The short form is this: HIV is with us, and infection rates are climbing in the gay community. Any realistic effort to stay negative is a very good thing.
If you're negative, having multiple partners, meeting men on line, and less than 100% safe, you are already taking bigger risks than safer sex with a known positive guy who's on medications. Keep that in perspective. After all, when we talk about relative risks of a sex act, 1:200, 1:20,000, or whatever, it isn't just the act, but the frequency of the action that are in play.
If you're meeting lots of men on the net (And "lots" does not mean "a couple of times a week, but less than my REALLY pig friend does."), you are at risk. In short, if the main focus of your self-protection plan is "UB2," you'll be changing teams, in the near future. In the October issue of Journal of AIDS, there is a new article clearly showing this. Men who stick with UB2s, but who have unprotected sex, are serocoverting rapidly.
I understand anxieties about sex with poz guys, and I respect it. I'd be less than honest if I didn't say I was more comfortable with pozzers than negs. Just be clear, and respectful, and please stay safe.
Read the rest of my posts, if you like, and leave me a note-
Oh, and please, don't refer to your negative status as "clean." I may have some antibodies, but I bathe, regularly. Kind of disgusting to refer to us as somehow, "dirty."
JB
8 comments:
M,
The great majority of sexually active gay men is free of HIV. Older gay men in major cities may have infection rates of up to 30%. Many HIV positive men have been infected for many years, and these men have moved to cities where HIV health care services are more widely available.
So you are talking about those who takes the test, ramdonly 30% gets hiv+ as result in a major city. But most of the guys who doesnt want check up their status are theorically on a higher risk. And they are the majority. The bigger is the fear, the more distant they get to check themselves, naturally the risk of getting an hiv+ test is not an exciting good news..
M.
There are very good numbers from the CDC about rates of HIV infection in gay men.
While approximately 30% of people who are infected with HIV are unaware of their status, there are no data to suggest that the percentage of infected men who are not tested have a rate of seropositivity as high as you are assuming.
I guess you're zeroing in on the net because of the "UB2" expression. But serosorting as a strategy isn't limited to those who use the Internet as their primary means of finding partners. Further, serosorting needn't be practiced in isolation. It can be just one part of one's larger toolkit of safe sex practices.
But these are quibbles. I get your drift. And I totally agree with you on the whole "clean" thing. I remember the first time someone asked if I was "clean." It was in a bathhouse. "I just took a shower," I told him.
I agree that "serosorting" can be part of an effective prevention strategy, but as a percentage, it's probaby not nearly as "high yeild" an effort as using condoms, and reducing your number of sexual partners.......
Used in isolation, serosorting probably only increases the odds of a new infection
George,
I'm glad you're thinking about protecting yourself. Condoms are very effective, but as you know, not 100%.
Is your positive friend on effective anti-retroviral therapy? People with HIV who have low/undetectable viral loads are probably less infectious than those who are untreated. That is probably the best thing that you can do.
I was with a partner that did not know he was hiv poz and had a viral load of 100,000 copies and a very low CD4.
I learned so much during our 2 years together. He died a few years back and always refused to take meds. What a shame as I think it would have given him a fighting chance.
My point is as a neg man with multiple partners, I abstain from anal sex. I really have no interest but mutual j/o and oral (no clinical case has ever shown HIV can be transmitted orally)
Theory -- many cases but clinical - none.
My ex-bf and I did many things and unknowingly with his high VL and low CD4 -- maybe I was lucky OR it was because we did everything but anal sex.
I miss him dreadfully but life goes on. My point is that I have probably been with many HIV + men, no anal but we had a great time. Tested 2x a year and not tempting fate but I understand from the talks my ex-bf had with 3 different specialists that transmission by oral was zero.
I do appreciate it when a man does reveal he is poz. That is the law in some countries and justified in my eyes as much as I will tell a man that I am neg and have no STDs.
It's really a shame that your friend was so afraid of medications. I have so many people find that their fear of side effects vanished as they saw not only their lab numbers, but their feelings of over all health improve........
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