Judgment Daze

There is a new study that determines the year of entry for HIV into the United States was 1969, and that it arrived from a "single infected immigrant" (an unknown person) from Haiti. The study acknowledges the virus existed for a long period of time in Africa before hopping to Haiti and on to the U.S., and that the unfolding of a pandemic occurred "under our noses" for the next dozen years. Miami is a likely initial port of entry (I'd previously heard St. Louis), as there were apparently a number of mystery deaths there among Haitian immigrants in the years leading up to the identification of HIV/AIDS—those blood samples still exist and were looked at in an effort to find the earliest strains.

I know there are many people with HIV who feel "I've got nothing to lose" by continuing with high-risk sex. To them, there is no risk greater than what they're already unfortunate enough to have. But is it really so difficult the envision another disease being helped along by those same behaviors in the way HIV was helped along, one that could finish the job? And is it really too much to ask people to consider other people around the world who could be affected by that disease/those diseases even more catastrophically than they are already affected by HIV/AIDS?

There are also bareback-porn bigwigs who claim that everyone in their films is HIV- so the high-risk sex they film and eroticize (sex without condoms doesn't need to be eroticized, it's hot, of course...making movies fetishizing the unsafety of the sex is what I refer to) is perfectly safe, but I find their due diligence harder to swallow than some of their models' naked endowments and again, it's all just encouraging the next HIV.

To me, it's definitely a moral issue, though not a sexual-morals issue—and this distinction is where the people for whom barebacking is not just how they have sex but is the center of their lives get their panties in a royal wad.

"No judgments" read some barebacking profiles on popular hook-up sites, but what's so PC, what's so uptight and restricting about judging some behaviors as outrageously selfish? Nobody's perfect, but I don't see anything wrong with expecting everyone to make a good-faith effort to try to be—if you're willing to settle for less, then you should probably be cheering on these guys for being so...free.

Comments

[Tomi]

I think another issue is that since contracting HIV is the STD that seems to be the most destructive physically (not to mention socially), a lot of our collective attention seems to stray away from the fact that there are other 20 known STDS, some of the which are 100 times easier to catch that HIV (such as hepatitis B), just as deadly (hepatitis C), or simply uncurable (herpes 2, which can not only affect you but the health of your offspring should you decide to concieve one.) All of these diseases are real and can also be stopped by a condom (although in the case of herpes maybe not even that.)

Are these breabacking people out to collect all 20? Is that desired position to be with a compromised immune system?

[Matthew Rettenmund]

Yeah, I don't get it...I understand hedonism, but if you get too hooked on it you're going to have a lot of years without as many options to express it thanks to compromised health and desirability. I think HIV and other things are disease to cope with, not to hope for. But that's me.

[Verushka]

Some people just really don't think about the consequences of their actions, whether it affects them or others. Sometimes there are people who have such diseases and go out there and try to pass it on to others on purpose.
I don't think people ever hope for any kind of disease, they just don't ever really think they can eventually be diagnosed with them and the reality is that ANYONE you know can be one of them.