In 1982, Maureen Dowd wrote an awful herpes story for Time. Ella Dawson has some fun with it.

[swag]

https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/time-magazine-ruined-herpes-journalism-heres-how-to-fix-it/

. . .

Gabe: I’m also interested in the shaming of oral sex. The fact that this came from Maureen Dowd, who literally won a Pulitzer Prize for slut-shaming Monica Lewinsky back in the ’90s, is more than appropriate. Not that Maureen Dowd has been a good journalist since then, or ever.

Ella: One of the central takeaways is that herpes destroys marriages, and if you get herpes when you’re single, you will never find a husband. How dare you find yourself attractive and worthy of love, ladies, with your “hard-to-see legions” way up in your cursed vag.

Gabe: It’s even doctor-sanctioned. The extent to which this article brings in doctors to scare the bejeezus out of sexually active people, and shame current herpes-havers, is amazing. “If there are any sores or discharge, it’s time to put your clothes back on and find another partner.” Don’t have a conversation, don’t get educated (because for all this article pretends to spend time on saying “it’s really not that scary if you know about it,” it spends way more time talking about how scary it is), just reject them outright. They’re not even worth the dignity.

Ella: The basic takeaway here is that having herpes is the worst because of stigma, and we’re going to tell you as many anecdotes as possible to reinforce that stigma. It’s written for a “clean” audience, and it sets up the assumption that herpes+ folks will not disclose because you will reject them, and you need to be ON THE ALERT for them. The section on how you can spot herpes+ people because their hands are chapped from washing them so much made me laugh so fucking hard.

. . . more

[marble falls]

1. Very entertaining just in the excerpts. Nice find.