Nerve has up an interesting article by Lynn Harris about the many dating sites targeted at people with STDS. Here's an excerpt:Dating websites for people with the same STI seem like a natural niche, one that includes PositiveSingles.com, H-Date.com and the genre's warhorse, MPwH.net (Meet People with Herpes), which was founded in 1997 and has more than 70,000 active members. Newcomer PositiveFriends.com has a photo-editing application that allows you to upload photos which obscure your identity, zooming in on just your tattoo or your eyes. Another new site, VDdate.com, feels a bit rickety with its use of outdated terminology like "venereal disease," but its presence reinforces the point: many STI sufferers are opting out of the general singles population and sticking to their own private dating pool.
Or ghetto, depending on who you're talking to. "Creating specific internet-dating sites for persons with STDs tends to perpetuate stigma by separating them from the general population," says Jeffrey D. Klausner, M.D., director of STD Prevention and Control Services at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. "This isolation suggests that those persons are different and not normal, requiring exceptional means to meet other partners."
You can read the full story here. Seems to us like these websites increase the stigma associated with STDs and perpetuate the myth that people who already have an STD don't need to protect themselves from, for example, other strains of the same virus.
What do you think: are such sites a boon or a bane for the dating world, and in particular daters who have STDs?
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 2)
16. While my wife and I didn't meet on a web site per say we did meet online. We found our experiences to be very similiar and there was no need to hide a thing or risk judgement or need to explain a thing.
As a hetero couple with HIV we both found our experinces with groups of others to be more empowering than in any way demeaning. We found solace in knowing that we were not alone. Before we met she was and is active in both a full time job and some hetero poz groups that were more of a support nature than strickly a dating service. I on the other hand, had tried dating outside of what we like to call "the family." And found that serodiscordant relationships to ultimately be more of a hinderance than anything else. Eight years after we met and four years of living together as man and wife, we are both doing well. My wife's cell counts have been the best they have been in years, and I too have cell counts an uninfected person might envy. We see the same physician, we take the same meds at the same times and have both survived together quite well providing both support and a working knowledge data base of our illness.
There seems to be a hierarchy of sorts among STD people and HIV people in particular. Those that aquired this thru tainted blood products seem to be at the base, then the people that got it thru sexual contact(all of these groups being divided again between straight and gay peoples) and finally people who may have gotten it via drug use. Often one group is judgemental to some degree of the next.We hope in the future that might end. My gal diagnosed in 88 and me in 93, well before there were any decent meds, back when HIV = death. While we certainly don't miss the "dying times" when each of us were painfully isolated and fearful of every sneeze, we do both miss the activism that bonded every single person with our illness. We don't consider ourselves victims in any way, more like a fish that just happened to have been caught.Both of us were in monogamous relationships at the time of our infection.( go figure?) Don't in any way fell sorry for us, feel sorry for this virus, it has to live with us. Yet we continue to feel both blessed and a little guilty many good folks have passed. The battle may be won for some for now, but the war rages on.
It has been my experience that other STD people have not in any way bonded together as a family and have risked perpetuating HSV,HPV and Hep C.I would imagine their thought process is that it's not a life threatening illness(in the case of all but Hep C), and that thier risks of exposing others is nominal. The very same thought process that got them infected to begin with. I would hope that these diseases could be kept in check by their carriers but they seem to have a life of their own. Noticably absent from this list is the old silent killer syphlis, that is alive and well and thriving in every community.Our hearts go out to the people with multiple STD's,their journey is an especially difficult one.
While HIV did not start with my wife or I, we have decided it STOPS with us, and while it(hopefully) won't be a factor in our deaths, it will indeed die with us.
It's the only responsible thing to do.
Mr. No Name at 4:36PM on Mar 11th 2008
17. It's painfully obvious that this article is nothing more than advertisment for the these particuliar sites. Shame on you Ada Calhoun!
SuperFly at 6:29PM on Mar 11th 2008