I will not vanish into a sucking crush hole. I will remind myself that I have never met this gentleman, and won’t for at least a month. I will also remind myself that while taking an interest is cool, obsession is not. Whee.
HIV is vile. Contemplating a relationship with someone who has HIV is rank stupidity. It is useful to look at the statistics to remind myself from time to time that my chances of staying healthy would drop dramatically if I began regularly having sex with someone who has HIV.
I do wonder how accurate those statistics are. Even if they’re off, the ‘repetition until success’ principle he’s pointing out is quite valid.
I would do it
Although I have never knowingly been in a relationship with someone who was HIV+, I would do it. I *have* had sex with guys who had it. Typically they don’t announce they’re positive, they just don’t let you do things to them that you shouldn’t, which is way cool.
I wouldn’t fr33k out, but I wouldn’t suck it without a condom either.
rank stupidity
HIV is vile. Contemplating a relationship with someone who has HIV is rank stupidity.
Statements like yours are a powerful motivation to the rest of us to avoid being tested, and to avoid being truthful if we do know we are POZ.
Re: rank stupidity
Is it okay to say cancer is vile?
Is it okay to say that injecting hiv+ blood into your system is rank stupidity?
To be more accurate, my intent was “To have [less than 100% safe] sex with someone who has hiv, especially on a frequent basis, is rank stupidity”. I’m not going to avoid association with someone because they’re hiv+, and I’d even have (completely) safe sex with them (and have, though it squicked me and still does).
To paraphrase what you just said: “Statements like yours are a powerful motivation to the rest of us to remain willfully ignorant of the deadly virii we may harbor, and to lie to others about whether we harbor them.”
I also regard failing to test oneself, when one has cause for suspicion, as cowardly or recklessly irresponsible, sleeping with someone under false pretenses of negativity (including failure to inform of a known condition) to be attempted murder, and someone w/o hiv voluntarily sleeping with someone with hiv to be essentially the moral equivalent of assisted suicide via russian roulette, ie I keep my nose out of it, but don’t expect me to be doing it any time soon.
I believe most HIV+ guys are decent and reasonable about it, and follow the aforementioned rules, with the occasional dr kevorkian moment. I also believe that as a practical rule of thumb, anyone who trusts someone whom they don’t know to tell the unfettered truth, particularly when that person is sexually aroused and can see sexual advantage to doing so, is as hopelessly naive as I was when I left my bike unlocked on the back stairs of my apartment and went out of town for a week: too trusting for their own good, but not morally culpable.
I’m a regular rider of motorcycles. As such, I hope you’ll pardon me if I don’t accept your assertion that a repeated risk, by its nature, is morally equivalent to either murder or suicide.
For that matter, as a guy that regularly steps outside the confines of my apartment, ditto.
No strawmen today, please.
I’m a regular rider of motorcycles. As such, I hope you’ll pardon me if I don’t accept your assertion that a repeated risk, by its nature, is morally equivalent to either murder or suicide.
Risking someone else’s health without their informed consent is not riding a motorcycle. Attempted murder is not murder. It could be argued that it’s simply deliberate negligence, but I believe that fails to take into account the potential consequences of the action. Not taking reasonable precautions to avoid spreading a lethal epidemic is definitely not riding a motorcycle.
Unlike riding a motorcycle, the risks associated with sex are not readily apparent. You can see everything else whizzing past, and think ‘damn, it’ll suck if I hit that.” HIV- & HIV+ guys can’t tell one another apart without blood work. HIV- guys can ‘reasonably’ gamble that this anonymous guy is, in fact, HIV- with a minimum 80% certainly, (given no more information than that he has sex with guys, and you’re in, say SF, which had the worst prevelance in the country, unsurprisingly. statistics courtesy <http://www.ucsf.edu“>UCSF, circa 1998. I believe the prevelance has gone up in recent years, especially among the young.)
For that matter, as a guy that regularly steps outside the confines of my apartment, ditto.
Both of the actions you propose hold comparatively little risk for non-participants. Even if a motorcycle slams into a stationwagon, I bet the rider will come out of it worse than the family of 4 inside the wagon. I actually have an opinion regarding SUV drivers which is comparable to my feelings on the HIV+ barebacker, though, admittedly, not quite as intense. If they’re the only ones on the road, well, it’s their lives. If they’re not, it’s another story.
Re: No strawmen today, please.
This was more what I was referring to. And it doesn’t seem to have real risks except for the voluntary (suicidal, to paraphrase very slightly) participant. Certainly the HIV+ participant isn’t risking anything further.
Re: No strawmen today, please.
On that one I’ll concede you have a point. I’m uncomfortable with it, but I don’t think I have a moral leg to stand on if I want to maintain that protecting people from themeselves is a bad idea. And I do, so…
Re: rank stupidity
I don’t mind your intended meaning as much as I minded your original statement, which didn’t sound very compassionate to me, especially coming from somebody as liberal as yourself.
I think the best practice is to treat each person as though he is HIV+ … that way you can be open to experiences with everybody, while remaining relatively safe yourself.
Your entry
through me into a strange loop.
Having fell in love with someone who later revealed that he is positive was memorable. The risk is undeniable. So many times, I could of seroconverted. I mean, for oral sex for instance, how many people use a condom?
Today I find myself being increasingly paranoid about seroconverting in light of news of another huge wave of people testing HIV positive. People (gays) are having unsafe sex because they feel that HIV is a manageable risk and no longer a death sentence. Wrong! I am fully conscious that a cure is still 15 years away. As mentioned before in my journal, being Negative is worth 100 Million dollars to me. What is the use of killing yourself to make money if you are not alive to enjoy the fruits of your labor?
hoo-boy….
This post of yours is gonna ruffle some feathers, Stephen. Especially as you are about to move yourself into ground zero of the epidemic.
I don’t think contemplating a relationship with someone who has HIV is rank stupidity, any more than contemplating a relationship with someone who has any other life-threatening illness. Your chances of staying healthy would drop dramatically if you began regularly having unsafe sex — period. In fact, having randomized unsafe sex is probably more risky than having protected/safer sex with someone who’s HIV-positive. At any rate, a relationship is more than just sex. Both love and HIV have one thing strangely in common: neither knows conventional boundaries.
In your response to, you clarified some of your statements somewhat. Can you call cancer vile? Hmm. I dunno. If cancer is vile, are people with cancer villainous? Injecting HIV+ blood into your system may indeed qualify as ‘rank stupidity’, but that’s hardly the equivalent of ‘contemplating a relationship’.
I also regard failing to test oneself, when one has cause for suspicion, as cowardly or recklessly irresponsible
People have all sorts of reasons for not getting tested. They may find the mandatory-reporting aspect an undue governmental infringement on their privacy. They may be content in their denial. Maybe they just don’t like needles. Perhaps they subscribe to fringe theories on AIDS that do not recognize HIV. Whatever. My take on it is that it’s their life, and they can live it as they see fit. I know a number of people who refuse to get tested; I simply conduct my sexual relations with them as if they were poz.
sleeping with someone under false pretenses of negativity (including failure to inform of a known condition) to be attempted murder
Attempted murder carries with it a burden of proving intent. Reckless endangerment, perhaps. Besides, as you point out later on, there’s so much you don’t know, so why take that risk? Take control of your own body, and insist on a condom regardless of the other person’s pretenses (false, deluded, or malicious) of seronegativity. Unless you can prove that the person KNOWS they’re poz AND that they INTEND to infect you, I think attempted murder is a bit of a stretch.
someone w/o hiv voluntarily sleeping with someone with hiv to be essentially the moral equivalent of assisted suicide via russian roulette
Again, what makes me uneasy is the equating of “sleeping with” and “having unsafe, unprotected sex with”. I do not believe there is a moral equivalency here. I have voluntarily slept with (i.e. had sex with) a number of poz guys, and BECAUSE I have no death wish, THEREFORE I don’t have unsafe sex with them. It’s not the people you sleep with, it’s the stuff you do.
Later on, in your response to, you talk about risking someone else’s health without their informed consent. This puts all the onus on the poz guy to protect the (presumably) neg guy. What about the neg guy’s responsibility to look out for his own health and well-being? For me, what is truly rank stupidity is risking one’s own health by uninformed or unrealized consent. A recent campaign in San Francisco has the tagline “AIDS Stops With Me”. The idea is that it’s time to shift the focus away from blame and towards responsibility — for both poz men and neg men, and even the ones who don’t know their serostatus.
Re: hoo-boy….
Yeah, it has ruffled some feathers. =) And given me food for thought.
Looking at the numbers, you’re correct, slapping a condom on a known hiv+ guy, mathematically speaking, improves the odds for gayboys better than randomly sleeping with bay area guys without a condom, but it’s not a dramatic factor. It’s less risky, but still more than half as risky. I’m a fairly cautious person, still young, with a good chance at a long and healthy life, and I’d like to realize that possibility.
I know I’m not going to give up having sex*. I also know I’m as vulnerable as the next guy to illness (or close enough for this purpose). It’s all a question of risk management. Anal sex with a condom is more than 10 times as risky as riding a motorcycle, which I believe is riskier than driving, which I don’t like to do, in part because I don’t want to be involved in an accident (Which leads to the question of just how dangerous it is to bike on the roads, but in this case, I stay off main roads, wear a helmet & hope for the best). Hmmm, digression.
So, celibacy is not a realistic option. A reasonable/paranoid rule set is do nothing but the absolutely safe** stuff (mutual masturbation, oral with condom, etc) by default. And to reserve anything/everything else for a hiv- boyfriend who will use like standards, meaning, potentially, no one. This strikes me as a road to health and celibacy, but maybe I’m just paranoid.
* Please note that I’m using ‘sex’, unmodified by other words such as oral or anal, to mean two guys getting it on, and includes both of the above, as well as mutual masturbation, and other similar activities.
** Which still puts one at risk for genital warts, scabies, & crabs, all unpleasant, but none life threatening
Also, please note that my comparisons (attempted murder, suicide, etc) are not intended as legal judgements so much as ethical ones. Very different ball of wax.