Disclosing You're HIV+: Risk Rejection, or Prosecution?

From his HIV diagnosis in 1985 until his death in April of 2009, Cass Mann was one of the world's longest-term HIV-positive survivors. He founded Positively Healthy, the UK's only HIV/AIDS charity staffed exclusively by openly gay men, which provided HIV services including education, support, and peer counselling. These videos now archive his wisdom and insight for future generations. Here he talks about disclosure of HIV status before having sex. Disclosure seems like a minefield, but in reality it's really simple. If you are HIV positive and want to have sex with someone, you need to disclose your HIV status to them. Do you tell them and risk rejection, or do you not tell and have your way with them? Most gay men who don't disclose choose not to disclose because they fear rejection. If an HIV positive person doesn't disclose and doesn't use protection (including for oral sex!) and the partner later figures out they contracted HIV as a result, the HIV positive person can be criminally prosecuted in the United Kingdom. It's possible to use DNA sequencing to prove that you contacted HIV from a specific partner. The more partners you infect, the harder it is to legally defend yourself. If you lie about your status, the penalties are harsher. Would you rather risk a simple rejection or a protracted criminal prosecution and a prison sentence? Think about what the stress of publicity and a lengthy prosecution and prison sentence would do to your health. Disclosure is hard, but you have to be clear about the legal issues you face if you don't disclose. People have been prosecuted and imprisoned for failing to disclose and then infecting others. Not disclosing is a criminal act, and if you're HIV positive, it is your responsibility to disclose and also to use a condom every time even after you disclose. Google "HIV criminal transmission" or "HIV deliberate infection" to see cases of successful prosecutions and to familiarise yourself with the law in this regard. So disclose each and every time. If the prospective partner says no, don't have a problem with it. And remember there are highly pleasurable ways of having sex that don't carry the risk of HIV transmission. For more information, visit http://www.AIDSvideos.org/. This video is freely downloadable from http://www.archive.org/details/DisclosureOfHivStatusWouldYouRatherRiskAReject... . [Do you want to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS? Are you fluent in a language other than English? Then volunteer to translate our videos into other languages! Click http://AIDSvideos.org/translate.shtml to to learn how you can help!!! © Copyright 2008-2011 Global Lifeworks. All rights reserved. This work is licensed to be used for non-commercial purposes under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.]

Category:

Education

Tags:

• HIV
• AIDS
• disclosure
• status
• criminal
• prosecution
• deliberate
• infection
• STI
• barebacking
• unprotected
• sex
• risk
• safer
• positive

[PhilipRochester]

To tell or not to tell? To be or not to be prosecuted? To tell after the event is to risk being successfully prosecuted, as has been the case every time such cases have gone to Court. I now disclose each and every time as the worst that can happen is that I receive a "No" and would rather receive this than face a criminal prosecution if my sexual partner decides I infected him and if genetic DNA sequencing proves this in Court. As the man with HIV it is my sole responsibility to disclose to him.

[joshuaeben]

In fact, research shows that it is riskier to sleep around with people of an unknown status than with someone who is HIV positive and is in treatment. The simple reason is that when someone is being properly treated it is very hard for them to give HIV to anyone. So hard in fact that the average person is more likely to encounter some who is positive and doesn't know it than getting it from them. Also known seropositives generally practise consistent safe sex.

[Dooont]

why would you want to be quarantined? Are you saying that you wouldnt disclose it to anyone and intentionally pass it on to others? that mean you have low morals, in that case you shouldnt be quarantined instead you should have some morals. and by the way, saying that people with hiv aids should be quarantined is a very low thing to say!

[philip2260]

@AIDSvideos 2.7m to 2.3m is good. but your relying on a lot of people, not to spread that diseases. i cant see that happing. can you honestly see people not spreading it if they knew? in our sexual fuelled culture people will not stop having sex. thats also why we have so many abortions. people live for the moment. quarantine them would work, and is the only real answer to stopping this. relying on people never works. read of how china dealt with its opium problem in 1941. and the good its done

[AIDSvideos]

@philip2260: It's true that getting people to change their behavior is hard, but it's not impossible. It's working. The number of new HIV infections per year worldwide peaked around 2000 at 2.7M and has dropped since to 2.3M. That's progress. Evidence is that young people in Uganda waited longer to start having sex and reduced the number of their partners in response to the threat of HIV, contributing to a drop in the HIV prevalence rate there.

[philip2260]

@AIDSvideos also if everyone had 1 partner and never sleep with anyone else, then all these stds would stop, but that aint going to happen and neither are condoms and people telling others they might be hiv+

[philip2260]

@AIDSvideos er.. the problem is people want their cake and eat it too. when i listen to this video and others by this guy. you really get a feel of some problems in the gay community. some people will not use condoms (thats why most have aids) people dont tell others that they are or might be hiv+. and its not just gays its our community. but i think the gay community has more stds than straight.

[AIDSvideos]

HIV- people have the right to be informed of prospective partners' HIV status in advance and the right and responsibility to make good decisions on that basis (not have sex, engage in activities that don't risk HIV transmission, use condoms, etc.). If everyone uses condoms every time for every act, everyone stops sharing needles when using drugs, and all HIV+ pregnant women & at-risk newborns get treatment, we could slow the epidemic almost to zero just by those means alone. 

[AIDSvideos]

@philip2260: It is wrong to say that HIV+ "done it to themselves." Really? All HIV+ people? What about infants infected in the womb, during birth, or from their mother's milk? What about wives infected by husbands who had sex with a prostitute and didn't tell the wife or use protection? What about people who had sex with a partner who they honestly but wrongly believed to be HIV-? What about people who were lied to by their partner? Rape victims?

[AIDSvideos]

@philip2260: If an HIV+ discloses their status in advance to a prospective, mentally competent sexual partner and the partner consents, it is LEGAL for them to have sex (even unprotected sex), and HIV transmission may legally occur as a result. That's the law. (I do not condone HIV+ people having unprotected sex BTW!) There is no law against HIV+ people having sex; nor should there be. It would be a human rights violation. It would also be an ineffective law.

[philip2260]

@AIDSvideos well, here were just talking. so the fact that aids people keep passing it on, is that legal? listen to this video. being moral, well they done it to them selves, and nature is killing them, they are fighting it through drugs, but they will die. hiv+ do have rights, but they done it to them selves. and what about the rights of hiv-. they have the rights to be protected. and if we did quarantine them think how many lives we would save. it will never happen, but it is the only real an

[AIDSvideos]

@philip2260: The fact that quarantining people with HIV would prevent quarantined people from transmitting HIV to non-quarantined people doesn't mean it's legal, moral, or justified on public health grounds. (No on all three counts.) HIV+ people have human rights just like everyone else.