Another day and another article about someone’s experience of becoming HIV+.
“How could I have been so stupid? I’m a smart, educated guy with a good job. This kind of thing happened to other people, how had it happened to me?” says the man in the article.
He goes on to say “four years ago the sexual health landscape for gay men was very different – especially in London. For my friends and I, it wasn’t ‘if’ I got HIV, but ‘when’. HIV became an inevitability for a lot of my friends.”
What a crock. There is no “inevitability” about contracting HIV. In more than 99% of cases you get it because you have bareback sex. Because you don’t use a condom every time you have anal sex.
Some of us have been using condoms for 35 years and are negative. They are fantastic protection when used correctly every time. The NHS says 98% effective against pregnancy and we say even more so against HIV (because a quantity of virus would need to get through. Not just a single sperm).
As usual how the man contracted HIV isn’t mentioned. It never is. But it will probably have been through bareback sex. Who knows how he justified himself doing it at the time.
He was diagnosed late and “hospitalised”. So, a person who thinks he’s smart and educated was (probably) not only having bareback anal sex but wasn’t getting tested for HIV and other STIs regularly. And in this article he claims that getting HIV was an “inevitablility” a few years ago. He still isn’t smart.
Now, like other men who end up positive and become cheerleaders for “gay health”, he wants you to cross your fingers and believe in “undetectable” status. He’s still being foolish, but this time it could be your downfall not his.
In the past some men used to tell their partners “don’t worry I’m clean we can go raw”. Then they are diagnosed HIV+ and start saying “don’t worry I’m undetectable we can go raw”.
If they were using condoms there would be no need to advise partners of their positive status. It’s an issue because they want raw sex and this is when they are “stigmatised” because many negative men reply “no chance”.
“If you’re on effective treatment… you can’t pass on HIV,” he says. True, but how can you know another man’s HIV treatment is effective? It’s just a snapshot of the situation when he was checked last, which could be months ago. He can’t be sure himself. Many of us know of cases where men knew they were infectious and lied to get bareback sex. Believing what someone says has never been an effective method of safer sex. Some gay men can be devious.
A positive gay man can be become detectable again for a variety of reasons, such as having contracted a sexually transmitted infection. Barebacking makes contracting an STI much more likely and as we see from this story some gay men don’t get checked out regularly.
It’s a downward spiral for any man who doesn’t care about his health. He barebacks, gets more STIs, becomes HIV+, barebacks more, gets even more STIs. Some compromise their HIV meds. “HIV stigma” is used to blackmail partners into bareback sex. It’s what they’ve always liked and it’s “OK” now because they’re “undetectable”.
Don’t listen to them. Any man asking for bareback anal sex, positive or negative, and whatever he claims, should be a big red flashing warning light to keep away. Bareback is the pink gay elephant in the room and it will quite possibly crush you.
Are we being harsh on this man and “stigmatising” him? No, because this is misinformation. He has become another positive man who is spreading PrEPaganda.
The word “condom” doesn’t appear ONCE in the article. This is the real giveaway that there is an agenda behind this. Instead he suggests that HIV was somehow “inevitable” before PrEP and “undetectable” status. A lie.
Condoms have kept millions of people safe from HIV and the campaign to get gay men using them was an enormous success here in the UK in the 80s and 90s. It’s why even today only around 50,000 gay and bi men are HIV+ out of perhaps 1.5 million in the UK.
25 years ago we negative gay men were being encouraged to fuck a positive guy with a condom and not discriminate. They weren’t “undetectable” in those days! As shown in this leaflet.
Some of the same “gay health” organisations and individuals involved in them who used to say “fuck a poz guy with a condom”, now don’t mention condoms or talk them down as “unreliable”. Odd don’t you think? Either these people are lying now due to a bareback agenda or they were lying 25 years ago and putting us all at risk! The answer is the first…
Here at GMAP we are not afraid of gay men who are HIV+ and we don’t discriminate if sex with condoms is on offer. In the past we have had sex with positive men using a condom and we are negative.
We aren’t afraid of “condomless” sex either in theory. But we think there are very few situations where it is possible or sensible in this era due to the considerable risks and behaviour of many gay men.
Be smart, don’t fall for this propaganda. Continue using a condom every time. This way you protect your health, even if you have sex with a man who is HIV+, and you avoid the bareback addicts who are trouble. They are fundamentally unhealthy individuals and a menace to the gay community whatever their HIV status.