Why You Should Have Sex with HIV+ People

CW: suicidal threats

Hiya! If you don't know me, I'm Howl, and I'm a person living with HIV. I got it on January 7, 2015. And I got immediately on meds. I'm going to wager a majority of you don't know what "on meds" really means. Some of you imagine a million pills a day. Some of you imagine it keeps it under control barely, but I can still spread it and might die soon. That's probably what a lot of you think anyway.

But here's the reality: My meds make me what's called "undetectable." This means I CANNOT spread it. Period. This isn't a 1% chance or a 0.5% chance. It's just zero. Don't believe me? Check the CDC article on it here. Look, it's so understood to be true in the medical community that some states are working on changing disclosure laws so that people who are HIV-undetectable aren't required to disclose their status for sex.

So, I want to get to the rationale behind that, but let me tell you what does suck about HIV. As I showed in my book Blood Criminals, the worst thing about HIV isn't the meds (which I just take one pill a day of), the life expectancy (same as yours), nope, none of that. It's the stigma. From people. People who are presumably HIV-negative and see themselves as "clean." 

So what does stigma look like? I've gotten messages like these:

• You should go kill yourself.
• I'm not comfortable having sex with someone unclean.
• Not into disease.
• You're the reason we can't have sex like we used to. 

And these aren't outliers. These happen a lot. I get at least one message like this a week, even during COVID times! And the sheer weight of it gives me depression a few times a year. And yeah you could call those extremists and tell me I need to not care what people think, but it's like...it's hard as fuck when you feel like your voice is alone. I don't even hear my friends talking about HIV. I'd be terrified as fuck to ask some of my friends if they would even have sex with someone like me (not out of genuine interest but just to hear their answers). A lot of people are in agreement with the comments above.

The softer responses I've seen are like number 2 above: "I'm not comfortable" or "It's too risky." As the CDC says, it's not risky. Even unprotected, there's no risk. You have statistically phenomenally more risk from having unprotected sex with someone who believes they're HIV-negative than from someone who has proof they're undetectable. 

Me? I'm constantly torn. The disclosure laws in Michigan recently changed to mean that I'm not legally required to state my status before sex as long as I'm undetectable. Why? Because if I pose no risk to anyone around me, then I shouldn't be required by law (or criminalized) for not telling someone about what is now considered private medical information that's not relevant to them. It's like legally requiring someone to disclose diabetes before sex. It doesn't make any sense.

I'm not going to say you should have sex with people like me because we're to be pitied. But check this out: the only difference between us and most of the rest of the people on Grindr is that we watch our sexual health SO MUCH MORE than the average Joe. And chances are, we can more easily show evidence—and more recent evidence at that—of our undetectable status than most people can show their negative status. Realistically, we are "cleaner" than most guys you'd have sex with otherwise.

So if you see someone who is fucking brave enough to openly disclose their status as pos undetectable online, you can bet they're probably one of the safer lays you could find on there.

Don't say things like "clean" or "unclean." They are ableist as fuck.

Don't bail on poz people with things like, "Oh shit, I just read your profile and saw you're poz. Sorry, I can't." Read a person's profile. Be respectful.

We are worthy of love, of intimacy, of sex, of some hardcore fucking and breeding. We are not unclean. We are not filthy. We are not a biohazard.

With all that said, now I hope that after this pandemic is over, some of you will come over and use my ass good and hard! I promise you'll enjoy it. I'm positive.