Unprotected

Her Name was Jenny.  She'd been infected by her addict boyfriend with the virus that causes AIDS for over 10 years. She'd lived a hard life, an inhabitant of the housing projects in the Bronx and dependent on the state for her survival for her entire life. Her daughter is one of the most beautiful and amazing women, both inside and outside, I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Jenny was determined to see her child graduate from college so she willed herself to live. The universe masterfully orchestrated events so that I was there with Jenny the day she died. Less than 24 hours earlier, Jenny was her usual, sickly but fiercely independent self. She spoke her last words to me; I fed her her last meal. I covered her naked body after the doctors and nurses left her lying like a piece of trash on a stretcher. The doctor didn't even tell us that she had died. He said, Oh, are you here for Jenny? You can pick up her personal belongings with the nurse." They are so much more sympathetic on ER.

Some ago I was the "houseguest" of someone with whom I've had sex with for many many years. We used condoms twice, when we first met, and haven't used one since. I KNOW him to be a pathological liar. I KNOW that he was having unprotected sex with multiple partners when I was sleeping with him. I KNOW for a fact that he was engaged in high risk behaviors with people who were potentially infected. He would tell me that he loved me, that he wanted to be inside me, and he wanted to give me a baby and I would spread my legs and invite him to my sacred space without a condom. The year before that, I met a younger man, substantially younger who was altogether brilliant and who has an entire matching set of baggage due to sexual molestation as a child. We waited a month before we slept together. He told me he loved me. He told me that the wanted to be my man. I craved the connection and the intimacy. No condom.

Six months before that, I met a man who was a promoter for a Black swing club. There was no profession of love, there was no promise of a future together, there was no long history or extended courtship. I hadn't had sex in eighteen months prior to that and I was lonely and horny and the first time he kissed me I felt electricity course through my body. We slept together the very next time we saw each other and every step of the way I kept saying to myself, "I should tell him to use a condom." I didn't.

The truth of the matter is, sex without condoms feels incredible. For me, it's symbolic of the pure, unadulterated love I'm longing to share with someone. I have no doubt in my mind that my not having a child is a biological trigger for my poor and unhealthy risky behavior. If I, Ms. sexually aware and painfully celibate, is engaging in unsafe sex practices, when I've seen the effects of AIDS taking its toll on someone, then I'm quite sure that there are millions upon millions more who aren't as self aware, who aren't as secure with their sexuality, who making the same unhealthy choices and worse.

Black women, especially the ones that are the most outwardly critical of bisexual men, are the most likely to engage in unsafe sex. They put the responsibility of their HIV status on their partners, they don't take ownership of their responsibility of keep themselves HIV negative. They are the women who are BEGGING men to not use condoms, telling them that they are offended if a man says he wants to use a condom with them. I've spoken to countless bisexual men who tell me that they were in the heat of the moment and they wanted to use condoms with women and the women insisted that they not use a condom.

I've seen condom use in swing clubs. I've spoken to many a married man who says that they love their wives too much to bring a disease home (I know, cheating is the ultimate disrespect but they rationalize it anyway) so they always use a condom. I'm convinced that men who are bisexual or men who engage in sex acts with other men (even if they refuse to identify themselves as bi) are in most cases in denial about what they want, about their desires, so they get in the zone, they are all hot and bothered, and they don't use condoms because it's surreal to them. They are outside of their own reality so they suspend reason for fantasy and unsafe sex.

I have tested negative since my foray into stupidity. I’ve only had two lovers in the last 8 years and both were tested completely before we had sex.  I sometimes fantasize what it will be like the next time I have sex, imagining that it will be with the man that I spend the rest of my life with. Never once, in all of my visions of love, have I never imagined that he and I use a condom. I can consider myself pretty typical in my behaviors I'm sure, just a whole helluva lot more open and honest about my shortcomings and willing to take responsibility for my HIV status.