Fuck that, DTMFA!!!

Are you kidding me? She asked him straight out and he lied about something deadly in order to get some pussy. So he told her later, congrats, he is not a complete sociopath, he has a conscience. do0esn't mean you can trust him with your most precious stuff. DTMFA and maybe next time he'll learn to not be a shitbag liar.

You're being too kind. If there's one thing I've learned from Spider-Man, it's that with great power comes great responsibility. If you have the power to give people a deadly virus by fucking, then you should probably be be a little more responsible and put the well-being of others ahead of your fear of rejection or desire for intimacy.

"If the poz guy who fucked your friend is on antiretroviral therapy and if his viral load is undetectable ... then your friend's risk of acquiring HIV during this encounter was very, very, very low."

That's a lot of assumption.

The initial lie makes everything he says about his disease suspect. An omission would be more forgivable but he lied to her face about HIV.

"Pozphobic"? I hope this isn't being insensitive, but does someone's aversion to putting themselves at risk really need to be stigmatized as a phobic or having a phobia? I guess I'm pozphobic.... I'm also chainsaw-juggle-phobic and jump-from-plane-without-chute-phobic.

BTW, the guy is an asshole. Telling your partner 5 minutes after you finish that you're HIV positive is still way too late.

Seriously - that guy is a piece of shit.

This guy should be prosecuted.

Woah, this is criminal. Dude should go to jail. I'm not sure I've ever seen Dan Savage be so completely wrong. He practically forgives the guy at the end.

The main issues I have with this situation is that she did not get to make an informed decision about having sex with this guy. It is definitely possible for a condom to break or fall off during sex. She should have been able to weigh all the risks BEFORE having sex and make a decision from there. This guys is a sociopath, his callousness behavior could have ended up killing her and could end killing someone else in the future.

It doesn't matter if you have genital herpes in total remission or pubic lice you're at peace with or an "extremely low" chance of passing on your HIV -- you need to inform your partner up front, not lie to them. That's the only way anyone can build an honest and intimate relationship.

While it's sad that someone needed to even ask this question, it's really disappointing how wrong Dan is on this.

If you know you have an STI, you are obligated to disclose whether you are asked or not. Full stop. No excuses. I don't care what it is. There is no fucking reason at all to not disclose.

Seriously way off base on this Dan, what the hell are you thinking? Worst advice I've seen from you and let's be honest, it hasn't all been good, but your take on this is really really really horrible. I can't even see where you are coming from on this.

"Sure you can have pull off my beer. Pretty good huh? Oh I almost forgot, I have TB. You're not one of those TBphobic assholes are you?"

The moral and ethical obligation of people with HIV to disclose their status was codified in the 1983 Denver Principles, the foundation document of the people with HIV self-empowerment movement. But that is easier said than done; because of stigma, people with HIV who disclose their status are subject to discrimination, violence, losing their jobs, housing, etc., not to mention almost always getting rejected for intimacy.

In many states, the failure to disclose is subject to prosecution. The prosecutions are rarely about transmission, or the degree of risk actually present, just about the failure to disclose. A man in Texas is serving 35 years for spitting at a cop; a young man in Iowa was sentenced to 25 years for a one-time online hookup where a condom was used and the person with HIV had an undetectable viral load.

These are not excuses not to disclose, but perhaps give some context as to why it is sometimes difficult. HIV is not the only sexually-transmitted virus that can be deadly. So, too, can human papilloma virus (HPV), which killed 4,000 women in the US last year from cervical cancer and causes almost all of the anal-genital-rectal cancers and many throat cancers.

Some studies indicate nearly 70% of the sexually active adult population carries HPV at some point; most never know it. Like HIV, if treated there is far less chance of transmission. Yet HPV isn't specifically associated with an outlaw sexuality or drug users or communities of color, like HIV is. The prosecution of people with HIV for failing to disclose has become a marker for society's racism and homophobia.

Anyone can pursue a civil action against someone who lies to them. Lying to sexual partners, including about important things that can have a profound effect on a partners' physical, emotional or financial well-being, is hardly new. But criminal prosecution of the failure to disclose one has HIV is terrible public health policy because it discourages HIV testing, as ignorance of one's status is the best defense (and those who get tested engage in more responsible sexual behaviors than people with HIV who do not get tested). "Take the test and risk arrest" is not the message we need to send to those most in need of taking an HIV test.

It is inherently discriminatory to write HIV-specific laws, or to mainly prosecute people with HIV; doing so is leading to the creation of a viral subclass in the law. These prosecutions are more often about vengeance (and politically ambitious prosecutors), and typically ignore the actual risk posed, than they are about protecting the public health.

Sentencing is often draconian, like the examples I cited. For more information on this topic, check out www.hivlawandpolicy.org and click on the "criminal law" section.

Will somebody please shut Dan Savage up?

Maybe I'm being poz-ophobic, but people with HIV+ or anything else that could potentially kill someone have a responsibility to be forthright with this information.

You know, the right way this situation goes down involves this discussion about the HIV+ status happens over dinner, not under the sheets. The guy is untrustworthy, especially when things matter most.