[gaythrowaway]

I'm a 30-something gay dude on PREP. I primarily take it because I'm in a sero-discordant relationship with my boyfriend who is HIV+, but also as a safety precaution for when I was single and hooking up.

PREP has the potential to completely turn the tide on HIV infections. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city where between 10 and 25% of gay dudes in my dating pool are HIV+, many of them unknowingly and therefore continuing to spread it. There is a big push from the local public health department to get gay guys at risk of contracting HIV on PREP and it is starting to pay off.

PREP also is helping reduce the stigma of having HIV. Many people who are HIV+ live with a huge mental health burden of dealing with feeling like they are going to be rejected as a romantic partner because of their HIV status. With PREP as an option this helps reduce that burden. I'm not necessarily proud of this but I'm not sure if I would be dating my current boyfriend if PREP were not available because of the risk it could present to my health. He's an amazing guy and having this issue out of the way for us has been very helpful for us.

That's not to say that it doesn't have side effects and that it should be carefully considered but it really needs to be publicized more as a preventative treatment option in high risk populations.

[exolymph]

> I'm not necessarily proud of this but I'm not sure if I would be dating my current boyfriend if PREP were not available because of the risk it could present to my health.

Personally, I don't think that's a sentiment to be proud of or ashamed of. It's a practical reaction to the lay of the land. I hope you don't beat yourself up about it.

[throw_this_away]

I really wish more people knew about PEP as well. It seems equally important (in both the gay and straight communities), but it seems to get even less publicity than PrEP

[gaythrowaway]

Definitely. PEP, which for people who aren't familiar with it is a course of drugs which can be taken within 72 hours of a potential exposure to HIV to prevent becoming infected with HIV. It's not 100% effective, but it is an important tool to prevent the spread of HIV.

[frozenport]

Having a large group of people who don't know they have HIV is shocking.

[rabboRubble]

HIV testing needs to be a part of the annual physical check up, just like blood sugar testing for diabetes. Hep A/B/C testing should be as well. If I was forced to be infected with HIV or HepC, I would take HIV over HepC. C is some nasty shiat and there is no vaccine unlike the A and B varieties.

[gaythrowaway]

Yes, it is, and obviously this makes it difficult to prevent it from spreading. It can be asymptomatic for months to years.

[mrcactu5]

HIV is a pretty rare disease. About 1 in 300 people in the USA. So I don't understand 1 in 4 gay men are HIV+.

[barry-cotter]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_and_men_who_have_sex_wit...

The CDC reports that in 2009, MSM accounted for 61% of all new HIV infections and that MSM who had a history of recreational drug injection accounted for an additional 3% of new infections. Among the approximately 784,701 people living with an HIV diagnosis, 396,810 (51%) were MSM. About 48% of MSM living with an HIV diagnosis were white, 30% were black, and 19% were Hispanic or Latino. Although the majority of MSM are white, non-whites accounted for 54% of new infections HIV related MSM infections in 2008.[7] A recent study estimated that for every 100,000 MSM, 692 will be diagnosed with HIV. This makes MSM 60 times more likely to contract the virus than other men and 54 times more likely than women

[aleeds]

About 2% of men are HIV positive. So just blindly using 1/4 you get 1/200 people are HIV positive. Assuming that the place discussed is a little bit above average, and you get a number that is consistent with the population having a 1 in 300 HIV rate.

[gaythrowaway]

I didn't mean to imply that 1 in 4 gay men are HIV+ but in certain populations the rate of HIV infection is that high unfortunately.