Disclosing HIV Status: Risk Rejection, or Prosecution?

Cass Mann is one of the world's longest-term HIV-positive diagnosed gay men, now in his third decade of living with HIV, and the founder of UK’s only gay men’s HIV/AIDS charity Positively Healthy, which provides HIV services including education, support, and peer counselling. Here he talks about disclosure of HIV status before having sex. If you are HIV positive and want to have sex, you must disclose your HIV status. Do you tell them and risk rejection, or not tell and have your way with them? If an HIV positive person doesn't disclose and doesn't use protection (including for oral sex!), the HIV positive person can be criminally prosecuted in the United Kingdom. It's possible to use DNA sequencing to prove that you contacted HIV from a specific partner. If you're HIV positive, it is your responsibility to disclose and to use a condom every time. If the prospective partner says no, accept it. For more information, visit http://www.posh-uk.org.uk/ and http://www.AIDSvideos.org/.