When two people engage in sexual behaviors, there is a risk. No matter how well you think you know somebody, however honest you believe someone to be in terms of their sexual history, there is a leap of faith involved.
Period.
Is that level of trust often given too easily? Of course it is.
Does that make a person knowingly walking around with an STI keeping that information from his or her sexual partner a cad? Absolutely.
Does it make him or her a criminal?
Well, that’s the question du jour following reports that 28-year-old David Golding of the U.K. received 14 months in prison for “inflicting grievous bodily harm” after giving his girlfriend genital herpes.
The court heard Golding had denied having the infection when his then girlfriend, 24-year-old Cara Scott, was diagnosed with it soon after their relationship began in 2009. He only admitted it to her shortly before they broke up in 2010. Scott then went to the police.
According to the Daily Mail, Judge Michael Fowler said at sentencing, “‘Because it was in a relationship, it was particularly mean and an offense which amounted to a betrayal — a betrayal in a relationship in which you [Golding] professed love.
“The injury you caused her by this infection is at least or more …
… serious than an injury leaving a scar because it carries continued recurrence, extreme discomfort and consequences for relationships she will have in the future.”
Okay, Golding is certainly guilty of being a liar. There’s an argument to be made that he at least at one point in his life made poor decisions in terms of his sex life, leading to his own herpes infection. He’s certainly falls under the “asshat” category.
But criminal?
I just can’t agree with that.
And the judge? I’m sorry, sir, but there are betrayals in relationships every day, marriage vows that are broken on a regular basis, and deplorable people of both genders that metaphorically shit all over people they claimed (and in some cases promised in front of clergy or court) to love.
Where do you draw the line?
Nigel Scott, of the Herpes Viruses Association, said, “This is outrageous. Will children also now be prosecuted for giving their friends chicken pox? For passing on a cold sore?”
Sexual health consultant Dr. Colm O’Mahony said, “Being sent to prison for passing on herpes simplex is like being sent down for 10 years for a parking offense. I’m appalled. There is no way of proving who gave herpes to whom and with so many of the population already unknowingly infected it is irrelevant to blame someone specific. It is a cold sore in an awkward place.”
Not to sound crass, but Golding has received a double punishment above and beyond his prison sentence.
First, he has to live with the herp for the rest of his life. Doesn’t sound like much fun to me.
And then, of course, is the fact that this story is making national news. I mean, imagine this scenario playing out.
GOLDING: Hey, can I buy you a drink?
WOMAN AT BAR: Sure, that’d be great.
GOLDING: My name is David, David Golding. It’s very nice to meet you.
WOMAN AT BAR: Holy shit, you’re the herpes guy! I saw you on Fox News. I’ll buy my own drink, thank you.
So, yeah, I think it’s a shitty thing to have unprotected sex with someone when you know full well that you are putting him or her at risk. In fact, this is a great reminder of why condoms are always a good plan, regardless of whatever sort of female-based birth control you might be on.
But I do not believe it is a criminal offense, and I think David Golding’s getting a crappy deal for something that happens all the freaking time.
Am I way off-base here?
If this were a STI that can be treated with antibiotics and disposed of in a few months, I would agree. This is herpes. He has dealt lasting damage to this woman, damaging her chances of ever being in another relationship. If someone knowingly inflected me with herpes, and I could definitely get away with it, I would probably kill him. Infecting someone with herpes does lasting bodily harm as surely as a severe beating or a poisoning.
I think the key here is knowingly infected her with herpes, it wasn’t an accident, he knew he had herpes, didn’t warn her, then slept with her without protection. To me there is a big differences between not knowing and accidentally passing it on ( I do strongly support getting STD checks throughout your life, especially before/after new partners) and intentionally withholding information and deliberately putting someone else at risk for this lifelong disease.
I totally agree with both of you. However, when you say he “slept with her without protection”, we have to remember that she also slept with him without protection. Yes, he’s an asshole, and I wish that there were legal recourse for things like this (maybe there is, I guess we’ll see), especially since it’s something that will affect her for the rest of her life. However, she engaged in risky behavior by sleeping with him without protection, and there are consequences to risky behavior.
Oh I completely agree that she was partly to blame, but I hold her to the same level as the person who gets someone else infected because they are oblivious, reckless yes and they must deal with the consequences, but with no malicious intent unlike this lovely gentleman.
Condoms don’t protect you from herpes most of the time.
If the sore is anywhere other than where the condom covers (and it usually is) condoms provide no protection whatsoever.
I disagree Harriet. She engaged in a risky behavior that should be socially protected- she reached out to another human being in trust and in love. It wasn’t like he was some random guy on the street- they developed a relationship. And his keeping information from her is criminal.
Some social transactions which carry risk should be protected by the law- so your argument that “risky behavior” denies a crime could happen is simply not a good path to follow- think about financial transactions. Not all risk is allowed, some is illegal. Think about buying food and ingesting it safely- a risk, but one that is protected by the law. Think about putting your child into the car of other adults (many of whom you never really meet) for their education at the age of 3. A HUGE RISK, but PROTECTED up the wazoo under the law.
So a risk taken to create the foundational atomic unit of all societies? Should also be protected.
All very good points. And I do agree that this guy should pay a price for what he did. I just took umbrage at the phrase “he slept with her without protection” as though she had nothing to do with it. But, as Alzaetia pointed out, even had she insisted on protection she might have contracted it, so I guess my point has been duly countered!
i meant CARE of other adults… NOT CARS. LOL.
I draw the line at knowingly putting others at risk without telling them. This should be viewed as criminal behavior. People treat sex so casually but each encounter can have a lasting and traumatic impact. Each drunken kiss in a bar and each one night stand could change your life. So can a cheating spouse or a lying partner. People should take precautions, but at some point trust enters into it. If you knowingly deceive someone and compromise their health as a result, that should be assault, or in some cases, manslaughter.
Comparing giving someone herpes to receiving a parking violation is absurd. Parking violations don’t require creams for the rest of your life, or being rejected by potential future mates. I have to agree with (pretty much) everyone else. Knowingly giving someone an incurable STI without telling them is a criminal action. There has to be something to push people to divulge their STI status. If the threat of criminal charges is what it takes, then so be it.
“Parking violations don’t require creams for the rest of your life…” You’ve not had the right type of parking violation.
Every time I see the word “herpes” I am reminded of the John Leguizamo stand-up comedy routine where he’s talking about his feminist girlfriend. “Why ‘herpes’, John? Why not ‘himpes’?”
Yes, because you’re taking their freedom away from them and that’s the same thing with cursing them.
Now, they can’t have a normal sex relationship because they have a virus in their body from boyfriend being promiscious and cheating on her or being screw buddies. etc.
I’m sorry, but all of you saying this is a crime…wake UP!! This is NOT a crime. The guy was a complete douchebag, I agree. Judge him all you want. But a criminal?! You should educate yourselves. Go to ashastd.org and look up herpes. You’ll find that herpes is not that big a deal. I’ve been with people with herpes and educated myself. Most recently, literally all three of the professionals I’ve spoken to about it (my doctor, an STD hotline worker, and a Planned Parenthood worker) told me, “Well…if you had herpes, I wouldn’t go so far as to tell you NOT to tell anybody, but honestly, if you’re showing symptoms, you should avoid contact. Otherwise…? People freak out unnecessarily over it.” I flipped out that someone from an STD hotline would tell me this! Well, I would still tell people, but to say it’s a punishable offense…you need to get your heads out of the clouds. This is real life. If you have sex, PERIOD, you have to accept the consequences! That’s why all the sexual health experts these days are no longer calling it “safe sex.” They call it “safer sex,” because they recognize that there’s no such thing as SAFE sex. By asserting that this guy should be punished by law, you’re simply furthering the social stigma that herpes has. Additionally, now let’s say willingly passing on herpes is a crime. First, you’ll get a bunch of people who never test for herpes because they don’t even want to know. They’ll go out, pick someone up, and IF the question even comes up, they’ll say, yeah, I’ve been tested, and I was clean. Tested for WHAT? HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea…ever notice how easy it is for people to just say “tested” and not say what for? Second, how are you ever going to PROVE this in a court? Third, how is that any worse than willingly NOT getting tested as regularly as you should, not telling a one-night-stand that you have herpes because you’re ignorant of how easily STDs can be transmitted, and thus transmitting it that way? The fact that he was in a relationship means it’s a punishable offense? So, if you ever cheat on your spouse, I hope this law that you hope goes into effect is in effect at that point, so you can be put in JAIL for breaking your vows. You people are draconian! I live in San Francisco, one of the sluttiest cities in the world. I’d bet my life savings that not even anywhere close to 90% of sexually active people in this city actually take the proper steps to ensure that they don’t spread disease. Should they all be hauled away because they’re likely spreading herpes and HPV? Damn…you people are dumb! You’ve got to protect yourself, let the smaller things in life slide, and be realistic–in real life, people die all the time. S**t happens.
It’s criminal because there is a precedent for this. Replace “herpes” in your entire post with “HIV” and see if you still feel the same way. It doesn’t matter if YOU don’t think it’s a big deal, or if YOU don’t mind exposing yourself to this disease. It’s still an incurable disease, big deal or not. And knowingly exposing someone else to it without informing them is wrong. It’s not negligence or ignorance, as your other examples are. It’s intentional. Do you not understand the difference?
By that logic, punching somebody shouldn’t be a criminal offense. After all, you get better!
Knowingly giving someone herpes is the equivalent of crippling them. Like, crippling an arm or a leg. The latter affects their ability to walk or use their arm for the rest of their life. The former affects their ability to have a relationship, not to mention other stuff.
And she’s not at fault here. Let’s not do any ridiculous victim-blaming here. Blaming her is like saying that a person is to blame for not wearing body armour after getting punched in a bar or something.
HIV kills. herpes makes life inconvenient. There is a HUGE difference.
Yallaredumb is absolutely right: you’re quite the uneducated, knee-jerk-reacting, villifying bunch here.
Her attorney should have challenged her to go back through each and every one of her sexual partners, dragged their butts in for serum testing and brought those results to court; if she’d slept with more than 6 people, she had been exposed (statistically) prior to this relationship. Her sexual history became absolutely essentialpublic record when she chose to prosecute someone for givin her an illness that be spread during latency.
There’s no excuse or cure for “asshole”, but his time certainly doesn’t fit the crime. I encourage her to remove her head from the sand.
I have to agree with Mamatat. If she wanted a statistically risk free relationship, she needed to choose a virgin. it’s sad, but the number of comparably innocuous (as compared to HIV or Syphillis, etc) that are out there is horrifying.
HPV is estimated to be present at the rate of 50% in sexually active adults. Should these people be prosecuted as well? If the parties aren’t inoculated with Gardisil, sooner or later the female could get cervical cancer. That could be a death sentence. How much time should the person infecting her get?
Life?
Lethal injection?
Or, perhaps her parents should be prosecuted for not getting their daughter inoculated? Using the logic presented in this case, all of the above scenarios are possible.
oh get the hell over it do you have any perception of what herpes is there are many herpes viruses going around herpes simplex 1 and 2 cause blisters around mucus membranes any one who has a cold sore has herpes its pretty common not deadly like HIV or how about herpes zoister or chicken pox both similar to herpes viruses. and if you have ever had a wart that is HPV sex is a crap shoot just make sure you make good bets hae safer sex and know your sexual partners but you cant punish someone for giving you a common virus like this that’s ridicules
edit* hae = Have
The point isn’t that he gave her herpes, the point is that he *lied* to her and took away her chance to protect herself. Yeah, maybe she shouldn’t have trusted him, but he took advantage of her trust in him to get some. If you don’t tell someone you have a disease that you *know* you have for your own personal gain (ie, sex), that seems pretty close to sexual abuse to me, because it’s extremely manipulative and controlling behavior that has a lasting and damaging effect on the other person. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten jail time, but he certainly deserved to get something.
This reminded me of an old joke: What’s the difference between love and herpes? Herpes lasts forever.
well I kind of agree with both sides, but just so you all know I asked my boyfriend and he lied about having herpes. I did not have sex with him I wanted to wait and see about results for Std, Unfortuantley we had oral sex, once…I got herpes exactly one week later. So if this can be a lesson you do not have to have sex to get herpes and yes do not believe anyone ever…go to the clinic with them if you want to be even kissing, because I just had to learn this the hard way.
if you dont disclose. you should get the death penalty. any of you ever been fuc’d over by a liar partner. disclose or you face the death penalty. i have no issues if people disclose and then the other party gets it. – then its full choice. but if you lie – you should be facing the death penalty. minimum 30 years in jail. this issue AFFECTS ALL OF OUR COMMUNITIES. WAKE UP and start demanding these politicians DO SOMETHING. next thing u know – its your son or daughter who gets herpes from their liar partner. What shocks me the most is that these people don’t do anything about it. This affects your whole life punishment for this crime should be severe and painful. just how the disease affects the victim. an eye for an eye. these people think they can get away with it. your wrong – I encourage everyone who has to deal with this to to go the police , get a court order get their medical records pulled and have them put in jail and sue them in civil court.
dont let them walk….
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