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Author Topic: re: Is testing positive a failure on your part, you should have known better?  (Read 10331 times)

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Offline poet

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  • Poet living and working in Central Maine
I didn't want to lose this subject which came through another discussion in this area.  I also didn't see it being posted under 'I just tested positive' since it's not the immediate reaction that I hope we might talk about, but the longer term thinking.  If you tested positive after years/decades of information about safe sex, do you feel deep down that you failed, that the information was there the whole time and you ignored it?  Was an accident involved, i.e. a condom failing?  Long after the fact, what is your thinking about testing positive?  Borrowing directly from another post, did you stray from safety, the safety of a safe sex relationship, and the result was that you tested positive?  Would you draw a line from straying (bad) to testing positive (bad)?  Did you always suspect that you would test positive, because of life as you see it, because most of the men or women in your area are positive, for another reason?  Has testing positive actually been a relief somehow, you knew that it might happen and now it has and you don't have to fear it but live through it? 

Dating back to the early 1980's in very, very naive Connecticut with the Village VOICE as my guide to 'gay life,' I really didn't have access to the information which I needed and, via bath house passive anla sex, allowed someone, since I hadn't a clue how to 'do' sex, to be active without a condom, not that condoms, in this place, were, to my recollection, available.   And it took two years for me to get tested and find out that the illness which I had experienced which the non-gay and gay professionals deemed a bad case of the flu was, in fact, hiv infection.  MY reaction?  Making sure that it didn't happen to anyone else by starting an anonymous phone line for information.  Win
Winthrop Smith has published three collections of poetry: Ghetto: From The First Five; The Weigh-In: Collected Poems; Skin Check: New York Poems.  The last was published in December 2006.  He has a work-in-progress underway titled Starting Positions.

Offline allopathicholistic

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to answer the question in the subject line, the short answer is yes.

the information was there the whole time and you ignored it?  Was an accident involved, i.e. a condom failing? 

the information was out there the whole time - big definite yes. not only did i ignore it - i thought it was false information. i thought that aids was caused by poppers and street drugs, and not hiv. i thought hiv was harmless. i was a denialist. i thought it was an anti-gay conspiracy.  between 1997 and 1999 i had tested negative 3 times, thus, on top of being a denialist i also thought i was immune. as far as condoms failing, well, they were rarely used. don't ask why but only a small percentage ever mentioned them, and this was the 1990s (yeah, even the second half of the 90s)

Long after the fact, what is your thinking about testing positive? 

(1) it was getting slapped in the face with reality
(2) everything happens for a reason (i have to tell myself this or else go insane)

Offline Cliff

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There is a lot of judgment and shame that comes with being diagnosed HIV positive.  Sometimes it even results in people making excuses (or denying) how they became infected.  I suppose it would do wonders for my self-esteem if I could say that I didn't know anything about HIV in 2003.  That I didn't know intercourse was unsafe.  That I was infected by giving blow jobs.  That I was infected because no one in my community knew anything about HIV during that decade.  But none of that would be true.  And at this point, it really doesn't matter.  Except it does.  For a lot of people. 

Life isn't lived in a safer sex campaign vaccum.  People make decisions in life that aren't always perfect.  That doesn't always live up to expection.  We make decisions based on the word of others.  We make decisions based on competing emotions.  Sometimes we make decisions while the in middle of a self-destructive path.

I accept that I am human.  I didn't ignore the safer sex messages in my head.  They were there the entire time I made my decision.  They and a lot of other things.

Offline carousel

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« Last Edit: February 15, 2007, 11:29:37 am by carousel »

Offline red_Dragon888

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I just remembered that when Aids was spreading, it was at a time when I was young, willing, and wanting to have sex with men, and I thought that the way life was.  Oh, to be free and gay was the life for me.  Yet, I only knew of one gay person in the 80's that wore condoms religiously.  In addition, he did so to protect himself from other sexual diseases.  He might have been burned one too many times.  Looking back, he was smart for protecting himself from the know diseases of that time.  However, does that make me think that I should have taken more precaution for after all, with the media spin on how dangerous and deadly Aids was I should have listen.  Possibly, I thought it could never happen to me, or it I just wasn't thinking.  Either way, my world changed.  I had never thought that death would be so close at my doorstep and it scared me.

I just think the young mind, or at least me at the time, did not want limits when it came to sex and men.  I should have had better understanding of the dangers of sex but I was acting on instinct and not common sense.  As they say, “hind sight is 20/20.”




I didn't want to lose this subject which came through another discussion in this area.  I also didn't see it being posted under 'I just tested positive' since it's not the immediate reaction that I hope we might talk about, but the longer term thinking.  If you tested positive after years/decades of information about safe sex, do you feel deep down that you failed, that the information was there the whole time and you ignored it?  Was an accident involved, i.e. a condom failing?  Long after the fact, what is your thinking about testing positive?  Borrowing directly from another post, did you stray from safety, the safety of a safe sex relationship, and the result was that you tested positive?  Would you draw a line from straying (bad) to testing positive (bad)?  Did you always suspect that you would test positive, because of life as you see it, because most of the men or women in your area are positive, for another reason?  Has testing positive actually been a relief somehow, you knew that it might happen and now it has and you don't have to fear it but live through it? 

Dating back to the early 1980's in very, very naive Connecticut with the Village VOICE as my guide to 'gay life,' I really didn't have access to the information which I needed and, via bath house passive anla sex, allowed someone, since I hadn't a clue how to 'do' sex, to be active without a condom, not that condoms, in this place, were, to my recollection, available.   And it took two years for me to get tested and find out that the illness which I had experienced which the non-gay and gay professionals deemed a bad case of the flu was, in fact, hiv infection.  MY reaction?  Making sure that it didn't happen to anyone else by starting an anonymous phone line for information.  Win
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I3ba3lnFHik

Off Crystal Meth since May 13, 2013.  In recovery with 20 months clean time.

Offline Moffie65

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Like you Win, I didn't have a clue.............

1983 was during the very dark ages.
The Bible contains 6 admonishments to homosexuals,
and 362 to heterosexuals.
This doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals,
It's just that they need more supervision.
Lynn Lavne

Offline Bizmark33

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     For me, it was something that happened to somebody else. To other people. I didn't think I could get it from just one encounter. I didn't insist on condoms when I should have. Sometimes used, sometimes not.
     Yeah, ya know, people with HIV....they are other people......that's what I thought. I don't sleep around, shoot. I know people, both men and women, that have sex with more people in one year than I have had in my lifetime.
     So, in a way.......in alot of ways, I was in denial about how much of a risk facto I was. In fact, I was an extremely high risk factor. I was in denial about alot of things. Still am in some ways. I was just thinking about it yesterday, abou the stupidity.
     Yeah, it is a failure on my part. I should have known better. I did know better. So, I have only two choices. Beat myself up about it and give in.......(some days I feel like doing just that), or drive on and live. I want so much to live.

Offline penguin

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Yes, pre-diagnosis, I knew about hiv, knew about condoms & not sharing needles. Somehow though, that info just isn't relevant when yr veins are screaming for a hit, or when you’re outside, freezing, & that man has a wallet & a warm car. Testing positive wasn’t a shock or a surprise. I don’t feel guilty, or ashamed.

No one failed.  Health, life etc, it ain't an exam. Regardless of how, or why, or what we could have done differently, we are here. Face forward.

It is a virus. Not judge n jury, not deserved, not some kind of cipher for choices made. Just virus.

kate

Offline Boo Radley

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I'm pretty sure I contracted HIV between 1980 and 1983, when there was far less information available.  Does that make me "more innocent' than someone who contracts HIV today?  Abso-bloody-lutely not!

We are only human and we all make mistakes.  As allopathicholistic said, there are still people who believe HIV doesn't exist or is perfectly harmless.  In the early 80s when the first reports and cautionary guidelines came out my best friend was 100% certain it was a conspiracy of the right wing to control gay men.  That was a common perception back then, until the death toll was so high no one could deny that something was terribly wrong.

I am greatly saddened so many people are newly infected but (here in the U.S.A) I blame, in great part, the U.S. government for neglecting its duty to really educate the general population and the U.S. media for declaring "AIDS is cured" when the protease inhibitors came out.  People still believe you can tell another person is "safe" because she/he doesn't look ill or that "AIDS is a disease 'other people' get but not me."  That type of thinking has existed since AIDS first struck.

Ultimately each one of us is responsible for his/her own actions.  I accept my role in becoming infected but do not blame myself or anyone else who is HIV+.   I made a mistake and HIV is the price I must pay.  Blame and finger-pointing do nothing useful and can be quite detrimental to one's ability to get on with life post-infection. 

Boo

String up every aristocrat!
Out with the priests and let them live on their fat!





Everything I do, say, think, excrete, secrete, exude, ooze, or write © 2007 Sweet Old Boo, Inc.

Offline wellington

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  • Don't sweat the little things.
I should have known better seems to imply that there is something better. What is it? Some of us became positive from means other than unprotected sex.

This quest for some elusive ideal of avoiding risk and harm, or frameworking around a sense of pass or fail is a little inhuman, no?

Offline red_Dragon888

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i agree


I should have known better seems to imply that there is something better. What is it? Some of us became positive from means other than unprotected sex.

This quest for some elusive ideal of avoiding risk and harm, or frameworking around a sense of pass or fail is a little inhuman, no?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I3ba3lnFHik

Off Crystal Meth since May 13, 2013.  In recovery with 20 months clean time.

Offline Boo Radley

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    • Animal Rescue New Orleans
I should have known better seems to imply that there is something better. What is it? Some of us became positive from means other than unprotected sex.

This quest for some elusive ideal of avoiding risk and harm, or frameworking around a sense of pass or fail is a little inhuman, no?

Avoiding high risk behaviors is "better" than engaging in them, but like I said before we all make mistakes.  If we were all perfect there would be far fewer new infections but we're fallible humans. 

I don't believe the ideal of avoiding contracting HIV is so elusive if one is able to avoid engaging in high risk behaviors.  Using a condom during sex doesn't insure that one will not become infected but it certainly increases the odds in one's favor.  Not sharing needles will definitely prevent one from contracting HIV.   

I agree a framework of "pass/fail" is harsh but don't think that was the intention of the original post.

Boo

String up every aristocrat!
Out with the priests and let them live on their fat!





Everything I do, say, think, excrete, secrete, exude, ooze, or write © 2007 Sweet Old Boo, Inc.

Offline DanielMark

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Is testing positive a failure on your part, you should have known better?

Not sure what you mean by should have known better, Win.

I tested Poz in 1988, but who knows when I was actually infected? Guess I lived in self-delusion for a long time thinking HIV was something that happened to other people. Lots of possibilities, I suppose.

Shoulda coulda woulda. Hindsight is everything. I got infected and it's a done deal. I'm still here and better educated. That's the more important thing to me.

Daniel
MEDS: REYATAZ & KIVEXA (SINCE AUG 2008)

MAY 2000 LAB RESULTS: CD4 678
VL STILL UNDETECTABLE

DIAGNOSED IN 1988

Offline poet

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  • Poet living and working in Central Maine
Daniel, what I meant up top was the question: should you have known better than do such and such (i.e. unsafe sex) given that the information was around, if, of course, it was around in your community, at the time of your infection.  I can't thank everyone enough for the comments and seriously hope that no one thought that I was trying to get anyone to blame himself.  What is so important to me, going forward, is that guys who are negative get what our thought process was, knowing that we are all now positive, hoping that if they share this thought process our explanations, are thinking about things after the fact can, perhaps, if we are lucky, stop them.  It's one thing to be told what constitutes safe sex.  It's another thing, a much deeper thing, to see the human beings making human choices.  It is an honor to be communicating with such people as today's posters.  Win
Winthrop Smith has published three collections of poetry: Ghetto: From The First Five; The Weigh-In: Collected Poems; Skin Check: New York Poems.  The last was published in December 2006.  He has a work-in-progress underway titled Starting Positions.

Offline bocker3

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Win,

I will answer this question, but first I have to ask.....  What is up with all of your probing questions?  Are you trying to gather material for a book?  What is your intent?  I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with your questions, whatever the reason (I'm all for more self-reflection) -- but it would be interesting to understand your motivatioin.

Now to your question......

I spent many months beating myself up over my status.  "I had the knowledge." "I had the education.", "What the hell was I thinking?" etc, etc.  I don't know why I started to let down my guard after many years of always being safe (except with my partner of 16 yrs -- who, thankfully, remains negative).  Why did I let these few people fuck me without a condom, why did I fuck those few without one -- the conversations and berating went on in my head for too long.  I have come to a point of acceptance (most days anyway -- I still keep my whip nearby for occasional beatings).  I did what I did and I got what I got.  I can't change it and guilt is NOT very useful (despite my Catholic upbringing).  I'm moving forward -- my partner has forgiven me and I think I've finally forgiven myself -- although I'm still in therapy just to be sure!
So, bottomline -- Yes, it was a failure on my part.  Yes, I should have known better.  Now I am HIV+ and I need to accept this new reality and move on.

Mike

Offline Longislander

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HIV/Aids to me was something people got in the 80's and 90''s. Those few I know with it have had it for a very long time.

I too was under the impression you could tell just by looking at someone.

I am only a bottom(vers) in my LTR's (and I have never used a condom with either of those guys).

The guy I got it from wanted to penetrate me, but I knew it wouldn't work, but I let him try. After a few extremely unsuccessful minutes( I'm talking steel trap door slammed shut), he stayed back there and came on the top part of my ass. I can only guess his semen slid down too far before i caught it all. Man I can remember those moments like it was an hour ago.

I don't and haven't really beaten myself up over this.

I knew this man only in passing at the store I frequent near my house. After a year or so, suddenly he seemed to linger with my change, and look me straight in the eye. I always wondered why and if he wanted something, he could just walk on over to my house to get it. (a young cutie I wouldn't pass up). This went on for many many more months.

Well he stopped working there. Over a year later, someone knocked on my door. Guess who it was. He was so nervous about it, that he asked if "Karen" was home-lol. Oddly enough, that's my tenants name, so I directed him to her door. He looked puzzled, and we started chatting about where he'd been. Eventually one thing led to another and I figured out what he was there for. Like a gay fairy tale. There had beenmany nights I'd see him outside the store and wish he'd walk on over.

Mind you, at that moment he knocked on the door, I was intensely involved with something on the computer, and almost didn't bother with the door (I usually don't, I know if someone's supposed to be here).

Point of this?-HIV came knocking at my door. I had already decided a month prior, after a full summer, that there would be no more meaningless fooling around for awhile. I wasn't going to go looking for sex.

I HAVE to believe it was destined to be for whatever the hell reason.

I really didn't think I had done anything too risky. Do I know better now-of course.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2006, 10:55:50 pm by Longislander »
infected 10/05 diagnosed 12-05
2/06   379/57000                    6/07 372/30500 25%   4/09 640/U/32% 
5/06   ?? /37000                     8/07 491/55000/24%    9/09 913/U/39%
8/06   349/9500 25%              11/07 515/68000/24     2/10 845/U/38%
9/06   507/16,000 30% !          2/08  516/116k/22%    7/10 906/80/39%
12/06 398/29000 26%             Start Atripla 3/08
3/07   402/80,000 29%            4/08  485/undet!/27
4/07   507/35,000 25%            7/08 625/UD/34%
                                                 11/08 684/U/36%

Offline Mouse

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I'm sixteen. Since I was like 11 years old they crammed safe sex stuff into my brains and the brains of my classmates. I had a health/sex education class every year since seventh grade, and we went on field trips to learn about STDs and the human body starting from fifth grade.

I always had access to condoms. I saw billboards about HIV testing and prevention along the highways driving in the car since I can remember.

I remember in 8th grade, we watched a video in health class about HIV. There was some guy in it talking about how he got it from his boyfriend, who afterwards died. And he spoke about how he felt as though if he was able to keep one kid from getting HIV that he wouldn't be a waste, or a failure, or something like that.

So, yeah. I feel like a fuck up. And I feel like I failed a lot of people.

I remember growing up and hearing about kids dying in my schools. Car crashes, shootings. Things like that. I just never thought kids got HIV. I knew it could happen, but I didn't think it could happen here. But I guess I made it happen myself. So I don't know.

I have a lot of guilt.

Offline aztecan

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Guilt is an unfortunate emotion, created by piotists to control the masses.

No, I didn't write it, but I believe it.

If my first doc was right and I was infected in 1980, it was still the dark ages when nobody knew anything was going on.

Does that make me innocent? Hardly. I was young, gay and wanted every man I saw. I had intimate relations with many of them, often without learning too much about them, such as their names.

Would I do that today were I again young? I would like to hope I wouldn't, but I can't make any promises.

I am human and find myself loaded with human frailties. The day I become perfect, I will expect weekly tithes from all of you.

HUGS,

Mark
"May your life preach more loudly than your lips."
~ William Ellery Channing (Unitarian Minister)

Offline RobT

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All-
Yes, I shud have known better. I failed a lot of ppl during the time that I met my longtime bf. I was in Amsterdam 2 yrs ago and went to a suna cuz it was so cold outside. Being stationed in Bahrain, everything seems cold. I was only in Amsterdam for a few days, but I can pinpoint the exact timeframe that it happened. True I had unsafe sex. I just had the thinking that most ppl do that it will never happen to me. I thought that I was safe. I usually am safe. I don't know y that day that I strayed from my safe sex guidlines. I guess mb the guy was hawt, but that shud not b an excuse. It was my doing. I do feel guilty about it.
When I did meet my longtime bf, we discussed unsafe sex, but he wanted to get testing done to make sure that we were both neg. I respected his decision cuz I believed I was at the time.
I got tested last August. I wanted to surprise him w/ the news that he was wanting. Unfortunately the result came back pos. I was riddled w/ guilt for as long as I can remember...still am. That was the toughest month of my life and the mobile phone call that I made to tell my bf. He was appalled of my result. I kept on hoping that it was a "false positive", so I took test after test, all coming back w/ the same result.
I contacted the guy whom I had unsafe sex w/. When I told him my result, he claimed he was pos also. BINGO, I knew exactly who it was. He said that he had an 'undetectable VL and that he believed I was pos at that time.
I feel so guilty and so ashamed for that evening in Amsterdam. I wish I never went there.
I failed. The messages of safe sex were always there and I belonged to almos every gay group online that had any reference to HIV and medical issues. The messages were there, I failed to listen. I failed and feel so ashamed about it.

RobT

Current meds: Truvada/Sustiva
VL: undetectable
CD4: 564
Current meds: Atripla
VL: undetectable
CD4: 630

Offline northernguy

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Is there anything really to be gained by trying to assign ourselves blame?  I'm not sure its a healthy thing to do.  In my case it came from confusing "low risk" activity with 'no risk" activity.
Apr 28/06 cd4 600 vl 10,600 cd% 25
Nov 8/09 cd4 510 vl 49,5000 cd% 16
Jan 16/10 cd4 660 vl 54,309 cd% 16
Feb 17/10 Started Atripla
Mar 7/10 cd4 710 vl 1,076 cd% 21
Apr 18/10 cd4 920 vl 268 cd% 28
Jun 19/10 cd4 450 vl 60 cd% 25
Aug 15/10 cd4 680 vl 205 cd% 27
Apr 3/11 cd4 780 vl <40 cd% 30
Jul 17/11 cd4 960 vl <40 cd%33
April 15/12 cd4 1,010 vl <40 cd% 39
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Oct 19 cd4 1,110 vl <40 cd% 41

Offline OzPaul

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Curious question

What's the point in asking  ? Self blame ? Self doubt ?  lowered self esteem. What do WE have to gain from such a question, really.

Since you asked , 1981, NYC, where the shit hit the fan quickly, horrifically. WE did not know.

Such a question only seeks to lessen us, not heal, soothe, calm or enlighten.

Next question Poet.

Offline Longislander

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Such a question only seeks to lessen us, not heal, soothe, calm or enlighten.

I can't necessarily agree with that.
How many who may feel shame or guilt have actually spoken those words to anyone. Maybe writing it helped a little. I'm no professional, but I think you have to acknowledge those feelings before you can do anything about it. Suppressing them is not good.
infected 10/05 diagnosed 12-05
2/06   379/57000                    6/07 372/30500 25%   4/09 640/U/32% 
5/06   ?? /37000                     8/07 491/55000/24%    9/09 913/U/39%
8/06   349/9500 25%              11/07 515/68000/24     2/10 845/U/38%
9/06   507/16,000 30% !          2/08  516/116k/22%    7/10 906/80/39%
12/06 398/29000 26%             Start Atripla 3/08
3/07   402/80,000 29%            4/08  485/undet!/27
4/07   507/35,000 25%            7/08 625/UD/34%
                                                 11/08 684/U/36%

Offline newt

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'Stray' is extremely loaded.  I was in love, oh how in love, and knew my man was positive, n fucked him without a condom.  I can still remember the sweat on his back, and how close n intense we were, and after sitting in the 11am sun slanting through the banana trees of his sister's garden up on the Berea in Durban, SA.  The emotions were complex: risk, recklessness, freedom, intimacy, guilt, uncertainty, strength, amazement, conspiracy etc, as we talked it over, but before and after all this a big "YES!" between us both, after 4 yrs of being together.  I would do it again.

- matt

Now playing: the alarm on my clock, people, time to get dressed proper like n get on the train n be normal
"The object is to be a well patient, not a good patient"

Offline poet

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To Mike, and others who keep asking me similarly worded questions: I will answer this question, but first I have to ask.....  What is up with all of your probing questions?  Are you trying to gather material for a book?  What is your intent?  I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with your questions, whatever the reason (I'm all for more self-reflection) -- but it would be interesting to understand your motivatioin.

Having pushed myself to finally get a third book (collection of poetry) out after ten years, I felt that the least I could do to promote it was via the internet, hence the note with my profile.  As best I can recall, I have only introduced hiv and AIDS in my work where it connected with me or 'me' the me in my work.  So please, all, know that the questions and answers have nothing to do with writing material.  It's using the other side of the brain, not the creative one and the two don't speak to each other.

Probe, I think, might be the key word.  Having facilitated a support group, having been positive since the 1980's, I am doing or posting, the way I think, trying to get us in, trying to allow us to get beneath but only when and if we feel like going there.  I couldn't post this: 'I feel like I failed when I tested postive,' because I, personally, don't feel that way and I can't post what I don't feel or what isn't true.  But were I to stop a post because of this and not try to rephrase it, I would block the right, the option for others who post here to feel that they failed or didn't fail, to express what they feel about testing positive.  I also, again, believe that this is critical to reaching negative men and women who may access our writings, to get into our heads, 'what were we thinking, given what we knew (if we did, of course) because simply telling what we did doesn't get the whole thing across.  I know that no one is forced to post.  I hope that anyone who chooses to post is, as I asked elsewhere, getting something back from posting, is hearing himself or herself speak. Not the skin level person we meet in public, but the real person underneath that skin.  Win
Winthrop Smith has published three collections of poetry: Ghetto: From The First Five; The Weigh-In: Collected Poems; Skin Check: New York Poems.  The last was published in December 2006.  He has a work-in-progress underway titled Starting Positions.

Offline RobT

  • Member
  • Posts: 319
I know that 'stray' sounds incredibly loaded. But I feel that I failed cuz I did not listen to the safe sex messages that we around me and on the websites that I had since joined. I always dreamed of being intimate and having that feeling w/ some1 incredbile whom I love. I met my man, but I wud not even dare of being that close and intimate w/ him unless a vaccine comes out.
I guess the fear of infecting him is just too gr8 that the it outweighs the thrill of having unsafe sex w/ him.

RobT

Current meds: Truvada/Sustiva
VL: undetectable
CD4: 564
Current meds: Atripla
VL: undetectable
CD4: 630

Offline poet

  • Member
  • Posts: 934
  • Poet living and working in Central Maine
I can remember thoughtful guys telling me that they felt wearing a condom during sex was a true barrier, that only raw sex could move sex into total intimacy, being one with one.  That they couldn't feel absolutely connected to another person during sex wearing a condom.  I can remember other thoughtful guys wistfully feeling that they were missing something by wearing a condom.  All that early gay literature (dating myself to pre-internet) of raw sex, multilple partners, etc.  Neither group were affected by drugs or alcohol.  They clearly, rationaly, thought that they knew what they needed.  And who was going to be there, in a bedroom or where ever, saying, 'Wait!'  Win
Winthrop Smith has published three collections of poetry: Ghetto: From The First Five; The Weigh-In: Collected Poems; Skin Check: New York Poems.  The last was published in December 2006.  He has a work-in-progress underway titled Starting Positions.

 


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