Possibly dating someone HIV+?
Melkster
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have a (gay) friend, who I chat with alot and give advice to and whatnot. He's found this nice guy. Cute. Funny. Smart. Respectful. All that jazz. They've been on four or five dates at this point, over the course of a month or so. He really likes him.
At their last meeting, he told my friend he was HIV+. (They haven't had sex, btw.)
So.
That changes things.
Or does it?
Anyway, I'm not sure what to tell my friend. Does he continue with his pursuit? What does this change, if anything? Does anyone have any personal experience with this sort of thing? I'm pretty much totally clueless.
At their last meeting, he told my friend he was HIV+. (They haven't had sex, btw.)
So.
That changes things.
Or does it?
Anyway, I'm not sure what to tell my friend. Does he continue with his pursuit? What does this change, if anything? Does anyone have any personal experience with this sort of thing? I'm pretty much totally clueless.
Melkster on
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safe sex, if he's on retrovirals, makes the chance of hiv infection functionally zero, and i'm counting condom failure.
I really really really don't want to recommend something to my friend that will kill him.
You should really get your friend in here to ask the first question. It's worded as though you've come in here to ask permission to try to stop him.
As for the second question, nothing changes for you. You still have a gay friend and he's free to date whoever he wants.
You should not presume anything about my intentions other than what was fucking stated. Obviously my friend can do whatever the fuck he wants. I'm not in a position to stop him. But he is a friend, who has come to me asking for my thoughts, and I don't really know what to tell him. I've told him that I don't know what to tell him. I'd like to tell him more than just that.
If you don't really have anything helpful to say, just get the fuck out of this thread.
... someone had a bad morning.
The chance of HIV transmission is actually quite low, even without a condom. Vaginal sex is around 1 in 10,000, though anal is higher. Now, I'm not sure I'd call that "functionally zero" and I haven't found any writing that says that retrovirals decrease the chance of infection, so I'll second the call for geckahn to provide data.
It'd be an entirely different question if it was "My (gay) best friend just told me he has HIV. Should I stop being friends with him?" or something like that. But starting a romantic relationship with someone with HIV...I can't imagine a single reason to do it.
As for your questions, only your friend knows if this piece of information changes the way he feels about the guy. Really fucking honestly, no matter what your friend ends up deciding, props to the guy for telling him BEFORE they slept together. I have a friend who slept with a guy for several months... and months later got a call from a DIFFERENT guy telling him that the guy he'd slept with had HIV.
Be supportive, and tell him that you're with him no matter what he decides, but it's also okay to let him know that you're concerned for his safety and that if he decides to keep seeing Mr. X, you'd like to see him take every precautionary step he can to take care of himself and make sure he stays healthy.
That's stunningly good news when you consider that, just 15 years ago, doctors generally believed you had about 10 years to live once you were diagnosed with HIV.
http://www.thebody.com/content/art52963.html
I don't think people should rush to judge others or dispense advice without doing any fact checking at all.
A lot depends on how quickly he was diagnosed, and obviously your friend would want to get tested regularly but HIV isn't generally the death sentence it once was.
This post is perfect. Or would have been, in 1981. In 2009 it's just fucking retarded.
Good luck getting help when you respond like this.
Offer your opinion. If you don't know what to say wait until you know in your heart what you want to say.
Whatever we tell you will be OUR thoughts, what you are looking for has to be more personal.
Do... do you know how HIV is transmitted?
Face Twit Rav Gram
The problem is that in a seriously long-term relationship, perfect-use statistics for condoms usually end up not applying. Does anyone have any break-downs between perfect-use predictions and real-use predictions?
Apparently not, but as I said, I don't know anything beyond the absolute basics...and by absolute basics, I mean what was taught to us in 5th grade (circa 1993ish). But my understanding is that, in addition to dirty needles and blood transfusions, HIV can be transmitted sexually, and therefore could be a problem in an adult relationship.
Look, the guy asked for advice. That's mine. I'm not saying lock HIV-infected folk up in a cage somewhere...I'm saying that if my friend said they were thinking of dating someone with HIV, I would try to convince them not to.
"The correct and consistent use of latex condoms reduces the risk of sexual transmission of HIV by about 85%.[32] However, spermicide may actually increase the transmission rate."
That is significantly more than a functional zero, in my admittedly non-expert opinion.
Do you have a list of traits you find unacceptable in a prospective date? It's easy to make grand statements but no one is perfect and painting the world black and white will lead to missed opportunities and sadness.
If this was a one night stand, I'd say go for it, but long-term... eh. I wouldn't, unless I was batshit crazy for the person.
Chances are, he'll know before he ends up catching anything anyway, so this is probably a non-issue.
We're talking also in combination with the proper medication. HIV is transmitted via blood. I can drink the piss, spit, and cum of someone with full blown AIDS and as long as they aren't spitting, ejaculating, or peeing blood, I'll be fine.
If you have an undetectable viral load, it correspons with a significatly lower chance of infection. And just so we're clear the ifnection rate per single episode of sex with an untreated hiv positive individual is like 1 in 10,000 for vaginal, bit higher in anal. But HIV is terrible at spreading itself.
Swiss HIV experts have produced the first-ever consensus statement to say that HIV-positive individuals on effective antiretroviral therapy and without sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are sexually non-infectious.
and another relevant quote:
But...seriously...where the fuck WAS I?
I think he is pretty goddamn aware that there are health risks. I don't think anyone goes into a relationship with an HIV+ person thinking, good thing there's no way I'll ever catch HIV! Which is why the OP is asking for specific data on the statistics of HIV infection in This Modern World. Which, as it turns out, you know nothing about!
Good link geckahn.
No worries man. Being HIV+ will surely change the dynamics of a relationship, no one is arguing that it's unimportant, but (don't take this as a personal afront) you seem to be someone who is so freaked out by HIV that they would feel weird hugging or kissing someone who is HIV+.
But yes, it is possible to date, marry and even have sex with someone who is HIV positive safely. Personally, I would tell your friend to keep taking this relationship one day at a time and see where it goes and see how comfortable he is along the way. If he ever gets uncomfortable he can end the relationship.
Also, someone being HIV positive would not be an instant relationship killer for me.
1) What types of sexual activities result in how much of a chance of infection? I get the general idea that unprotected anal intercourse with an infected male carries a massive risk. Probably somewhere in the midst of 10%, so the internet tells me. Using a condom helps drastically. But condoms fail occasionally, so what then? And then there's oral sex, which Google suggests that a chance of infection is small. But it's greater than zero.
Thanks to geckahn, I have this article which tells me that someone is probably not infectious if they have HIV and are on these anti-viral drugs. That's quite incredible. I'm going to need to follow up with this.
2) The personal thoughts of people who have actually been confronted with these situations in real life. What did you do? Why or why not?
I want to come at him with real data as well as personal information so he can make an informed decision.
Of course, as I have said, I support my friend no matter what.
OK, I'm going to have to strongly disagree here.
HIV is a death sentence. I don't care if the Russian Roulette revolver is a 6 round gun with one live bullet or a 10,000 round gun with a live bullet, you do NOT fuck around when it comes to AIDS because it's a death sentence. Why would anyone want that hanging over their head in a relationship??
A 5-second orgasim isn't that important.
I can't see how having sex with an AIDS infected person can be a good idea.
Margaret Thatcher
Just thought it was fitting to the question at hand.
Unrelated; I live like 2 blocks from where that picture was taken.
Edit: which isn't to say that I'd necessarily date, marry or sleep with someone I knew to be HIV+, but I also see the side that we've made remarkable steps in learning to control the disease and allow people who have it as much of a life as possible, rather than the "you will die in 5-10 years" terror of the 80's.
Also, I've found this thread informative in regards to the current statistical risks of such a scenario.
Learning to drive is a death sentence. Your odds of dying in a car accident are better than one in 10,000, every year. Your odds of getting HIV in a year of having sex, using a condom, with a retroviral-treated HIV+ person are much lower than that. By which I mean they are zero if the HIV+ person is responsible about there medical therapy. Did you actually read the thread, or did you just vomit your opinion all over us?
And yet, being a fucking idiot is not a death sentence, fortunately for you. Did you even read the articles already in the thread refuting this knee-jerk bullshit?
"The surest way to avoid transmission of HIV is to abstain from sexual intercourse or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and you know is uninfected."
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/condom.htm
Margaret Thatcher
Um. Yes.
The surest way to avoid dying in a car crash is to never get in a car.
The surest way to avoid dying while skiing is to not go skiing.
The surest way to avoid being struck by lightning is to never go outside in a thunderstorm.
The surest way to avoid a random freak-of-nature death is to live in a steel bunker with its own life support system, padded walls and floors, and no objects above head level.
We risk our lives every time we do anything. If you had been paying attention to this thread you'd know that it's believed to be medically impossible to transmit an HIV infection while on working retrovirals. If you wish to roll around in your own ignorance, you're doing a damn good job.
Answer: Yes, because I am not a piece of shit.
Since abstinence and monogomy with an uninfected partner are the best ways to avoid HIV, anything less must be a DEATH SENTENCE. It's like playing RUSSIAN ROULETTE, no matter what measures are taken, or any findings otherwise.
Worrying about things where the odds are very slim but not zero omg is something that manifests as mental issues, because nothing in life is risk free. Never going outside isn't a way to live your life. Never having a relationship again because you are HIV+ is not a life either, and it's a bitch trying to get over that when there is still ignorance about it.
I haven't been in a situation where this has come up, but if it would I would be sure to give it serious thought and not just run away on first instinct. Jesus, there are sex acts I've been involved with that surely have had a higher chance of injury/death than proper HIV prevention incurs.
Is there an inherent risk in dating an infected person? Yes. Is it an instant death sentence? No.