Use of the HIV prevention drug is associated with lower levels of anxiety about contracting HIV. But for gay men who remember AIDS, the specter of HIV is a hard ghost to shake.
When HIV first tore into America’s gay male community in the early 1980s, quotidian questions of sex, love, lust and trust transformed into weighty decisions with potential life-or-death consequences.
The decision to stop using condoms with a serious partner? Only as reliable an HIV-prevention method as your partner’s fidelity. A single instance of cheating? An indiscretion that carries the risk of an incurable and deadly disease. A random hookup? A nagging sense that, perhaps, this time was the time.
Todd Faircloth, 52, remembers those days well. In 1987, when gay men were still dying from AIDS in large numbers, Faircloth moved to New York City from North Carolina to start his big, gay life. He was just 17.