RECHARGE A ZINE FOR POSITIVE YOUTH
EXCHANGE
from the editor Hello Zine Readers! We often negotiate in our day-to-day lives – sometimes excitedly, sometimes reluctantly and often without even realizing it. Remember when you and a friend had a lengthy discussion on which movie to watch? Or when you asked a friend to help you move in exchange for free pizza? Well, you were negotiating. With this issue of Recharge, we want to help you understand the art of negotiation and its impact on the different facets of your lives. In part two of the three article series on disclosure, Alanna shares great strategies on how to respond when others react negatively to your disclosure. Another compelling article, “Love and Sex”, explores the different types of exchange we go through to start, maintain, or end a romantic or sexual relationship. The art of negotiation can also happen with oneself. One of our members discusses this in “Me, myself and I” as he/she learns how and when to compromise with what he/she wants. This article also mentions our new resource My Sex Life. Launched in May, this informational and practical resource promotes safer sex for young people living with HIV. Check out the pictures from the launch party in this issue and pick up a copy at ACT or view it from our website. Lastly, I wanted to ask PYO’ers to share tips on how to make online hookup safer by completing a survey in this issue. This is especially important in today’s digital era of smart-phones, tablets, apps and social media, so please enjoy their responses! As always, my gratitude goes to all contributors to this zine. Your inspirational words help this newsletter inform HIV positive young adults and other young adults with a positive attitude.
Alessandro Bisignano Youth Support Worker, Positive Youth Outreach pyozine@actoronto.org
what if they react negatively? I’ve known my status for almost a year. The one-year anniversary coincided with a major life event: I am moving downtown and living with a new roommate. But I wondered, how I should tell him my status? Or do I even need to? Two of my friends at PYO felt that I didn’t need to tell him my status before moving in with him. But what if we moved in together and he found out afterward? Would he be angry or confused? Maybe shun me? Want to move out? Another friend at PYO said yes, I should tell him my status. Just because if we ever slept together, he should know in advance. That was an unlikely scenario, too. I enjoyed that everyone at PYO had an opinion about the best way to disclose and if there even needed to be disclosure. But generally, we agreed that I had no obligation to tell him – and that it was my choice. So I met with my new roommate and we spent about five hours talking about random stuff. I told him my status. He was very surprised – and also concerned. He had no idea how a person with HIV looked or acted. My normalcy seemed to surprise him. I told him how, after a year, everything is pretty much back to normal in my life. We wandered around for another few hours and he asked a couple more questions. Now, we’ve recently signed a lease to live together downtown. He hasn’t talked about it again, and neither have I. Maybe he thinks it’s an uncomfortable subject for me? But really it isn’t – it’s just part of my life – and I’m glad I told him in advance. - Alanna
About the author My name is Alanna Groleau. I am 20 years old and have been HIV-positive all my life. I love educating people on HIV and shattering stigmas. Disclosing personally changed my life and hope it can change others’ too.
“WE MUST ACCEPT FINITE DISAPPOINTMENT, BUT WE MUST NEVER LOOSE INFINITE HOPE.” MARTIN LUTHER KING
me, myself and i One of the realities of living with HIV is that not every guy you’re interested in will understand about your status. You could be gorgeous, have a great personality, a steady job, and amazing physical attributes, but the stigma that you walk around with turns away some of the guys who are ‘your type’. PYO’s updated resource – My Sex Life – suggests that we all have the right to amazing sex and one of the options for getting what we want is ‘sero-sorting’. That is, choosing our sex partners based on their status. Probably for a lot of recently-diagnosed young people, the easy and comfortable way to get the ‘sex we want’ is with other positive individuals. Of course there are exceptions – and over time we become more comfortable with disclosing and seeking out sero-discordant relationships – but the pervasive feeling remains that our options have narrowed. So we engage in a negotiation with ourselves. We might go for some negative guys but, if we do, we might stop ourselves from anal sex or avoid other possibly risky activities. We tell ourselves that we’ll only go so far before pulling back. Or we’ll rationalize when to disclose to our negative partner – before dating, after the third date, before sex, etc – whatever we can live with for that particular person.
We might look around at the existing positive youth community and see features in certain guys that we’re attracted to, and tell ourselves that we can overlook that guy’s drawbacks. This one guy – he’s got a big dick and he’s intelligent. But he talks too much and he’s losing his hair. Well, I can live with the balding – but not the yapping. Rejected! This other guy – he’s so thin but he’s so nice. I can get over the thin build. Let’s play!
“We’re learning to experience new things...and engaging with our community in new ways.” Whatever standards we thought we might have had when we were negative are now negotiable. If we want the sex we think we deserve – we’re going to have to start accepting some things we thought we could never get used to. This is not a bad thing. We’re learning to experience new things and new people and engaging with our community in new ways. As we debate with ourselves, we begin to understand ourselves better and come to terms with our new reality. We are all making personal negotiated adjustments as we learn to live with HIV.
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My Sex Life: Info for Young Poz People tackles topics young people living with HIV are dealing with and thinking about in their lives, the importance for this project came from the reality that HIV is still a largely stigmatising issue. Come pick up a copy at the ACT offices or check out the online version at actoronto.org/mysexlife!
Love and sex The art of negotiating sex can be extremely difficult. For the casual hookup all you need to know is if the other person is a top or a bottom and you’re pretty much set. Obviously there are other questions you’d ask, such as what the other person is into, but you’re only likely to get to those questions after you confirm that sex is actually a possibility. I mean, think about it; if I’m a cock-hungry bottom what sexual gratification would I really expect to get out of another cock-hungry bottom? Next! On the flip side, when it comes on to more complex relationships,
negotiating sex requires much more effort through effectively communicating with your partner in order to avoid conflict. I’ve discovered, through my most recent relationship, that some of the biggest problems facing successfully negotiating sex tend to stem from cultural ignorance. My ex-boyfriend is a possessive Latino (being possessive isn’t necessarily a bad thing) who has very Western ideals when it comes on to sex and dating. For him, dating involves sexual exclusivity. I on the other hand, being of a West Indian
background, view dating quite differently. For me, dating involves the intent of settling down with someone; it doesn’t mean that you’re automatically sexually exclusive unless both persons agree that those are the terms of dating each other. Don’t get me wrong, not everyone with a Latino or West Indian background views dating in this light, but isn’t hard to see how our individual ways of thinking can clash. After our first break up we talked things through and decided to try working everything out by basically starting from scratch and taking the relationship slower than we did before. He told me that he wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone else, and although I had every intention of doing the same, I didn’t vocally commit myself to those terms. A few days later, after a failed attempt in trying something new sexually began to frustrate me, he found out that I had slept with someone else and was furious. However, our cultures and individual perspectives on dating restrictions justified both my action of “cheating” and his reaction toward them once everything was out in the open. This was the first in your face cultural difference that sparked
the acknowledgement, mostly on my part at first, of variances in our personalities that were hindering the relationship. Negotiating sex, be it for a casual hookup or the long haul, often times requires more effort and energy than we actually realise or are willing to admit. I find it quite ironic that while sexual gratification is innate, in the same breath it can be a source of great conflict both personally and within the wider society. Perhaps we place too little emphasis on the fact that we are sexual beings. Never-the-less, though it may be difficult, we should try to not allow our cultural differences or any other hindrances to interfere with logic and our ability to work things through. It is for this reason, despite everything that has happened, my ex and I are going to try our best to be friends for now; who knows what the future of has in store for us. - Franklin
About the author My name is Franklin Gunness and I’ve been HIV-positive for over four years. I initially fed into the stigmas and thought my love and sex life was over, but once I educated myself with the facts I realised that was far from the truth. Anyone can have a healthy love and sex life, regardless of their status.
“THE REGARD OF A THING WELL DONE IS TO HAVE DONE IT.” RALPH WALDO EMERSON
SPANKING NEW! ACT’s most popular resource - BDSM: Safer Kinky Sex - has been updated for 2013! Crack a whip and get the latest on Hepatitis C, HPV, MRSA, and cleaning toys! Also includes new info on condoms, lube, shaving and harm reduction.
For more information: actoronto.org/bdsm
Hook me up This Time we ask PYO: “What strategies do you use to maintain a safe interaction before you meet someone from an online site?” •
Write my status (HIV Positive) –because all the information is on the table from the beginning. Always disclose.
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If there are signs of aggression or persistence show that the person is not attentive.
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Ask questions on regards of drug use, to make sure the person is not under the influence by asking probing questions, such as, do you party and play (PNP)? To avoid confusion.
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Get all relevant contact information.
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Tell a friend if it’s a random hook up where I will be, have a Buddy system in place.
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Use a messenger with video to confirm the person I am meeting is legit (ie. Skype).
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Take a screenshot of the conversation with the person that you are talking to and save it on the computer until actual meeting.
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Meet at a social event or public space.
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Establish a rapport through text before meeting.
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Make sure that the messages are straight forward and to the point.
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Ask direct questions to rule out possible dangers
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Never hook up at my place.
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Make sure that the flow of the conversation makes sense and the interaction is consistent to rule out possible dangers.
“THERE IS NO GOOD IN ARGUING WITH THE INEVITABLE. THE ONLY ARGUMENT AVAILABLE WITH AN EAST WIND IS TO PUT ON YOUR OVERCOAT.” JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Answers from the last issue’s crossword: ACROSS: 1. FUN 4. WARMER 6. EASTER 8. RAIN 9. APRIL DOWN: 1. FLOWERS 2. GREEN 3. UMBRELLA 5. SPRING 6. THIRTY
ask an act expert Got a question about sex? Or just about health in general? Want to know more about ACT and its services? Send us a question and read about it in the next issue of Recharge.
email us at pyozine@actoronto.org
Recharge is also available online: issuu.com/actoronto/docs/rechargesummer13