HIV Criminalization & The Bareback Community
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3 December 2010 | 22 Comments
The criminalization of HIV is a huge problem – especially for the bareback community because so many in the bareback community are poz and bareback sex is the leading cause of HIV infection. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now you know I’m a huge advocate for personal responsibility. I believe it’s the neg guy’s responsibility to ask about status and protect himself as necessary. And I believe it’s the poz guy’s responsibility to not lie when a sex partner asks about his status (evading the question I can sorta understand in some situations, but outright lies are a huge no-no).
The problem is that too often the law doesn’t work that way – remarkably the neg guy isn’t responsible for his own health – all the blame gets put on the poz guy who can get sent off to jail because he didn’t answer a question that was never asked. But not only that… Poz guys can get put in jail even if there was no harm done and his accuser is still HIV negative.
The impact of stigma on the lives of real people is the topic in this week’s In The Life broadcast and they focus a lot on the criminalization of HIV. Take a few minutes and watch the video…
Continued in part two…
If you think the status quo is OK because a few states have gay marriage, think again. The program pointed out that Iowa has gay marriage, but they also have one of the most draconian HIV criminalization laws in the US.
With the US swinging right politically we’re going to see more of this sort of thing. While being a vocal radical isn’t everyone’s style, take the little day-to-day steps that, together, can make a big difference. Here’s a map showing the states that have criminalized HIV. Next time you take a vacation – go to one of the white states. New York and New England are a great place to go. 🙂 Or if you’re thinking of moving – pick a white state.
Even if you’re not poz you should care about this because people you know are poz and (especially if you’re a barebacker) you could be poz at some point.
And don’t forget to bring HIV criminalization up in conversations with friends. Tell your friends the stories you saw in the videos… It could be you in those videos or it could be one of your friends…
I don’t agree at all. Someone who knows or suspects they are positive has the responsibility to prevent others from getting infected. To knowingly infect someone because they didn’t ask the right question or acted foolishly is reprehensible and evil. Using your logic, I guess it would be OK to go into someone’s house and steal all their stuff because they left the door unlocked, right?
Criminalization is problematic, but laws should exist to protect people who unknowingly have sex with +HIV persons-who are aware of their status-and don’t give that information before sex or before donating organs and other tissues.
The person who doesn’t ask prior to bareback sex is irresponsible, but the other person is criminally negligent. I also fail to imagine a situation, besides possibly self-incrimination, where evading the question is understandable. What a reckless thing to say.
They’re negligent because they are knowingly exposing someone to a pathogen that is life altering and potentially life threatening.
The assumption that the other person knows/suspects that their partner is HIV+ and doesn’t care or doesn’t mind the risk is negligent.
A poz friend gave me this sage advice years ago: the only time you can trust a guy when he tells you his status is when he says he is POZ.”
Secondly, I’m not all that sure that a low viral load “protects” a negative partner. This is an extension of “HIV science” that I don’t think could even be adequately tested to know if it is true. I have noticed that poz guys are almost always bottoms when with a negative guy (but vers or a top when they ARE SURE the other is poz). That may be the best protection of all.
“@JJ – Why is the poz person criminally negligent? I don’t get it? Bareback sex is high risk, it’s completely understandable if he assumes the bottom is already poz.”
That’s exactly why it’s negligence, not premeditation. If you know that something within your purview poses a risk but choose not to disclose that risk, that means you were negligent when the sh*t hits the fan. That’s why doctors can be sued for malpractise when they didn’t counsel you on the risks of a procedure and why employers have to put up warning signs in factories.
I think that (in most cases anyway) the legal definition of intention doesn’t apply here, so it’s not assault or battery or anything – and it shouldn’t be treated as such. Also – because there’s no intent involved – I find it wrong to jail someone if there was no seroconversion. In reality there is no such thing as attempted negligence. But if there was a seroconversion, negligence perfectly fits the bill.
It’s not just HIV. In lots of states, health care providers are required to report you by name to the state board of health if you contract any STD at all. A state bureaucrat will then call you, try to get you disclose the names of your partners and threaten you with getting locked away for your own good if you’re too much of a repeat “offender.”
So what’s the end result? People are scared to get treated. And suddenly a disease that’s easy to get rid of if you nip it in the bud becomes a major condition.
It’s almost as if they want to deny medical treatment to those whose morals they disapprove of.
This is one more reason not to get tested. An HIV test doesn’t find ANY virus, only antibodies. Even the inserts of the tests themselves state that this test does not diagnose someone with HIV. Uh…
They are highly unreliable and unspecific. Taking a test with such a misunderstood stigma ends up ruining lives.
@LLM Except that untreated HIV is still a rather nasty death sentence.
And (recent news about Truvada as a prophylactic notwithstanding), you won’t get the drugs that will keep you alive without a positive test.
Like I said, the whole system really seems set up to deny you medical care if you don’t conform to the right moral views.
@Matt I know several ‘poz’ guys who are not on meds and are quite healthy. The CDC estimates hundreds of thousands who ‘don’t know’. This has been going on for years (millions), yet there isn’t an AIDS epidemic. Where is this nasty death sentence? Yes, people get sick – then treat that symptom. Not the so called HIV. Some people are better on meds. Others not. Even the discoverer of HIV, Luc Montagnier, has said you can be exposed to HIV over and over and not be chronically infected. He says if you have a good immune system, your body can naturally can get rid of HIV. The biggest killer of people with HIV? Liver disease/toxicities due to prolonged use of meds. Other complications, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, are directly linked to ARV’s. They aren’t the magic cure people think. T-cell and viral loads #’s flucuate (even on the same day) and don’t mean a whole lot.
It should be said that Montagnier said Gallo never isolated HIV as a pure virus. Gallo’s HIV tests have non-specific protein strips that react to many different things. They are diluted more than any other antibody test, which is suspect by that alone. Everyone is HIV poz – if it wasn’t diluted. You just have to have a high amount of antibodies. And those antibodies can be from anything, including the flu or sperm, which is a well known mitotic agent and immonusuppresive – especially from people who have more antigens in their body. It can easily enter the blood stream anally. This is not HIV, it’s oxidation. I’d recommend bottoms to take a break now and then, to improve their immune system.
The point is those tests are unreliable and prove nothing. Unfortunately, most people and laws buy into the mainstream media and AIDS industry. No matter if it’s poor, unchecked science.
@Raw – Your average HIV doctor doesn’t look at cellular particals and isolate a virus. Medical scientists do. There have only been two true attempts to isolate HIV as a pure virus, using electron microscopy with a 1.16 density gradient providing published pictures – Gallo in the 80’s and the last being in 1997 by a France/German team, who only found a ‘mock virus’ and cellular debris. The particals lacked knobs, which are essential to latch onto cells. HIV has never been shown how it kills T-Cells, in vivo or vitro. Actually, that model has been abandoned. It is still a mystery as to how HIV causes disease.
As for protease inhibitor meds, I would only take them if I was hospitalized and then stop. They are similar to chemo, which effects most cells in your body. If these are taken for a long period, it’s quite hard on the body, especially the liver and heart. No cancer patient does chemo for the rest of their lives. Why should people take agressive meds when HIV has yet to have been published as a proven pathogen with EM and the tests are so unreliable (even the packets they come in, the manufacturer say they don’t diagnose HIV)?
@Raw – It occured to me that you might be talking about the ‘viral load’, which is measured by PCR (polymerase chain reaction). Funny, the guy who won the Nobel prize for inventing this test says it is pretty much useless for measuring HIV. Yet, it is used all time. It amplifies what’s in blood, but it is not specific. It could measure foreign proteins and celluar debris, plus any retrovirus. Even people who aren’t poz have copies of this so called virus. Ha. HIV is a retrovirus, which humans are full of and have never killed anyone. Most with AIDS have mycobacteria or fungal diseases (PCP, Candida, thrush, etc…, which point to oxidation, not a virus that causes immune disfunctions. Of course these people are poz because fungal antibodies bind to the proteins in the HIV test kits. If one looks at published medical date, HIV is barely found in AIDS sufferers. Only using the hugely amplified PCR test does it look it. Montangier even admits it’s not only his HIV, but that oxidation that occurs in certain lifestyles. Which is why he uses a variety of antioxidants, including fermented payapa, to reverse symptoms.
Criminalization is the reason many don’t GET tested!
@LLM
How HIV causes diseases is not a mystery. Please do not preach denialist propaganda when I live among pozzies. Not eeveryone is an adult who can make their own decision based on science facts. Stop quoting HIV denialist’s website for whatever motives or whatever psychosis you have in mind. Christine Maggiore, her daughter and millions in South Africa have already pad the price.
MMN – please provide a paper that shows exactly how HIV causes any disease. I am not preaching. Just stating my opinion. You can have the opposite one. It’s a free country. Not everyone is an adult? What? Most people having sex are adults and have minds that can think for themselves. Not bow down to what they’ve been spoonfed. Scientific facts point towards oxidation. Not a virus. If you actually look at the autopsies of Christine and Eliza Jane, they reveal exactly why they passed away. And none of it due to any virus. Research it. Don’t just believe some media report.
LLM – WOW, I have never though in this day and age that anyone would deney that HIV is a real virus. True HIV has never caused one death, death comes from secondary infections that the body can’t fight off because the HIV virus has destroyed the CD4 cell. And as far as Christine Maggiore was concerened this came from Wikipedia – Maggiore’s death certificate states that the cause of death was disseminated herpes virus infection and bilateral pneumonia, with oral candidiasis as a contributing cause, all of which can be related to HIV infection.
Testing for HIV does not test for the virus but the antibodies left over from when the HIV virus enters the CD4 cell. Once you have tested positive then an doctor will test you for your viral load (real count of HIV) and also if your HIV is drug resistant.
I’m even afraid to ask how old you are. I find many “younger” people stupid about HIV and AIDS.
I’m surprised when there isnt a consensus around the criminalization of buggiving. I know someone who was targeted by a buggiver, he said he was definitely neg. They would have sex starting with condoms, but the condoms would mysteriously vanish during sex. The buggiver also gave buddy weed, K, and poppers as part of his attempt to warp his sensibilities. I strongly advocated he sue him, and charge him criminally (he would have been able to get a settlement to compensate him for the presumed cost of HIV on his life) but he had no backbone. Someone else we knew personally got targetted by the same buggiver, and then came down with a serious flu…. Does this seem like criminal act to everyone?
I’m also really stunned that this became a discussion about HIV-denialism… totally off topic, and not what we are discussing here.
PozPositive – Kind of irritating that you think young people are ignorant. I bet you can find more (negative) barebackers who are older then younger
This is a really interesting discussion and a lot of people are obviously very hurt and feel their lifestyles are being judged.
This is my view – feel free to contradict/shout at me! HIV being a virus or not is irrelevant; it leads to death without medication – people who are poz DO have a responsibility to others though. And PozPositive said it, some people are stupid about HIV/AIDS. So don’t spread it – even if they think they want it. Someone has to pay for the meds – whether that be individuals or Healthcare. I’d rather that money spent on finding a cure. We’re just getting over the GAY stigma of HIV/AIDS and the stats of gay men to str8 are falling all the time. Why would we want to turn it back with irresponsibility?