you see? i answered your question so quickly i even confused myself. if you kiss someone with genital herpes (hsv-2) you cannot get herpes (oral or genital) from them. hsv-2 can only spread through direct contact. meaning you would need skin-to-skin contact with your infected friend's genital area to get herpes. and in that case the type of herpes you'd get would be hsv-2. hope that helps! to answer your question directly: if you kiss someone with active oral herpes you cannot get genital herpes from that contact. but that's not the end of the story. the old way of thinking was that herpes simplex 1 (oral herpes or cold sores) could not "turn into" herpes simplex 2 (genital herpes). however research has shown that's not exactly the case. however if you kiss someone with a cold sore then you can only get a cold sore (theoretically speaking). now if someone with a cold sore on her lip kisses your genitals then it's another story. in that scenario you could possibly wind up with genital herpes. i should mention too that the person you're kissing (or who's kissing you) doesn't have to have a visible active lesion to transmit the disease. in fact it's possible to be infected with hsv-1 and not even know it. and that's why it's all so confusing. wishing you well! hi i believe i have herpes. i had an outbreak (horrible) could not wear underwear and had to wear a dress just to walk. this is absolutely horrible and am surprised that no one has found a cure. why not? also i keep getting sores all over my abdomen (1 sore) and scarred my lips (swelled and another sore) could this be something else? i have never recovered from my first outbreak and am irritated all the time. i also have a dry rash on my back and front area that has not gone away. is all of this connected? please help. i have not dated and gained weight so no one would be attracted to me or want to ask me out. this is a very sad disease. please respond
could i get genital herpes/hsv-2 by kissing someone who has it? or would i only get hsv-1 potentially that way? . i've read through a lot of data on herpes but am still confused about this. let's say that a woman has genital herpes. if i kiss her and end up contracting herpes from her will it be genital herpes/hsv-2 or would it be the more common hsv-1 herpes? . a shorter way of asking it is: can you only transmit hsv-1 through mouth-to-mouth contact?