Feelings about Sex

Steven Charles: A lot of stuff about dating gets mixed up when you get a disease from loving someone. Maybe one day. But it would have to be a very special person. I’m happy. I have a lot of friends.

Alan Madison: My partner is negative and I want him to stay that way. We’re playing safe, though there’s a burnout to playing safe. But I have to use a condom every time I have sex until I die. That’s permanent.

People’s feelings about sex are varied. At different times and to dif­ferent people, sex is a joy, a comfort, a distraction, a release, intimacy, reassurance, bonding. To some extent, people’s feelings about sex de­pend on feeling healthy, enjoying life, liking themselves, trusting others, feeling relaxed, having the freedom to be spontaneous. HIV infection changes much of this. Everyone knows these facts: the virus occurs in great numbers in blood and semen, and in smaller numbers in vaginal fluid. So while making love, people with HIV infection can unthinkingly transmit the virus. Even when both partners are infected, they can com­municate variants of the virus to each other. To avoid this, people have no alternative but to have no sex at all or to practice safer sex. But both safer sex and the fact that sex can communicate the virus create emo­tional problems for people.

Problems with Feelings about Sex

Probably the most difficult problem is that some people equate making love with getting infected. They feel guilty having sex. They mourn the loss of the free sexual life they once had. They feel violated by the virus; the virus invaded their bodies when they were doing something enjoy­able and natural. And all these feelings come at a time when people in­tensely need the closeness that sexual intimacy brings. “We’ve seen cou­ples pull apart,” said Dean. “We need closeness a lot more now.”

Another problem for some people is that they feel safer sex is no fun.

In addition, some people not in long-term sexual relationships fear that if they meet someone they like, they will have to begin the rela­tionship by telling that person something unpleasant to hear. Perhaps that person will respond by rejecting them. Perhaps that person will spread the information about their diagnosis. “I told this guy I was dat­ing I had HIV and he lost interest,” said Steven. “I’d figured he’d be ok because he’d been wearing an AIDS memorial T-shirt. I didn’t know it was just a fashion statement.”

Solving the Problems

Some people react to these feelings, as Steven did for a while, by be­coming celibate, not having sex at all. Celibacy is one solution. If you are uncomfortable having sex, or if you feel no desire to, don’t bother with it.

But Steven didn’t want to live without sex permanently, so he figured out how and when to tell people that he had HIV infection. “People find out I’m positive and still want to get to know me,” he said. “I like to have them get to know me first—though not sexually. Then when you move forward in the relationship and sex gets inevitable, I tell them. I was dat­ing one person for a month, and just told him the other day. I just got down to it, didn’t beat around the bush. I said, ‘I’m really enjoying what’s happening and I want to get to know you and honesty is important to me and I need to tell you I’m positive. This is me, it’s what I live with and you deserve to know it.’ Then I have to deal with their emotions and ques­tions. I tell them anything they might not know. Everyone I’ve dated is negative, and has remained negative. So always safer sex. I insist on that. The expression and varieties of sex are still there.”

After a while, people adjust to safer sex. “The way I’ve adjusted to safer sex,” says Alan, “is by psyching myself into thinking I prefer it.

Lisa and her husband had also worked out a mutually satisfying so­lution. “The virus was pretty hard on our sexual relationship. Oral sex had been an important part of our lives. I tried oral sex with him while he was wearing a condom, but it tasted too bad. We ended up having sex with him wearing a condom, and with mutual masturbation. It was satisfying enough.”

Some people set limits on sex. Edward and his partner had sex less often. That made Edward feel guilty, but his partner said, “I can handle that better than he can.” Some couples have sex quickly, and say that is better than nothing. Some couples in which only one person is infected give control to the uninfected person to determine how often they make love and what happens during lovemaking.

One good solution is to accept the necessary changes in sexual prac­tices, and where those changes are less than satisfying find other ways to accomplish the same intimacy, reassurance, comfort, and bonding. “Sex always created a bonding between my husband and me,” Lisa said. “Safer sex could do that too. But I also tried to re-create that bond by doing more things together and having more communication.” Dean said the same thing: “We gave up having sex and make love now.”

All kinds of physical intimacies that are not sexual can also create bonding: holding hands, touching, sitting close, giving baths, giving massages, combing hair, napping together, taking showers together, playing card games, lying in bed together, sitting together to read the morning paper or to watch TV or listen to music; sitting together and reading aloud to each other. Lisa found that her husband responded as she had hoped: “My husband had always had a fear of intimacy. I saw that dissolve. He told me things he never had before. It took time and love to overcome the fear and guilt.”