San Francisco Department of Health Endorses Serosorting
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13 February 2007 | 4 Comments
At long last, there is official recognition of serosorting as a way to stay neg – the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SF DPH) has launched a “Disclose HIV” campaign that encourages guys to know their status, talk about status with their sex partners, and stick to guys who have the same HIV status as they do. (read the full story in the Bay Area Reporter)
If you’ve been reading my blog for long you’ll know that this is exactly my approach to HIV prevention, so it’s nice to have some official validation.
Unbelievably, there are poz guys who don’t like the campaign…
As an HIV+ man I find it hard enough to get a date, whether it’s with someone who is poz or negative. The public still discriminates against those of us who are poz and this campaign is only going to encourage more discrimination. (from poz.com)
Oh please… The guy thinks his ability to go out on a date comes before the health of guys who are neg. I wish I could yell and scream directly in his face and tell him what a self-absorbed, pathetic loser he is…
As a neg guy who’s had a poz boyfriend (and stayed by his side until the day he died), let me put this very clearly… Poz guys need to date poz guys – or at least never assume they’re entitled to date neg guys…
If you’re poz and a neg guy decides to date you, great. But in my book it would also be reasonable for him to turn you down simply because your poz. Now, if you’re both neg and one of you becomes poz. Then it depends on the circumstances whether you should break up or stay together. But again, the neg guy always gets to pull that card where he says ‘no’ just because you’re poz. (Though once he knows the facts and commits to you, he should try to stick with you.)
But the bottom line is HIV negative guys have a right to protect their health. If people know their status and stick to other people of the same status HIV, the spread of HIV will slow dramatically.
And this is true for people who use condoms as well those of us who bareback, ’cause condoms aren’t as good as you might think at preventing HIV… It’s still unsafe sex, even if your poz top uses a condom…
ofcourse it limits it, but someone should tell the dude to get over it, try having a disability
Respectfully contra Average J., I would venture to say that HIV infection is in fact a disability, perhaps no longer as spectacular as it once was, or at least not publicly so. HIV is not like diabetes, in spite of the shiny ads for retrovirals that litter our neighborhoods and magazines. Mountain climbing with chronic diarrhea does not sound like a picnic to me.
I would agree, however, that the complaints from Positive people in this instance (or at least the one dude quoted in the post) against serosorting are misplaced. Serosorting, with or without an endorsement, has been happening for awhile. It allows men both positive and negative to negotiate their risk, in an ideal situation with consensus and consent. The problem with serosorting is that many men do not know their status, and don’t want to know. From the straight men fucking on the side to the more openly sexually active, many men do not want to face the test. So they persist in telling themselves and others that they are negative, when in fact they really don’t know.
As Rawtop has always been quite clear about, and I agree with him on this point, knowing one’s status and actively asking and persuing answers with your sex partners is the key to serosorting, that is, if one cares whether one stays negative or preventing another possible exposure to HIV, if one is already positive. What do they do? What is their relative risk? What is that compared to yours? When were they last tested? When were you?
These are really, really hard questions for many men, but if we want to do this right (barebacking, sex in general, whatev), then they are the questions we need to be asking, whether we are positive, negative, or admittedly unknown (which itself is a status, of a sort). My motto, as I head down to the clinic, has always been: “If you wanna play you got to pay,” pay here being the stress and annoyance of getting tested, of having to face up to your practices every three months or so. Taking responsibility for our sexual health and owning one’s choices are two fucking things we *can* do in this truly messed up world. That’s what makes us adults instead of spoiled brats and/or victims.
I agree.
-geekslut