Your sex life doesn’t stop after HIV – in fact, it could actually get better. Here’s how.
No one’s ready for the news that they are HIV positive. I remember where I was. The doctor was a stern-faced woman with blonde hair and a golden cross dangling around her neck. She said “HIV” slowly, with a deep Southern drawl. I was living in Savannah, Georgia, and completing my last year of college.
I was in the clinic for several hours, thumbing through informational pamphlets on the coffee table in the little counseling room. One wall was exposed brick – trs chic for a place I never wanted to be, a place I would never forget. I remember all of it: the glass coffee table, the cross, and the way she said “yeah” when I asked her, “Is it HIV?” She nodded, crossing her legs. She had done this before and knew it was better to have no preamble, no bullshit: “Yeah, it’s HIV.”
Over the next six months, I became very depressed. But eventually, the fog lifted, thanks primarily to sex. I had a few dates, a few good hookups. I discovered I still had a sexual being in me, and that I could still have an awesome sex life. I started medication and got to a healthy place.
Today, I have no fear of my HIV. It’s part of me, a part that has connected me with sexy and powerful queer people. The unity between those of us who share this disease is unbreakable. We are activists and politicians, performers and artists, porn stars and proud sluts. My best sex came post-diagnosis, along with my best partners. Life didn’t stop.