if my partner has a cold sore and gives it to me, can I pass it to his genitals by giving oral sex or is that a different kind of herpes ?
Same answer as above. A cold sore can be passed to someone else though, so best get it treated. Once you have genital herpes though, it is always in your system and is always transferrable, especially on a break out. Its an STD. People with genitle herpes must alway use a condom.
No they are not. The herpes sores (commonly called cold sores) you can get on your lips and inside the mouth are Herpes Simplex 1 and Genital Herpes are Herpes Simplex 2. They are two different strains of the herpes virus. Chicken pox is also a strand of a herpes virus.
As the posters above said they are two different forms of the virus but in some studies it shows that you can pass HSV-1 to the genitals. http://yourstdhelp.com/herpes.html
