Being lgbt , it’s harder than being straight obviously. It’s because we are unique humans honestly. The more people that accept themselves and accept us it will become a norm , to add on we have this negative connotation AND for that reason is it hard to date ? We have this huge 80/90s even maybe early 00’s stigma that we may catch all sorts of stds even AIDS if we sleep around or anything. Does that scare anyone from dating or sleeping with someone your dating ? I grew up in the 90s and I remember HIV being HUGE in the LGBT community to the point I didn’t want to be gay at all and I grew up in NYC which was 1 of the reasons I didn’t want to be apart of the LGBT . That stuck with me. I know a lot of people even closed to me who were gay that died from HIV/AIDS which made me realize the rumors were true. It scared me which is good and bad because I’m extra careful but at the same time I’m like why is that towards us when I even know straight people who have stds.
I also have known people who caught HIV and some who even died of AIDS, this has made me careful but did not prevent me from wanting to be in and pursuing relationships. I found that it was much more difficult to date with the purpose of finding a relationship than it has been to find sex. Maybe this is due to being a transitioned person and only being seen as a fetish object so while virtually no one I met was interested in a relationship with me they were very interested in using me for meaningless casual sex. As far as having trouble sleeping with someone that is actually how my husband and I developed our relationship, we cuddled watching movies and this progressed into him sleeping over. There are zero issues with catching an STD while sleeping next to each other or even from him holding me all night. We finally decided that we were in a relationship and then a couple of weeks later we did start to have sex which is where the actual risk of catching an STD is (though I think that herpes can be spread by kissing). By that point we had both discussed our histories and we felt that we would be safe enough. Maybe this progression is unusual for most people but it is normal for a demisexual which I was out to him as and he respected my need to become close and to trust him before we had sex. Possibly my feelings on all of it would be different were I not demisexual and wanted casual sex.
I grew up in the 80's and completely understand the whole HIV/AIDS fear. I remember it drilled into me as it was a plague that was placed onto the LGBT community. Anyway yes there was also the idea of the community of having a higher level of STDs than the straight community. But straight people have casual sex too, of course and have high numbers of STD's. My thoughts from the stigma as a kid would be is it is still more accepting for society to still point fingers to the LGBT community and keep the numbers in the straight community more quiet. There is a lot of shaming around this. When across the board it's any given person.
