HIV, those three little letters can either make or break a person. The truth becomes a weight. It attaches itself to unwanted feelings of embarrassment, anguish, and guilt. Those living with HIV are forced to seek a lot of resolves: When do I disclose? Who should I disclose to? How do I disclose? Why should I disclose? The answers to those questions can shift a new or budding relationship, or even cause the person to hide the fact of being infected. That clearly is not living in truth and exacerbates the other problems we face in Black gay communities nationwide.
For Black gay men there is nothing more liberating than living in truth; truth about who and how you love, about the direction our life is going. Yes, living in truth is freeing and once a person has arrived at that place it is difficult to exist any other way. However, the truth of HIV disclosure still has a great amount of shame and fear associated with it. If honest about it one may find themselves alone and wondering if they can ever be transparent again.
Yes, HIV is talked about within the Black gay community, but not from the vantage point it needs to be. If you are a Black gay man (hell, if you are Black) you know quite a few who are infected. The sad reality is that despite how common HIV is there are multitudes of gay men who are adamant about not dating someone who is living with the virus. That leads me to say it should be of no surprise why so many men deny being HIV positive on social meeting sites. How many of us have ever perused profiles and noticed that when it comes to HIV statuses at least 80% of the half-naked (always horny) men claim to be HIV negative? It is obvious that as socially advanced as we are we still have not created a safe atmosphere for those living with HIV to be truthful.
Statistics show that Black gay men have high rates of HIV infection. Many of those infected are unaware of their HIV status and walk around as though all is well, unknowingly infecting other men. It hurts me to hear about men having quick, anonymous, unprotected rendezvous with men who claim to be disease free. Understand that I am not judging anyone who has had a swift jump-off with a stranger because I too have a past. However, we must understand that the risks involved are great. The act of sex is good (sometimes breathtakingly phenomenal) and I get why questions about status are not always introduced. In one hand you meet someone who is everything you desire physically, while in the other are lots of questions you know you should ask. Usually the physical part wins and it isn’t until afterwards that you regret not inquiring. The risks of sex in a sex charged community is not something we discuss on a daily.
The same way it is not easy to disclose a positive status to a total stranger, it is just as difficult to ask and believe a person is telling the truth about their negative status. I have been living with HIV for fourteen years and have had my share of rejection. Hearing ‘if you didn’t have HIV you would make the perfect boyfriend’ was not easy and a great excuse to keep my ‘truth’ a secret. Nonetheless, I pushed past that moment of ignorance and accepted the fact that my diagnosis didn’t define me as a person. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to do that, yet.
It is time for my brothers in the gay community to understand that we need to combat the increasing rate of HIV infection from within. We need to embrace those who are openly positive and construct an environment where they will not be shunned for being truthful. Our communities are being ravaged by a virus that we are hiding behind. If statistics are true then a great majority of Black gay men have slept with someone who is HIV positive; oftentimes unknowingly. That being said, no one should hold their head higher than the next.
We owe it to our community to bring about change. We owe it to ourselves to live in truth. We owe it to each other to love without secret.
