New skool ignorance [Updated]
I don't even know where to begin.
First of all, this guy (with a Grindr profile photo of some shrubbery!) is 20 years-old! I've been HIV+ since before he was born! I'm not about to be schooled in “proper” HIV+ sex practices by him. Please.
Secondly, Grindr really isn’t the place for this sort of discussion unless we were planning to hook up which we weren’t. His initial message to me arrived out of nowhere. I don’t initiate contact with youngsters, especially anonymous ones.
Finally, my sex life is no one’s business except mine and those I choose to share it with, even though this blog might indicate otherwise. The same goes for my T-Cell count and Viral Load, so STFU, Mary, unless you were invited which you weren’t.
It would be nice if this kind of “sex shaming” would end in the age of PrEP and HAART. I guess there will always be ignorant young people.
FYI: The risk is essentially eliminated, not “huge.”
I guess my problem with this whole episode is not that he’s ignorant of the facts. Most people are, really. It’s that he is so loud about his ignorance and he’s decided to spread it around. I had hoped that, in the five years when I was off the market, things had changed. I guess not.
UPDATE: I sent a link to this blog post to Mr. Shrubbery. He blocked me, of course.
January 26, 2014 at 9:39 PM
Not only do the limits of medical & social progress in educating tomorrow's adults/voters/workers/professionals/gays/straights/etc. continue to vex me, but it's a source of consternation to anyone who finds themselves in the unenviable position of having to *justify* their personal lives and practices to anyone new they encounter in the pursuit of a relationship, or even just an NSA hookup simply because they're poz. Having to rattle out a gaggle of statistics and anecdotal evidence to assuage the ignorance-fueled fears (usually trumped up by homophobic acquaintances and those reprehensibly one-sided safer sex posters on bus booths and urban areas) of the average plebeian was something we had to do in the 1990s and early 2000s. In an age where gay marriage is legal, transmission rates have stabilized, and safer sex is now possible without intrusive contraceptives courtesy of advances in treatment, it's dispiriting that anyone, let alone young people, still fall victim to the stereotypes and bugbears that turned the amorphous heterosexual masses so virulently against gays in the 1980s and early '90s. It seems no amount of outreach groups, PSAs, and expert input on cable networks from health care professionals will make a serious dent in the maze of disinformation people get trapped in. Sometimes you want to cry for the future.
February 11, 2014 at 5:11 AM
You are more delusional than Josh Kruger.
March 12, 2015 at 12:49 AM
The guy on Grindr is correct. Even if you are HIV+ and on meds, and doing it raw/bb with another guy that's poz and on meds you can still get reinfected with the strain of HIV you have, get infected with new strains, and infect someone else with a new strain. If you're poz and even if you're on meds and having unprotected sex with someone that's neg you can still infect them with HIV even if they are on PrEP. A lot of poz guys think they're invincible, and won't get infected with other strains of HIV or even get other STDs and can have all the unprotected sex with whoever they want. I avoid these types of men as I don't have a death wish like they do.
March 12, 2015 at 3:20 PM
There are so many things factually incorrect in this comment! According to my HIV doc—a researcher whose name, by the way, is on the original cocktail protocol paper—The strain a person has is the strain they'll always have. Reinfection is not possible.
The chance of two folks, one on HAART and the other on PrEP, passing an HIV infection is "virtually zero." The possibility is less than with condoms. Look it up.
No gay men, and I really mean NO gay men, used condoms before HIV happened. Other STDs are easy to deal with. I should know, since I've had most of them. They're a PITA for sure but that's all. HEP C is even easy now.
Using "death wish" and HIV together, as if they're somehow related, is really backward. It's not the 90s anymore. Get a grip and get educated. Catastrophizing has no place in HIV discussion these days.