Having sex if you are HIV+

A friend of mine recently had sex with someone who didn't tell him that he was HIV+. They used protection, but he was still really upset about it afterward. He only found out because he saw some HIV medication on the guy’s dresser the next morning, and he went home pretty shaken. When he called the guy on it, he explained that it was a “very mild strain” or something. I was enraged on my friend’s behalf – I know I would be really worried if I were in his shoes.

I'm not close to anyone with HIV, so I don't know how this works, generally. I understand that safe sex can be pretty safe, and that everyone's gotta get laid, but I still feel like he robbed someone of the choice of whether or not to put himself in that situation. Is it OK not to disclose this information if your disease is under control and the sex is safe? Or is this never OK?

Or is this never OK?

this is never OK.

fuck no, lock thread

Agreed.

Now that's solved, what do you guys think of the new Hot Chip record. I like it.

Maybe it's okay if the person then says "PSYCH! You just got PUNK'D!" and Ashton Kutcher pops up from behind the dresser going "man you should have seen the look on your face".

(so basically, never okay)

ok. that's what i thought. i just needed to hear it from someone else.

you'll pretty much hear it from anyone else you ask

Like the opening track a lot but his vocals are putting me off the rest. Sounds wheezier than ever.

I understand that everyone's gotta get laid

not buying this either tbh

xxpost obv not from the guy who fucks everyone without telling he's positive.

acc. to interwebz people who regularly have unsafe sex with HIV are often psychopaths

yeah, i was pretty shocked.

Dick move.

cross ref with disgusting savages thread

Guy did a bad bad thing, but one should 'safely' act as if every partner IS positive IMO.

Morbs OTM.

I'm not close to anyone with HIV, so I don't know how this works, generally.

If you have been on meds long enough (and the meds are working for you), then you can get to a point where the virus is undetectable. This also assumes that you take your meds religiously. My understanding from my doctor, who is gay and specializes in infectious diseases, is that there is a very low risk for passing on the infection once the virus is no longer detectable. He still advises that you use protection, obviously. I know if you're on Atripla, all you have to do is miss a few days and it can throw all your progress off.

if your disease is under control

That doesn't matter, does it? I don't think it makes any difference to the chances of passing it on. There's a bit of legal controversy in the UK about it from time to time, whether exposing one's partner should be a crime or not (which it is).

Morbs OTM. It's a mellow-harshener to get in the mindset of "every partner is not potentially but actually HIV+" but it's foolish outside of having actually seen somebody's test results to behave otherwise imo.

Guy did a bad bad thing, but one should 'safely' act as if every partner IS positive IMO.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 27, 2010 3:37 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what does this mean, though? you should never have casual sex, even if it's safe?

No. Reread subsequent posters have said.

*what

reread what exactly, alfred? what john said?

so John, you would say that any sort of safe, casual sex without actually seeing test results is foolish?

That's kind of up to you and how much risk you feel comfortable taking, is it not?

He explained that it was a “very mild strain”

He should be slighly sued.

Surm, just use condoms.

and dental dams

I tend to avoid certain kinds of sexual activity on casual hookups anyway; it's not a big deal. It helps that my uncle died of AIDS fifteen years ago.

i do use condoms! and my friend did. i just don't like to think that if i were in the same situation, i would be called foolish for enjoying safe sex without actually making a trip to the clinic with my partner.

its not safe sex its safer sex btw, like anything good there is a risk attatched and its worth doing everything you can to minimise that risk imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YFC0O393DQ

i think the subject of this thread does a pretty good job of showing why morbs is OTM. as long as there are peeps out there that decide they have the right to determine that their disease is in check enough not to tell a partner beforehand, yer better off figuring everyone is a risk.

there is also not having been diagnosed

like, not knowing yet

surm made it pretty clear in the first post that his friend used protection, and that the issue at hand is about the other party being clear about their situation before hooking up. safe sex vs. unsafe sex isn't even a question here.

what does this mean, though? you should never have casual sex, even if it's safe?

This is the strategy I adopted in the 1990s, which had a significant impact on my social life. MTV News special reports FUCKED ME UP.

i think the point surms post ends up making is that even when you use a condom you are not always in a position whereby everything is a-ok

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugchasing

yeah IKR, i understand that it's "safer sex" and not "safe sex." and while i understand what you're saying justen, i just hesitate to use the term foolish in describing the behavior of people who do take precaution but are dicked over.

One thing I can assert without reserve is that if Ashton Kutcher ever 'pops up' in any, even tenuously, sexual circumstance, it's an unambiguously bad thing.

Yeah, but Bruce is totally cool with Ashton banging Demi.

We all seem to agree the duty to inform is clear, but that it's foolish to proceed as if a hookup thinks so.

Getting out of bed every day is risky.

http://llamabutchers.mu.nu/archives/Willis%20Vacation.jpg

so John, you would say that any sort of safe, casual sex without actually seeing test results is foolish?

No no - when you work under the assumption that any potential partner is HIV+, you practice safe sex (or "safer sex" as we were calling it back in the I-ain't-even-sayin-how-long-ago era) - condoms aren't perfect, but do provide a high level of protection

"you should never have casual sex, even if it's safe?"

This is the strategy I adopted in the 1990s, which had a significant impact on my social life. MTV News special reports FUCKED ME UP.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Wednesday, January 27, 2010 4:02 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i seem to have adopted this strategy too :/

surm, I think you're overreacting to a bunch of posts that boil down to "don't assume the person you're hooking up with is going to care as much about your health as you do"

you're right.

I have it on good authority that Bruce likes pegging.

well there's my day ruined

well there's my day ruined improved

Bruce Willis like pegboards

it's like, take that picture upthread and rearrange it so that Bruce is sitting on Demi's lap and Ashton is looking on with that "aw yeah" look on his face and oh no

don't forget Ashton is a spokesperson for Nikon digital cameras, so he's clicking pictures the whole time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dysvMW4fQ8c

it's like, take that picture upthread and rearrange it so that Bruce is sitting on Demi's lap and Ashton is looking on with that "aw yeah" look on his face and oh no

brb, masturbating

ugh those commercials need to stop xxp

Touch your picture in a whole new way

Introducing the Nikon® COOLPIX S70.
Get on Ashton's COOLPIX

Small, sleek, stylish—keeping your all-new Nikon COOLPIX camera at hand is the perfect way to capture life in all its random glory.

It's also the perfect way to mess with Ashton's head. Upload up to 3 images from your life onto his COOLPIX. Pics of your friends, your wife's ex-husband. Your wife. Your wife and your wife's ex-husband. Whatever. Just select a category that matches each. Then send it to your friends to bring a little bit of Hollywood to their hood. Flash Required)

I thought only Demi messed with Ashton's head these days.

Fellatio after a bowl of Captain Crunch = unsafe sex for the high-school girl.

Also GMHC used to lecture to straights with the immortal words 'when in doubt, double-bag your man!'

Fellatio with a mouthful of Captain Crunch = party time

personally I don't think we need to make fellatio more like sticking your dick in a meat grinder but ymmv

Also GMHC used to lecture to straights with the immortal words 'when in doubt, double-bag your man!'

spinal tap's nigel tufnell offered similar advice at the freddie mercury tribute concert - "double wrap it, paper AND plastic"

xpost it's called "Crunch Berries," FYI

I was born in the United States
and I grew up hard but I grew up straight
I saw a lack of morals and a lack of concern
a feeling that there's nowhere to turn
Yippies, Hippies and upwardly mobile Yuppies
don't treat me like I'm some dumb lackey
'cause the murderer lives while the victims die
I'd much rather see it an eye for an eye
A heart for a heart, a brain for a brain
and if this all makes you feel a little insane
kick up your heels, turn the music up loud
pick up your guitar and look out at the crowd, and say, -
- "Don't mean to come on sanctimonious
but life's got me nervous and little pugnacious
Lugubrious so I give a salutation
and rock on out to beat really stupid
Ohh, poop, ah, doo and how do you do
hip hop gonna bop till I drop."
watch out world, comin' at you full throttle
better check that sausage, before you put it in the waffle
and while you're at it better check that batter
make sure the candy's in the Original Wrapper

must you make me relive the moment I lost faith in Lou

Lugubrious so you gave a salutation.

welcome back, J0hn. how was it?

surm: this is, as everyone else has said, never ok.

yeahhh i guess it was a pretty obvious question. but tbh, i really wasn't sure. haven't had much experience.

I'm pretty sure that's the Lou LP I have autographed, and I'm not happy about it.

From the looks of it Lou ain't gettin' none either:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xZahGphXgyU/SGUk-wm35uI/AAAAAAAAGNE/tw6dLq3qYjk/s400/REED%2BLou%2B1986%2BMISTRIAL.jpg

This thread has me freaked out. That there are so many degrees of separation between myself and someone who would do something like this freaks me the shit out.

This thread was scary enough w/out introducing mid eighties Lou.

It's like waving a loaded handgun in someone's face and being like "oh nahhhh safety's on bro"

What, the unsafe sex thing, or mid-80s Lou?

It's like waving a loaded handgun in someone's face and being like "oh nahhhh safety's on bro"

oddly enough, during the most unsafe era of my young life, there was a dude who lived upstairs who liked to do this for laffs

in prison now IIRC

in prison now IIRC

mid eighties Lou?

Guys enough with the mid-80s-Lou jokes.

We're clearly talking about mid-80s Lou.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMIgZmmO1c4

thread is a missed trial

^^^ watch muted while listen to High on Fire for maximum impact

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7P0bxRGp7o

I'm trying to figure out if J0hn intended an xpost or not

This thread was scary enough w/out introducing mid eighties Lou.

Lucky for me, I am early-80s Lou. :)

eatly '80s Lou, classic (both of you)

You can do what you wanna do.

love is trust

see I'm not 100% in agreement that there is a duty to inform. Duty to use condoms, absolutely--but duty to inform I'm wavering on.

get the fuck out

i mean dude

yeah and I'm a certified HIV testing counselor who volunteers at a clinic and everything!

Say you have an undetectable viral load (which research indicates *does* reduce the risk of transmission) and you use condoms properly--the risk of transmission, particularly if you are the insertive partner and are circumcised, adn particularly if this is a one-time encounter vs. repeatedly, the risk is really, really low.

I mean should the duty to disclose also be applied to other STDs? If so, which ones? HSV-2? How about HSV-1? HPV? Hell, most guys who have HPV have no idea they have it--is there a duty to get an HPV test and disclose?

I just don't think it is totally black and white.

I tell people if I have a cold.

even if the risk is really, really low, i would be indescribably angry if someone didn't tell me.

yeah and I'm a certified HIV testing counselor who volunteers at a clinic and everything!

So really, your answer is informed by concern over job security, then.

xp - yes, if you are certain you have the herp (even without a current/recent outbreak, etc.), you have a duty to tell prospective partners.

Not knowing whether or not you have an STD (HPV) is quite different from knowing and staying quiet.

volunteers at a clinic

what part of the word volunteer do you not understand Eric H

yea and w/r/t to herpes, i thought it was commonly agreed upon that one's duty is to inform any partners

Knowing and not telling is morally reprehensible because it's such a wholly selfish act, it's near impossible to imagine any circumstance in which it wouldn't be.

what part of the word volunteer do you not understand Eric H

Oh, sorry. Then the answer is informed by being a total dick who doesn't want to curb the spread of HIV. My mistake.

dude the point is this hypothetical person has a deadly disease that can be transmitted sexually, no matter how careful he is. the partner has a right to know and decide if he wants to put himself in that position

so Eric, what you're saying is partners should disclose every STD that they have before they engage in intercourse

Man, this is an area I know nothing about, but do HIV+ people have like their own scene within which they bone? HIV+ dating services or parties or whatever?

xp That's probably what I would say.

yea, ditto.

Yes. I want detailed annotations tattooed to the inside of thighs.

i'm sure that is the case, kingkong.

also, i'm trying to think of what STD's would be OK to conceal, even tho i'm pretty sure Eric was talking about HIV mainly

(I was, but now I'm kinda turned on.)

I know that herpes people kinda operate that way. xp

see I don't think it reasonable to suggest that that poz ppl only have sex with other poz ppl!

so what you're saying is that with disclosure, no neg person would have sex with a poz person

But it is reasonable to suggest that STD-positive ppl only have sex with ppl who are aware of their condition and enter into sex fully knowing the risk (even with a condom, even if the virus is undetectable or the last breakout was a year ago or whatever).

xp Yeah, quincie, they can have sex with non-poz people, too, as long as they inform them beforehand. Then their partner can make an informed decision about whether to proceed with the sexing.

also, i'm trying to think of what STD's would be OK to conceal, even tho i'm pretty sure Eric was talking about HIV mainly

The problem is, again, that you can only conceal what you know! Where is the penalty for choosing not to know?

And for dudes out there (I say dudes in particular b/c women are screened at a higher rate than men) who say get tested for everything and then fully disclose, good luck getting an HPV test and enjoy the q-tip up your dickhole.

so what you're saying is that with disclosure, no neg person would have sex with a poz person

not saying this at all, surm--I know plenty of serodiscordant couples with active sex lives (with each other).

I have had the q-tip up the peener, it is unpleasant.

You're saying that there's no difference in being unaware of a condition and being aware but concealing it? Really?

I'm not saying there is no difference! I am saying that in my opinion it is not just a knee jerk "yes, you are morally obligated to disclose HIV status no matter what."

I mean I just thing there is some burden, some acceptance of risk, for anyone choosing to (potentially) exchange fluids with someone else. This shouldn't be a one-sided thing.

I understand to an extent, quincie, which is one reason why I don't actually have sex very often at all.

I Love TLI

But one side is fully aware that they are HIV positive, which can be deadly, which can be transmitted (no matter how rare).

That makes fundamentally one-sided.

but it is one-sided, when one person has the information, and the other doesn't, right?

right

Say you have an undetectable viral load (which research indicates *does* reduce the risk of transmission) and you use condoms properly--the risk of transmission, particularly if you are the insertive partner and are circumcised, adn particularly if this is a one-time encounter vs. repeatedly, the risk is really, really low.

Wait, I've been told that the risk of transmission is higher if the HIV+ partner is "on top."

"yes, you are morally obligated to disclose HIV status no matter what."

yes, that's right

xp it's gravity

btw, over the years has the likelihood of oral transmission been downgraded? bcz at the height of my slut period, when some safe-sex lit suggested using condoms during oral, I shrugged and thought "Everybody's gotta go."

I meant (but bungled) that if the HIV neg partner is the insertive partner, it is less risky than the other way around.

Oral is a lower risk, yeah. We advise ppl to be aware of their oral health (maybe don't imbibe a big ole load if you like just had a tooth extracted), know your partner and his/her status, be aware that the recipient may be at lower risk of oral transmission than the giver, etc. And if you're concerned use condoms/dental dams/saran wrap.

'don't imbibe a big ole load if you like just had a tooth extracted' = probably good advice in general

Man, this is an area I know nothing about, but do HIV+ people have like their own scene within which they bone? HIV+ dating services or parties or whatever?

Most gay dating/hookup sites ask for HIV status.

Morbs- I've been told that the chances of contracting HIV via oral sex are slim to none since the presence of blood is what makes transmission more likely. That said, I wouldn't go around sucking people off if you've got any sort of open wound in your mouth.

xposts

life is an open wound tbh

I'm pretty sure oral has ALWAYS been described as a lower risk, for HIV transmission, but I've assumed for the last decade or so it's actually "near zero," or there'd be a lot more positive gays my age. Like, most of us.

xxp

I wouldn't go around sucking people off if they got holes in their souls.

I'm pretty sure oral has ALWAYS been described as a lower risk, for HIV transmission, but I've assumed for the last decade or so it's actually "near zero," or there'd be a lot more positive gays my age. Like, most of us.

xxp

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 27, 2010 7:35 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

same here, which feels like kind of a stupid assumption now that i think about it

how so?

http://bassic-sax.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Bleeding-Gums-Murphy.jpg

i dunno, cuz it's still possible?

well, lou says "slim to none," so I'm judging that to be safer than car travel.

Well, it's not 'none' because there are documented cases - how common it actually is I don't know

well, it is kind of hard to document an individual's lifelong sexual behavior with certainty.

i think the chance is bigger than they initially thought it was. recent research claims it might be as high as 10% since there are around that number of HIV+ men who claim they have no interest in anal sex. a good portion of those could be the sort of gay and bisexual men who pretend they only do oral because, for whatever reason, they feel more ashamed about anal.

Morbs OTM throughout much of thread.

I had an unusual HPV strain for a while (10 years ago) that seems to be in remission. As noted upthread, Planned Parenthood folks were surprised when I came in for testing because a lot of men don't ever get tests. It's really hard to tell where that stuff comes from if you are at all sexually active beyond one vector, so it was never certain if former partners who developed HPV symptoms (there are lots of strains) had contacted it from me. I think in those circumstances the best option is to assume that what you have IS transmissible, and disclose it whenever necessary. The moral obligation here increases exponentially with the presence of more serious STDs.

file under "should be on ILTMI"

FFS I just wrote a huge long fucking post and lost it. FUUUUUUUCK. Anyway - Quincie OTM throughout.

so you would be ok if you had with someone who was positive but didn't tell u?

*had SEX . . .

well, it is kind of hard to document an individual's lifelong sexual behavior with certainty.

hence the importance of J0hn D.'s bill that would require every individual over 18 to document all sexual behavior on digital video

I've honestly never heard anyone argue that it's okay to have sex (even protected) without informing your partner if you've got a transmissible STD.

LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE POZ.

so you would be ok if you had with someone who was positive but didn't tell u?

― you have to forgive me (surm), Wednesday, January 27, 2010 7:31 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

No, of course I wouldn't be OK with it and I don't think that Quincie would either but maybe I misread her. In an ideal world all HIV+ ppl would disclose their status to partners before and and all sexual intercourse but realistically that is just never going to happen. The fact is that this guy used protection and I would not put his actions on level with those of unmedicated ppl who have intentionally tried to infect unknowing partners through unprotected sex.

However, if I had had casual sex with someone whose HIV status I did not know then I would assume responsibility for my decisions and realistically acknowledge that the other person could have any number of STDs/STIs about which they may not have informed me. Is it a shitty thing to do? Sure but ppl do really shitty things all the time and it's pretty naive to think that this is any exception.

I've honestly never heard anyone argue that it's okay to have sex (even protected) without informing your partner if you've got a transmissible STD.

― smashing aspirant (milo z), Wednesday, January 27, 2010 7:34 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

I am not saying it's OK. In an ideal world people would but having worked in sexual and reproductive/family planning settings for a while now I can assure you that ppl do this all the fucking time. Seriously. It's completely unrealistic to assume that they won't and I think that we need to take responsibility to protect ourselves and not rely on others.

A friend who recently came out (this was years ago) dated this guy -- only the second guy with whom he'd had sex, with a four-month interval between both -- who gave him crabs, which my friend discovered a couple of weeks after breaking up with him. A rather violent case too: my buddy complained for at least five months about finding them even after using the shampoo several times. I know he confronted the guy, who didn't respond with anything except, "Well, I guess I should wash my sheets." Maybe the guy didn't know about his condition, but it still sucked.

so, did the poz guy in the OP do bad or not? i can't tell what yr position is here

xp

i mean i think you're dodging the actual issue which is that it's extremely unethical for someone to knowingly withold that info from his or her partner

xposts No one is assuming that people wouldn't do this. The entire thread is predicated upon someone actually doing this.

think surm was asking "is this ok?" rather than "does this happen?"

quincie said it wasn't black and white -- that there wasn't a cast-iron duty to inform if you were hiv+. i guess he/she means you have a duty to ask. is there a duty not to lie? it's unrealistic to expect people to tell the truth.

esp. when the truth might scare off people you like and want to be intimate with

the thing is, STDs/crabs/whatever are one thing, and HIV is another. It's not the death sentence it seemed to be in 1987, but it's forever, and potentially catastrophic. If you have it, imo, you are morally & ethically obligated to disclose to anybody who intends to sleep with you before they sleep with you.

Yeah, there have been a lot of responses about the importance of wrapping it up, but that's a given for everyone in the thread so far as I see.

ENBB, you said Quincie was OTM, but the point she was challenged on was "I'm not 100% in agreement that there is a duty to inform." If there is no duty to inform, there's nothing wrong with having (protected) sex without informing a partner you're HIV+ or have the herp or whatever.

xxxp
quincie said it wasn't black and white -- that there wasn't a cast-iron duty to inform if you were hiv+

i don't think it's that - more that the inflexibility of such a rule is altered by wondering where we draw the line; ie if you have a mild STI that you're pretty-sure-isn't-transmittable and wouldn't-be-lethal, do you have a responsibility then? at which point does the social anxiety involved outstrip the potential risk? i'd be surprised if there's much variety across the board about whether people feel that you should mention it, but they mightn't have realised that it's part of a spectrum, the mildest end being kissing with a cold (not to be flippant)

really wanted to work the phrase 'put out and shut up' into this post

fwiw i agree w/ ENBB and quincie. informing is the right thing to do, totally, but there is no clear rule in real life. kinda hard to see if you aren't in that situation i guess.

i just don't see how there isn't a clear rule w/r/t this situation. if u have a potentially fatal disease, you don't hide it from someone you're about to have sex with. seems pretty clear, no?

Sorry I know I wasn't very clear. I wrote that in pieces and c&ping it messed it all up. Anyway . . .

Yes, I do think he should have informed him but recognize (sadly) that realistically this isn't always going to happen.

if u have a potentially fatal disease, you don't hide it from someone you're about to have sex with. seems pretty clear, no?

it does, but people with HIV who think that the chance of contraceptive failure and transmission is so small as to be not worth mentioning might calculate otherwise.

Sure, they might. They might be guided by self-interest as well.

Which makes surmounters clear rule all the better an idea.

btw Surmounter if this happened within the last couple of days your friend could look into talking to someone about the benefits/risks in taking post-exposure proprophylaxis.

(er . . . prophylaxis - just one pro)

it does, but people with HIV who think that the chance of contraceptive failure and transmission is so small as to be not worth mentioning might calculate otherwise.

― schlump, Wednesday, January 27, 2010 8:02 PM (15 minutes ago)

this doesn't make it any more ok

yeah of course not; it isn't their decision to make. i don't think anyone's speaking in solidarity with people who withhold, just saying that it exists. a generic etiquette on the way to handle this would obviously be good.

what 'decision' do you refer to?

i dont think any of us really disagree on this tbh, doing this is bad

decision = should i mention this? = no

& yeah no-one here disagrees

Yeah, think it's great that the HIV-neg have reached consensus on how positives should behave.

uh, what? it was a question of ethics, not a question of personal experience. guilt trip unnecessary, thanks.

You don't think it's in any way relevant to the thread's easy consensus that everyone posting seems to be on the same side of the person experience divide? Not sure how this is a guilt trip.

Not sure where these assumptions about personal experience are coming from...

I feel pretty safe in assuming that everyone who can easily say it's unambiguously wrong not to disclose are negative. Maybe I am wrong.

at least 4 ppl said they couldn't easily say!

unsafe assumptions

so, you don't think it's appropriate for someone to make a judgment on whether or not it is unambiguously wrong not to disclose, if they don't have the disease? that seems silly. i think a negative individual can accurately distinguish what she thinks is right from wrong.

yeah, think it's great that the non-murderers have reached consensus on how murderers should behave

murderers? really? you equate HIV positive people with murderers?

eh poor choice of strawman, not what i meant

I would love to be able to bring a close friend of mine that was HIV+ and a huge advocate for clear and full notification into this discussion, but he's dead now. so thx for the guilt trip sandy, but fuck you.

Still, let's not pretend like there isn't actually legal precedent in the U.S. for prosecuting people who knowingly infect other people with the HIV virus. It's not just an ethical issue. It's also a criminal one.

ok sorry i regretted that as soon as i typed it. but i do want to make the distinction that it isnt like we are all uninformed judgemental jerks simply because we are HIV-.

also because of the situation of said dude i am prob too emotionally involved in this and should just not post on this thread anymore.

Still, let's not pretend like there isn't actually legal precedent in the U.S. for prosecuting people who knowingly infect other people with the HIV virus. It's not just an ethical issue. It's also a criminal one.

no one's talking about or advocating *knowingly infecting* someone else with the HIV virus, though

sorry jj

regarding justen's post, i was going to say that i think having the virus would make you that much more adamant about full notification, because you know exactly what it can do to the mind and body.

however, i do understand what sandy is trying to say insofar as a negative individual can never fully understand the emotions behind the stifled desire for intimacy, and what might cause someone to conceal something like this.

Surm, obviously anyone can make a judgment, I just think that a consensus that doesn't include any positive-identified voices is a little hollow. Whether or not and how to disclose to a new partner are serious questions for people who are positive in ways this thread doesn't reflect (as some googling will attest). If everyone just wants to reach abstract moral agreement that this is always wrong then cool, but I don't think it says much about, you know, the actual world and the complexities of having sex with people.

Do apologise for assumptions about people's personal experiences, though, that was out of line.

xpost to JJ - I am sincerely sorry for your loss and that something I said brought up the pain. Again, was not trying to guilt trip anyone.

no one's talking about or advocating *knowingly infecting* someone else with the HIV virus, though

Yes, but the conversation has drifted a bit from the OP scenario.

xpost to sandy: thanks, and again i apologize for getting aggro, this is a hard issue for me obv because of the circumstances.and my reaction is coming from a fairly recent sore spot. i have the utmost respect for the difficulties of living w/HIV, and i am tremendously sad about the way that it intrudes into the life that everyone should be able to have.

i am genuinely curious as to what positive-identified voices have to say that would change my understanding of this issue

Still, let's not pretend like there isn't actually legal precedent in the U.S. for prosecuting people who knowingly infect other people with the HIV virus. It's not just an ethical issue. It's also a criminal one.

no one's talking about or advocating *knowingly infecting* someone else with the HIV virus, though

― that sex version of "blue thunder." (Mr. Que), Wednesday, January 27, 2010 10:44 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

This is sort of what I was trying to get at earlier. Everyone was acting as though the dude in the OP was obv trying to do this whereas I think there is an important difference between a + individual having protected casual sex without disclosure and a + individual who goes about intentionally trying to spread the virus.

Also, this is v well put:

Surm, obviously anyone can make a judgment, I just think that a consensus that doesn't include any positive-identified voices is a little hollow. Whether or not and how to disclose to a new partner are serious questions for people who are positive in ways this thread doesn't reflect (as some googling will attest). If everyone just wants to reach abstract moral agreement that this is always wrong then cool, but I don't think it says much about, you know, the actual world and the complexities of having sex with people.

Yes, it's all very complex. I'm pretty sure if someone I thought was unbelievably hot for whatever reason wanted to have sex with me and told me beforehand he is poz, I would very likely still have some form of sex with him.

If it were the same situation and I had (obviously protected because duh) sex and he then told me he is poz, I would probably shake them.

If it were the same situation still and pillow talk remained predictable and impersonal, and I then found ingredients for the drug cocktail in his medicine cabinet the next morning, I might have to restrain myself from pouring all the pills down the sink.

OK, not really. But I'd be pretty goddamned pissed and don't think I'd be too interested in a civilized discussion about my own personal responsibilities even though, yes, basically every bit of sexual contact carries with it some negotiable form of risk.

Yeah, think it's great that the HIV-neg have reached consensus on how positives should behave.

― sandy, Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:07 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

http://4chanarchive.org/images/co/2590289/1198561721053.gif

bit of an assumption neway. no-one is saying you need to be hiv- to post here.

ud think that hiv+ ppl might be extra sensitive to how life affecting contracting such an illness is and that ppl might have a right to work with info that is being purposefully withheld (for what?)

Yeah, think it's great that the HIV-neg have reached consensus on how positives should behave.

― sandy, Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:07 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

Have thought about this. In this particular case, don't feel bad about it.

for poppage, basically (xpost)

just because something is "ambiguously wrong" doesn't make it wrong, and sure the motivations are complicated etc but when you are verifiably placing somebody at a risk that they are not comfortable with then you are shirking your responsibility not as a hiv+ person but as a human being and i don't fucking care how "complicated" that is.

i love you

Yeah but that's the point - HIV+ people are not by any means "verifiably placing somebody at risk" every time they have sex. Thinking about it like some kind of uncontainable cooties outbreak is basically the reason people are less likely to disclose.

From a campaign run by the Australian Federation of AIDS Councils:

"In designing this campaign we found that often HIV-negative men and HIV-positive men think very differently about the issues of HIV disclosure. And they often hold their opinions very strongly."

And:

"No one wants more HIV transmissions. HIV-negative men usually feel strongly that disclosure should occur before unsafe sex, while positive men feel that negative men have an equal and shared responsibility to protect themselves. Many positive gay men can tell a story of an over the top response to the disclosure of their HIV-status."

Again, I'm not trying to change anyone's opinion, just pointing out that these issues are often seen v. differently from a + POV.

More at http://www.thinkagain.com.au/

Yeah but that's the point - HIV+ people are not by any means "verifiably placing somebody at risk" every time they have sex.

...really? & the fact that you followed that up with some poz case reports which basically boiled down to "but i don't wanna!" isn't all that convincing either

Yes really, are you saying they are? Like a + guy can't give someone a handjob without risking transmission?

HIV-negative men usually feel strongly that disclosure should occur before unsafe sex, while positive men feel that negative men have an equal and shared responsibility to protect themselves.

The language here is a bit unfortunate.

lol

no one (including you, until now, cf "every time they have sex") is talking about handjobs

xxp

What? I would totally consider "every time they have sex" to include handjobs. If people are talking strictly about (anal?) penetration I guess that's a different conversation.

no, it's the actual conversation, the one that's been going on for 211 posts afaict

Yeah you're right, I missed that the thread title specified penetrative anal sex.

Well, the OP mentions using protection, so I think it's pretty clear...

1- i would like to assume that a person would tell me, but i always insist on condoms. i have not worn a condom once or twice, but that was...uh...a BIG mistake, and i'd just been tested and was fine.

2- god, if you tell me i can get HIV from swallowing cum, my life is fucking over.

3- 'Rat Bohemia,' by Sarah Schulman. Read it. http://www.amazon.com/Rat-Bohemia-9-Sarah-Schulman/dp/0525937900

(also, to add to that 1st note there, there was drunken merriment both times and he asked me to stick it in, i was like 'condom time,' and he was like, 'oh no just DO IT.' obviously not something i'm proud of or something that happens almost ever.)

I hate to be devils advocatey here, but the point of wearing condoms is to prevent the spread of, I'd assume primarily, HIV. So if you're using condoms in the first place, you're doing so because of the chance that your partner has HIV or another STD, so aren't you sort of already assuming the risk that any partner might have it?

right, because one of you may not know he has it. that's different from someone willingly witholding the knowledge

Right, but if you outright refused to have sex with anyone who was HIV+, wouldn't that defeat the entire purpose of practicing safer sex to begin with? Going back to what J0hn D. was saying, having sex is a risk, plain and simple; one should not merely assume everyone may be HIV+, but that everyone already is.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's really, really fucked up to not tell someone, and I'm not at all advocating NOT giving full disclosure, but at the same time, every time a gay man has sex he should be assuming that his partner already has it.

Right, but if you outright refused to have sex with anyone who was HIV+, wouldn't that defeat the entire purpose of practicing safer sex to begin with?

Pregnancy, herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis...

Yes but this is mostly abt gay men isn't it? And yes, it would apply to the others too.

It's designed to protect us from all manner of things. I might be willing to have sex with a woman who has <x>, but no way in hell if she has <y>.

So refusing to have (safe(r)) with someone HIV+ doesn't defeat the purpose of using condoms.

And also because an honest partner might not know about something, and a dishonest partner might hide it.

If you were to rule out sexing anyone until they'd proven that they had no communicable diseases (and were on birth control, if relevant), then sure, that would defeat the purpose of practicing safe sex. You'd pretty much have consigned yourself to the Safest Sex anyway...

But in essence doesn't this mean you'd be willing to have sex with someone who has it and doesn't know vs. someone who has it and does?

You don't know either way, that's why you wear a condom. Whether or not your SHOULD be having sex (informed or uninformed, at risk or not) isn't at issue - from the first post, it's been a question of the duty to inform. The ethics of the situation from the perspective of the person with information to give.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's really, really fucked up to not tell someone, and I'm not at all advocating NOT giving full disclosure, but at the same time, every time a gay man has sex he should be assuming that his partner already has it.

― 26 Mixes Focaccia (Stevie D), Friday, January 29, 2010 1:15 AM (6 hours ago)

not a gay man but i find this really, really depressing

I just don't know what to do
Should I be honest, should I be true
About dispensing my potentially biohazardous goo
0.05 millimeters away from the insides of you?

max ipad, I guess it IS kind of depressing.

A corollary to that is that if a guy doesn't say whether he's + or not online, then you can be pretty much sure that he is +.

I also want to say: there is a huge disparity between how interested surm's friend was in HIV risk BEFORE he hooked up with that guy and AFTER.

They used protection

seems to indicate that he was concerned about it beforehand.

Not at all excusing the other guy not disclosing, but if here were really so concerned, he should have asked before he did anything. But instead he made the convenient (and frankly absurd naive) assumption that this stranger would tell him.

absurdly

i don't think that's an asburd assumption. maybe naive, but not absurd.

seems to indicate that he was concerned about it beforehand.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Friday, January 29, 2010 3:59 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

thanks.

^^sad but true. I think what the problem boils down to with post-AIDS epidemic gay men (that is, me+surms demographic) is that we know that AIDS exists but we haven't experienced it enough or don't know enough abt the history to "get" it. Probably why AIDS is actually on the rise in young gay men.

i think maybe we need to separate the practical matter of the fact that everyone should use protection every time from what i thought was more of an ethics question: is the + person ethically obligated to inform their partner?

"sad but true" re: "i don't think that's an asburd assumption. maybe naive, but not absurd."

the "well, you didn't ask" rule only holds so much water, to be frank.

the "well, you didn't ask" rule only holds so much water

"Well, you didn't ask" as a response to almost anything has a cynical and self-serving ring that puts me right off the speaker.

Again, I think what the other guy did is unequivocally WRONG, but if you're putting the burden of discovering status on a total stranger, it's pretty convenient naievete.

yes, calls to mind Bill Clinton and even worse people

xp

Not sure if this really here or there w/r/t this discussion, but here is a guy I met who has never been tested for the very reason that if he is, he doesn't want to have to disclose. According to him, people don't seem to have a problem with "I've never been tested" despite its essentially meaning "yep, I'm poz."

ugh that's horrible

really, really horrible.

yes, calls to mind Bill Clinton and even worse people

xp

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Friday, January 29, 2010 11:11 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Morbs: making life more morby for ya!

I agree with Jesse. Clearly, the guy had an obligation to disclose. However, unless you're a horny 15 year old living under a rock somewhere, you should know to ask a new partner about their sexual health. Any new partner, frankly...one night stand, true love, tacky affair.

OH MY GOD, re: jesse's friend. Unbelievable amount of selfishness. YOUR ORGASM < OTHER PEOPLES LIVES IIRC

yup.

i think maybe we need to separate the practical matter of the fact that everyone should use protection every time from what i thought was more of an ethics question: is the + person ethically obligated to inform their partner?

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 29, 2010 11:04 AM (2 hours ago)

i think everyone in this thread besides maybe one person would say unequivocally yes

i agree and i'd like to discuss that alt. view if possible; i just don't think saying "it's yr responsibility to protect yourself" over and over accomplishes much because under no circumstances does anyone disagree

Not sure if this really here or there w/r/t this discussion, but here is a guy I met who has never been tested for the very reason that if he is, he doesn't want to have to disclose. According to him, people don't seem to have a problem with "I've never been tested" despite its essentially meaning "yep, I'm poz."

he could just get tested and then lie and still say "I've never been tested" - which would allow him to do exactly what he's doing right now except not die. but I guess this sorta logic is beyond him.

you're missing the bit that implies heavily that he does not want to lie about his HIV status

I find it weird that that urge would be stronger than the urge not to die

you're assuming he's sick, also

I'm assuming that there is some % chance that he is pos, a % chance probably worth thinking about

if there weren't, why not go get tested?

Yeah, but look at ppl with chronic pains who never go to the doctor because they're afraid of bad news, then discover they have late-stage cancer of some variety (or, even worse, people whose cancer sneaks up on them and doesn't give them any impetus to go to a doctor until it's firmly established); it's not like this is some rare, unimaginable impulse we're discussing!

god i go to the doctor all the time now

I don't see why it wouldn't be better to go to the doctor when your cancer (or in this case HIV) is in an early stage...

I mean w/ drugs you can basically live a normal life and without drugs you die. so it does seem like a pretty good reason to get tested for your own sake.

You realize there is a difference between "he is right in his actions" and "his actions aren't particularly surprising", right

yeah but some people are scared of doctors xpost

right, and thanks to the internet I don't find anything crazy people do 'particularly surprising' anymore

"Morally obligated to tell someone personal medical information b/f having safe sex with infintessimal risk of transmission" does not equal "normal life" iirc.

i don't think you understand ethics, quincie. if one adjusted an ethical framework so it conformed with "what people do irl", it wouldn't be an ethical framework.

if someone wouldn't have sex with you for what you consider to be an illogical reason and you keep that reason from them because you think you're right and they're wrong, HIV-aside, yeah I think there's something immoral on some level there.

See I think ethics also encompasses respect for others' privacy.

It sounds like a far more normal life than selfishly concealing that risk for the sole benefit of cumming inside a person instead of a kleenex or a sock.

Dude isn't coming inside a person, ffs! He's wearing a condom! Controlling his viral load! Taking precautions!

Dude isn't coming inside a person, ffs! He's wearing a condom! Controlling his viral load! Taking precautions!

― quincie, Friday, January 29, 2010 7:01 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark

what could possibly go wrong?

See I think ethics also encompasses respect for others' privacy.

"Are you HIV positive?
"I prefer to keep that private."
"No problem, GTFO"

See, two positions can be resolved.

we need to write this guy:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/04/02/magazine/randy_headshot.190.jpg

Randy Headshot? What has he got to do with this?

he's the ethicist, man! he'll help us with our ethical problems

but lol @ "randy headshot"

good job saving files, nytimes.com

This entire conversation is fascinating to me because my stance on it is inherently contradictory; I think that you do have a moral obligation to let sexual partners know about any communicable diseases you have, but I also think that catching a communicable disease is a risk you take on when you decide to have sex with someone, regardless of how safe it is. If you don't want that, you can always be abstinent and/or masturbate.

It is certainly very easy for me to feel this way as a monogamous married man who wasn't promiscuous before he got married but a lot of the discourse around sexual morality screams a lot of having your cake and eating it, too; there is nothing morally wrong with deciding to sleep with a bunch of people, or deciding to sleep with someone who has slept with a bunch of people, and it makes sense to minimize the risks associated with sleeping with lots of people (either directly or by proxy), but you can't deny that you are choosing to engage in something that has a risk associated with it, kind of like the rest of life. I sort of feel that, once that decision has been made, you should embrace the risk; the only part of the equation you can control is what you do and you know that someone else can game the system out from underneath you (either by outright lies or lies of omission). At some point, you have to do what you can to protect yourself to the best of your ability and let the chips roll where they may.

"Morally obligated to tell someone personal medical information b/f having safe sex with infintessimal risk of transmission" does not equal "normal life" iirc.

But quincie, doesn't keeping that risk infinitesimal hinge on taking your meds every single day and getting regular check-ups to screen your progress? It all depends how vigilant you are, right?

i don't think that's really contradictory dan. you should always take steps to protect yourself if you don't have a LOT of trust in who you're dealing with, and beyond that who's to say that they are fully aware of their own medical condition (undiagnosed/untested/whatever). but this to me is about withholding information, if you possess it, that your partner has a right to know. and your reasons for withholding that information are, no matter what justification you give, 100% selfish.

i agree that there's always risk and no guarantees and etc etc but withholding information you know is generally wrong.

if i was driving a car that ran a higher risk of catching fire if it got rear-ended and the car dealer didn't tell me about that risk, which was small because how often does one get rear-ended PLUS it probably wouldn't happen even if one did, i would be pretty pissed (and correctly so!) if i did get rear-ended and my car caught on fire. this analogy isn't intentional, really, i realize it looks that way. i'm just saying.

hahahah i was thinking about the auto defect analogy just this second!

Yeah, I think I'm trying to say "withholding that info is wrong if you know it, but not recognizing/acknowledging that the person you're with could be lying to you is not quite wrong but isn't very self-protective".

xp: Yeah, bad analogy for me because I've only bought one car and, when I did, I spent 6 months reading and researching before pulling the trigger.

You shot your car after six months?

it was a painful decision but the research made it clear that it was the correct one

i think there are groups for people like you--don't be afraid to ask for help.

objectum-cide

i mean dude, don't have sex with cars, okay?

cars will never love you back

And you'll burn your dick on the hot tailpipe.

Not if you practise safer sex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zu0vAMkpag

no matter what, it is your responsibility to ask any new partner about their sexual history and HIV status, just as much as it is your partner's responsibility to disclose that information if asked. i can understand how a HIV+ person might be wary to disclose that information, without being asked, for any number of reasons -- but if they lie about it, or lie by omission, they are denying their partner the ability to either assess or acknowledge the risk involved.

I'm not seeing the ethical quandry here, honestly.

^^^^ that sums it up pretty well

There isn't an ethical quandary, there's a practical one.

if there isn't an ethical quandary, then practicality doesn't matter

It's possible you might have a valid point but after your stunt on the Vampire Weekend thread, I'm just going to assume you're an idiot and start ignoring you.

have fun dude

the question of whether or not someone HIV+ has an ethical responsibility to disclose their status was called into question itt, dan.

first of all,

think that you do have a moral obligation to let sexual partners know about any communicable diseases you have, but I also think that catching a communicable disease is a risk you take on when you decide to have sex with someone, regardless of how safe it is. If you don't want that, you can always be abstinent and/or masturbate.

HI DERE OTM/lock thread/etc.

Second of all, QUINCIE WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR DEAL?!? You act as if HIV is some persona1 thing that has no relation to, uh, having sex with other people. By your logic, it would be OK or even encouraged for someone with a contagious disease to go prepare food for people because, hey, he's wearing plastic gloves and coughing away from the food

but honestly, as a matter of degree, I say it's a greater responsibility to disclose than to ask, imo, because the risk is not equal for both partners if only one of them is HIV+.

Most of the people itt agreed that the answer was "Yes, the person has the responsibility to disclose." I think it's debatable that the people objecting to that position are, in fact, objecting to that position or expressing sympathy for people who are HIV+ and what they go through in negotiating sexual encounters.

the hiv+ person might not think it's a big deal but it's not their choice to think that, basically. they're not at risk, condoms can break, infection is possible (even if unlikely.)

well...it's their choice to think that, but it's not their right to act on their beliefs alone

I feel like quincie doesn't think HIV is a big deal and doesn't get the problem with playing russian roulette if there's enough empty chambers.

she volunteers at an hiv clinic

dude

Is it fair to characterize this as a fight between people treating HIV as a death sentence and people treating HIV as a condition?

I'm sorry. I'm being really reactive, and I didn't mean to be insulting. I am just so not getting this idea that it's not relevant or necessary to disclose HIV+ status with a partner.

HI DERE i think you're otm

I mean, I realize that HIV+ is a condition.... if you can afford it.

ug, I haven't checked this thread since the first day I saw it but just thinking about that initial situation everytime this thread appears in new answers disgusts me

a friend of mine, her father has been hiv positive for fifteen years and it's pretty rough for him, even though he has been able to afford the meds. he's almost died a few times and it's just fortunate that his partner has a substantial amount of money and generosity w/r/t his condition.

ultimately, yes, the only person you can rely on to safeguard your health is you. and sometimes this means that, if you aren't sure of the degree of risk you're taking, *you* have to be the one to say "hey, let's just jerk off together" and forego getting sodomized that evening.

whatever happened to "just jerking off" anyway, it's a fine thing to do together

condition or death sentence doesn't matter when it comes to the ethical issue - it's something that the other person would want to know before having sex with you, and you're not telling them it. that's open and shut wrong on some level, and it'd be wrong if we were talking about catching the cold instead of HIV.

well quincie's position is that she doesn't necessarily feel someone is 100% obligated to inform their partner of their condition, and i think ppl are just not really understanding what the situation would be where one would not be under that obligation.

surm otm.

Is it fair to characterize this as a fight between people treating HIV as a death sentence and people treating HIV as a condition?

― struck through in my prime (HI DERE), Friday, January 29, 2010 2:31 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Maybe? WRT that I would cosign this:

the thing is, STDs/crabs/whatever are one thing, and HIV is another. It's not the death sentence it seemed to be in 1987, but it's forever, and potentially catastrophic. If you have it, imo, you are morally & ethically obligated to disclose to anybody who intends to sleep with you before they sleep with you.

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, January 27, 2010 6:51 PM (2 days ago)

whatever happened to "just jerking off" anyway, it's a fine thing to do together

― you have to forgive me (surm), Friday, January 29, 2010 3:36 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

we do it every dam day on this board

i think ppl are just not really understanding what the situation would be where one would not be under that obligation.

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 29, 2010 2:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

It is true that I am not understanding what that situation might be.

It's kind of disingenuous to put HIV up next to crabs as opposed to something like herpes IMO.

if you are a latex fetishist and completely sheathe yourself in the stuff for BDSM play, then disclosing yr HIV status might not matter...?

Is it fair to characterize this as a fight between people treating HIV as a death sentence and people treating HIV as a condition?

― struck through in my prime (HI DERE), Friday, January 29, 2010

I dunno I'd say we could have this exact same argument wrt herpes (xpost!)

it's relevant and good to disclose. but i still agree with quincie. also struggling with how such a rule would apply to other diseases and other types of contact. specifically i'm thinking of HPV, which like no guy seems to get tested for, although it's very common, might not show symptoms, and can cause cervical cancer, and condoms don't always help. yeah obviously not as bad as HIV but i dunno. it has to fall somewhere on the scale.
i guess i don't really wanna be on this thread though tbh. can't help it.

fuck herpes, let's talk tuberculosis.

tbh i was thinking about tuberculosis too

When God gives you AIDS - and God does give you AIDS, by the way - make lemonAIDS!

Is it fair to characterize this as a fight between people treating HIV as a death sentence and people treating HIV as a condition?

No, because the consensus seems to be that any condition (however relatively minor) should be disclosed and this is an absolute responsibility for the person with the condition.

Quincie is being horribly vague and appealing to privacy, but I haven't seen her justify her belief outside of HIV+ people want/need to get some too.

jesse i don't kno about that one

I may have been making a bad assumption that J0hn was implying HSV in with the first group but whatever the case I also file it under should-inform. (this is some xposts)

surm, jesse was quoting a sarah silverman line

should-inform if you know, but do you have a duty to know if you have HPV? doesn't seem like most people think so.

second-grade playground joke: What do you call Magic Johnson in a wheelchair? Roll-AIDS!

i mean carry on or whatever but i feel like expanding the number of diseases might not help the discussion?

So start a movement to encourage men to get tested for HPV. Broad ignorance of one condition doesn't excuse individuals with other conditions from disclosure.

well, i think it depends on context? (lol what a cop out) but dudes who are exclusively gay probably don't have anything to worry about no matter how many HPV strains they might carry, right?

probably not but i don't see why HIV is a unique issue
i didn't mean to imply it excuses anything

good luck convincing dudes to let a doctor stick a q-tip in their dickholes, milo

probably not but i don't see why HIV is a unique issue

diff between "unique" and "more serious than"

Are there any studies on whether HPV is transmissible to the receiving partner through anal? Iirc, the reason HPV doesn't cause outbreaks in men is that the virus only embeds in a certain kind of skin cell that isn't found on surface skin...but penetration kind of changes that. Any correlation with rectal cancers possib? Or something?

i see why it's more serious but if you apply the same considerations to all diseases, using different levels of seriousness, i'm saying. gah nevermind.

I've had the q-tip treatment (full disclosure: I got chlamydia), it's not like they strap you down and stick a jalapeno-juice coated stick down your urethra. It's four seconds of unpleasantness.

I mean I would not be surprised if all the medical literature and wordiness about how boys don't suffer from HPV is aimed at hets even if there was some kind of male-to-male risk.

yeah wikipedia says it's associated with other types of cancers. i'm not trying to derail here, honestly.

I've had the q-tip treatment (full disclosure: I got chlamydia)

yikes dude, maybe they should have used a clean q-tip

HPV is tricky though, because it depends on which strains and which combinations thereof whether the infection is prone to cause cervical cancer, no?-- potential sex partners might have to cross-check their strains against some table to determine the actual risk.

and anyway, IIRC there are no good tests for HPV. Even the q-tip down the dick method doesn't work, that's why testing isn't the norm.

god this thread

ok, i'm sure i could pick a different disease but i won't.

that's what she said

Some strains are more high-risk than others, yes, but this is for your doctor to tell you basically. Also it's one of the STDs that you can get even WITH regular and correct prophylactic use (I did) so while the outcome is only a small percentage deadly, it is pretty much roulette whether you are in that percentage or not, no matter what you do right.

*one of the FEW (are there any others?) STDs that you can get even with blah blah blah

I am just so not getting this idea that it's not relevant or necessary to disclose HIV+ status with a partner

To be clear: I in no way think it is not relevant or necessary to disclose HIV+ status with a partner. WRT the OP, my opinion has been and remains that in situations when the danger posed to a partner is so, so, so small, the ethical obligation to disclose is not the same as in higher risk situations. That's it.

I realize that not very ppl on this know me IRL, but those who do would not question the degree to which I take HIV seriously. My choice of academic area, my day job, and my volunteer job all reflect the degree to which I think about issues such as this every single day.

mine too, and ENBB's, iirc

well i mean i don't do science or health but the ppl i work with, not saying i have special knowledge or anything

Hate to throw this in there, but look up "criminal transmission of HIV" sometime. It's really nebulous whether you could prosecute someone who made an attempt to use protection that failed and they managed to pass on HIV, but knowingly having casual sex without disclosing HIV-positive status is a criminal offense where I live. I am not sure where I stand on that morally, but the law exists.

Which made it really confusing when I watched that L&O episode where some evil fucker is going around giving people HIV on purpose because he's a misogynist creep, and they keep acting like it's some amazing new angle to prosecute him. A few minutes later I figured out that around here we're somehow trailblazers in criminalizing

good luck convincing dudes to let a doctor stick a q-tip in their dickholes, milo

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/terrifying2/zeus.jpg

okay if that is what I think it is

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/do-not-want.jpg

photoshop-of-that-horrifying-thing-as-cupcake-candle.jpg

thought u cd be convicted of attempted murder for this in scotland but no that was the original charge in the one case thats come before the court but the accused was eventually convicted of reckless injury

Well, they'd have to die of AIDS before murder was option, one imagines.

Oh, wait...

There was a case in Scotland last week - culpable & reckless injury is the charge.

Is it fair to characterize this as a fight between people treating HIV as a death sentence and people treating HIV as a condition?

― struck through in my prime (HI DERE), Friday, January 29, 2010 8:31 PM (1 hour ago)

i think this thread itself kinda suggests why this is a bullshit argument. in contracting this "condition" your whole body becomes linked with a whole body of history, societal pressures, stereotypes etc that result in discussions like this. the fact that we are right now having this discussion abt ethical ways of having sex when you are + is kindof illustrative of how it is not just an expensive and potentially life threatening condition but also one that connects your body with a range of political and ethical discourses whose unresolved nature is illustrated pretty well in the opposing viewpoints on this thread.

tbh having sex with somebody is supposed to be a pretty mutual transaction and for you to privilege your position of knowledge abt the risk factor is pretty shitty and kind of violates that intimacy on a pretty basic level imo. and also if i really don't want to have sex with you based on that knowledge then witholding that info is unfair.

Quincie, re: taking HIV seriously, you are absolutely right. I had little right to say what I said. I'm sorry :(

Re the guy I referred to way back: he fully discloses to everyone that he's never had an hiv test. The fucked up part is that it seems like guys take their mutual ignorance of his status to mean it's ok to play. It's impossible to say if these people would react the same way if he were + but i'd venture to guess probably not in most cases.

Also he's not a friend. I was going to hook up w him but we never did for reasons unrelated to his hiv.

Sorry for the xps - I'm posting on my phone and its easier to post than read.

Maybe some day someone might get on curing this AIDS thing, and then we can all stop being so worrisome about non-discriminate anal sex. God and nature made that hole pleasurable for a reason.

you have to forgive me (surm) said:

A friend of mine recently had sex with someone who didn't tell him that he was HIV+.

based on my own experience within the AIDS Industry, and my research I have concluded there is no proof that anyone is "HIV+" so your friend's "he" was victimized by the antibody testing epidemic.

They used protection, but he was still really upset about it afterward.

The NIH Condom reports are sloppy and produce absolutely zero evidence on the 'idea' of safe sex. Condoms do not protect humans from viruses at all, and local STD infections are highly questionable since male to female and male to male sex produces a lot of friction during sex, Safe Sex campaigns do nothing but sell condoms, the Condom Industry is profiting from a myth kept from the public". Abstinence is the only way to "be Safe" from Sexually Transmitted diseases,period.

At microscopic view an unwrapped condom has holes 500-700 times larger than a virus particle, so the idea that people are being safe from a retrovirus is a blatant lie.

He only found out because he saw some HIV medication on the guy’s dresser the next morning,

How did your friend know it was "HIV Medication" and not pain pills or something else?

and he went home pretty shaken. When he called the guy on it, he explained that it was a “very mild strain” or something.

Mild Strain? what about the hundreds of other Retroviruses he naturally has in his DNA? do they have mild strains? What about the Retroviruses in animals? "AIV" strain #3,042? There are supposedly two types of "HIV" HIV-1 and HIV-2, HIV-1 is prevelent in the USA and HIV-2 is prevelent in Africa, however out of thousands of papers on "HIV" isolation, there are only abstracs about Nonspecific antibodoes and antigens related to "HIV" not (particles)

I was enraged on my friend’s behalf – I know I would be really worried if I were in his shoes.

You and your friend should be pissed off, that was a crappy thing for that guy to do, however
(he) like you and your friend are Victims, and My own personal Testimonial led me here for a reason
to give you the informed consent that the HIV Industry denies everyone, no one told me anything, I had to learn the hard way and I had to swallow deadly life ending poisons every day twice a day for 6 years, Only to have them tell me I had to Re-test or walk away and resume my life like nothing ever happened. ALL Because I took an "HIV" antibody test that means nothing, I was never sick before, but 3 years into my so called diagnosis I developed Anemia from the AZT and Severe Hypersensitivity from Viramune, I would have been dead 5 years ago had I not changed Counties(Laboratories).

I'm not close to anyone with HIV, so I don't know how this works, generally. I understand that safe sex can be pretty safe, and that everyone's gotta get laid, but I still feel like he robbed someone of the choice of whether or not to put himself in that situation. Is it OK not to disclose this information if your disease is under control and the sex is safe? Or is this never OK?

There are currently only about 40 states that have "HIV" transmission laws. with Indiana being just a step away from the death penality, most states give 3rd degree felonies and or life in prison. It's a shame that people don't inform others of their so called status, however being Jailed for immunity is wrong, millions of innocent lives are being turned upside and torn apart down by the HIV paradigm. So many people have invested so much faith in HIV/AIDS Science without taking a closer look. Blind Faith is bad, Skepticism is healthy.

queen frostine (Eric H.) said:
Maybe some day someone might get on curing this AIDS thing, and then we can all stop being so worrisome about non-discriminate anal sex. God and nature made that hole pleasurable for a reason.

I say amen to that! God, (if you beleive in him/her or it)allowed humans to enjoy sex, sex was never meant to be feared, "barebacking a new age term created by the HIV Industry for gay men to stop having sex, media induced hype about "safe Sex".

Brent Leung a Canadian Film Producer went on a journey the past few years to question the POV's of the AIDS Industry, in their own room, in their own space, one on one, the film also interviews the discoverer of "HIV" Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier and his words are just too shocking, this may be the answer to your wish ERIC. see HouseofNumbers.com and Check Youtube as well. Thank you for your time, sincerely You can see my videos at Youtube.com/user/HIVVideos and read my testimonial @ LivingWithoutHIVDrugs.com Tomas B

can't wait for the rest of the posts to get this treatment

it's like yahoo answers!

anyway we can just ban this weirdo, right? forks, official duty calls!

Kevin, you mean CENSORSHIP correct?

At microscopic view an unwrapped condom has holes 500-700 times larger than a virus particle, so the idea that people are being safe from a retrovirus is a blatant lie.

Safe sex means keeping it wrapped!

Not the real Village People said:

Safe sex means keeping it wrapped!

Obviously you failed to read my post or response here, and you missed the entire point of that fact. By your SUDDEN response without checking my comment how if "Safe Sex" means Condom use to you can a person have so called safe sex without opening the condom package first?

"At microscopic view an unwrapped condom has holes 500-700 times larger than a virus particle, so the idea that people are being safe from a retrovirus is a blatant lie."

I think you have it wrong BrewstersTheory, a virus particle is 500-700 larger times than an unwrapped condom.

perhaps I should have said: ""At microscopic view an (un-opened) condom has holes 500-700 times larger than a virus particle, so the idea that people are being safe from a retrovirus is a blatant lie."

my bad..

you want it to be some dude, but it's the other dude (dyao) said:

I think you have it wrong BrewstersTheory, a virus particle is 500-700 larger times than an unwrapped condom.

Rather than JUST SAY I'm wrong and leave me with a guess, please at least explain why I may or may not be wrong or have it backwards wrong.

I am convinced thatCondoms can indeed leak HIV.

Condoms actuallyfascilitate so called HIV infection in women and the National Institutes of Health report on condoms ismisguiding and misleading

The Safe Sex Campaign is full of gaping holes and more and more people should be told about abstinence rather than the "idea" of wearing a latex barrier that could cause allergic reactions, LID, and other diseases caused by toxic chemicals in the Latex.

yo dude u got any advice on hpv

If a virus particle is 500 times larger than an unwrapped condom, I'd be running away from it!

Ummm back to reality: Stevie D thanks and no worries, I am a fan of yrs always!

brewsterstheory is jeff palmer

wau

ya rly

"barebacking a new age marketing term created by the HIV Gay Porn Industry for gay men to stop having eroticizing unsafe sex"

fixed

Is there some rule where people espousing unconventional ideas have to break all formatting conventions when they bomb their way into your board?

I mean, AIDS bomb their way in.

remember back in the day when random googlers would render large sections of the board untreadable

remember back in the day when random googlersJ0n W would render large sections of the board unreadable

so tread lightly, lest you tread on my, um...

I miss jw, his shenanigans were cheeky and mostly hiv-

law & order episode right now

kind of a bullshit villain, dude is basically a psychopath who takes pleasure in infecting women - all the nuance of the issue is lost

well, it is law & order

Still, acid attack in the face.

yeah wtf @ that

Glad the dude's hair was acid-resistant, though.

Must be a rerun. I've seen that episode.

uh fyi all hair is acid resistant

i'm sorry, i can't back that up

"Someone gave his life to help Peter get his soul back."

Shoulda stood your ground, I was buying it

haha yeah smh l&o

Was ready to pour acid in my hair to test tbh

this is why

(i) i don't win at poker
(ii) pancakes hackman can't have nice things

Face Union!! AnonymousQuickie.com!!

face union was the best, even better than BeFriends

this is crazy

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/02/health/criminalizing-hiv/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Holy shit, that almost made me cry. That is so unbelievably fucked up.

I am seeing red right now and I want to calmly write a very very long couple of paragraphs about the regressive attitudes involved in HIV criminalization and the totally counterproductive effects of criminalization from a public health standpoint and the severe amounts of ridiculousness going on even in Canada on these issues and ARGH. but I cannot because I cannot be calm about this after reading that article. So. yeah.

i mean, clearly on a personal level i don't have issues with disclosure before sex with people, but at the same time, criminalizing the risk of exposure in all circumstances, despite viral loads despite use of condoms despite etc. etc. etc. creates disproportionate penalties, discourages testing b/c if you are unaware of your status you can't be criminally liable, which is even worse for obvious reasons b/c knowing your status and being on meds regularly renders you practically non-infectious per most recent studies, whereas not knowing your status, having plausible deniability and not being in any form of treatment = significantly more infectious. and on top of that, the whole discourse creates this super individualistic atomised and kind of transactional understanding of sex and responsibility and ARGH. anger.

it's bad health policy. it's bad criminal policy. surely there are ways to craft laws that can penalize purposeful attempts to infect people with HIV maliciously without opening those in mixed seropositive/seronegative relationships up to potentially severe consequences further down the road post-breakups (things that have happened in canada, even when the seronegative partner remains HIV-). there's no clearly defined standard for disclosure here, so it's completely unclear whether blowjobs or non-penetrative sex or what is the standard for avoiding penal consequences. ugh. sigh. anyway.

i mean, all of that thinky stuff is secondary to the tangible impact on these people's lives, which is horrific.

these people = HIV + folks who get caught up in the system

although, part of me feels the need to point out that if that guy wasn't an attractive white gay man, i'm not sure if his story would get as much traction in CNN or wherever? like this happens to tons of people who are significantly more marginalized and when you take this story and contextualize it with the recent numbers about AIDS among black gay men in the US (8 times more likely to be infected than white gay men) and the total lack of institutional focus on their needs and prevention, or the stats among homeless youth or trans* people, it goes from one guy's horrifying awful experience to a legal status quo that is contributing to the ongoing attack on the lives of those queers who society cares about the least.

argh. now I sound like a dick. it's hard to try and read media intersectionally without undercutting the importance of the actual experience being reported on. sorry, everyone. :/

no you don't that's great

yeah, it's absolutely worth pointing out, and i wonder if it isn't in some sense an offshoot of the pernicious idea of "AIDS victims" that arose as the disease started to become more public in the early 90s, i.e. people who didn't DESERVE to have it happen to them (e.g. ryan white, children of HIV+ mothers) and for whom the public was able to generate sympathy, versus the "other" (gay men, drug addicts, haitians) whose deaths were largely ignored/unreported even tho untold numbers were getting infected. like this guy's lawsuit, and the root of HIV criminalization laws in general, is a manifestation of that mentality, which is built on the idea that anyone who gets AIDS, in some sense, deserves it (because it is so tied in the public mind to sex and thus morality) - couple all that with institutionalized racism/transphobia and you have a whole segment of the HIV+ population that is effectively rendered invisible

anyway just standin on my soapbox here don't mind me

also, curious where everyone having the discussion earlier in the thread who were 100% firmly on the ethical/moral obligation for HIV+ folks to always disclose in all circumstances of any sort of sex would stand on issues surrounding criminalization of non-disclosure, because ethical stances aside, it's pretty clear that criminalization is counterproductive to slowing transmission and harm reduction approaches, but moral opprobrium and stigma have always driven policy on this stuff more than science, tbh,

(see also: gay male blood bans @ red cross etc.)

haha. we can share the soapbox, donna!

I just read the article. My throat constricted.

i narrowly missed out on working for a really awesome AIDS-related legal org this summer. spent most of last semester writing about some really interesting/messed up aspects of Canadian federal AIDS policy, and it would have been great to do some more practical/on the ground stuff, because this is a big big big issue and most mainstream gay orgs don't go near a lot of HIV related issues these days.

not sure if it's b/c they want to decouple the stereotype of AIDS as a gay disease or 'all gay men have AIDS' or whatever, but again, when marriage + military >>> homelessness, HIV, health care, trans rights in the list of priorities = racist transphobic institutionalized bs.

also, curious where everyone having the discussion earlier in the thread who were 100% firmly on the ethical/moral obligation for HIV+ folks to always disclose in all circumstances of any sort of sex would stand on issues surrounding criminalization of non-disclosure, because ethical stances aside, it's pretty clear that criminalization is counterproductive to slowing transmission and harm reduction approaches, but moral opprobrium and stigma have always driven policy on this stuff more than science, tbh

this is very well put but that "moral opprobrium and stigma have always driven policy" doesn't really have any bearing on the actual ethical question imo. criminalization of non-disclosure is a realllly heady question about which it's hard to know what to say - one almost wants to say "let people who contracted HIV as a result of contact with someone who didn't disclose decide the policy here," but of course that's impossible. so I don't know what to say about that, but that's not really my focus - my focus is on ethical behavior; it's pretty surprising to me, still, who argue that it's not unethical to not disclose an HIV+ status. I'm kind of a moralist though - I mean, if the question were "does a person have an obligation disclose one's marital status to a sexual partner" my answer's the same: yes, of course, absolutely, you are a big asshole if you don't

right. i wasn't suggesting that the fact that moral opprobrium and stigma drive policy should have a bearing on the ethical question.

rather i was curious if the absolute certainty with which people approached the ethical question (which i mostly agree with in a 'people should do this' sense) would correlate to an equally strong sense that morals/ethics should ground criminal policy in this case, in the way that a sense of morality can often ground people's opinions on criminal policy about other crimes.

because social determinants etc. and the disproportionate impacts of crime policy often get swept aside when morality is centred and sentencing is viewed as a retribution and/or punishment thing rather than a harm reduction/population safety, how do we reduce the instances of crime (or in this case, how do we reduce HIV transmission).

which is super technocratic of me, i guess.

well, I mean - criminal policy is such a different thing, because a reasonable criminal policy, to my mind, focuses on reducing crime, rehabilitation, etc - at the same time, right, I worked at an AIDS hospice when the epidemic was full-bore; none of the guys in that house had been told by the partners who infected them that they were being infected, and all those guys are dead now. three of them died during my pretty brief tenure working there. it's hard to say: "there's no role for societal remedies here." but at the same time, those remedies really need to be forward-looking: education, research, openness, etc. what good can come from putting a guy who didn't disclose his HIV status...in prison? None, I'd say! But the moralist in me thinks that that person should somehow be held accountable for the grievous wrong he's done to another person.

But then the political animal in me, remembering when this was a "gay disease," thinks that predominantly white hetero legislators etc. shouldn't be the people writing the policy here: but they'd be the ones to write it, because they're the ones in power, and since any remedies for that are far off, better to just argue for them keeping their hands out of such decisions...it seems a very complicated question to me.

Unable to post bail, Rhoades spent the next nine months in the Black Hawk County jail.
"I spent six weeks in solitary confinement," he says. "I was in a cell for 23 hours a day with a camera on 24 hours a day. I was allowed just one visit per week. I could not see out a window.

WTF
WHY

that is awful.

at the same time, right, I worked at an AIDS hospice when the epidemic was full-bore

yeah. i think this is maybe what i'm lacking? i've been mulling over this a lot recently, as a queer man who was born in 1987, who wasn't out or sexually active or even ~really~ aware of my queerness until the plague years had passed. my mum's best friend from high school died of AIDS-related OIs when I was around 6, and it wasn't something that we ever really talked about until very recently - it's something that I think I was told at one point but never really absorbed or remembered until my mum and i had a longer conversation about it post-coming out.

and so there's (among a lot of queer men i know my age) a lack of a real visceral understanding of AIDS and also, due to the deaths of multiple generations of gay activists, there's also a pretty substantial disconnect from our ('our'?) history, i think? and that impacts both the decisions that a lot of young gay men make about safer sex - condom use is declining significantly with significant apathy (anecdotally) - and maybe that's in part because of how we as a community think about HIV/AIDS but I also think it's resulted in the disappearance of HIV/AIDS from a lot of gay politics. which like, this type of attitude, and thinking of HIV as a condition that could theoretically be lived with, and also the conviction that it is something that is unlikely to affect you, are privileges that young post-93ish upper middle class white gay men have, but these shifts in attitudes and thought etc. have also allowed for the shifting political goals of the 'gay' movement. not that AIDS should necessarily with the #1 focus, but large aspects of the broader queer community are still living in crisis - be that medical or due to employment discrimination or what have you - and the institutions that grew out of the initial years of AIDS activism have seemed to have moved on, and so has mainstream gay culture.

yeah - there's a generational divide for sure, though I'm not sure that one side's "right" or anything - but the experience of the rise of the disease and watching it tear huge holes in communities, great young men just making their way in the world suddenly gone one after another after another - it had, I think, the effect of really cementing opinions about disclosure, it was a very intense time. lots more to say about that really, the memories of for example waiting a week for test results, feeling 100% certain throughout that week, daily, nightly, that the news would be bad & I'd have to call people and say "I'm going to die; you have to get tested" - experiences like these, which were very common, left, I think, a sort of defining impression on the people who had them.

Yeah, I read this thread with a lot to say, then I read the article and felt so much like the world was fucked up, but basically the idea that this: yes, of course, absolutely, you are a big asshole if you don't, which is fairly self-evident, would lead to criminal law, is just... it is ridiculous to me.

american criminal law is basically one big "criminalize even slightly annoying things" project

nb i am not saying that would be just slightly annoying! that's just where it starts

i think it's, if not impossible, then really hard for me to be not-emotional about any of this for personal reasons i don't want to disclose here, so in lieu of that, i will veer a bit off-topic and plug the recent glut of documentaries that portray the AIDS crisis (in america mostly) and the activist response to it - 'we were here', 'united in anger', 'how to survive a plague', and 'vito' (about film critic/ACT/UP member vito russo) all came out in the past year or so and give some idea for us younger folks who have no memory of the plague what it was like to believe that you only had a few months left to live post-diagnosis and going to 2 or 3 funerals a week and that no one in the government gave a fuck whether you lived or died - that, or even seriously suggested quarantining you or shipping you off to a leper colony. like, as a 27-year-old it is unreal to think that this was all happening about 15 miles away from me in NYC when i was in elementary school. but i'd like to think these films can provide some necessary context for people working towards criminalization reform because yeah, as steven f. tyler says, the mindset about disclosure is definitely rooted in a very real, lived experience for most people

i re-wrote that post 20 times and it is still a mess but oh well

YOUNGER people working towards reform, obv a lot of ppl working towards reform were, you know, there at the time and don't need my ass explaining any of this to them

xxxp it's criminalized in canada too! you are not the exclusive havers of ridiculous shit and bad criminal law. we just passed a big new omnibus crime bill that basically adopts texas policy in the 80s except for the death penalty. we're about to have a bunch of privatized prisons constructed etc. we just got rid of our prison tattoo parlour program and the status of prison needle exchange programs is uncertain!

and yeah i am very excited to see how to survive a plague and united in anger - it takes this stuff longer to get up here. usually in one glut of queer cinema festival time

i think we are the exporters of shitty laws so nyah

When my father's half brother died of AIDS in 1995, I was told at the time that he caught it from prostitutes in the Army base at which he was stationed in Korea. Not too long after I learned that for a few years between his discharge and diagnosis he was basically a drifter. It's one of those family mysteries I keep meaning to ask my father about.

We Were Here is shattering.

there was not a dry eye in the house when 'united in anger' finished (that's the only one of those films i listed that i've seen)

how to survive a plague isn't officially out until september i think? but it's been previewing in major us cities.

the guy didn't even contract HIV, that sentencing was ridiculous. that said, he still should have told his partner and he would have avoided the entire situation.

"She shouldn't have gotten drunk at that party and she would have avoided that entire situation"

Alex and Donna are so so fucking otm here, with generational divide and stupid young people not fucking getting how scary and horrible the crisis was and all of its implications (like aero said).

It's interesting that this article fails to mention whether or not the dude asked if his partner was HIV+; of course you should disclose if you are but also of course you should be asking your partners this if it's something you want to be made aware of. Quince had some a+ stuff to say up thread about the burden of disclosure being a shared one.

Just the act of wearing a condom in and of itself is acknowledging that the people you're having sex with could potentially have transmittable diseases

Also I wd very strongly urge all of you to track down a copy of Allen Barnett's "The Times As It Knows Us" (published in The Body And Its Dangers) to get a very real glimpse of how fucking bleak and numbing the AIDS crisis was.

Quince had some a+ stuff to say up thread about the burden of disclosure being a shared one.

― the mandy moorhols (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, August 2, 2012 9:42 PM (9 minutes ago)

disagree. the burden of asking about disease status belongs equally to every sensible sexually active person, whether or not they know themselves to carry a communicable disease. it's not even much of a burden. it's an expression of enlightened self-interest without much moral significance. you're not doing anything terribly wrong by not asking, though you're behaving foolishly.

the burden of disclosure, otoh belongs entirely and exclusively to people who know themselves to be carrying a communicable disease. this is a moral obligation, and it allows no wiggle room. it doesn't matter how safe you imagine you're being, or how low you think the risk of transmission is. if you know yourself to have an STD of any sort, then you always have to disclose before any sexual activity takes place, period.

this has nothing to do with AIDS, specifically, or with sexual orientation. i'm straight, and i've had herpes my whole damn life. it's my obligation to mention this to prospective partners. though i may think it's not a big deal, or that i'm not contagious atm, if i fail to disclose, i'm failing as a human being. i'm being an asshole, a coward, and perhaps even a criminal.

it doesn't matter how safe you imagine you're being, or how low you think the risk of transmission is. if you know yourself to have an STD of any sort, then you always have to disclose before any sexual activity takes place, period.

I don't disagree with this at all; I just feel the same about people on the other side asking as well.

but what's wrong with not asking? nothing, so far as i can see. it might increase your risk of contracting something, but that's your business. and even if you do ask, there's no guarantee your partner will answer honestly.

when you fail to disclose, you don't risk yourself at all. instead, you subject your partner to risks that they don't and can't know anything about. and a person knowingly carrying a communicable disease is easily able to guarantee that the information they share is accurate to the best of their ability.

tbh, i don't get the comparison. i don't understand why anyone would even bring up the obligation to ask in a thread like this. it seems like a misguided attempt to take the focus off the obligation to disclose. of course we all know that it's sensible to ask, but if we're carrying something and know it, we have to disclose whether or not our partners ask.

i know i'm being a little dogmatic here, but read through this whole thread for the first time today, and was a little shocked by quincie's comments

little/little

If we're speaking of moral responsibility w/r/t sexual activity, I'm surprised that barebacking hasn't been addressed specifically. I find it more morally questionable to engage in frequent unprotected sex with multiple partners vs. witholding disclosure while taking the very effective efforts to reduce transmissibility (lowering viral load through medication, condom usage). It's preposterous to me to criminalize either of these—to effectively encourage responsible action (which includes disclosure, yes) you can't simply make laws to enforce it. Rather, this effort has everything to do with public opinion; these laws reinforce the brutish thought that individuals with HIV are untouchable, deserve their disease, and are to blame for the epidemic through their nefariousness. HIV+ folks decision to remain closeted about their status even when it means violating the trust and safety of their sexual partners has everything to do with this culture of shame.

mm. i mean, this is neither here nor there necessarily in the discussion re: morality regarding disclosure but the frequent unprotected sex with multiple partners thing creeps me out specifically insofar as it relates to what Jesse spoke about upthread re: people who do not get tested so that they don't know status. i know far too many people who treat an answer of "have not tested positive" as the equivalent of "am negative" and act accordingly... which... well, for obvious reasons is not safe, but people seem far more willing (or eager even!) to dispense with condoms so long as no one has a confirmed positive test result - as though that absolves them of personal responsibility for their health. obviously, this has nothing to do with whether or not it is unethical or should be criminal for people to not disclose STIs that they know they have, but there's a weird sort of "i've done my due diligence, now we can dispense with condoms and forget about it" attitude out there.

and yeah, the discourse around HIV, to a certain extent, reinforces this sort of thought process, maybe? so that anyone who is HIV+, no matter what their viral load, no matter anything else, is too dangerous to have sex with even with a condom, because THE RISK! whereas everyone who is not definitely HIV+ (including those who 'don't know/don't test') are not a 'risk'.

i dunno. it's too late for me to explain this well, but it's not just about the discourse of who is responsible for disclosure but also the discourse about what is safe and who is safe etc. etc. etc.

xps But it's not like someone has a bucket of HIV that they go around scooping on the heads of unsuspecting people; two people who choose to have sex do it consensually. If you have HIV, it's your duty to disclose that; if you don't, it's your duty to ask. If you are HIV- and are a man having sex with men and want to stay HIV- how is it not AT ALL yr responsibility to be looking out for your own personal safety?

Also you are more likely to contract HIV from someone who says they're HIV- than from someone who is HIV+ and on meds and undetectable; it might be callous of me but I was sorta rmde at this guy being all EVERY DAY WAS A PANIC ATTACK FOR SIX MONTHS. Like, you need to understand how HIV transmission works, dude! Engaging in any sex at all is a risk and this guy was being somewhat responsible by being on meds and using a condom and of course he should have disclosed but to say that like he is 100% guilty and the other dude is 100% innocent is sort of missing the point of how men having sex with men works.

^^^^

which like, caveat again that of course he should have disclosed because if we don't repeat those magic words a billion times people will not believe that we mean it, and we do, but everything else stevie wrote is also OTM.

i guess i see it as a matter of consent. of course you should ask. better safe than sorry, right? but no one has a "duty to ask", except in the dubious sense that they have a duty to protect themselves.

the duty to disclose is a vastly different issue, imo. and again, on the most basic level, it has nothing to do with AIDS or sexual orientation. you have exactly the same duty to honestly inform your partner - whether or not they ask - no matter what sort of STD you have. failure to disclose denies your partner the ability to consent. and, sure, maybe your partner should be more understanding or more knowledgeable about diseases or whatever. that doesn't matter. it's none of your concern. your only concern is your own behavior.

the difference between failure to disclose and indiscriminate barebacking, though both are problematic, is that only the former diminishes the ability of one's partner to give real consent. and while criminalization isn't a solution, it does make sense to me to attach a modest civil penalty to this sort of behavior, especially in cases where transmission does occur. if i gave someone herpes after failing to tell them i had it, then a charge of some sort would be appropriate, afaic.

again, i'm sorry for being so knucklehead aggro about this, and for ignoring the sensible advice that AIDS among gay men is a specific context that can't just be waved away. i get caught up in moral arithmetic, and lose sight of the other angles.

I kind of wish I wasn't now traveling so I read the rest of the otm posts here but until then I'll also voice how sad it is when you're reminded how little things have changed since the 80s, when, for instance, some women were locked up for getting pregnant while poz, under the charge of infecting their unborn child. the authority of the state over bodies is, in my opinion, among the worst judicial-political issues in the west, not least because these instances remain vestiges of the criminalization (and as such, institutionalization, etc.) of homosexuality, for instance. I don't know why I ever think things are that much better..

Sorry if all this has been said, I got too riled up to be patient enough to read everything.

the burden of disclosure, otoh belongs entirely and exclusively to people who know themselves to be carrying a communicable disease. this is a moral obligation, and it allows no wiggle room. it doesn't matter how safe you imagine you're being, or how low you think the risk of transmission is. if you know yourself to have an STD of any sort, then you always have to disclose before any sexual activity takes place, period.

this is p much total crap. i mean its p much the stance i take upthread and its a "moral" position i regret taking. but as other posters have pointed out the continuity between "morality" and its masquerades, that is, a whole set of political mechanisms for framing victimisation and blame, and the cultural residue of the plague years that still clings to any discussion of AIDS (in an era in which its managability for a privileged, visible part of the community has neutralised much of the social urgency that emerged at that time but apparently can no longer be sustained.) I think its only helpful to talk about the pragmatics of responsibility (something like what quincie talks about) as opposed to a high minded designation of moral imperative and blame.

i guess i see it as a matter of consent. of course you should ask. better safe than sorry, right? but no one has a "duty to ask", except in the dubious sense that they have a duty to protect themselves.

safe sex with an undetectable viral load is very safe, not a threat by the + person (and to act like it is, belongs to a lingering scaremongering) if it would influence your decision then you should ask.

Also you are more likely to contract HIV from someone who says they're HIV- than from someone who is HIV+ and on meds and undetectable; it might be callous of me but I was sorta rmde at this guy being all EVERY DAY WAS A PANIC ATTACK FOR SIX MONTHS. Like, you need to understand how HIV transmission works, dude! Engaging in any sex at all is a risk and this guy was being somewhat responsible by being on meds and using a condom and of course he should have disclosed but to say that like he is 100% guilty and the other dude is 100% innocent is sort of missing the point of how men having sex with men works.

otm

i mean we could make every + person carry around a leper bell

judith I hear & dig your passion but you're not addressing the issue of consent which to me is key - if I'm carrying a communicable disease that you can't see, when you consent to sleep with me you're sort of getting more than you consented to. If it's extraordinarily unlikely that I'll communicate it to you, good, great, I hope you understand that and I'll be happy to talk with you about it etc before we go any further if I don't tell you I'm not THE DEVIL or w/e: but my obligation holds. I'm not obligated to tell anybody with whom I'm not having sex my status; it's not their business, they're 100% not going to "catch the plague" from me. HIV is communicated through sexual contact. So if I'm positive and having sexual contact with someone, that person has a right to know that about me.

To reduce this issue the perspective that to fuck a + person is unsafe (EVEN WHEN the risk of transmission is actually v low w/ meds + condoms) and therefore they are putting you in danger by not disclosing their status IMO operates on this 1960s sex lib perspective that sex is safe and should be have by all for your personal wellbeing (if it weren't for those pesky poz folks) (isn't this what contributed to the HIV epidemic in the first place?) and misunderstands that (puritanical as it may sound) sex is NEVER "safe" and when you choose to have sex with a stranger you are no longer an innocent party who was minding your own business walking down the street when they got hit by the HIV bus. Not saying anyone is saying this here but isn't it curious that a person who has HIV is often blamed for getting it bc they were being slutty or careless or w/e but a neg person is apparently a victim to the dirty poz man who withholds their status and then subjects them to the disease? Anyway point being it's not your right to have awesome safe sex with everyone you want insomuch as we can criminalize individuals who's status violates your false sense of security.

"actually very low" is always going to look different to people whose history and experiences places HIV as roughly the black death.

Grease Jones there's stuff in your post that I just don't get - this "you think sex is nice! well, it isn't, you liberal, it's NASTY and HORRIBLE and DANGEROUS! welcome to REALITY!" or something idk - I think people have a right to know who they're sleeping with, and whether that person is sick (HIV is almost a red herring here - it's just the sort of endgame illness owing to its one-time Final Illness status) is part of who I'm sleeping with. tbf I get pissed at people who shake my hand and then tell me later they have a cold though, common courtesy dictates that one avoid spreading communicable illnesses great or small - & yeah cards on table, I think a 60s lib perspective of "consenting adults have a right to have awesome safe sex with who they like" is an A+ perspective to which I subscribe happily & admittedly

I've kinda ODed on HIV what with my org being heavily involved with IAC right here in my town, but I do have some thoughts. I will try to organize them and post when I'm not feeling overwrought by a whole bunch of stuff, much of which has nothing to do with anything itt!

I do think this is one of the more high-quality ILX discussions that I've been party to, so kudos. But warnings also that if anything my thoughts on this matter are even more firm than when I first wandered into controversial territory way upthread.

between "morality" and its masquerades

^key otm idea here and what steven fucking tyler is embodying in this thread.

hiv disclosure is part of a larger discourse and laying the blame for transmission on individuals' atomized ethical failures is a good way to keep things status quo.

Not telling your fuck partner things that they might find alarming after the fact, especially if done merely with the intent of not alarming them out of having sex w/you, is a dick move and not a good look for anyone I might fancy as a lover.

I am not entirely rational on the HIV subject though 'cause I was in SF in the 80's and saw so many skeletons and funerals and tragedy that even though I know several HIV+ ppl who are on meds and totally healthy otherwise, I can't shake the memories, esp of a friend in Paris who died in '88 before the cocktails were really efficacious.

...as other posters have pointed out the continuity between "morality" and its masquerades, that is, a whole set of political mechanisms for framing victimisation and blame, and the cultural residue of the plague years that still clings to any discussion of AIDS (in an era in which its managability for a privileged, visible part of the community has neutralised much of the social urgency that emerged at that time but apparently can no longer be sustained.) I think its only helpful to talk about the pragmatics of responsibility (something like what quincie talks about) as opposed to a high minded designation of moral imperative and blame.

...safe sex with an undetectable viral load is very safe, not a threat by the + person (and to act like it is, belongs to a lingering scaremongering) if it would influence your decision then you should ask.

...i mean we could make every + person carry around a leper bell

― judith, Friday, August 3, 2012 2:07 AM (10 hours ago)[/i]

[cobbled together from parts of two posts, so all apologies if you feel it misrepresents your intent, judith]

this is horseshit, imo. of course the "pragmatics of responsibility" always apply, because they are pragmatic. they can be considered absent any sense of moral obligation. but that doesn't render moral considerations irrelevant.

i mean, people are always gonna act selfishly and do harm to one another. human shittiness can't be entirely prevented, but we can (and i think should) respond to it in both a sensibly pragmatic and a morally sensate manner.

there is no excuse, morally speaking, for non-disclosure of disease status prior to sex, unless you're careful, get regularly tested and know yourself to be 100% STD-free. period. deciding that it's okay to deny other people that kind of information is a crime. it doesn't matter whether it's AIDS, herpes, gonorrhea, crabs or whatever. you don't get to decide for other people. they get to decide for themselves.

we can understand this without criminalizing disease status. we can understand this while letting a sense of compassion and pragmatism guide our policy decisions. morality, after all, primarily concerns the manner in which we patrol our own behavior. social policy is about how we respond to the behavior of others.

crap. this part:

...as other posters have pointed out the continuity between "morality" and its masquerades, that is, a whole set of political mechanisms for framing victimisation and blame, and the cultural residue of the plague years that still clings to any discussion of AIDS (in an era in which its managability for a privileged, visible part of the community has neutralised much of the social urgency that emerged at that time but apparently can no longer be sustained.) I think its only helpful to talk about the pragmatics of responsibility (something like what quincie talks about) as opposed to a high minded designation of moral imperative and blame.

...safe sex with an undetectable viral load is very safe, not a threat by the + person (and to act like it is, belongs to a lingering scaremongering) if it would influence your decision then you should ask.

...i mean we could make every + person carry around a leper bell

― judith, Friday, August 3, 2012 2:07 AM (10 hours ago)

was supposed to be in italics

^clueless

what the fuck makes you think you get to be morality god about sex and disclosure. gtfo

its just a lil hiv, lets all do sex

what the fuck makes you think you get to be morality god about sex and disclosure. gtfo

― lick of the rim (Matt P), Friday, August 3, 2012 1:07 PM (13 minutes ago)

i get to be "morality god" about everything, you moron. so does everyone. that's how morality works.

i mean, more communication and knowledge shared between partners is absolutely crucial and the goal here, i'm not denying that! but commanding it with your moral authority doesn't make it happen. trying to understand why it doesn't happen -- there's a whole lot of context involved, lots of it has to do with homophobic shame and class and race. good policy should address why something doesn't happen, not force artificial (and usually brutally status-quo-reinforcing) penalties for not doing the right thing or whatever.

xp you're a fucking fascist dude

actually scratch that, like a let's-play-pretend fascist

also, ftr, i think it's immoral to say racist shit, and fuck babies, and beat women, and screw your friends over. note that people will inevitably continue to do these things despite my moral condemnation, and that my condemnation is not a legal or even a policy argument.

but i guess it's "fascist" of me to say such things...

you're (quite literally) in no position to say anything about what sex partners should and shouldn't do, and neither is anyone else. xp

gah, i apologize for calling you a "moron", matt. you piss me off sometimes, but that was uncalled for.

also, ftr, i think it's immoral to say racist shit, and fuck babies, and beat women, and screw your friends over. note that people will inevitably continue to do these things despite my moral condemnation, and that my condemnation is not a legal or even a policy argument.

― contenderizer, Friday, August 3, 2012 1:25 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well then you're a giant fucking hypocrite aren't you?

sorry for that last one, i need to chill. just... annoyed at the usual b.s. from you on this topic in particular.

pretty sure dragging moral considerations into what ought to be an ethical argument was a bad idea in the first place

(not directed at anyone in particular, fwiw)

also i just read that cnn article and now i want to barf all over this stupid backwards country

you're (quite literally) in no position to say anything about what sex partners should and shouldn't do, and neither is anyone else. xp

― lick of the rim (Matt P), Friday, August 3, 2012 1:27 PM (56 seconds ago)

that's an interesting point. morality is both personal and universal. we conceive of it both in terms of what seems right or wrong in our own behavior, and more generally, in the behavior of others. i think both conceptions of morality are valid. like i said, i think it's wrong to screw your friends over. this binds me (i'm not allowed to mistreat my friends), but it also applies in a non-binding manner to everybody else in the world (i condemn those who mistreat their friends).

this is a pretty basic way of conceptualizing morality and its internal and external functions. i don't see any reason to exclude the disclosure of disease status from this fundamental type of moral consideration. if i fail to disclose, then i've failed to behave decently, according to my own personal morality. if anyone else fails to disclose, then they've failed in exactly the same way - according to me. this is "true" to me though it can't be proven and binds no one but myself.

social policy is an entirely different matter.

also, ftr, i think it's immoral to say racist shit, and fuck babies, and beat women, and screw your friends over. note that people will inevitably continue to do these things despite my moral condemnation, and that my condemnation is not a legal or even a policy argument.

― contenderizer, Friday, August 3, 2012 1:25 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well then you're a giant fucking hypocrite aren't you?

― lick of the rim (Matt P), Friday, August 3, 2012 1:28 PM (12 minutes ago)

no? at least i don't think so. i think i'm being pretty consistent here, not that that's necessarily a virtue. like non-disclosure, i think racist shit-spewing is wrong. i tend to morally condemn both these things, but that moral distaste doesn't entirely determine my sense of what an appropriate social policy response should be.

I think the divide here is that half of us are having a discussion about a purely ethical/moral discussion of "Is it right or wrong to have sex with someone without telling them that you have a sexually communicable and potentially fatal disease?",

and half of us are kind of saying

"Contemplating this question is not particularly helpful from a perspective/goal/etc. of actually reducing the transmission of HIV because:

[all of the other stuff, specifically that while the abstract moral question is a fairly simple one to answer on its face, the practical reasons why people do not disclose or do not get tested or engage in risky sexual behaviours are not as simple as 'they selfishly value having sex with someone about doing the right thing, morally' but rather are because of a whole host of context re: homophobia/class/race/the demonisation of and marginalization of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs)

and again, if the ultimate goal of this discussion is for a bunch of people to be able to say with moral certainty that "disclosing if you have any STDs to sexual partners is the morally correct thing to do" then congratulations we have done it and we can close up shop. on the other hand, I think what's more interesting/important/difficult in developing criminal policy and AIDS policy and public health policy is to understand people and meet them where they are at and to come up with responses to HIV that minimise risk and increase overall population health and slow the spread of the virus.

and that, coming from that perspective, my or your or whoever's personal moral certainty aside, it is incredibly ineffective to help people and to help people shift their behaviour by lecturing them about morality and calling them bad people. it's much more productive to actually examine the vast vast scope of sexual behaviours among populations of men who have sex with men, both those who are seropositive and those who are seronegative and to figure out what drives this decision-making and what can be done about it.

^^^otm

which is how you arrive at solutions like needle-exchange programs, which effectively reduce transmission rates more than any sermonizing about how heroin is bad

or i don't know. maybe we are actually just having a debate about the ethics involved, but I'm not sure if I have much time for debating the abstract moral status of actions that have such a devastating and tangible real world impact rather then just going right to the 'what can/should we collectively do that will do something about it rather than merely passing judgment/making me feel like a good person for getting tested frequently and being 'sexually responsible' or whatever.

xxp

i agree completely with that, alex, but object to the snide dismissal of the moral/ethical discussion. it's going on not because we all want to get our "i'm a good person" two cents in, but because there's been long-running disagreement itt.

anyway, i do think that "you have to disclose before sex" is good general advice from a social policy perspective. you don't wanna beat people over the head about it or allow it to preclude other sensible advice, but setting a baseline standard is helpful, i think.

Is "PLHA" a real term? It sounds like someone puking!

yeah AIM otm, i think. i might be overstating this but basically i don't really care that much about the moral/ethical decision someone makes about their disclosure or lack thereof---I just want less people to contract HIV (tho i love my ppl that have it). boiling down such an intensely personal decision to OK or Not Ok trivializes the experience of living with the disease. esp when you consider that a never-tested person who has unprotected sex with many partners is from an actual, real-deal statistical POV more dangerous to the herd than a seropositive person with an undetectable viral load having protected sex. consider the spectrum of experience in between, and the task of coming up with an ethical or moral framework is unworkable, and ultimately reductive and pointless from a pragmatic point of view.

another way of looking at it is: anything you can do to destigmatize HIV+ status will lead to many more disclosures (and acceptances thereof) than feeling strongly about one person you don't know making a decision you couldn't possibly understand

xp and which is also why conversations about disclosure and safer sex practices and all of these other things need to acknowledge marginalization and poverty and community-specific homophobia and health care and barebacking and 'dipping' and how people use condoms and etc. etc. etc. because (in different ways from needle exchange programs) dealing with all of these things reduces transmission also.

and like, all of these things reduce transmission significantly more than focusing the entire discussion on the idea that transmission happens when people on meds have sex with people with condoms without disclosure - not because I think that doing that is a morally positive thing to do or whatever, but just because this is not how and why HIV transmission rates among gay men and MSM generally continue to be so high and that focusing the discourse on a really moralistic approach like this is unhelpful viz. it both contributes to a totally unearned sense of safety (again, not because people shouldn't disclose but because something like 20% of MSM with HIV in major cities don't know that they have it and so will think that they are HIV- and anything besides "I am HIV+" is often sufficient for people to dispense cursorily with condoms) etc. etc. etc.

because if how we think about this is "everyone knows their status AND will disclose if they are HIV+" there are two major fallacies there and the first is statistically the more dangerous one than the second, but it's also scarier because it doesn't give HIV- gay dudes a clear image to stigmatize or steer clear from and people are better able to understand things in clear wrong/right dichotomies.

xxp - I didn't mean to come off snide, and I'm sorry if I did.

I guess there's been long-running disagreement itt, but having re-read the thread this morning I guess to me it seems like - without people having labelled it as such - one side of the conversation has been having the moral/ethical discussion and the other side of the conversation hasn't been? they may have been saying that they've been having the moral/ethical discussion, but they seem to be having the pragmatic one and so people have maybe been talking past each other? or at the very most a lot of people seem to be saying that the pragmatic concerns have an impact on the morality discussion insofar as the distinct contexts that make it easier for some and harder for others to be empowered to both make certain types of decisions re: sexual practice and also to disclose make it less of a black-and-white right-and-wrong sort of thing. In the same way that on a purely abstract level murder or theft etc. are morally wrong but that we acknowledge that there are social conditions and contexts that place some individuals at higher risk for becoming offenders and we take that into account for sentencing etc. some people might say that the moral character of the acts doesn't change at that this is purely a pragmatic 'how do we best reduce crime/reoffending' and some people might say that the moral character of the acts changes because of context - not necessarily that the acts become moral but that on a sliding scale of 'right' and 'wrong' things shift a little bit one way or the other because people are not entirely autonomous moral decision makers. finding a moral framework that doesn't solely focus on a personal responsibility conception (without totally absolving people for their actions/behaviour) is a complicated thing to do, and maybe this is what people are trying to say? but i don't want to speak for them.

xp Stevie, yes, PLHA is a real term - or at least it is in most of the Canadian HIV/AIDS related activism I've done research on. big shift from early in the 90s when the term was People Infect With HIV/AIDS and there's an entire discussion to be had about government responses and social welfare networks during the shift from when people were suffering from/infected with/dying from rather than living with the virus.

gbx is so much better at saying things than i am.

I don't know who works on these issues in the US but the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network has all kind of fascinating and intelligent publications about the law and policy side of things: http://www.aidslaw.ca/EN/index.htm

Specifically, they just published a bunch of stuff about disclosure given recent court cases in Canada, but again these are less concerned with the ethical/moral side of things, i expect.

pretty off-topic but I'm frustrated by my best friend's little brother - he came out when he went away to college, apparently has had a number of partners and has told her that he's not using condoms because among his social group there it's considered impolite to require them because it casts aspersions on the STD-status of the other person. Which is just real fucking insane IMO and I don't know the kid well enough to yell at him for being stupid.

yeah AIM otm, i think. i might be overstating this but basically i don't really care that much about the moral/ethical decision someone makes about their disclosure or lack thereof---I just want less people to contract HIV (tho i love my ppl that have it). boiling down such an intensely personal decision to OK or Not Ok trivializes the experience of living with the disease. esp when you consider that a never-tested person who has unprotected sex with many partners is from an actual, real-deal statistical POV more dangerous to the herd than a seropositive person with an undetectable viral load having protected sex. consider the spectrum of experience in between, and the task of coming up with an ethical or moral framework is unworkable, and ultimately reductive and pointless from a pragmatic point of view.

another way of looking at it is: anything you can do to destigmatize HIV+ status will lead to many more disclosures (and acceptances thereof) than feeling strongly about one person you don't know making a decision you couldn't possibly understand

― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, August 3, 2012 2:04 PM (2 minutes ago)

maybe? that last point sounds good, but i don't know that it's actually true. it may be that the enforcement of a baseline standard for appropriate behavior actually does more real good than certain supposedly destigmazing acts.

and we could say something similar of many things that people are often quick to judge in moral terms: prejudice, spousal abuse, dishonesty, etc. we could reasonably argue that it's better to work pragmatically for statistical reductions than to merely express righteous condemnation, but setting standards regarding appropriate and inappropriate behavior can, i believe, have positive real world consequences in many contexts.

i guess i fundamentally agree with AIM, but the problem isn't so much that there are two different discussions going on, but people on each side keep diminishing the value of what those on the other side are saying in favor of their own position.

the enforcement of a baseline standard for appropriate behavior

as determined by...?

xp see? stuff like this! which is really fucking insane but is a real thing!

but the ability to insist on condoms in a situation like that requires to some extent a sense that (a) that you are a person of worth regardless of whether or not said people will be willing to have sex with you, (b) these are not the only gay people you will ever meet or have a chance to have sex with and thus can turn them down if they are unwilling to engage in safer sex, (c) that you have a peer group or family members who not only are ok with you being gay but are able to talk to you non-judgmentally about the gay sex, (d) that you are able to be out AT ALL and not be more willing to abandon condoms or whatever at the insistence of your partner because you are trying to stay closeted and that can be used to manipulate you/undercut your confidence/empowerment/etc.

milo. it sounds at the very least like he's comfortable being out? i'm not sure what his relationship is with his brother is obviously or how comfortable/uncomfortable sex-conversations would be with his sister, let alone with you. idk what to suggest if his sister doesn't feel comfortable talking to him b/c having some random person yell at you about your sexual risk taking won't always have the desired effect. i hope it works out ok?

it may be that the enforcement of a baseline standard for appropriate behavior actually does more real good than certain supposedly destigmazing acts.

enforcement? sincerely doubt that any old mans yelling has made a cloud go away

xxp yeah, i disagree with you, at least in this case once we get to a baseline standard for appropriate behaviour because WE HAVE BEEN TRYING THAT FOR A VERY LONG TIME and it wasn't working - or at least it was working for certain groups of people (namely, to a greater extent upper middle class white gay cis men) but not so much for other more marginalized groups and so the question isn't just how do we establish 'appropriate norms' but how do we empower people to act on those norms and feel safe doing so and calculate risk differently.

the problem isn't so much that there are two different discussions going on, but people on each side keep diminishing the value of what those on the other side are saying in favor of their own position.

― contenderizer, Friday, August 3, 2012 4:19 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, the problem is that HIV transmission continues unabated, and that ppl with HIV+ status are marginalized in the extreme. like, i get that the catholic church has a real moral objection to ppl having premarital sex, and that they would seek to enforce their baseline moral standard, but witholding birth control and condoms is far more destructive to the public good than ppl getting down

also as a junior medical scientist i tend to think that pragmatic statistical reductions are demonstrably better than arguments in a vaccuum

because risk calculation re: safety and personal decision making is weighted differently for a variety of reasons.

isolation, closeted-ness, stigmatization/fetishization sexually of people of colour within the queer community, transphobia, etc. all impact people's risk calculation (and again this is probably more pertinent to issues of HIV- or not-aware-they-are-positive guys deciding to agree to not use condoms with partners whose status they are not aware of rather than HIV+ guys deliberately withholding disclosure, but it probably impacts that situation also)

all of this is also tied into maybe a broader discussion about the impacts of homophobia and other things on the degree to which queer men perhaps moreso than straight men but maybe similarly to women (I'm not sure exactly on the women for this so I don't want to speak to it) have a generalizable experience (but more common the more marginalized you are) where your self-worth and validation is tied to people being willing to have sex with you, especially as 'queer identity' is to some extent tied to queer bodies and queer sex?

i recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about a recent revelation he had had that if he wasn't enjoying sex with someone or if he changed his mind before the sex started or even just didn't want to have sex with someone who was propositioning him, he could say no and that wouldn't compromise his queerness or make him a bad person or a bad gay person or whatever. And that sounds really irrational and silly perhaps to some people, but it feels very very very real sometimes.

sorry, that's an xp.

also i am having a lot of trouble controlling my tone and i'm maybe going to go for a walk because i don't want to come off lecture-y or angry or irrational but the lived experience of being queer or trans, let alone being queer or trans and HIV+ is - again, not something that absolves people from disclosure or treating other people decently or whatever - but a far more complicated part of the picture and of the decision making process, as demonstrated by a lot of studies of this stuff, than might 'rationally' make sense. but to discount the psychological and emotional experiences that play into this stuff feels really... off? ... to me.

so yeah. sorry to anyone i've been rude to. hopefully i'll come back to the thread later with a clearer head.

gbx, you're tagged in. and also you're awesome.

i griped, but i think you're doing a pretty great job itt, alex

no, the problem is that HIV transmission continues unabated, and that ppl with HIV+ status are marginalized in the extreme. like, i get that the catholic church has a real moral objection to ppl having premarital sex, and that they would seek to enforce their baseline moral standard, but witholding birth control and condoms is far more destructive to the public good than ppl getting down

also as a junior medical scientist i tend to think that pragmatic statistical reductions are demonstrably better than arguments in a vaccuum

― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, August 3, 2012 2:30 PM (4 minutes ago)

yeah, but all forms of human misery and bad behavior continue unabated. this doesn't mean we should put aside or sense of right and wrong in favor of simple pragmatism. the two can be complementary.

when i talk about "establishing baseline standards", i'm basically talking both about the general way we construct ethics as a society, and about the health advice given by concerned parties to at-risk populations. neither is unitary, and neither need be legal in nature. but i'm still kind of shocked that there is any pushback on the idea that "you must disclose" should be an active
part of the package. it's not complete, it's not a solution, but ignoring it or pretending it's regressive in some sense is ridiculous. not that anyone's necessarily doing that...

"our sense of right and wrong" in that first sentence

plus oops line break, but w/e

i mean, i guess it's good that i don't design public health policy, cuz i'd be inclined to put a line like that in there somewhere...

And like, final point. I'm negative but I've messed up before re: condom use in the past (rarely, hopefully never again, but still) and I know that plenty of people I know have also but the absolutist right/wrong tone of general public campaigning or whatever makes it nigh impossible for any group of gay men I know to sit around a table and have an honest and open conversation about how and when and why lapses in safety happen because it takes four and a half second for someone to make the outraged/shocked/whatever face.

And if we want to help kids like Milo's friend's brother reduce their risk we need to be able to have that conversation and hear people's reasons and answers and experiences without automatically having a 'just say no' style one size fits all answer combined with a side-eye. There's value in community standards and moral stances but If those become so rigid or judgmental that those outside them are increasingly going to totally tune out and those inside them are too ashamed to talk about how implementation happens then the norms are failing.

But again I'm talking more about community norms than actual ethical or moral standards so feel free to ignore me at this point.

i mean, people are always gonna act selfishly and do harm to one another. human shittiness can't be entirely prevented, but we can (and i think should) respond to it in both a sensibly pragmatic and a morally sensate manner.

yeah to take alex' point about there being two ways in which different aspects of this discussion are being privileged itt thread i would definitely come down on the side of the pragmatic over a need to moralise because i think its more important that less people get infected and that those that do have access to proper healthcare and less about a need to assign culpability and designate which party is to blame in such and such situation. but its important to remain vigilant, as indeed it is impossible not to be given the vicious histories that we could open up v easily and have been alluded to more or less explicitly itt also, that there is no clear division or at least there can no longer be a clear division between these rhetorics given the murky ways in which each has bled into each other in histories that are more or less current and belong to people still very much alive. this is not to dismiss all moralising on the grounds that a moral stance has been deployed to the most despicable ends at the scale of major national and international discourses on AIDS (good AIDS/ bad AIDS as that chris morris sketch puts it, in a way that for me nails it). Without lumping in bad faith the arguments made by good folks itt that i have to just wholeheartedly disagree with with batshit rightwing condemnations of reckless sodomites, the legacy of those and other more pernicious discourses are ingrained into a culture of internalised blame in a way that makes any attempt to make this "moral arithmetic" impossible as well as whatever set of material lacunae (medical, juridical, etc) perpetuate hostility towards + people. i don't think its necessary to reframe the whole thing in terms of "sex is inherently risky" in order to redistribute responsibility. I think people should ask and people should tell. sex and HIV are different and intersecting assemblages: representations, bodies, medical and legal and so on. its important to remember also that the guy in the story was a - once too and somebody gave it to him.

we could repeat ad finitum the arguments that weigh risk between well managed viral loads and assumed - statuses forever, and it needs to be at the forefront of how we think about this imo, but by now everybody in this argument understands that part and it probably doesnt' need to be reiterated. i think what needs to be properly spelled out is that any moralising arithmetic that dispenses with that part is dismissing the crucial and irreducible remainders that cannot be contained within a neat equation but require and endless negotiation between parties that is mutually respectful and at least tries not to be darkened by designating who is at fault. i can't see who that helps, and from that point of view it doesn't interest me.

but yeah essentially aim killing it itt.

In response to AIM's post earlier about the fallacy of knee-jerk "this is wrong" statements, (AIM you are great btw),

This discussion seems pretty much focused on obvious no-brainer moral conundrums, such as unprotected penetrative sex and needle-sharing. But there is an enormous grey area; sexual assault charges have been filed against two HIV+ friends in Canada for non-disclosure, one for kissing, one for a restroom handjob-- (both charges were unsuccessful).

one might say the same of any moral question. with more or less jargon as taste dictates.

there are two questions here: "what should people do in order to ensure good conduct in their own lives?" and "what should public policy be in order to ensure good social outcomes?" neither is absolutely more important than the other, and they're definitely related, but it's true different people will often privilege one over the other.

surm's original question framed this thread in terms of individual responsibility: "Is it OK not to disclose this information if your disease is under control and the sex is safe? Or is this never OK?" therefore, it's not a great leap of rhetorical privileging on my part to keep the discussion more or less grounded there.

there is, however, an indication that one dialogue is being privileged over others in the repeated, aggressive insistences that this isn't the right question to begin with. that personal morality is a non-issue at best, and we instead need to be talking in pragmatic terms about effective public policy.

i don't see why we can't respectfully and productively countenance both.

xp to judith

But there is an enormous grey area; sexual assault charges have been filed against two HIV+ friends in Canada for non-disclosure, one for kissing, one for a restroom handjob-- (both charges were unsuccessful).

― Ówen P., Friday, August 3, 2012 3:54 PM (1 minute ago)

yeah, that's enormously fucked up. agree that moral opprobrium blindly enacted as law can be hugely destructive.

except that the moral framework you're trying to construct again and again wants to inscribe each party as having a specific value in this equation and its too late for that. i mean i think you should disclose but the way this has been talked about again and again itt shows how the burden to disclose is impossible to disentangle from a social impetus towards stigmatisation. i think its necessary to shift away from those moralising arguments for the reason that they just aren't productive. i don't think they're conducive at all. they produce sexual pariahs, possible threats made visible against a background that makes such it obvious that the clarity of such distinctions is always false and constructed. the point harbl makes about hpv is important because it is all grey areas, there is no way to get outside that. we can't think about + people as threats in this way for reasons that seem to be to be much more morally weighted than the obligation placed on transparency for one particular class of people against a backdrop that is littered with occlusion and opacity. i mean that's really all i can say on it. for its about what is useful, what is helpful, what is productive rather than what is right and who can we blame because those certainties are easy to produce but their validity feels incredibly shaky to me based on a lot of things that have been hashed out here way more eloquently than i can manage.

i guess we just have to agree to disagree at that point. i don't believe that the articulation of a clear moral obligation to disclose specifically stigmatizes the disease or those who carry it. it's a simplification born out of concerns both practical (how does disease spread?) and ethical (what do we owe one another as human beings; what is consent, and can it be granted in ignorance?)

i think it's important not to stigmatize HIV/AIDS, but as milo z's anecdote upthread makes clear, non-stigmatization is not an absolute, unquestionable good. non-stigmatization only works as a justification when the supposedly stigmatizing thing in question actually does more harm than good. i'm not convinced that a hard-and-fast "you must disclose" edict does any harm at all, and i think it's like that it does some good.

^ one (straight) man's opinion, lack of statistical support, etc...

Doesn't milo's example also show the impact of the stigma re: HIV+ guys as untouchable and inherently dangerous sexually? The reason why no one was using condoms was because to ask for them would call into question the other person's status I.e. suggest that they could be + which in their minds is something worthy of stigma/shunning as opposed to simply safer sex practices or reduced risk activities - handjobs, oral sex, or whatever the two people could feel comfortable with in a situation where HIV wasn't viewed as a black mark. If there was less stigma and a realistic assessment of danger in gay culture or the culture generally, the request for a condom would be framed less as a 'I don't trust you/am implicitly 'accusing' you of being positive' and instead would be about generally safer practices vs. all STIs.

Milo's entire anecdote is predicated on a mindset among young gay men that (a) the only STI to worry about is HIV because all others are treatable, (b) the way to avoid getting HIV is to avoid sleeping with people who are HIV+, (c) everyone who is HIV+ knows and would/should/will disclose in all circumstances, and therefore (d) to request for/insist upon a condom is to suggest that you believe the person you are sleeping with has HIV which is ostensibly a terrible thing to think/suggest/imply viz. this is a black mark of moral judgment and one should not interact with them sexually and thus to use a condom is more offensive than maturely acknowledging the complex realities of sexual risk and the fact that you may not know your status and that scares us so let's sweep it under the rug, construct spooky notions of the disease as only being located in bodies marked as positive, visibly or diagnostically, and treat any desire for safer sex practices as a questioning of our personal status and thus our morality and worth as a human being.

Not necessarily attacking the meat of your argument but I was curious about how Milo's anecdote was about non-stigmatization? You mean a stigma against people who bareback? Because by 2012, that stigma has evolved into a taboo and then into a fetish and is now resurgent in porn and culture generally. Which only contributes to the idea that if you're tested regularly a la porn stars then condoms can be dispensed with unless one of you is positive (in which case you wouldn't sleep with him anyway because again, stigma!)

And granted there is a creepy subset of the universe that fetishes HIV itself but more often than not the obsession with condom-free sex isn't actively seeking HIV, merely ignoring it altogether.

"...among his social group...it's considered impolite to require them [condoms] because it casts aspersions on the STD-status of the other person."

i interpreted milo's story somewhat differently. i got the impression that milo's friend doesn't to want to call anyone's practices or health into question - to the point of not even using condoms himself - basically for fear of being uncool. i see in this a parallel to waffling on the obligation to disclose. they're both attempts to avoid making people feel bad. but making people feel a little bit bad isn't always such a bad thing, imo. in fact, it can be a pretty effective tool.

Tangential, but here's a link to the Sero Project's survey about hiv status-related criminalization.

http://www.thebody.com/content/67596/hiv-accusations-and-prosecutions-what-do-you-think.html

Totally engrossed with this thread but can't even begin to comment except to ask if some lawyerly types could comment on how US tort law would treat the situation linked about, where the HIV+ but undetectable VL and condom using dude had sex with, but did not cause actual harm to, the "victim"? I understand that he was found guilty of a crime, but what would the "victim" have any chance in a civil suit???

And OK I'm sure this is a flawed analogy but I'm going to put it out there anyway:

A friend really wants a ride to the airport. I have a car, and agree to give friend a ride to the airport. Forty minutes before picking up friend to drive him to the airport, I have a beer with dinner.

Driving is an inherently risky think. I may have, by some teeny tiny margin, have increased the risk that my friend would suffer injury because I had a drink before picking up my friend to drive him to the airport. Am I a moral failure if I do not tell my friend that I had one beer with dinner forty minutes before picking him up?

Because that is the level of danger that we are talking about in the case of the undetectable VL, condom-wearing dude who shows such a remarkable degree of poise and optimism when he has just been treated far more terribly than he treated the dude he had sex with.

in that example you are kind of a dick for agreeing to pick someone up and then drinking immediately beforehand

One beer with dinner, really? Would totally pass breathalizer + whatever they call it when you walk the line or whatever. I'm a dick?

Also it was 40 minutes ago, not immediately.

i wouldn't want to get in a car with someone in the above scenario

what planet do you people live on

if you know you're going to drive, yes, put off the beer til you're done picking up the dude, you don't need a beer that bad & if you do we have other issues to talk about

"gotta pick up my friend in 40 minutes...better shotgun a tallboy first, what's the harm"

what if someone calls you during dinner, after you've had the beer? duty to tell, or just a basic human situation?

"gotta pick up my friend in 40 minutes...better shotgun a tallboy first, what's the harm"

you're better than this

Wow this is totally not the way I thought folks would take down my analogy. I mean I lived in Texas when it was fine for the driver to be drinking *while operating the car* so long as he/she was not impaired. . .

But my point is that the *level of risk* is a consideration in judging how horrible this person may or not be on the moral scale.

I swear to god we should be teaching relative risk analysis starting in kindergarten. Because it is failure to grasp this that makes for fucked up shit like Jenny McCarthy and the people who put dude in the HIV scenario in jail because of laws that are just so, so wrong on so many levels.

i would be fine getting into a car with someone in the above scenario. Would not be fine boning someone with undisclosed HIV no matter how low the viral load*. Just not down with someone not telling me that. I've always talked with my sex partners** about diseases and stuff before fucking, so it doesn't make a difference to me. It's a convo that I'm going to be having either way. But if someone lied to me about that shit? You just can't lie about that shit.

*constant use of the word "load" in this thread is kinda salacious, imo. Rrrrraw!

gbx I was just joking I mean that's a parlor discussion. I don't really see any harm in that, no. however as a guy who never saw a hypothetical he didn't want to run into the ground so if we wanted to have a 1000-post "should you turn down a beer if you know for a fact you're going to be driving somebody around in less than an hour" discussion I am, by nature, game for that

I feel the need also to say that yeah, ideally the dude should have disclosed. But I do not think he is a monster on the order of the Aurora shooter for having failed to do so.

But my point is that the *level of risk* is a consideration in judging how horrible this person may or not be on the moral scale.

otfm

I feel the need also to say that yeah, ideally the dude should have disclosed. But I do not think he is a monster on the order of the Aurora shooter for having failed to do so.

but who is saying this? there's a good distance between "one should disclose a positive status" and "that person should be jailed" - has anybody on this thread argued that a person who doesn't disclose status & doesn't infect anybody should be liable to prosecution?

What if the person DOES infect someone???

Because the outcome shouldn't matter in terms of the duty to disclose, right?

So say guy HAD infected dude despite the fact that it was basically impossible for him to do so under the circumstances. Does that make his failure to disclose WORSE?

well as I said upthread I'm legal consequences seem like a bad idea because of issues outlined very eloquently by Alex & (I think, I'd have to scroll up) gbx: anything that makes people less likely to take good care of themselves in all ways is bad, and there are countless terrible consequences to legislating morality, which is exactly what such laws amount to. Prevention, education, openness, these are all good things - legislating bedroom behavior is a nonstarter in my book. but duty to disclose & whether the law has any business thinking about it are two very different questions in my opinion, and one can discuss duty to disclose I think in good faith without being accused of trying to legislate morality. It can be argued - and, again, I think it has been argued here - that if "there is a duty to disclose" is the moral environment, that too has negative consequences. For me that is sort of where the heavy stuff is in the conversation.

xp - I mean, I take that question to be "is a person who knowingly infects another with a disease more morally culpable than a person who might have knowingly infected another with a disease, but didn't" - the moral issue is the same I think but that's a question where I feel like I'm out of my philosophical league

some terrible editing on that graf sorry

xp

if i fail to disclose, i'm failing as a human being. i'm being an asshole, a coward, and perhaps even a criminal.
― contenderizer,

while criminalization isn't a solution, it does make sense to me to attach a modest civil penalty to this sort of behavior, especially in cases where transmission does occur. if i gave someone herpes after failing to tell them i had it, then a charge of some sort would be appropriate, afaic.
― contenderizer

mm noted. yeah I don't share those opinions.

I take that question to be "is a person who knowingly infects another with a disease more morally culpable than a person who might have knowingly infected another with a disease, but didn't" - the moral issue is the same I think but that's a question where I feel like I'm out of my philosophical league

You and me both. Which is why I am not as strident in my approach as contenderizer and others itt.

many xps

gbx I was just joking I mean that's a parlor discussion. I don't really see any harm in that, no. however as a guy who never saw a hypothetical he didn't want to run into the ground so if we wanted to have a 1000-post "should you turn down a beer if you know for a fact you're going to be driving somebody around in less than an hour" discussion I am, by nature, game for that

― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, August 4, 2012 4:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha man, i know, this kinda stuff is in my wheelhouse, too. but for real, i think the point here is that rendering remote judgement on disclosure or the lack thereof does very little to affect the transmission of HIV, and only shores up attitudes negatively inclined towards those that carry the virus.

maybe unrelated/distracting, but:

i had a sometimes-homeless HIV- patient recently diagnosed with latent tuberculosis. this is a non-transmissible illness. he is hoping to do informal daycare for his grandchildren. he was tearful and pretty upset about the dx and asked if he had to tell his family about the situation, knowing that they would probably err on the side of safety ("safety") and not let him tend the kiddos. we (my attending---a total G---and I) said no, don't sweat it, we'll get you on prophylactics, it'll be fine (it'd be fine without the abx, too). why? because there are reams of data that demonstrate that latent TB is just not a big deal, public health-wise. but there are also loads of people that, if they heard you had latent TB, would cross the fucking street. those people are entitled to their wrong-headed opinion, but i'll be damned if I supply them with ammo.

btw characterizing someone with a stigmatized illness as being a "coward" for not disclosing their status is some top-shelf assholery

also, temporally speaking, what's the moral threshold for disclosure? when someone buys you a drink? when you're unzipping your pants? when you ask them out? this might seem like some hair-splitting, but i srsly think the onus is on the All Disclosure All The Time ppl to lay down the ground rules, since you seem to be in the business of laying down ground rules

Working my way through this (it's quite dry but on point): AS THE TIDE TURNS: THE CHANGING HIV/AIDS
EPIDEMIC AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF
HIV EXPOSURE

The paper talks about the problematic nature of the laws that criminalize behavior that increases the risk of transmission that were passed at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and have not been revised with a consideration for improved treatments that keep the disease from being "invariably fatal" as it was originally determined. It also makes mention of, which I think would be a useful addition to this thread, is the need for using a intentionality standard over a recklessness standard in prosecution. Such a law would perhaps be less targeted on PLHA as a group, less stigmatizing, and less othering.

have you ever seen the episode of hang time where they find out that one of the guys on the team they are going to play is + and julie is too freaked out to play them and they have to convince her of how stupidly unlikely she is to come down with full blown aids as a result

improved treatments that keep the disease from being "invariably fatal" as it was originally determined.

It's still an enormously life-changing deal though right? I mean, lots of people hate taking those AIDS meds, right? Like at this point it still fucks up your game forever.

To me it seems like most of the life-changing elements of the disease is the stigmatization. The whole becoming a second-class citizen thing certainly is a drag, yo.

I should add that this assumes that the current medication is accessibly and available—seemingly true for white, middle class, visible individuals but def not for all PLHA.

also expensive and/or reliant on the benevolence of healthcare providers.

So yeah it's a pretty big assumption to make.

Leoprosy was stigmitizing. Breast cancer was stigmitizing. We need to get HIV to the level of non-stigmitizing stuff imo. Moralizing is not gonna help get us there.

Another point I want to make is that HIV negative people are fucking responsible for remaining HIV negative. It is *their* problem as much as it is HIV positive folks' problem.

xp to how's life

i suppose maybe you're trying to be sympathetic or something, but determining, full-stop, that HIV "fucks up your game forever" closes down any chance for a seropositive person to even consider the possibility of a normal ("normal") life. HIV+? sorry mang about your HORRIBLE TERRIBLE LIFE.

one of my closest friends is positive, he takes his meds, it's a pain, but i'm fairly certain that he'd tell you to go fuck yourself for delimiting the potential of "his game". well-controlled HIV prob has the same risk (or less) of functionally impairing sequelae as well-controlled DM2; it's a chronic illness, not a death sentence. stuff your sympathy, you jerks.

and yes: access to treatment is a huge huge deal, and many people are lacking. which, to me, would suggest that marginalizing the HIV+ as doomed only throws up barriers to treatment. people with hypertension can get lisinopril for $4/mo at fucking Wal-Mart, and people that want to quit smoking can get the patch or gum for FREE. why? because well you know people just get HTN and smoke cigarettes and why shouldn't they not die early, right? oh you have HIV? sorry bro

this stuff makes me real angry, apologies

I'm glad you are here, gbx. Everyone here is making for a really good discussion, even if we disagree. I wish I could say the same for all of the IAC attendees :(

otm, moralising is indissociable from its material consequences. a culture of blame similar to what informs eg. abortion funding (why should i have to pay for your irresponsibility?)

I'm not trying to be sympathetic as much as saying that I emphatically would not want this and no one else would either. And no, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but it would certainly be enough.

xps, this was not directed at anyone in particular except the strawman i am yelling at in my apartment (it's actually a pillow)

and before someone circles back to "well yes that's all well and good but 4real you must disclose status before intercourse or else you are making a grievous moral error," let me say this: making a bedrock moral baseline for disclosure---as opposed to suggesting a decent-person best practice (NB THESE ARE DISTINCT)---throws you, without question, into the pool of people that are literally and absolutely making life worse for the HIV+. you are not helping. i'd have thought it obvious that the issue at hand was sufficiently ambiguous for y'all to avoid hard-lining, but i guess i was wrong.

i need a time-out, sorry

^^^ gbx just nailed the "decent-person best practice", imo. GBX thank you, you rule.

xp Diabetes is a more debilitating disease than HIV at this point. Check your psychic terror at the door, plz.

i should note that the gay mens health clinic i get tested at is really actually impressively amazing. like friendly and welcoming and unclinicy and free and they make sure to let everyone know that emergency access to post exposure prophylactics are available through the NHS but that they will discourage you because it is so expensive so you need to be clear and strident about it. a moral arithmetic is not useful or informative for the building of these kinds of spaces. i mean you could say the opposite, the potentially harmful effects brought about by a need to overlay these frameworks would surely need to itself be examined morally.

yessss. thank u judes and gbx

Diabetes is a more debilitating disease than HIV at this point.

if the DM is untreated, and the HIV is treated, yes

and ty quincie, that is v nice of you to say

Have you thought about ID? I mean I may not know you IRL but I've known you here for years, and I can totally picture you with the ID crowd!

i loved my ID roto, but i think the training is a little too inside-baseball and not focused enough on primary care. lately i've been leaning towards FM or psych (but in both cases with an emphasis on chem dep/HIV/mental health)

That makes me very happy, pls to clone yourself x10000.

cloning is illegal and immoral!

oh pls, not buying that from you. Please do FM so you can also do gyno stuff :)

Er, that maybe came out weird, but you know what I mean--great advocate for quality care for the wimmins.

a moral arithmetic is not useful or informative for the building of these kinds of spaces

this is so otm btw

oh pls, not buying that from you. Please do FM so you can also do gyno stuff :)

kinda having a crisis of faith re fm v psych tbh, it's a bit of an issue atm

Hmmmmmm well I do not have a vote, but based on my experiences I'd say FM FM FM FM!!!!!!!

Nothing against psych but that crowd is. . . I dunno I guess I am projecting, I'd rather be part of the FM community than the psych community. Though I know some real solids in psych! Also a loooooooot of not solids. . .

man you and everyone else :-/

i did psych and i'm a psycho

....

Hi Surm!!!!!! Missed you boo :)

also, temporally speaking, what's the moral threshold for disclosure? when someone buys you a drink? when you're unzipping your pants? when you ask them out? this might seem like some hair-splitting, but i srsly think the onus is on the All Disclosure All The Time ppl to lay down the ground rules, since you seem to be in the business of laying down ground rules

any time prior to sex or sharing needles! I think "you seem to be in the business of laying down ground rules" is a mischaracterization of the discussion at least my end of it

otm, moralising is indissociable from its material consequences. a culture of blame similar to what informs eg. abortion funding (why should i have to pay for your irresponsibility?)

this is a profound comparison for me, thanks for this!

xp I worked in psych for ages but I guess stigmatizing psych is A+ well pppttthhhh you med surg fascists
that is a joek btw

:) :) hiiii zp

xp

I totally respect psych I have just been a little rattled by seeing watching several classes of med grads segmenting into specialties and looking at the psych residents and thinking uuuuuuuuuh. But hey there are some very quality folks in psych, and gbx would be one of those of course!

Actually that should maybe be another thread: experiences with the mental health/mental illness fields, from both the professonal vs. patient perspectives.

I am glad you are back aero. was gonna bring up abortion but I felt bad since we are the same team

also it's a well known fact that surgeons are fascists lets be real

should bring up on another thread but am intersted in both gbx and aero perspective on gynos who are anti-choice. OK or does this rile you a lot?

nb I have had more than one beer, and have plans to drive a schoolbus on a tour of cliffside roads, I think the kids will love it

hahahahah

should bring up on another thread but am intersted in both gbx and aero perspective on gynos who are anti-choice. OK or does this rile you a lot?

b plz, riled x1000000

(I am sorry for typing "b")

yo gbx (and anybody else really) the thing about me and issues like this is I am Team Call Me Out on shit like this now. I was current with issues & philosophy when I was 1) high-risk and then later when I was 2) a health care provider, but I left proper nursing almost twenty years ago (stfu youngns I still have all my hair & it's still all brown) and have been living the life of a zero-risk straight guy since the early nineties. So if my positions seem wrong to people who are at the forefront of the discourse, any discussing I do is an attempt to understand what's wrong with my position and to keep myself abreast of the thinking that people who're on or near the front lines are doing. I'm me, I get to where I'm going by stating my opinion and saying why it seems right to me, but on health care issues of all sorts my passion for keeping my thoughts in the potentially-helpful zone is high. I am specifically on this thread to participate in the dialectic so y'know feel utterly free to serve me up the dialectic!

awwwww what a cute post

should bring up on another thread but am intersted in both gbx and aero perspective on gynos who are anti-choice. OK or does this rile you a lot?

they are welcome to their beliefs as long as they do not inform their practice is my position. it is hard for me to imagine the belief "this medical procedure is a moral outrage" not clouding one's ability to counsel & refer though.

i have also been a zero-risk straight guy since the early nineties (i was 10), and am a due-paying member of Team Call Me Out, so it's good in the hood imo. but i have also seen pictures of you steven and your hair...that shit is not natural, just saying

I am specifically on this thread to participate in the dialectic so y'know feel utterly free to serve me up the dialectic!

this is a good mantra, btw, and one i probably haven't honestly adhered to---like i said, i get pretty heated about HIV stuff, both personally and professionally.

xpost and OT, forgive me:

I had a srs convo with a very observant Catholic who went into gyn and she saw not problem in telling patients simply, "I do not perform abortions, you can obtain that procedure elsewhere."

I saw a big problem with this, as I understand it to be the responsibility of the gyno to provide women's health care, period, not just those her moral/religious teachings deemed appropriate. And the very act of passing a woman off to another health care provider is not OK to me, as it is not appropriate provision of care imo. If you were not cool with the whole spectrum of women's health care, don't become a gyno imo.

FWIW these discussions with this now-gyno set my standard for choosing a gyno wherever I have moved: I ask if they provide abortions in their practice. If they do not, I find a practice that does.

it is hard for me to imagine the belief "this medical procedure is a moral outrage" not clouding one's ability to counsel & refer though.

― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 5 August 2012 00:11 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw, i don't think this is always true; i think the v peculiar, idiosyncratic machinations necessary for people to be referred for an abortion, ie multiple sign-offs, assessing suitability for counselling &c&c&c are such that practitioners have a broader portfolio of things to consider than they might if they were straightforwardly referring someone for something else - i think it steps into "what am i able to do daily for my patients" & away from "what is my moral imperative" when you are a smaller cog in a machine that's determining the fate of someone who's facing a bunch of decisions, none of which are ideal outcomes.

Can I challenge the idea of "Zero-Risk Straight Person" here? B/C aero has a child, and OK perhaps child came to be a child in a manner other than unprotected sex with a partner. But let's face it, I am a straight person in what I assume is a monogomous relationship with an HIV-negative person (verified before we started having "unsafe" sex). I cannot place myself in the "zero-risk straight person catergory." I have unsafe sex with a person. He may or may not be as HIV-negative as when I first met him and started having unsafe sex with him.

Am I a moral failure for not taking better care of my HIV negative status than by only having sex with the person I *assume* continues to be HIV negative? Maybe???

I mean that question varies from marriage to marriage. I am obviously so attractive and so sexually powerful that

while i would prefer that an OB-GYN be comfortable with abortion procedures, i respect the fact that some will not do that. does it rile me? yeah. do i think that they should not be OBs? ...enh? *waves hands* they have a duty to refer (which virtually all of them will adhere to), but providers have as much of a right to not give care they deem unacceptable as patients do to refuse same. cf vaccines---i've known docs to "fire" patients that refuse vaccines (because said doc feels so strongly about the issue) but they always always always set them up with another doc. as an outlier: there's a doc in NH that is bullish about crazy augmentative surgery (we're talking bat wings here) that no other plastics dude would do. obv an abortion is not the same as implanting synthetic horns in someone's skull, but the principle is the same: docs should enjoy the same moral autonomy as anyone else. should you do gyn if you hate abortion? prob not, cuz ppl are gonna bring it up all the time, and that'll be a drag. can you, is it your right? well, yeah.

so many xps

btw, this i thought was hilarious:

I mean that question varies from marriage to marriage. I am obviously so attractive and so sexually powerful that

― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, August 4, 2012 6:27 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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Can I challenge the idea of "Zero-Risk Straight Person" here? B/C aero has a child, and OK perhaps child came to be a child in a manner other than unprotected sex with a partner. But let's face it, I am a straight person in what I assume is a monogomous relationship with an HIV-negative person (verified before we started having "unsafe" sex). I cannot place myself in the "zero-risk straight person catergory." I have unsafe sex with a person. He may or may not be as HIV-negative as when I first met him and started having unsafe sex with him.

Am I a moral failure for not taking better care of my HIV negative status than by only having sex with the person I *assume* continues to be HIV negative? Maybe???

― quincie, Saturday, August 4, 2012 6:23 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a v good point, and i think puts the lie to the unambiguity of the question itt