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IMAGE COURTESY OF NAKED BLACK JUSTICE CAMPAIGN |
As we mature, not get older as age does not equate maturity, the image of the man we see standing beside us for eternity begins to take shape. Through experience we know what we want in a man and what we don't want, and refuse to entertain those men who are only good for the night, looking for the one whose good for our lives. With every potential love interest comes a series of risks, ones that may not be so evident. When you meet someone new and a bond between the two of you begins to form, the questions seem to flood your mind and unfortunately there is no arc to take refuge in. What if his family is not accepting of homosexuality? What if he's not out of the closet? What if his friends don’t like me? What if he rejects me for my HIV-positive status?
Moment of truth. Being someone who has been positive since the age of 19, that was one of the first questions I asked myself. Who's going to love me now? Who's going to accept me for the new definition of 'who I am?' Will the man I date understand everything that I go through mentally and physically as an HIV-positive man? To my surprise throughout the years I have never been turned down for being positive, and by being so forthcoming about my status, many of the men whom I've dated let their guard down and shared their pos-status with me as well--including a lot of you readers.
Learning which risks are unavoidable and which are optional is something crucial for us to do when swimming in the dating pool. Protection from possible disease, including HIV, should be on the mind of every single gay man. Just because you don't have it, know someone who is positive, or the fact that you aren't dating someone who is, doesn't mean that you should be completely oblivious to the chronic illness. It is because of the lack of education that the risk of dating someone who is HIV-positive is severely misunderstood.
The real risk comes into play when dating a man who doesn’t know his status.
Before becoming as educated about the virus as I am today, I thought a lot like the majority, that dating an HIV-positive man increases your risk of infection. In reality it does the opposite. If your prospective mate has the courage to disclose his positive status before the first round of cocktails, you can be certain that he has, and will take the necessary steps to protect your negative status.
There are many misconceptions about HIV-positive men. That they contracted the virus by being whores, or or that someone who is positive will begin acting in an unsafe and irresponsible manner because they feel the damage is done, and he no longer has to worry about protecting himself. False. People who contract HIV do so by doing something we all do every day of our lives, and that is trust someone. There are plenty of men who have contracted it from partners whom they've been with for years, whether it be because their partners were unfaithful or were not in the know about their status.
The positive man must protect himself even more, to protect his health from pesky ancillary viruses, and even from re-infecting himself with a different strain of the virus. For him, that means avoiding those question marks at all costs. An HIV-positive man who is in treatment, takes care of his health, and is determined by his physician to have an undetectable viral load has reduced your risk of acquiring the virus to the smallest statistic possible. Whether you are negative or positive, condom use should be non-negotiable in any dating scenario.
So who is more of a gamble? The HIV-positive male? Or....the one that you are unsure of, or one who is unsure of himself?
So often you will hear a gay man prematurely divulge his negative HIV status as soon as one of his friends brings up the topic. Be wary—he may just be the guy who convinces himself he is negative just because he doesn’t know whether he is positive. Truth is, if he has had even one sexual encounter since his last test, he is a question mark.
In the perfect world everyone would be upfront about their status, but this world is imperfect, which in some cases is what makes it so great; not when it comes to HIV. Those who are negative often believe that are smarter or better protected than those who bear the plus sign. Afterall you've had sex with the entire east coast and have yet to catch anything that a few antibiotics won't kill. But again majority of those who contract the virus, do so in committed relationships, and as we all know the persuasion of romance, compounded by several months of exclusivity, and pure lust that captivates us in the moment can sometimes get the best of us, causing us to act irresponsibly. Just like a woman getting pregnant, it only takes one time.
I never thought it would happen to me, and in that moment I reassured myself, 'It's only one time, there's no way my second sexual partner would be positive and in-turn infect me.' It was a gamble that I lost, but since then my life has been far from over. Now I approach every situation with my truth, because the gamble of transmitting the virus to someone else would be worse than the feeling I had when I found out I was positive.
Dating is exciting, adventurous, a part of the unknown, and hidden within those words is "risk." However if you are positive, honest with yourself, honest with whom you're dating, follow your therapy regimen, and share everything regarding your health with your partner, there is nothing to worry about. If you are negative, as long as you always use protection, educate yourself on the virus, and are open to discussing and supporting your HIV-positive partner, there is nothing to worry about--besides a broken heart. Something positives and negatives are all susceptible to.
Now as for his judgmental family and wild friends...I can't help you with.