Everyone is HIV+ until proven -ve

People now live out their fantasies these days; sexual orgies, threesomes, foursomes. A cousin once told me of a time when he and his friend hooked up with three girls. To balance out the equation, they invited another friend, who brought a friend. So it was now four guys and three girls. My cousin left them and went out to seek out other ‘prey’. He came back in the morning and the girls were walking around the apartment naked. One of the girls invited him to have her and within two hours all the guys had slept with each one of the girls.

The crucial question that has to be asked is this: Is protection used when people apparently live out their fantasies? For all its cleverness and amazing achievements and breakthroughs, the human species is astoundingly stupid when it really matters most.  We have advanced. We have become civilized. We have dropped some barbaric tendencies that our ancestors used to practice. But we should have stayed uncivilized in some aspects of our lives. We don’t get shocked at all when we hear that a couple had sex the first day they met. It is now common place

 Recently I read a newspaper report that was talking about a minister who had called for stiffer penalties for those who intentionally infect others with HIV. I take it intentional infection is when someone who has been tested and knows they are HIV positive sleeps with someone without protection. This can be either out of stupidity or as an act of vengeance. A broken heart can turn the meekest lamb into something of a monster.

                But then we cannot limit intentional infection of others to that: My take on HIV is that everyone is HIV positive until proven negative – and includes you and me. If you sleep with someone without protection, the assumption should be that either you are infecting him/her or he/she is infecting you until proven otherwise.

                As of 2009 about 1.2 million of Zimbabweans were living the HIV virus and that’s about 15% of the adult population. Other estimates have said that one in every four Zimbabweans is HIV positive. So the odds of bumping into someone who is positive or yourself being positive are very high. That’s why I stick to the, ‘everyone is positive until proven negative’ mantra. If you are having sex with someone without protection, what are the odds of either him/her infecting you or the other way round? Knowing the odds are not stacked in your favour or the person’s favour, can’t we then say you are intentionally infecting the other person or intentionally infecting yourself.

                I have talked to and heard of a lot of people who use birth control pills when they know perfectly well that they sleep with multiple partners whose statuses they know nothing about! Holy Christ, should we be more scared of pregnancy than we are we are scared of HIV/AIDS? It astounds! Honestly how can a person walk around feeling self important after having sex with someone whose status they don’t know about without protection?