Four HIV negative gay men discuss their sex lives, fears of infection, and what they really think about positive gay men in “Negative,” a video produced by Mark S. King. King, whose blog “My Fabulous Disease” offers an insightful and often humorous look at HIV and its impact on gay men like himself.
King, who now lives in Atlanta, is HIV positive himself. He used to live in Los Angeles, where he worked in 1988 as the first public relations director for the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation, an AIDS service organization that closed in 2006. He moved to Atlanta in 1993 to serve as executive director of AIDS Survival Project and later as education and communications director for AID Atlanta, the Southeast’s largest AIDS service agency. King also has been featured in the award-winning documentary “Meth” as a crystal methamphetamine addict in recovery.
The men featured in “Negative” offer a range of opinions about HIV and the gay men infected with it. There’s Aethan, who says, “I would not knowingly sleep with a positive guy. I feel personally that if i were to contract HIV that is a death sentence.” Then there’s Derrick, who has been taking Truvada as an HIV prevention measure for three months and admits he doesn’t always use condoms and enjoys unprotected sex. AJ says “I make it a requirement that we get tested together unless I already know that you are HIV positive because i am open to serodiscordance relationships,” but he adds “I’m not going to go into any kind of situation with an HIV positive guy if I know that your viral load is really high.” Evan simply extols the virtues of bareback sex.
The talk is often explicit and definitely NSFW. It also shows the large gap in knowledge that still exists about HIV and how it’s contracted and how negative men can avoid becoming infected.
