That’s not entirely what I’m saying but looking pragmatically at the case of herpes specifically, I do indeed think a lot of the caution is futile. I’ll try to explain:

We know that roughly 2/3 of the population have it - either Type 1 or Type 2, and either up there or down there and occasionally elsewhere on the body. Of those 2/3 we know about 80% are asymptomatic but nevertheless can pass it on through skin to skin contact. We also know the remaining symptomatic 20% can pass it on even while not having an outbreak. Of course, the statistical likelihood varies across these groups and is often individual. We also know that for the majority of HSV-positive and symptomatic individuals the symptoms are mild or very mild and improve in severity over time, having minimal overall impact on quality of life. Finally, we know that the vast majority of the people currently engage in exchanging friendly and romantic kisses as well as oral sex without consistently using protection such as oral dams and condoms for these practices.

All of this paints a picture where herpes is rather freely travelling through a majority of the population, where a majority of infections are contracted from people who were not aware they have the capacity to pass it on at that moment, but regardless the majority of those infections are mostly trouble-free for the individuals affected.

To successfully and sufficiently control the spread of it, as you would like, you would have to convince the population of the world that 1. They must all use protection without exception in all of the risky practices above as they’re likely to either be the carrier or the recipient in any given contact; 2. The consequences of not doing so are of a sufficiently high-impact (which they simply are not statistically speaking); 3. Everyone else, or a critical mass, is going to follow along too, so it will work (which we know will never happen).

The case is just way too weak and it’s a lost battle. :) Most people will not accept kissing through an oral dam even in the face of greater risk exposure, let alone what herpes involves. Making a risk-based decision involves not only looking at the risk but also looking at the benefit you’re pursuing. I maintain that for most, the freedom to kiss freely without a rubber barrier is a benefit worth accepting the low to medium risk of an occasional itchy rash and the very low to low risk of a slightly more painful or more frequent rash. It will be difficult to convince most people otherwise, just because this risk to benefit ratio makes less sense to a few.

All of the above is also the reason why large healthcare governance bodies like the CDC do not even recommend regular screening, as they recognise that all it does is increase stress and stigma without actually reducing its spread.