The music is loud. A continuous stream of great songs keeps you on the dance floor. Moving closer all night is a guy you are totally attracted to. Your eyes lock a few times and then you both explode in giddy shy smiles. You turn away and hope your boner dies down. It is near the end of the night, and by now you and the guy are dancing close, brushing up against each other. Soon his hands are on your body. You can smell his clean skin. His cool breath is on your sweaty neck. He tells you that he wants to take you home. You lean in close. His chest meets yours. "I would love to," you say. You kiss.
For the next song you smile at each other and dance as you finish your drink. You can tell there's something he wants to say. You wait in anticipation. The sexual chemistry between you is so much you think that if you were a different type of guy you would take him into a washroom stall right now. You feel his breath again on your neck. Your body is moving perfectly with the music. He seems a bit hesitant. He opens his mouth and you are expecting him to say that he has a boyfriend or his place is mess. Instead he says, "I should let you know—I have HIV."
Do you pull him close, whisper seductively in his ear, "I always play safe," and then make your way together to the door? Or do you try to suppress a thick gulp as your mind rushes to find a "nice" way out of the situation?
A few weeks ago I was sitting around a table taking to friends about hookups and one-night stands. We all agreed it is best to start finding out about a person before you take them home. One guy readily admitted that if someone disclosed they were HIV+ he would no longer be interested in sleeping with him. This guy who said this is not a bad guy, he's a regular good guy who thought his self-protective stance was informed. The fact is if you both protect yourselves there is no danger to you or the person living with HIV in having sex.
We have been taught to protect ourselves against HIV, but along the way we've forgotten that nothing is ever just one thing. Human Immunodeficiency Virus does not live in isolation. It is contained in human bodies, human bodies we sometimes want to fuck, human bodies we should not be afraid of, human bodies we should embrace if we want to.
A quarter-century into the AIDS crisis people living with HIV lead long, healthy lives. While living with HIV may mean a cocktail of drugs everyday with nasty side affects, it can also mean a satisfying and varied sex life. While there still is no cure for HIV, the reality of living with the virus has gone from rapidly progressing into AIDS and dying soon after, to now being a chronic, manageable disease. So while science may have progressed to a point to better serve people living with HIV, our culture and government, it could be easily argued, has not.
Right now in Canada, a person living with HIV is legally obligated to inform a potential sex partner that they are living with HIV. Not doing so, regardless of what sexually transpires, can result in the person living with HIV being charged with aggravated sexual assault to attempted murder (even if the potential partner is not infected and possibly even if the person living with HIV was not aware of their HIV status at the time).
In cases where the sex partner is infected with HIV and subsequently dies, the person living with HIV can be charged with first-degree murder.
The Canadian government is by far one of the most bullish and aggressive countries in its policing of people living with HIV. For example, the UN takes a more prosaic approach, suggesting only in cases where HIV transmission actually occurred and the person with HIV intentionally infected someone should a person be criminally charged. Last week Justice Edwin Cameron from South Africa was quoted in the Toronto Star as saying, "Canada's wide approach to exposure offences is sending out a terribly retrograde message to other countries, especially on my own continent, in Africa."
For people living with the virus, Canada's criminalization of HIV is just a curb stomp blow to the already crippling stigma related to HIV. Last year the publishers of Xtra.ca were involved in a forum that looked at HIV disclosure and the law. At the event Derek Yee, a man living with HIV stated, "I'm branded as a criminal ... now they tell me my body is a weapon."
So back to the club—the pulsating beat, the dangling offer. Did you decide what you are going to do? Does our culture's lack of openness in dealing with HIV impact whether you go home with the guy? Does society's ignorance about what it is to be living with HIV play a part in your knowledge of what is safe and what isn't? Does having a law in place reduce the responsibility you need to take for yourself? Should the state ever police what goes on in a bedroom between two consenting adults?
Fear and ignorance rob people of experiences and create space for those in power to oppress. As sexual minorities we have an opportunity to make choices for ourselves. Get informed. Have fun.
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