HIV/AIDS: Unprotected on Purpose

When I was 17 and a senior in high school I lost my aunt to AIDS. She was only 36 years young and she left 3 young children behind. I later found out that her boyfriend and youngest son were also both HIV positive. Her 2 other children tested negative, thank God! The family knows that her boyfriend of about 10 years infected her INTENTIONALLY. We know this because an ex-girlfriend of his had died of AIDS a few years before my aunt died. She had tried to warn my aunt about him but my aunt wasn't having it. She stood by her man. My mother and other aunt also warned her that they had seen her man driving around town in his Impala with another woman in the passenger seat. She defended him at every turn. Eventually people just stopped telling her things. She turned a blind eye and lost her life.

Fast forward 20 years and the evil bastard is now a registered sex offender. He fled the state and is now married to a woman with a young daughter. They are both now HIV positive and somehow he convinced her that SHE had infected HIM. She knew nothing about his past. My family has reported him to the Department of Justice and he has not yet been arrested. He is still out there taking lives.

One of my college friends admitted to me that she usually has unprotected sex with guys she meets in clubs and bars. This woman has an accounting degree from a private college and she told me she can tell who "has something" just by looking at them. I paused and waited for the punchline. I hoped she was joking but she was dead serious. This woman is divorced with 2 children. She may be educated, but she isn't very bright. She is playing a game of chance with her health and her life. She is risking leaving her kids to grow up without a mother.

Decades after AIDS was identified people are still engaging in casual, unprotected sex with multiple partners. Call me naïve but I struggle to understand this. I watched my aunt die a slow, painful death. I can only imagine how she felt knowing that she was leaving her children because of a man she ignored many warnings about. I wonder if she struggled with guilt over that.

There are people out there like that. And there are more of them than you think. They have been hurt by someone and they do not care about hurting you. Unprotected sex can be used as a very deadly weapon. Protect yourself and think twice, then twice again. In this day and age of technology and imagination, there are literally thousands of contraceptive barrier products on the market today. For those who are shy like me, ordering these products online and having them delivered to you discreetly is an option.

There is nothing more sobering than a positive HIV test. After all the excuses you might think up for why you didn't use protection, you will wish you could take it all back after your life is changed forever by devastating news.