Okay, so this is producer Katie Bishop. I'm here in the studio with producer

Annabel Bacon. Hey, Katie. Hey. So we just put out our episode about STIs. And we're getting

some emails in the inbox. Yeah, people are responding to this episode. And we're getting some emails in the inbox. Yeah, people are responding to this episode.

And we wanted to take a second to talk about one email in particular that came in today.

Yeah, so we got an email from a listener who said that he really was glad to hear the episode, loved hearing us talk about sexually transmitted infections.

But this guy was a little bit frustrated because he wished that we had talked more explicitly about what a disclosure conversation actually sounds like.

He said, you need to get back into this episode. You need to talk about how people break that taboo. How do they do it? What should you say? What are the tactics? How to break the news to a partner? I don't think he's wrong. Yeah, because in the episode, we talk a lot about people disclosing, telling their partners, but we didn't actually talk about the words that they used when they did it. No, and those are really hard conversations. And in the process of talking about this email from a listener that we got today, we remembered something else that we'd gotten in our inbox.

Yes, back in the summer, we got this fantastic note from a woman who wanted to be called Hannah.

And she had recently found out that she was diagnosed with HSV-2, which is genital herpes.

And when Hannah wrote us this email, she was still trying to figure out what is

going to mean for my sex life. How much is going to change? How am I going to have these

conversations where I tell my partners that I have herpes? So Hannah did this incredible thing.

She wrote out an entire note to us. And this was totally hypothetical. She'd never sent it to a

partner. But it was to help her figure out, what would it sound like if I said what I wanted to say to my partners about my

STI. And then she recorded it for us. Dear Sir or Madam, my name is Hannah, and if you're

reading this email, it means that you are considering having sex with me.

And I with you.

Congrats.

Sex with me has previously been described as fun, hot, and awesome.

Before we go any further, here's something you need to know.

I have herpes.

HSV-2.

...