HIV rethink...

I do agree that the stigma should be gone. It should have been gone years ago.

That said, when it comes to dating or relationships, HIV+ is not something that I think we can write off as insignificant. Yes, it can be treated--but it is at this point incurable. Plus there are no guarantees how well people will respond to treatment, nor what the patient's life span might be.

Of course, HIV is not unique. What about someone who has incurable, but treatable cancer? It may be under wonderful control, with a likelihood of staying that way, but it's not the same as someone who is in perfect health.

 

Well, I don't want to beat a dead horse and its hard to change peoples views given such a sensitive topic. I certainly respect those who feel concerned; but in an environment where finding a match for a relationship is as difficult as it is, I personally would not close any doors (although I thats easy for me to say given I already am in a deep relationship).

 

I just read the following in the comments section on the web site Joe.My.God. It expresses my own thoughts exactly:

"I'll just note that having sex with PrEP, having sex with a condom, and having sex with [a] positive person whose virus has been suppressed, is all equally safe. All three are safer-sex for HIV.... In my opinion, having sex with no protection with someone who says they are HIV- negative is the riskiest sex of all."

 

PrEP does not have a 100% success rate even with full adherence, though. Condoms can fail or be handled/used/stored improperly, and viral loads aren't ever 0. In combination, using PrEP and condoms and having the positive person be on HIV drugs will reduce the risk to essentially zero. Regular testing would still be a great idea that I can't emphasize enough.

And that's not even getting into other STIs or UTIs which are reasons themselves to use condoms if one wants to play it as safely as possible and not transmit or contract them.

I'm not saying that HIV preventative measures are bad or lacking per se by themselves, but we have to also look at the larger picture because HIV is not the be all end all of risky sex. In that bigger picture, we can see that pairing several preventative measures results in the safest experience for sex in general, barring abstinence which often isn't realistic.

 

And that's a worthwhile point. And I won't say that I've totally closed the door. As I commented above:

But it would, at best, be a hard decision.

 

HIV related: Today while at CVS drugstore, I stumbled upon something I've never seen before: an HIV home test kit purchasable off the shelf [or you can also have CVS deliver via mail]. The kit walks you through the procedure - you mail it in and it's a 24 hr turnaround. Couldn't be easier. Maybe this is already common knowledge and I'm just behind the times, but I'm sure there are folks who cruise through the pages of EC who would benefit by knowing their status, but for whatever reason, don't. This makes it so easy there's no reason not to know. The one trade-off for this level of anonymity would be if it came back positive - in a clinic there would be at least some minimal counseling about the ramifications and some support. Still, I'm impressed that such a thing is now available over the counter. Sheez, anybody else remember the days when you had to ask the pharmacist for condoms that they kept only behind the counter? We've come a long way.

 

I had a friend with benefits relationship back in jr. high and high school(96-02). We did a lot of stuff together. Most of it was safe and only had penetrative sex a few times. However, I found out later at the end of high school that he had a tryst with the gymn teacher and a couple down his street.

I didn't think much of it until I had skin lesions, shortness of breath, IBS, weight loss, and night sweats a few years later. I had researched on the internet by the time things really started flaring up(around 05-06). And obviously, I vividly remember Magic's announcement in the early 90's quite clearly as well as all the "I wish I had waited to have sex" commercials in the mid 90's.

I was convinced that I had HIV progressing to AIDS. I grew up very sheltered and did not know where to get tested. Plus, I was in the closet, and EVERYONE except my friend I slept with thought I was a straight virgin. I felt the guilt and was determined to take the secret to my grave by 2008-09. When I was losing my hair rapidly in 2010, my doctor order the test, and I was scared shitless. Fortunately, for me, it came back negative.

Sorry for the long story, but I still have an HIV phobia. The best thing we can do is wear condoms and get tested regularly. Otherwise, I try to put it out of my mind. However, I don't find anything wrong with being monogamous.

Anyways, more germane to this discussion, I find it rude for someone to say "get out of the 80's". It is like someone saying get over it. We don't know what it has been like for someone to struggle with their HIV phobia or thinking they had HIV for years. I can tell you firsthand that it is very traumatizing.

Granted, I wasn't a teen in the throes of it, but I am old enough to remember the fear as I am a very sensitive person to what goes on around me. My parents still view it as a death sentence, and AIDS was the first thing that entered my mom's head when I came out. She basically said she would be there for me if I got AIDS, almost as if she was expecting it.

 

The UK just recently made home testing legal, kits are selling like crazy.

 

Actually, it CAN be easier. Oraquick has had a product on the market for the past couple of years that gives results within minutes, with no need to mail in a sample. It's an oral test (mouth swab). Cost is about $40, though I've seen them given out for free at various HIV-awareness "events." If you use these kits, you need to be mindful of (1) the incidence of false positives/negatives, and (2) the "window period," or time it takes between infection and detection, which can be as long as three months.

Also, your concerns about subsequent counseling are valid — to receive a positive result while on your own could be devastating.

Oral HIV Testing at Home | OraQuick

 

It is worth it to go to your local LGBT center.

I would be interested in more feedback on this topic.

 

Sorry, but I feel like this thread has aspects of a sales pitch.

My thoughts on this are somewhat fixed. So what else is new? I'm all for friendship, but not for intimacy, when HIV comes up.

If people are contracting the virus in monogamous relationships, maybe we should question how good the monogamous relationships are. Perhaps that is why there is sort of an implied rule to use a condom each and every time for high risk sex acts, even within monogamous relationships. If people used condoms properly each and every time when having sex outside of a monogamous relationship, then they theoretically wouldn't need to use condoms within their monogamous relationship. This applies to all monogamous relationships and is not even related to sexual preference. The virus does not discriminate or hand pick the demographics of who it might infect.

Friendships are better than relationships anyway. They tend to last longer.

 

My attitude remains the same. The fear is of the disease. It is not of the person. I'm not denying them friendship. Does that not count for much? Must it be the whole enchilada?

Same applies for interracial relationships, since you brought that up. I've got quite a set pattern for what turns my crank. I'm not the best candidate for interracial dating in most cases. Is it a fear of the person's different cultural or ethnic make-up? No. Is it that certain types turn my head, as if that isn't obvious for anyone who scans the "saw a hot guy today thread." So, I don't like being told that I need to open up who I consider for intimacy. Again, if I didn't consider all folks for friendship, unless they had habits that brought me down, then that would make ME the jerk.

 

re: "sales pitch" - not sure if that references the OTC test kit? I put that out there as an observation of the changing times - AND to encourage anyone out there [particularly in the shadows] who doesn't know their status to find out.

re: "No group should be ostracized over disease or denied love due to disease." No, but we do it all the time. It's a very primitive part of our self-preserving primal brain that doesn't readily accept. Hell, humans have difficulty just accepting asymmetrical features in a person: a limp; one side of the face not matching the other; physical disabilities. Our first reaction is often to distance. It takes voluntary effort to WANT to rise above those base reactions. A person with a potentially life-threatening illness takes a lot of courage to remain standing near. If a person can or can't remain near the heat of the kitchen is no reflection on either party, but the one who creates the heat of circumstances deals with many side issues, including being ostracized vs. belonging, a key part of the human tribe experience. Acceptance takes a lot of vigilance in our minds to rise above the primal brain that wants to kill what makes us afraid or uncomfortable. Humans are great at ostracizing! We can even ostracize parts of our own selves - relegating parts of ourselves we find difficult to accept to the farthest reaches. If we can so easily do that to ourselves, we can even more easily do it to others.

This is a very loaded subject with many tangential issues. HIV really highlights that "no man is an island." One thing that keeps crossing my mind is the potential reader of EC who has HIV, or is afraid they may, and is suffering in silence and fear in the shadows. This is one of those subjects where there is no right, no wrong in philosophical consideration, but in practice our choices could one day become a serious 'quality of life' issue.

And then there's Hepatitis C - something that's not even on many people's radar. From wiki: In the United States, about 2% of people have hepatitis C, with the number of new cases per year stabilized at 17,000 since 2007. The number of deaths from hepatitis C has increased to 15,800 in 2008 and by 2007 had overtaken HIV/AIDS as a cause of death in the USA.

Play safe. This ain't no choice in cars. This is your life.

 

No, my "sales pitch" comment was not directed at testing, but at the overarching tone of the thread. I am in total agreement that people should remain abreast of their status, especially if involved in the higher risk activities.

There are plenty, and I mean PLENTY, of qualified LGBT people who are seronegative and don't have romantic involvements, and for a wide variety of reasons. It could be because of the not at all uncommon hedonistic, short-term outlook toward others or it could be that the interest is not reciprocal. And when there are so many people who have the whole checklist and are not hooked up with someone, I feel we're putting the cart before the horse almost mandating that people consider dating HIV+ folks if that's not in their comfort zone. People are often excluded for way less. Way less. And absolutely trivial stuff.

It's a highly personal choice as to whether a person wants to or doesn't want to. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

I work in the HIV sector in Australia so I'm going to weigh in here. I admit I haven't read the entire thread so sorry if I repeat anything.
In Australia (could be different in the US as Australia has significantly higher rates of people on ART than the US) in over 2/3rds of new HIV infections amongst men who have sex with men the virus was transmitted to a negative partner by men who didn't know they had the virus. They either hadn't been tested or had been but had not heeded the window period or had engaged in risky sexual practices after being tested.
The best way to prevent getting HIV is to take control of your own sexual health. That means assuming that anyone you have sex with may have the virus. Use condoms unfailingly and if that is not possible for whatever reason consider PrEP or non-penetrative sex. You are actually safer having sex with an HIV positive person on treatment with an undetectable viral load and therefore a negligible chance of transmitting the virus than you are having sex with someone who doesn't know their HIV status. And a test three weeks ago doesn't prove much if that person has had risky sex during the window period or since that test.
The biggest barrier to HIV prevention is HIV stigma, both within the gay community and in the wider community. It prevents at risk individuals from accessing regular testing, it prevents people from being open about their status when negotiating sex, and it creates barriers to treatment access and adherence, which is the cornerstone of treatment as prevention and the 90/90/90 goals of UNAIDS and the WHO. If we could get 90% of people to know their status, with 90% of those on treatment and 90% of those undetectable then HIV would be virtually eliminated.
If I was a gay/bi man or a straight woman would I have sex with someone who is HIV positive despite being negative myself? Absolutely. I know the risks and know how to keep myself safe. I do realise it's a personal choice however. People's behaviour in terms of their sexual health does baffle me. In negotiating safer sex with a woman recently she mentioned that she wasn't willing to take any risks. Which is fine except that she never brought up the subject of safer sex and despite having had recent sexual experiences with both women and men had not been tested for years. You'd think someone not wanting to put themselves at risk would be a bit more savvy than that. This was no naive teen but an intelligent midlife woman.
The bottom line (no pun intended) from a prevention perspective is that a test is only useful in getting someone on treatment and hopefully tracing his or her previous sexual partners so they can be treated too. It doesn't give prospective sexual partners much information, particularly if the person concerned is engaging in high risk activities. HIV may not be the killer it once was but it no-one wants it. The best chance of staying negative is assuming everyone is positive unless definitively proven otherwise (a pretty high bar) and using condoms in the meantime, or PrEP if you are engaging in high risk behvaiour and have access to it.

 

Only once have I had to take a high cost drug that was prescribed to me and I almost felt guilty for the consumption of those resources (my insurer's, not mine). That drug didn't even work that well. At this point, my Rx regimen is limited to generic medications. You are correct. HIV may not kill you, but I don't want it, either. I can't quite wrap my mind around seeing the tab for a really costly drug, even if at the bottom of the receipt it showed that I was only responsible for the copay.

I think that the question which needs to be asked is how people who are seronegative, intelligent, and logical do something unsafe that has such consequences, given all the information that is out there. My thought is that they were under the influence of some type of mind altering substance - even if just alcohol. Most of the time, when someone I've met has wanted to do something stupid, they were in some mind altered state. I found it very easy to walk away from them and the situation.

 

I am not sure I would agree that it's necessarily tied to someone being under the influence. I agree that drugs and alcohol do play a role and probably a very large role. But equally, passion and the "heat of the moment" can be very powerful motivators as well. And human nature is such that under those circumstances, the mind can play games with you. Sexual arousal and rational thought do not necessarily go hand in hand.

It might have been easy for you to walk away from someone under the influence, but you never got to the point of actually being sexually aroused, in bed, wanting the physical intimacy with that person - because up front you did not let it get to that point.

But what about a situation where you have been chatting with someone for a period of time getting to know them, go on a few dates, you find him incredibly attractive, after a romantic date decide to go home together, your both naked in bed, massive foreplay, aroused like crazy, and when you go to grab the condoms, you realize you ran out (or you expected him to have some), and he does not have any neither. At which point he says "I was just tested this week and I am negative". What then? Do you believe him, your mind will definitely find ways to want to. These types of situations happen time and time again. And there are so many different scenarios I can think with similar implications.

And while I always had made sure I had protection available to me when playing the scene, being completely honest with myself, if I found myself in that situation, I would have difficultly simply walking away. Which is why I made sure I never found myself in that situation to begin with. But in the heat of the moment?????

 

The part I bolded above is a very important point, a recent test (if it is the test for antibodies only) only means you were negative about three months ago. Moreover, a recent infection, post-test, is when the virus is most transmissible and virulent.