In my OKCupid profile, I state (about three paragraphs in):
“On July 1st, 2010, I was diagnosed with HIV. I’m undetectable (which you should look up because it’s awesome). I like being upfront about it, along with everything else. The medicine today is great. My past boyfriend, who was HIV neg, never used condoms with me. He’s still neg today, and we boned a lot. A LOT.”
“Oh, and I’m a fucking awesome dude.”
Some might confuse this paragraph as shilling for bareback sex; or perhaps that I so desperately need bareback sex so as to shill for it straight off; or perhaps assuming that I’ll take it from anyone because I’m poz and no one in their right mind would have bareback sex with a poz dude but, at the same time, might get aroused assuming that I’m poz because I’m promiscuous, and promiscuous because I’m poz, as if sex is my sole vocation.
As word of my poz status continues to spread through the community, I receive more and more lusty propositions from neg guys who think my status connotes a subservient attitude and superior skillset in the bedroom.
These propositions have been great story fodder around a table drinking and laughing with my friends. But recently, because of a conversation I had with a neg guy on OKCupid, a pall has fallen over my disposition surrounding this poz fetish.
“Hey what’s up man?” was the guy’s opening message.
Not the best introduction, but he bought himself some time when he said I had recently unlocked my “delicious ass pics” for him on Manhunt.com that made him go “nom nom nom.”
And after a cursory glance of his Manhunt pics, I eagerly continued our conversation.
From there on, we talked about my status almost exclusively. He wanted to know more about what it meant to be “undetectable,” my pill regimen and my sex life, and he talked about his sex life in kind. “Condoms 99.9% of the time” was his declared practice (funny how generous that remaining “0.01%” can be, huh?), and that bareback sex is strictly reserved for relationships and fuck buddies. Although he did admit to possibly barebacking a poz guy at a few points without knowing — an idea I interjected — which galvanized his resolve to “use condoms every time.”
We texted for a few days, until one day in the midst of convo about loss and recovery, he abruptly asked, “No one sleeping over tonight?”
I played dumb and said, “No,” which made him reveal the real question he had previous disguised: “How many times do you have sex in a week?”
I told him that, unlike years past, I couldn’t quantify the time because it didn’t happen very often, which earned me another round of, “How many times do you have sex in a week?”
At this point, I became offended. In our previous conversations, he tried to draw a line in the sand between my sex practices and his, while I tried to convey their similarities. So I asked him why my sex life was suddenly so important to him.
“I’m masturbating,” he said. “I have been for the past couple of minutes.”
I guess that was my queue to complain about how there weren’t enough dudes around to spew their three-day loads into my hungry hole. I guess I missed my queue to pine for his own three-day load that he was about to blow into a tube sock.
As he continued to “spank the hog,” I told him that it was hugely offensive that he wanted me to cameo as poz slut in his masturbation fantasy; that it wasn’t hot for me to prop up my status as the trait that makes me hot. Even if I were “slutty,” I still wouldn’t be aroused by some guy who canonizes his sex life as he objectifies mine.
Chastising sexual preferences has never been part of my beliefs. At the same time, I don’t celebrate every sexual preference I encounter. In reality, I’d be happy to help out many guys oiling their chains at nighttime, but not when I have to demean myself to do it.
I’m poz because I’m poz because I’m poz, and it hasn’t given me sexual super powers … yet. The second my HIV makes me grow a 9-inch dick and a plushy melon ass, I’ll let you know. Trust me, I’ll let you know.
We’re all in this together, folks. Now get out there and talk about it.
Aaron Stella is former editor-in-chief of Philly Broadcaster. He has written for several publications in the city, and now devotes his life to tackling the challenges of HIV in the 21st century. Millennial Poz, which recently won first place for excellence in opinion writing from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and best column writing from the Local Media Association, appears in PGN monthly. Aaron can be reached at [email protected].