Disclosure multi-reply

[Guest guest]

to mark_h_hubbard (msg. 36753):

ur welcome, n thank u for sharing ur own practices. some of ur experiences sound

fairly exasperating, and u have my sympathy.

for myself, developing an " algorithm " is the last thing i plan on doing...i make

a reasonable effort at disclosing my status for all encounters. i don't think

i've ever had sex with anyone who could not understand rudimentary English or

the acronym " HIV " , but i am not by default quizzing people as to the " level " of

their understanding. disclosure practices for each of us can vary greatly, as

long as we meet basic requirements of moral responsibility and legal

requirement...but i'll fight any attempt to turn HIV-disclosure into a mandatory

Simon-says style defendant-allocution or witchcraft confession.

as far as my online profiles go, to my fairly-involved knowledge there is no way

for a person to encounter them in any way that obscures notice of my HIV-status.

in all possible avenues of access, they are always exposed to at least one (and

usually three or many more) very prominent declaration(s) of my status...having

my title/subject proclaim my HIV+ status ensures this. while some may go the

additional step of embedding " HIV+ " or " poz " in the names of their user-id

itself (eg " NYCpozBTTM " , " HIV+topCHI " ), making such a personal choice legally

mandatory is simply a scarlet letter. same with poz/biohazard tattoos.

the person who can ignore or miss such declarations is the same person who can

be " distracted and lost in thought " when you get them to verbally acknowledge ur

status, or even do so in writing.

legally and morally, it's one thing to acknowledge that that HIV+ persons have

the primary responsibility of disclosure and infection-prevention...but it's

another to essentially declare HIV- people infants incapable-and-absolved of

informed consent.

to Jeff (msg 36755):

u wrote:

" To deem one's status on the basis of an " online profile " is ludicrous. "

since u wrote this in response to me, can u elaborate on what exactly ur trying

to say? for my own part, i no longer concern myself with the proclaimed status

of my partners, i am regularly lied to in every possible configuration anyway.

HIV+ who claim to be HIV-, and HIV- who claim to be HIV+. it was this

realization just before the Swiss statement in 2008 that led me to re-focus my

own personal prevention-paradigm on effective broad-spectrum chemoprophylaxis in

addition to my always-open disclosure...and abandon sero-sorting as

" sero-guessing " at best.

elaborate and explicate, please.

to Jeff (msg 36757)

ur HALF-right. there is no such thing as privacy on the Internet (repeat 3

times), and anything u put online should be regarded as " on the Universal Grid "

forever. i knew and accepted this when i made the decision to create an

openly-HIV+ online profile. I chose then to live with and fight the

(near-universal) stigma, and I'll admit at times have regretted it...but i much

prefer to live without secrets. i recall well that short dark period when i kept

my status to myself and started " wrapping things up " ...and then the slightly

longer period when it was a Big Secret i revealed to one carefully chosen person

at a time.

one of the nice things about the online medium is that it does usually leave a

permanent record...whereas bedroom conversations often have a way of " not having

happened " when it comes to HIV+ people facing a distorted Justice system and a

jilted lover. also, having such open disclosure posted drastically reduces an

array of useless in-person tensions in myself and my potential partners.

Jeton