Safe sex and your HIV status

[ladsonbehr49]

I have a question for all and please do not take this the wrong way nor am I trying to start a flame war either but I need to ask this because I have posted other places and the readers took it the wrong way.

For people who are newly infected did you not know that Hiv was around or did you maybe have a lapse in judgement? Lets not forget the other diseases you can receive from another human being.

My question is the following...Why should the govt help you pay for meds when it was your CHOICE to engage in casual sex(safe or otherwise) you knew the risk and yet you engaged and now if you cannot afford it, you want some assistance with keeping you alive when you made the choice to have sex. I myself have only been with 3 men in 12 years and all in a relationship and I choose not to have sex period because of the nuts out there but that is my choice and I have to live with the fact that I am not having fun like the rest of the world but at least I take confort knowing I will die being somewhat healthy..

Like I said, I am not starting a flamewar but just something I wanted to tell your guys and girls on this websight... thank you

 

[DaveyR]

I have a question for all and please do not take this the wrong way nor am I trying to start a flame war either but I need to ask this because I have posted other places and the readers took it the wrong way.

For people who are newly infected did you not know that Hiv was around or did you maybe have a lapse in judgement? Lets not forget the other diseases you can receive from another human being.

My question is the following...Why should the govt help you pay for meds when it was your CHOICE to engage in casual sex(safe or otherwise) you knew the risk and yet you engaged and now if you cannot afford it, you want some assistance with keeping you alive when you made the choice to have sex. I myself have only been with 3 men in 12 years and all in a relationship and I choose not to have sex period because of the nuts out there but that is my choice and I have to live with the fact that I am not having fun like the rest of the world but at least I take confort knowing I will die being somewhat healthy..

Like I said, I am not starting a flamewar but just something I wanted to tell your guys and girls on this websight... thank you

Whilst this in itself could be a very interesting and possibly educational discussion I would hate to see it detract from the above. If you feel this would be better served as a thread in it's own right rather than hijacking the above topic I'd be more than happy to move it to a new thread for you.

 

[ladsonbehr49]

Whilst this in itself could be a very interesting and possibly educational discussion I would hate to see it detract from the above. If you feel this would be better served as a thread in it's own right rather than hijacking the above topic I'd be more than happy to move it to a new thread for you.

please do move it to it's own thread though I am trying to give another view of life and the choices we make.

thank you.

 

[Bbucko]

As there are currently over 2300 people on AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) waiting lists, your distaste for those of us living with HIV will undoubtedly be heartened as more begin dying.

FWIW, I was infected in 1984, before it was called HIV (it was HTLV-3), while drunk, after having brought home someone I should not have.

 

[witch]

Not everyone contacts HIV by unsafe sex, a childhood friend, who yes was gay became infected by a blood transfusion from a minor operation in the 80s. But to my mind , human compassion would make me want to help, so I have no problem if my tax dollars are used

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

I have a question for all and please do not take this the wrong way nor am I trying to start a flame war either but I need to ask this because I have posted other places and the readers took it the wrong way.

For people who are newly infected did you not know that Hiv was around or did you maybe have a lapse in judgement? Lets not forget the other diseases you can receive from another human being.

My question is the following...Why should the govt help you pay for meds when it was your CHOICE to engage in casual sex(safe or otherwise) you knew the risk and yet you engaged and now if you cannot afford it, you want some assistance with keeping you alive when you made the choice to have sex. I myself have only been with 3 men in 12 years and all in a relationship and I choose not to have sex period because of the nuts out there but that is my choice and I have to live with the fact that I am not having fun like the rest of the world but at least I take confort knowing I will die being somewhat healthy..

Like I said, I am not starting a flamewar but just something I wanted to tell your guys and girls on this websight... thank you

Extraordinary, apparently a life of virtual celibacy is preferable to being a complete sexual loving human being, because god forbid! One should ever do anything reckless or stupid and then become a god damned burden on the tax payer! People's lives being the sum of how many pennies and dollars they cost right?

People do countless dangerous and reckless things all the time and end up needing life time medical care and guess what? They don't have HIV. Seriously do you think that a few grimy dollars are so precious that we should begrudge people the necessity of whatever medical treatment might keep them alive and healthy?

There's a little thing called compassion, and for all your self denial and righteousness and for all that you'll live a miserably deprived but healthy and long life (possibly) you show no propensity for compassion, and to live without compassion for others is a life not worth living, however long, healthy and little a burden on the tax payer it might be.

Do I ask why the state should use my taxes to pay for the young man in a hospital after a motorcycle accident who will need lifetime care and huge expense even though he knew riding that bike too fast was dangerous? No I fucking don't, I look at a fellow human being in need of my compassion and understanding regardless of what may have caused his predicament. Because there but for the grace .... go I.


Jesus you didn't want a flame war?

 

[B_Hickboy]

It should be noted that the OP lives in a country that does not have a national health plan.

 

[Bbucko]

Extraordinary, apparently a life of virtual celibacy is preferable to being a complete sexual loving human being, because god forbid! One should ever do anything reckless or stupid and then become a god damned burden on the tax payer! People's live being the sum of how many pennies and dollars they cost right?

Yeah because people don't do countless dangerous and reckless things all the time and end up needing life time medical care and guess what? They don't have HIV. Seriously do you think that a few grimy dollars are so precious that we should begrudge people the necessity of whatever medical treatment might keep them alive and healthy?

There's a little thing called compassion, and for all your self denial and righteousness and for all that you'll live a miserably deprived but healthy and long life (possibly) you show no propensity for compassion, and to live without compassion for others is a life not worth living, however long, healthy and little a burden on the Tax payer it might be.

Do I ask why the state should use my taxes to pay for the young man in a hospital after a motorcycle accident who will need lifetime care and huge expense even though he knew riding that bike too fast was dangerous? No I fucking don't, I look at a fellow human being in need of my compassion and understanding regardless of what may have caused his predicament. Because there but for the grace .... go I.


Jesus you didn't want a flame war?

In the shower on my out the door to a late-ish dinner, it dawned on me that the OP would also agree that anyone injured in a car wreck who was not wearing a safety restraint should be left on the side of the road to die, too.

Though your motorcycle analogy works just as well. It'll be fascinating to see how this thread develops.

 

[beachbum1971]

Isn't contracting the disease punishment enough? I'm not for blindly handing out welfare, but I have enough compassion that I think anyone needing healthcare should be able to apply for help if they have a serious illness.

 

[ladsonbehr49]

I appreciate the insight, I have compassion for the survivors of the 80's but to the ones in this day and age who become infected with all the knowledge we have and yet continue to engage in sex and for whatever reason whether it is a lapse of judgement or just plain foolish thinking, I just do feel they should run to the govt if they cannot afford the meds, that is their problem and not the govt. Aids is completely avoidable and yes I am celebrate by choice....and happy with my decision. And I have noticed with speaking with men who are poz, it would appear that they are not happy because men will not want to date them. I know this is just from what I have heard from others.


n the shower on my out the door to a late-ish dinner, it dawned on me that the OP would also agree that anyone injured in a car wreck who was not wearing a safety restraint should be left on the side of the road to die, too.

Once again, it is a choice if they choose not to wear a seatbelt knowing that the chance of being smashed into or hurt, you made the choice not to wear one and nobody told you not to wear a seat belt.

I do not understand why the human race has a problem with rules and regulations and when the chips are down, I need help with my foolish decisions in life. Sorry guys and gals but I live my life with rules and I make sure that I follow them.

Another instance, if someone is under 21 and the young adult gets preg, I feel they should not ask for a handout to help out taking care of the baby. Get a job and ask your parents or the parents of the father, NOBODY TOLD YOU TO OPEN YOUR LEGS AND GET PREG....I wonder how many young adults would abstain if they knew the govt would not help them with anything? it is the same way with handouts, you must be responsible is all I am saying...but thank you again for your responses.

 

[ladsonbehr49]

my point I am trying to make is that you are responsible for your own actions and if your actions prove to be wrong, why should society pick up the tab for your bad actions?

I doubt anybody will understand this or anything I have to say, human sexuality is too much for the general to ignore...And for the record, I do have men who would go to bed with me, but I tell them no thank you...I am glad I have a strong will to say no and live for another day

 

[HiddenLacey]

In my opinion, NO one deserves to die or be in debt because they cannot afford healthcare. NO one in the entire world should be starving or denied education because they do not have the money, either.

HIV is a disease and it is treatable to a certain extent and everyone deserves a right to medication to get to enjoy their life to the fullest.

If you contracted H1N1 or community aquired pneumonia or TB or anything from being exposed in public you still deserve to be treated. If you stepped out in the road tomorrow and didn't look both ways I would still want you to have treatment if you were hit by a car.

People with HIV are still people. I live in the USA and I cannot wait for everyone to have healthcare even though I work in medicine and I know the government doesn't pay for crap.

Condoms break, people get drunk, shit happens.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

my point I am trying to make is that you are responsible for your own actions and if your actions prove to be wrong, why should society pick up the tab for your bad actions?

I doubt anybody will understand this or anything I have to say, human sexuality is too much for the general to ignore...And for the record, I do have men who would go to bed with me, but I tell them no thank you...I am glad I have a strong will to say no and live for another day

So what the hell are you trying to say? People do dumb as shit things, they always have and they always will. It doesn't change the fact that we owe them the basics of humanity and compassion. Being stupid doesn't make you inhuman, making one bad decision doesn't void your humanity and nor does it void the imperative to show compassion.

 

[Pendlum]

my point I am trying to make is that you are responsible for your own actions and if your actions prove to be wrong, why should society pick up the tab for your bad actions?

I doubt anybody will understand this or anything I have to say, human sexuality is too much for the general to ignore...And for the record, I do have men who would go to bed with me, but I tell them no thank you...I am glad I have a strong will to say no and live for another day

Should someone be responsible for someone else lying to them? Sounds unfair to me.

Personal responsibility is great, but that doesn't mean you literally have to shun someone to death over a bad decisions. It's very cruel and inhumane, much more so than any perceived burn on society by providing for someone who has contracted HIV.

 

[IntoxicatingToxin]

If I'm on government insurance. And I live with another person... and said person gets a cold, which I later catch from them, would one believe that the government shouldn't pay for any medicines I may need to treat said cold because I chose to live with the person who had the cold?

 

[novice_btm]

While I understand wanting to distinguish between the means of acquiring the virus, I'm not sure that it serves much purpose, whether speaking generally, or specifically when it comes to the discussion of government assistance.

Many could flip it around and say that if the government would've been more proactive in stopping the virus in the early days, we wouldn't be in today's situation. The U.S. government didn't get involved in protecting our blood supply for quite a while, not to mention that education was paltry and practically thwarted at the onset. It could be argued that they've reaped what they've sown, and now they, and every single one of us, are paying for it in one way or another.

Still, I do get the want to distinguish transmission methods, and I do get the anger towards certain behaviours. In the early days, a lot of people just didn't know about protecting themselves well enough. However, today, after all of the education, it's tough to understand and pity someone who purposely had themselves infected, or someone who puts up a Craigslist ad saying "Free ass waiting, door is unlocked, come on in, hoping to get anonymously gangbanged". However, there are honest mistakes and accidents. A friend of mine started dating a new guy, they went, were tested, were both clean, started barebacking, not knowing that "new guy" hadn't yet started to seroconvert." The "window" period apparently hadn't closed, and now my friend is poz too. Then, there's "breakage". You can have safer sex, yet still have that mishap. Should the victims of mistakes and accidents be punished for being unintentionally infected, by denial of benefits? I can see that some people would say that it's still their own behaviour that caused these infections, and so they shouldn't come "begging to the government" to help them. OK, fine. So, the innocent child of a vet, went to a government-operated VA hospital, and was infected there (blood transfusion, improperly sterilized medical device, etc.). Can they come "begging" to the government to take care of them? What about rape victims?

If we were to distinguish, and base assistance on method of transmission, wouldn't people just lie anyway? The bottom line, is that distinguishing doesn't really serve any purpose beyond our engaging in a little exercise of superiority and moral bullying.

If you want to get angry, direct it at local governments and school boards, whose only "education" is abstinence, and not even fully addressing just HIV, but all of the other STDs that are out there, especially when they're ones that can be caught from all of the oral sex that people are having, because they were taught to abstain from intercourse. Get angry at the drug companies that sell HIV as a totally manageable "condition", full of para-sailing and mountain climbing, that is when you can afford paying their jacked up prices. Get angry that the people who felt such depression, self-loathing, and lack of self-worth, weren't identified as being "at risk" for engaging in this kind of self-destructive behaviour, by any number of professionals out there. There are plenty of people to be angry with, but I don't think it's the people with the virus. I think it's with the countless institutions and people that basically enabled them to get it.

 

[deleted15807]

Why should the govt help you pay for meds when it was your CHOICE to engage in casual sex(safe or otherwise) you knew the risk and yet you engaged....

Can we extend that to say why should the government (local) pay for firemen to put a fire out at your house? You weren't thinking when you fired up the grill too close to your house and now it's on fire. Clearly it was YOUR fault. Government should let it burn to the ground. Or you had an accident on the highway, you didn't see the car next to you and you hit him and spun out of control. It was your fault. Government should not have to pay for your mistake by coming out to save you with police and rescue.

 

[Bbucko]

Novice-

Though I think I understand why you resurrected this thread instead of having the OP's AIDS Derangement Syndrome infect the HIV/AIDS Treatment thread in progress, I really wish you hadn't. Even with the OP on Ignore, as promised, this thread still gives me a cold chill

Two points on your post, please:

1) Please do not use the words "clean" and "seronegative" synonymously. I know that you did not mean to be offensive, but that's really offensive verbiage;

2) Though I cannot vouch for every single Craig's List ad originator, I can assure you that every profile I see like that on Manhunt (or Adam M4M or BBRT) comes from an HIV+ bottom, whether it says so explicitly or not.

We are now 14+ years into the era of "wonder meds" for HIV, and at least 10 years into the ubiquity of serosorting barebacking among the HIV+. The whole re-infection/super-infection myth has been exposed as just that: a myth. If there were "super-strands" of the virus they would be detected by now, and there haven't been.

Risky BB sex between two consenting HIV+ people can and occasionally will lead to some really nasty and terrible cases of Syphilis and may be partially responsible for the spread of TB* (though TB is also spread through casual contact and Syphilis can be contracted via oral sex* as likely as anal), but after years of being among the most closely-monitored health demographic, no "supervirus" has yet emerged.

*Among many other STIs: all of them, in fact.

Though I'm certain that in this great big world there is every brand of sociopath and self-destructive freak known to man or waiting to be discovered, conscious "bug-chasing", while shocking and showy, is an extreme rarity. Sub-conscious "bug-chasing" via depression or some weird, misguided notion of "fitting in" accounts for a significant proportion of recent infections by young gay/bi men: I have read the research and have interacted with them on AIDSmeds' support fora for years. I even have had articles published where I've written about the demographics of recent infections (in the interest of maintaining my web anonymity, I will not post links to their electronic counterparts).

Honestly, a much greater problem for gay and bi men right now is the scourge of Crystal Methamphetamine, which leads to risky behaviors, a sense of being invincible, elevated thresholds of tolerance for pain, etc. Combining with this is the issue of "slamming" or injecting Meth, especially when needles are shared. The only quicker vector for HIV transmission than unprotected anal sex with an HIV+ partner is IV drug use. But "partying" remains an ubiquitous part of gay life, not just in the US, but throughout Europe, Australia and South America as well (I am unclear about Asia or Africa, where homosexuality isn't as openly tolerated, generally).

If I could wave some magic wand and make Meth disappear forever, I would in a heartbeat. But its use accounts for a much greater percentage of new infections than anyone cares to discuss. As long as drug abuse remains a criminal issue rather than a public health issue, this will sadly continue.

Your final paragraph, BTW, strikes all the right chords.

 

[MarkLondon]

EDIT - I decided to make it a PM rather than a public post.

 

[LPSGeezer]

HIV isn't always contracted by making a dumb choice either, I know someone who got into a fist fight with someone who had (unknown to us) AIDS that attacked him and his knuckle connected with the guys mouth, the guys teeth split his lip and went thru and broke my friends skin on his knuckle, before you know it he became ill with symptoms and it all traced back to getting infected blood in a cut on his knuckle. My friend is not gay btw. I gladly contribute to the health and welfare of those citizens who need medicines to keep them alive for whatever ails them, it is my duty as a human being who has compassion for others to help in any way that I can.

How long have you been ill?

Because something is definitely off.