“Are you comfortable engaging in sex acts with partners who may have a different HIV status than yourself?”

http://www.treasureislandmedia.com/TreasureIslandMedia_2007/TIMapp/TIMOnlineModelForm.php

I know that this post is way outside of what we normally post at BTB, but the fact remains that the broader concern I have had all along going back to when I first started this blog is stigma.

I don’t think that “stigma” quite fits this scenario. Stigma is the shame attached to inconsequential attributes.

Our community has plenty of stigma to go around. Not only is there shame assigned on all gay people by anti-gay or religious forces, but we assign it on each other: effeminate men, bottoms, butch dykes, and a whole host of ways of letting some in our community know that they are inherently inferior.

But while there is shame doled out on those who are HIV+ (and lots of it on how they got that way), I don’t think that sero-sorting is based in either shame or stigma.

It is not unreasonable for those who are HIV negative to wish to remain that way. And it is not unreasonable to narrow their romantic interests to those from whom there is virtually no likelihood of contracting HIV. And it is not unreasonable for someone who is seeking a committed monogamous relationship to take the HIV status of their potential mates into consideration.

Nor do I think that such a decision is unfortunate. It can, alternately, be freeing. I know of HIV+ people who only are interested in other HIV+ people; it’s less stress, less concern, less fear and possible future guilt.

It is no less so for HIV- people. While it is perfectly possible to have a sero-discordant couple in which the negative person never seroconverts, that does include limitations and precautions (and not just sexual precautions) that are not automatically there for a monogamous couple who are both negative.

For those for whom this is not a concern, that’s fine. No criticism should come your way. But it is, I believe, unfair to criticize those who have narrowed their partner potential to the 88% of gay men who do not have HIV.

I can’t help but think this is a little on the smug side. I don’t see what’s so closed-minded about my choice here. What’s closed-minded about wanting to reduce my risk to zero?

In another HIV+ related post, the one about Everett, you made a big deal about people taking risks and accepting them—yet here you seem disappointed when someone says “I’m not interested in this particular risk”. I think it’s a rather mature and valid thing for someone to recognize what risks they’re willing to take and which ones are too much.

Let me clarify. When I was speaking about people taking risks and accepting them, I was speaking about the specific situation where people pick up tricks, have unsafe sex with them, and then complain about picking up an STD, even a serious one such as HIV (or HPV, for that matter).

When people choose others for long term relationships, all kinds of decisions come into play. Some of these decisions may appear perfectly arbitrary (race, ehtnicity, HIV status, for example) that can disqualify a number of wonderful people, but we all make these decisions because they are very personal ones.

I don’t think what you or David are doing are morally wrong. I just think it’s sad that HIV is a litmus test for relationships for many people.

To be fair, I also thought HIV status would be a litmus test myself eight years ago. If you had known me then, I probably would have given a similar answer.

But that was before I met Chris. I’m glad I was open-minded enough to reconsider and examine my presuppositions about people with AIDS and what I thought I knew about HIV/AIDS itself.

I agree, I don’t get how sex being “exploited” is a concern. Porn, like prostitution, if freely entered into, is an honourable, if risky, profession.

In the story above this one, there is a guy who infected 6 people. He was irresponsible– and probably very angry about his status, and homo-hatin’-homo angry at other gay men. I’m sure he figured that since no one was watching out for him, he needn’t watch out for others.

He was right about the first part. I understand the second part. I’ve been there.

But these men that he infected were not taking responsibility for themselves at all. And they believed the first– or the second, or the tenth– sweet-talking young man who wanted to have unsafe sex with them.

Maybe because I experienced the initial onslaught of the epidemic, I was unwilling to have intercourse with anyone. and when i finally did, it was with people I was in a relationship with for some months, and we got tested before oding it. And unprotected sex required a real relationship, not just “I think I’m in love”.

That’s why it didn’t happen with guys i was dating, and only with the one guy that I almost married before my husband and i met eight years ago.

So I have sympathy for people that have seroconverted, but I don’t respect their lack of sense or common sense.

I’m hardly a prude– I’ve been a bigger lsut than most people could even dream of aspiring to, though I am monogamous and have been for years. But i would tell any young man or woman that there are consequences to sex, and until they have some maturity, they are better off avoding it outside of a real, ongoing relationship.

Mason has indeed done bareback porn. With great sexuality, comes great responsibility. He wasn’t being responsible, he was being a hot boy hanging out with other hot boys, doing what hot boys do, and with a reasonably predictable endpoint.

There are very few things that one can do that actually rate as good or bad. There are just consequences.

As, I believe, Popeyesaid, you pays your money and you takes your chances.

In another HIV+ related post, the one about Everett, you made a big deal about people taking risks and accepting them—yet here you seem disappointed when someone says “I’m not interested in this particular risk”. I think it’s a rather mature and valid thing for someone to recognize what risks they’re willing to take and which ones are too much.

I can’t speak for David, but for me, this is a risk I’m just not willing to expose myself to. It has nothing to do with stigma, it has everything to do with the fact that I don’t want to seroconvert. I’m enough of a hypochondriac, I don’t need a major illness on top of it — no matter how manageable it might be these days.

To be practical we all close ourselves off from possibilities in life. From what we wear, to what we eat, to where we work, to who we are willing to be with intimately.

It’s not about exploitation of the people involved. It’s about exploitation of sex itself.

Interesting, but puzzling to me. Exploitation of a person indicates that the person is somehow disadvantaged or taken unfair advantage of in the transaction in some form or another. And when a thing is exploited (mineral wealth, water rights, etc.), there can be a taint of corruption to it, but not necessarily. We often talk about the exploitation of natural resources in the development of countries.

But In what way is a voluntary act exploited? Can eating be exploited? Sleeping? Mowing the lawn?