Weaponizing My Sex: How A Consensual Encounter Flirted With A Felony
Editor’s Notes:
To protect the confidentiality of the subjects, actual names have not been used in this article. Any resemblance to actual persons with the same or similar names, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Photos used in this piece are stock photographs by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels, and the models are not in any way affiliated with this story or depicted as subjects of the piece.
Stock Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels
We met at a friend's Super Bowl party over 10 years ago. I’m no real fan of the sport although I will check out the phyne players on either team. When it comes to the Super Bowl, I am only really down for a fabulous halftime show. In 2007, Prince did the honors and his royal badness did not let us down. I noticed this brother a few minutes before my friend introduced us. Within minutes, we found ourselves a little corner off the kitchen where we could focus without interruption. He was playful and blunt about his desires, and that turned me on. “I don’t like no bread,” he told me. “Just give me the meat.”
We hooked up one time only a few weeks after the party. I have long forgotten what we did on our date before coming back to his place. Minutes after we got inside, we started kissing and groping. Knowing I wanted to get naked, I asked for a pause and told him I was HIV+. He said that it was no problem, and we resumed fondling, then unfurling clothes from the sofa to his carpeted floor. I laid on top of him, thrusting between his obliging thighs. I have loved frottage—a hot action that required no protection to prevent HIV—since that too short window period between my first sexual escapades and the onset of the plague. In 2007, frottage seemed like a nostalgic indulgence from bygone better days. A few minutes into our frenzied friction, he raised his legs and pulled my dick inside him. In the fateful seconds that followed, I thought of two things only, how good it felt and how easily I could infect him. Fear and desire commingled, each one concentrating on the other. I chose one side of my brain over the other and pulled out. He moaned his resistance and drew the head back in. I lingered for another few seconds before withdrawing for the last time. I said something like, “we can't do this.” He relented, smiling as if amused by the effort my refusal took.
“The most insidious mistruth about HIV criminalization is its purported purpose as a fair-minded HIV prevention tool.”
It was a month later when the friend who introduced us brought me the news. “Darvin” tested positive. He told her about our recent encounter. She assured me that Darvin had mentioned no suspicion that I might have infected him through our interaction. I felt my heartbeat quickening, my head growing heavy and hot. I began replaying our session in my head, scanning for risks taken. I knew I had penetrated him for a few seconds, but I did not cum inside him. Besides, I reasoned I was probably not his first or sole HIV+ partner. But I knew enough to know that none of this could shield me from repercussions whether or not they were deserved.
Fear-Based Policy
By 2007, I had been HIV positive for 22 years. I had spent the past 13 years working as an AIDS educator and activist. Knowing about HIV criminalization was a matter of course for my profession and myself, protection. I knew that neither actual transmission nor intent to transmit was needed for me to be prosecuted should my date allege that I had sex with him without sharing my HIV status. Darvin was now positive. Would he falsely accuse me, even though I probably did not infect him? My only defense under Georgia law would have been a disclosure that I could prove. I had no documentation, no recording, no received text or signed letter showing that I told him before we had consensual sex.
I realized that none of my actions that night, and none of my AIDS activism over the years would keep me from going to jail and being branded a “sex offender.” My public image as an openly HIV+ Black gay figure developed through years of dedicated work would not meet the standard for disclosure. If you are HIV+, neither your silence nor your undocumented divulgence will protect you from criminal prosecution and jail time. I could be arrested at the whim of a disgruntled sex partner whom I had never bothered to call for a second date.
The most insidious mistruth about HIV criminalization is its purported purpose as a fair-minded HIV prevention tool. The continued enforcement of HIV criminalization across the US is not driven by a thoughtful and compassionate response to ending AIDS. HIV criminalization was one of the earliest public policy responses to AIDS, implemented as a conditional requirement for states to receive Ryan White funds. It was conceived in a social climate clouded with fear and hatred, in which people living with HIV were regarded as an imminent threat to public safety. Treating HIV+ individuals as criminals for not disclosing their HIV status to their sex partners has never been shown to curb infection. The measure is not only ineffective, it is as irrational as the animus targeted toward gay men, cisgender, and transgender women, Black and Latino people, and people who use injection drugs that motivated this approach. HIV criminalization statutes, no more justified than largely defunct anti-gay sodomy laws, remain in place in a majority of the states.
“If you are HIV+, neither your silence nor your undocumented divulgence will protect you from criminal prosecution and jail time.”
Forty years ago this June 5th, the first cases of what we now know as AIDS were reported in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Forty years later, HIV+ individuals remain scripted by the public imagination as stealthy biohazards. Many including some gay men I know insist that such scripts be followed, that anyone with an HIV diagnosis is thus obligated to reveal their status regardless of their use of reliable protection or having an undetectable viral load. When last night’s consensual act leaves an HIV-negative partner with morning after anxieties, this script offers a quick route to bypass personal responsibility.
I called Darvin to talk about his diagnosis. I had counseled many who had just received a positive test result, but never anyone with whom I had such recent sexual contact. This time my motives were not selfless. I wanted to know if he thought I infected him. I also wanted to see if he needed any support. I was conflicted, unsure if I was the right person to offer him anything. I reasoned that since he gave our mutual friend permission to share his diagnosis, he probably wanted to hear from me. I realized asking him about who might have exposed him to HIV was not useful: the conversation needed to be about his needs, rather than my apprehension. During our call, he said he was fine. He asked if I thought our sex had exposed him. I told him that given the mechanics of what we did, I honestly did not think so. I hoped he did not think I was trying to protect myself from blame. I cared about him whether or not he thought I might be responsible for his HIV status. Our time together was a one-night stand, but he was not a one-night human being. We both recognized each other as much more than our scripts.
