You'd think the sheer magnitude of the epidemic would serve to defuse the associated shame, but the stigma surrounding STIs remains virulent and pervasive. They are, after all, about sex — stereotypically, about casual, unprotected sex. They're also, stereotypically, about hideous sores that bloom where the sun doesn't shine. In a survey conducted for Novartis Pharmaceuticals, a majority of respondents said they wouldn't date someone with herpes, and more than a quarter said herpes held more stigma than HIV.

"If someone I met online told me they had an STD, I'd be like, 'Yuck,'" says Katie, thirty-seven, of Austin, Texas. "And I have herpes."

So it's not hard to see why, for many people, STI-dating sites are a godsend. "You already know that that person has herpes, so no fretting over when to bring it up," says Betsy O'Rourke, thirty-nine, a pediatric nurse and herpes-patient advocate who is herself a herpes carrier and user of both STI and mainstream dating sites. "There's no wondering if it's going to be a dealbreaker for them. You can relax about that part and focus instead on finding out what's wrong with them," she laughs. That big reveal is a big, big issue, judging from the message-board topics at H-Date.com: "When should I tell?"; "Will they flip and run away?"; "What are your chances with a non-herpster?"

Those community features can inject a sense of normalcy into the dating process. "There are people there who understand," says Jodi Matthews, owner of Antopia, the parent company of MPwH.net and its sister sites. "You see normal, everyday people. They have herpes, and they're having fun. You realize, 'My diagnosis is manageable. I can have fun, I can have a meaningful, productive, loving life.' It's a place where herpes is not an issue anymore. It's home."

But do these dating services imply, as Dr. Klausner believes, that people with STIs should date only amongst themselves? Or at least, that they're destined to be seen as attractive only to other people with an illness? 

"We talked about this long before we launched," says Michael Hummell, founder of PositiveFriends.com. "We decided that it's very similar to JDate. Is JDate relegating Jews to only date other Jews? No. It's a place where people have something in common and are able to relate to each other."

Jodi Matthews, the owner of Antopia, uses a similar analogy: "If someone goes to a dating site for people with dogs, does that reinforce the thought that people with dogs should only date other people with dogs? No. It's just a common denominator."

But there's an obvious difference. HPV is not a hobby; JDate isn't thriving because of anti-Semitism. Jews and dog owners don't hesitate to put their photos on their profiles — or if they do, it's not because they observe Passover or own a puggle. "I have tried using almost every STD-dating site I could find, but with no success," says Kurt from Arizona. "I don't post a picture for fear of being recognized, though I know how foolish that is. If I posted a picture, I could probably get a date. But the fear stops me." In other words, most niche dating sites aren't seen as shelters from shame and persecution.

At least they're not in New York, where a Gentile dating a Jew is as controversial as an American professing a love of French culture. Hummel points out that in certain sections of the Heartland, JDate might be used similarly to the STI-dating sites — as a way to avoid an awkward conversation. "I would suggest that outside of the major U.S. cities there still exists a stigma for being Jewish. Even here in Michigan, I've had to explain what it means to be a Jew, and why I'm 'not wearing the funny little hat,'" she says. If we don't chastise Jews in small-minded communities for using JDate, why should we look down upon the notion of an isolated online dating world for STI sufferers?

Not everyone buys this argument. "I've heard many people say they think they're only 'allowed' to date within their STD. Many say that before they got infected, they wouldn't have thought of dating someone with an STD, so why would they expect someone else to date them now?" says thirty-nine-year-old A.J. from Portland, Maine, a moderator at The Original Herpes Home Page. "They're buying into the stigma, and I think STD-dating sites contribute to these feelings. When someone gets diagnosed with HSV, HPV, or another STD, they go home and start searching the internet for information. One of the first things they see in the search results are all of the STD-dating sites. Right away, that can give the idea that a person with an STD is only supposed to date within that STD."

On a bad day, so can the community itself.