Allow me to shed some light on this whole thing for everyone concerned…. I can speak quite confidently from the perspective of someone who has been living with HIV for over 6 years now, and has been dragged through the legal system, solely for being HIV+.....
First off, I will say quite freely that people like you beachbro are part of the whole reason why a lot of people do not disclose their HIV status. The fact alone that you would compare something like HIV to something that does not perversely affect your overall daily health and does not compound your situation if you get sick quite frankly is an outrage. Imagine that you were to get involved with someone and decided to take it slowly... A month or so of developping feelings for the person you've been seeing and sex comes up, at which point you disclose your status only to be pushed away isn't exactly all that easy of a pill to swallow. Furthermore, your "paranoia" as you may call it is flat out bullshit. The reality is that you're not paranoid, but rather are clearly not properly educated on the subject. Sadly, people like you are the lesser of the problem when it comes to rejection. More specifically, where the fear of rejection comes from is in cases like mine. I was seeing someone at the time that I got the positive test result. My partner was the first person that I told about the test result, and do you know what I came home to?..... I'm guessing you don't..... I came home to find that the partner who I thought loved me had packed all my shit into garbage bags, threw it out onto the front lawn, and changed the locks. The reality is that this is the type of rejection that we face all too often. Don't get me wrong though, I do agree that it is your choice to make, but you say it as though you are the only person with any kind of feeling or emotions involved in that decision. The fact that you would just push away from someone who is HIV+ solely for the fact that they are HIV+ is a form of discrimination all unto itself, so before you open your mouth and insert your other foot while you're at it, I suggest that you properly educate yourself on all the facts. As for your commentary about not knowing that you have HIV being complete bullshit, I also have objections to that as I was once one of them myself. As far as I knew, I was in a monogamous relationship and did not play around. What I wasn't aware of was the fact that the person that I was with wasn't exactly as honest as I thought and went to great lengths to get me to let my guard down. As the result, I found myself in a situation where it didn't seem to make any sense to get regular testing because I trusted the person that I was with, and I trusted that they were not fooling around on me. In theory, if you're monogamous with a partner who you believe to the best of your knowledge to be negative, it makes absolutely no sense to require regular testing. There's more to consider than what it would seem... Also, have you ever stopped to think that there are some people out there who are afraid of getting tested for fear of the legal complications that can come with a positive test result? I am living proof of such complications. Part of why I'm so outraged with your point of view is that you seem to be completely blinded to the psychological effects over time of being rejected solely because you're HIV+. I'll bet you didn't even know that there are places even here in Canada or down South in the USA where if you're known to be HIV+, you had best be prepared to live in exile. I know this all too well as I happen to live in one such area, and I can assure you that the constant rejection and judgement solely for being HIV+ takes a huge toll on your mental health and your ability to feel comfortable with being out about your status. Oh.... And one more thing..... You really should be careful as to what you define as being "risky", as this is an open issue that is up to interperetation. In my case, I was not engaging in anything that most "normal" people would define as "risky", but nevertheless, I was infected. Perhaps you may want to further define the terms that you're using such as "risky" because the definition will vary from one person to the next.
@tony666: I fully agree that disclosing your status to a sexual partner is the morally correct thing to do. What I don't think you understand (and I have stressed above) is the psychological damage that the constant rejection solely for being HIV+ has on a person's mental health. Why do you think so many of them commit suicide or otherwise end up with a severe case of depression? That being said though, there's more than just the fear of rejection to take into account here. The other key factor to take into account is the whole risk of criminal persecution, solely for being HIV+. This too presents a big hesitation to a lot of people when deciding whether or not to disclose their status.
@DennSedai: There is no nice way to put this, so I'm just going to come out with it.... YOU DISGUST ME!!!!!! Allow me to give you a harsh dose of reality hunny because clearly you're a part of the problem. On April 16, 2010, I was arrested and charged with Aggravated Sexual Assault x2 for allegedly failing to disclose my HIV status to a sexual partner. I had my name, picture, and everything dragged through the media, most especially through the local sources, and had the following 3 years of my life completely destroyed because of it as it went through the courts to get taken to trial. Here's the sickening part.... BOTH of the key witnesses to testify were caught committing perjury (mainly because the whole case was a giant lie), and they were busted for colluding with each other during the trial, against a direct judge's order. On top of the more than reasonable doubt of the occurrence (on account of I did disclose my HIV status and I did NOT have sex with the 2nd person in question) there also lies the whole element of questioning credibility on account of what all went down at the trial. Nevertheless, because I live in an area where too many people are afraid of HIV, I was somehow convicted, even though it was clearly established that I did NOT do what I was accused of. In the Canadian legal system (as well as the US system) this type of thing happens far too often. Waaaaaaay too often the person accused is convicted, even when there is more than reasonable doubt, or there is absolute certainty of the person's innocense. Not to mention, I can tell you first hand from having been subjected to the horrid conditions of jail life over it, being in jail WILL in time have a very detrimental effect on a person's health. The statistics on how many cases resulted in a conviction that shouldn't have are scary to say the least. Furthermore, there lies another systematic issue..... By legal classification, Syphilis meets the same legal criteria to constitute the same charge, however no jurisdiction will persecute for Syphilis as a matter of policy, which all unto itself is a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms s.15(1). Despite this however, this type of discrimination still occurs far too often, resulting in innocent people being sent to jail and having their health and quality of health care that they receive seriously compromised, solely for the fact that they are HIV+ whether you're willing to admit it or not. By saying that you fully support these laws being manipulated like this, you are saying that you fully support the discrimination and persecution of individuals solely because they are HIV+, regardless of whether or not they are guilty of the offense in which they find themselves accused. You should be ashamed of yourself. Not to mention.... There is absolutely nothing that is "correctional" in "correctional services". While I will concede that there are some people out there who deliberately intend to infect people, this shouldn't be a matter for the criminal courts for a few reasons. The most obvious of which is the fact that it should not be solely MY responsibility to take care of my own health..... It should damn well be equally the responsibility of the other individual to take care of their own fucking health. By supporting that kind of system, you are supporting a 1-sided set of standards that is soleley set out for the purpose of discriminating against an individual, solely because they are HIV+, rather than looking at the facts. If you don't believe me, I suggest that you take a look at this article, which was written by a man who had only ever heard of me for the first time at my trial. It is completely factually accurate, and was written based solely on the evidence presented at the trial.
Now, while I'm on the whole topic of people who willfully and deliberately infect others with HIV, the criminal system does absolutely NOTHING to deter these people, nor does it do anything to "correct" any behaviours of the person. People like my co-accused (Steven Boone) for example are the classic epitome of what I speak. I'm kind of saddened that people like Steven Boone have been in solitary confinement for several years now, solely because he is HIV+. That type of treatment will only further degrade the state of his mental health and prove to actually have the exact opposite effect than what it is theoretically intended to do. This type of treatment is no better than the type of treatment that gays were receiving with the whole Stonewall Hotel raid (among many others). If you want to really deal with the problem with these people, the correct response is to send them to a psychiatric institution where they can get their mental issues that cause such behaviour in the first place dealt with. Once corrected, they could then be let out back into the public. Instead, we seem to have a system that actively promotes the degrading, persecution, and overall destruction of individuals solely because they are HIV+, placing them in an environment which has great potential to jeopardize their health and does absolutely nothing to correct the problem. This is the system that you are saying that you support there DennSedal, and quite frankly, it disgusts me to find that people like you actually promote this kind of discrimination. It's absolutely no better than persecuting people solely because they are gay. I say that we should take people like you who support this type of system and treatment and lock them up in jail for a reeeeeeeeally long time, solely because you're fucked in the head enough to believe that such a system is the correct way of dealing with that kind of thing. Obviously you must have a screw loose somewhere upstairs to even think that this system is a good thing in any way, when in fact, it only destroys the lives of EVERYONE involved.
Now…. As for you spam17.... My rant isn't over quite yet...... I suggest that before you start running your mouth, you actually check your facts. NOWHERE in North America are there any laws specific to HIV. They simply do not exist. Instead, the Attorney General has decided to manipulate laws that already exist to find bullshit ways of twisting things to make already existing laws apply to lay a charge. The charges themselves range anywhere from administering an obnoxious substance to attempted murder, and all things in between. In my case, it was the CCC s.273(1) that was used under the argument that if left untreated, HIV will result in death, thus posing a significant risk of endangerment to the life of the alleged victim. That's the bullshit twist that they used to make it constitute Aggravated Sexual Assault in the first place...... Because there are no specific laws to HIV, there is also a huge inconsistency in the way that the cases are handled, and no clear presendent seems to be set. Not only that, but in each case, the critical elements and issues that need to be addressed vary greatly from one case to the next, leaving absolutely NO standard in which to follow. It's entirely a matter of who can twist things into something that they're not even better...... So..... Before you start running your mouth, I suggest that you get ALL of your facts because clearly you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. If you don't believe me, I can bring up several cases that I have been directly involved with to reference to prove my whole point.
Now.... All this being said, I must apologize in advance if I have offended anyone with my view on the whole situation. The whole issue is kind of near and dear to me, largely because I am one of the few people to have been dragged through that kind of hell who didn't commit suicide in the process (although I cam very close more than once). I'm a little "passionate" I guess you could say about the whole subject, especially since I'm one of the MANY people who was dragged through the mud over something that I didn't do..... As I've said before and I'll say it again.... There are far too many people, even at this day and age, who are wrongfully persecuted, convicted, and sent to jail for nothing more than being HIV+. I can't help but get a little pissy when I am faced with opposition to my mission to have the whole thing taken out of the criminal system because HIV is not a crime. I also get a little pissy when I see people trying to make a point on the subject, when clearly they do not know what they're talking about.... I have spent MANY hours in MANY court rooms seeing it unfold for myself, prompting me to do my research for my mission to abolish the whole bullshit from ever hitting the criminal system in the first place, especially when you get slammed by public health as well, so you literally get persecuted TWICE over nothing more than a verbal allegation made by two lying sacks of shit who got busted for lying about it in the first place.