Men, Are You Really More Afraid of a Failed Performance than of STIs?
Questions and concerns brought up by my best friend’s reactive HIV test
There are a few phone calls you hope to never receive. Your best friend calling to tell you their HIV test came back positive is one of them.
—Whaaaat? No! That can’t be possible.
The news made my heart sink deep into my stomach to form the center of a giant knot. Shit! How was I supposed to comfort her?
Sure, now there are meds allowing you to live a long and happy life with the virus, but to my friend, Talia—a divorced, single, sexually active woman in her thirties, involved in the BDSM scene, and with a long-distance lover she’s been counting down the minutes to see again—an HIV diagnosis was just short of a death sentence. I knew very well that whatever agony I experienced in sympathy was merely a vague reflection of the despair she felt.
There was little left for me to say but I love you, and I’m here for you!
To provide some background, my friend had hooked up with someone she met on a kink site. Serendipitously similar to my own story of the guy who tried to weasel his way out of condom use because “it doesn’t feel as good for him”, Talia’s date had waved the same red flags…
