It’s been fun to observe the evolution of HIV testing through the years. I got my first one in 1992. I was a newly ‘out’ gay man in my first gay relationship. I’d suffered a broken condom incident and was terrified. I went to the Gay Center in Long Beach, CA and learned from Dr. Kelly Butler that all was well. My partner tested too and he was negative . . . so we repeated the exercise six months later, swore monogamy to one another and took the condoms off for the balance of our three year relationship.
I went on to become a State of California Certified HIV Testing Counselor and worked at that same Center talking with people before and after they took their anonymous test. It was fun, usually, seeing absolute terror turn into blessed relief for so many. It was also, on occasion, sad. Sometimes it was just weird, and it was weirdest when straight women would come in to be tested.
‘So, what brings you in for testing today?’ I’d ask.
‘Well, my boyfriend took all my money and disappeared for three weeks. When he come back he was high as a kite and his arms were all marked up with needle holes,’ she’d reply.
‘Hmmm,’ I’d nod, ‘I see . . . . did you ask him to wear a condom?’
‘Oh no,’ she’d react, surprised.
‘Why not?’ I’d ask.
‘Well, he’d probably leave me!’ she’d exclaim.
I used to think the women who’d fight over some piece of human debris on the Springer show were anomolies . . . but I saw this little tableaux repeated over and over by women of every social strata and economic status. It would probably be a much better world if we could all regard ourselves as The Prize.
Back there in 1992, I was giving people impossible advice. I was telling them what I was trained to tell them: that virtually any sexual contact with another person could result in HIV Infection. I was showing Lesbians how to use dental dams and insisting that condoms made oral sex much hotter. I had a whole routine about condom use of which I was really proud! I’d tear open a pack with my teeth, extract the rubber with my mouth, position it with my tongue and then roll it down over a lifelike dildo with my lips! See? Condoms can be sexy!
We were still burying our friends regularly back in ’92, and each funeral worked to maintain the resolve of people, like me, who were determined to make it through this nightmare with an active sex life and without HIV. That’s pretty much gone today. People with HIV don’t die like they used to. Thankfully, they live on drug cocktails. The disease has been likened to Diabetes by some. Without the constant reminder of how deadly HIV could be, younger guys have become pretty lax, some going so far as to essentially seek out what they perceive to be the inevitable: infection. What they don’t get is that even in this day of managing the disease, it changes everything. It becomes what your life is about. Every day, you wake up and are reminded that you are a Person With HIV. You worry when you bleed, panic when you feel bad, freak out when you get a bruise or a rash. The central issue of your life becomes: living with HIV. Who needs that?
When my last relationship (13 years – which was 7 too many!) deteriorated and I began to have experiences outside of our monogamous bed, I returned to condom use and testing. At first I was testing every six months or so. Today, completely single and active, I test every four months. And testing has improved! You can get a test that clears you up to sixty days back and another one that clears you up to two weeks back. The two week back test takes a few days to process where the two month test is ready in about 20 minutes.
The advice has gotten better, too. My recent counselors have been unanimous in insisting that oral sex is pretty safe. You’d have to have open, bleeding sores in your mouth and a ‘loading dose’ of the virus to get it that way. It’s not impossible, but the chances are slim. They also don’t worry much about ejaculate on your hands, your skin and so on. ’Skin is a pretty good barrier,’ one said to me. The big danger remains unprotected anal sex. If you’re going to do that outside of a committed, monogamous relationship, you’re probably going to get it . . . eventually.
Which brings me to a very sad moment.
I have a friend. He’s brilliant. Really: brilliant. He has a high tech job others salivate over. He makes good money and he lives well. He found a boyfriend a year ago, a fellow who lives in another state – so they don’t see each other but for a few days every four to six weeks. Turns out the boyfriend is HIV positive. That’s ok. What is happening is not.
Last month my friend spent a long weekend with his fellow. He got drunk and stoned and threw his legs up in the air and let the boyfriend fuck him raw. When he told me this I was shocked. As he talked, I thought about it and I know how he could let that happen – how almost anyone could. You get a little high, you get carried away in the moment and . . . well, shit happens. Maybe he got the disease, maybe he didn’t.
But what I don’t understand is the boyfriend. He knows he’s positive, he knows the danger he poses to his sex partners and yet he went ahead and did it. It borders on evil. And I told my friend that. We’re still sorting out whether my honesty will cost us our friendship.
Wanna know the worst part? He’s seen the boyfriend since and guess what . . . they did it raw all weekend. I told my friend, ‘I’ve never known anyone who would actively go and seek out the disease! I’ve read about screwed up people like that but I’ve never called one ‘friend.”
Like I said, we’re still sorting out whether we will continue to be friends. He seems stuck on the old, ‘Love me Love my Boyfriend’ mandate . . . but I don’t think I can love his boyfriend. I hate him for what he did when my friend behaved like an idiot . . . and did it again and again. They are together this weekend, here, in San Diego. There’s been talk about socializing . . . but I just don’t think I can. I think I will have to send that call straight to voicemail.
So, kids: don’t be stupid. Remember, that guy you are madly in love with this week . . . is probably NOT going to be in your life in five years. The disease he gives you, though, may be. Use condoms, faithfully . . . and then screw like bunnies!
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