Fucking without condoms with men who share your HIV status

Are you both HIV negative?

Then you can’t pass on a virus that’s not there in the first place.

Or both HIV positive?

Unprotected sex can’t lead to a new HIV infection if you both already have it. But you both leave yourselves open to other infections that are impossible or hard to cure, like herpes or hepatitis C. Hep C is a very serious liver infection many men with HIV are getting through sex without condoms. Check out www.hepinfo.org for more details.

We now also know it’s possible to pick up another type of HIV than the one you already have, one that could make you ill faster. How often this happens isn’t clear but it’s worth thinking about.

Things to think about

You might try to fuck only without condoms with men with the same HIV status as you. This takes away the risk if:

• you’re as sure as you can be you both have the same HIV status
• you talk about HIV. It’s dangerous to assume that nothing being said means you must be the same. And it’s very risky judging each other’s HIV status on age, looks or what they’re into.
• both of you base what you think your status is on HIV tests, not assuming or hoping for the best
• you don’t rely on test results that might be out-of-date, especially if risks have been taken since testing
• and you feel you can trust someone to give you an accurate answer. Of gay men with HIV, 1 in 4 don’t realise they have it.

A negative test result can be meaningless if someone didn’t wait 3 months between the test and the last time they took a risk of getting HIV. It takes up to 3 months for signs of infection (antibodies) to show up in the blood. A person can get a negative test during these 3 months but be infected (and be very infectious).

Finally, imagine this. A man is in the habit of fucking without condoms with people he thinks share his HIV status. But he gets it wrong and becomes infected without realising. He’s now got very high levels of HIV in his cum, blood, etc. He’s now putting anyone he fucks without a condom with at very high risk.