. This seems to align with the fact that this only occurred after having sex with the person twice who by all accounts seems "clean". Anything I felt after that was likely a placebo or a side effect of having dry sex.

 

I still have plans on getting tested, I'm just not going to entertain that this is very certainly herpes unless something else occurs to draw me towards that conclusion

 

Thank you for your input!