AIDS - the forgotten pandemic

Having been born in 1978 I was a teenager during the nineties which was perhaps the height of the AIDS and HIV panic. It started in the eighties but it wasn't until the nineties that its true meaning hit the world. 

The fact that AIDS still remains a deadly disease has now been forgotten or at least repressed. Since new drugs have been made available, that if therapy is started at an early enough stage, can provide an almost normal life expectency people have started to see HIV more like an inconvinience rather than a deadly virus, while the truth is, it still is.

First of all people tend to forget that you are only fine IF you receive treatment, for that you have to get tested and know about your infection. So think about it: How many of you have been tested after having unprotected sex? How many of you have ever thought: "This one time won't do any harm." The thruth is that one time can be enough. 

Why are we risking having unprotected sex at all? After all there are also many other STDs one can get. Don't get me wrong, of course unprotected sex in a relationship is fine if you have checked everything but in these times people often don't get married until their thirties and no matter how you put it everyone has "casual sex" at one point or at least a handful of partner before finding "the one". There is nothing bad about it as long as people are sensible about it.

The good thing is that in the meantime we have also learnt what interactions with someone who is HIV positive are safe and which can be made safe by using condoms. These days most people know that things like kissing or sharing a bathroom are safe, while sexual contacts without proper protection are highly risky. 

The irony is that people are relaxed enough to actually have casual sex and not think anything about it twice but usually are reluctant to talk about protection because the partner in question might be offended by it. This is because suffering from an STD or HIV is still stigmatized and talking to your partner about protection implies that you consider the option of him or her suffering from it.

What most people don't consider however is that they themselves might suffer from a disease that has not yet been diagnosed. So speaking about protection with your partner is not only for your protection but also for theirs.

If we consider all this, why are we living the way we, as a society, are living? The truth is simple: Because it is comfortable. We don't want  to miss on casual sex or short lived relationships but also are not willing to go through the embarrasment or discussion of speaking about protection with our partner. In reality however we should realise that the freedom being sexually active comes the responsibility of being sensible about it and protecting others as well as ourselves.

HIV is a virus that could fairly easy be extinguished if people would act responsible in their sexual relationships. I am not speaking about only having one partner in life or being puritanic. What I mean is that the openess we apply to sex these days should be also applied to speaking about proper protection.