HIV (non)scare

So I finally got tested again after more than a year. Poyee referred me to MGG who has been volunteering as an HIV counsellor. MGG and I met in a resto in Malate, chatted a little over a late breakfast, and then went to the nearby RITM satellite clinic. The med tech gave me a little “pre-test counselling” before taking my blood sample. After that, I had to wait for a couple of hours before getting the results so I hung out with MGG and his friend from The Love Yourself Project for a while. After lunch, MGG and I went back to the clinic for the results.

I’m still HIV-negative, ladies and gentlemen. I also don’t have Syphilis or Hepa-B.  I’d like to dedicate those pieces of paper to John and to ex-bf-whom-I-never-got-to-give-a-code-name. You can calm down a bit, boys. There is zero chance that I could have given either of you HIV.

While we were waiting for the result, MGG asked me something that I wasn’t really able to answer. See, I’ve already been tested before. That was easily one of the scariest things I had to go through, enough to make me abstain from sex for a long time. As you might have read from a recent entry, though, I have gone back to engaging in risky sex, and that was what MGG wanted to understand.

Why did I, someone who has had first-hand experience of the scare and who has sufficient knowledge of the risks still engage in risky sex?

When I came out negative from my test last year, I was relieved, to say the least. It seemed that I shouldn’t have been scared after all. HIV was still nowhere near me and life can go back to normal. However, that feeling of comfort was cut short when I learned not long after that one of my closest friends tested out positive. That became the biggest scare for me, learning that the virus was that close. I pulled myself together and resolved to be more careful.

The problem started, I guess, when I started to feel so close to HIV that I no longer feared it. I started to have this idea that HIV was something that’s easy to live with, a fair trade-off for a booming sex life. Also, I learned about how the virus is transmitted, the probability of infection for different sexual acts and the role you play in them, and other stuff all about contracting it. I guess I felt confident in spite of the risk because I thought I was playing well by the odds. I knew all about getting the virus; that meant I can do with smaller margins.

Stupid, right? Being educated does not mean being immune. But guess what? It’s not just me who thinks that way.

I had unprotected sex with someone the night before my test. It was unprotected because, well, we both assumed the other one had a condom. It turned out later, though, that we both preferred doing it bareback and that we were actually both hoping that the other one didn’t have a condom.

When we were chatting after the deed, I told him about the test. He said that he has it every six months. I asked him if he was worried that I might come out positive. He answered that every time he lets someone fuck him, it’s like he’s putting one foot in the grave. He knows the risk which is why he usually takes precautions. If it turns out that I had the virus and that I may have infected him, then it just means he got unlucky.

We really need to be scared again. This lack of fear will definitely get us into trouble.


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If you want to take the test and would like to have someone with you, I suggest you contact MGG at http://manilagayguy.net/ . Even if he’s not available, he knows plenty of other volunteer counsellors.

If you’re too shy to contact MGG yourself, send me an email and I’ll refer you to him. (exjasonblog@gmail.com)

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