A few years ago when I was getting tested for AIDS (I had a partner cheat on me with a man and just wanted to make sure I was ok) I asked the nurse if she was still getting a lot of gay men coming to see her since I had heard that sexually transmitted diseases in the gay community were on the rise…especially due to barebacking being so popular. She sighed and said yes…she was diagnosing an alarming number of young gay males in their early twenties who were HIV positive and under the impression that since there were so many cocktails on the market, they wouldn’t get full blown AIDS until they were well into their forties and by that time it wouldn’t matter since they’d be so old they’d rather die anyway.
Shocking attitude I know.
But what shocked me even more was that she said she was also getting a lot of heterosexual females ranging from their teens to their sixties who knew nothing about how AIDS was transmitted or were too shy, or too intimidated to insist that their boyfriends/husbands use a condom…that’s not even mentioning the number of women who were HIV positive because of a cheating partner who had unprotected sex with other women, or in other cases other men.
I understand why AIDS is on the rise in developing countries…but not here in North America where there doesn’t seem to be a lack of information on how to practice safe sex. But perhaps I’m being ignorant. I was a child in the eighties when people were dropping left and right from this disease. Nowadays, but for a few HIV positive people I’ve known in passing, I can’t say I know anyone who has died from AIDS. Maybe that’s why this contagious disease is making a comeback. No one is afraid anymore. We seem to be reacting with more trepidation and hence more precaution towards the H1N1 virus.
So saying the stats are terrifying.
I’m not one to preach on the virtues of safe sex, since I haven’t always practiced safe techniques. However, if I may point out a few things:
- Just because you’re a lesbian doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t get any sexually transmitted infections, including AIDS. Lesbians can sleep with women who sleep with men who sleep with men who do drugs with dirty needles.
- A person doesn’t have to look sick or exhibit any symptoms to be HIV positive or have AIDS.
- Don’t be afraid to use latex gloves and condoms! They come in many pretty colors!
- AIDS is extremely contagious…if you don’t want to think about your own health, can you at least think about others’?
