This is a repost of an extremely popular post (723 comments) that ran 4 1/2 years ago. It is as up to date now as it was then. Nothing has changed in the interim. Most of you have probably not read this piece, so you might want to look into it. Its’ pretty interesting and it goes against most of the scare stories you here.
We have a reactionary commenter in the comments section who is posting the usual scare stuff about the risks of males in the US getting HIV from a woman. In truth, the risks are very low. To the extent that they exist at all, they exist in the form of regular sex with a woman who has HIV. I mean regular sex. Like hundreds of times, preferably over years. That’s how a male gets HIV from a woman in the US.
Your chances rise slightly with every encounter with an HIV positive partner, so if you are having sex 100’s of times with an HIV positive woman, you risk starts going up. Your risk from a one time or casual encounter with even a known HIV positive female is nearly zero. Your risk from a woman with unknown status is even lower.
These folks like our commenter like to go on an on about how condoms don’t prevent HIV. Well, technically it is true. There were some studies in which serodisocordant couples (one had HIV, the other did not) were followed for ~5 years. Some used condoms all the time, others sometimes, others never. There was significant risk to the females in the never use category, some risk to the females in the occasional category, and low risk to the females in the always category.
There was no risk to the males who used condoms. Of the males who never used condoms with their HIV positive partners, only 20% were HIV positive after 5 years and 100’s of sex acts. You can see right there how hard it is for a guy to get HIV from a woman in the US.
If condoms were such a big risk to women nevertheless, we would expect to see some women in porn getting HIV from men using condoms. Not one case has yet been reported.
If HIV is such a risk to men from having sex with women, we should be seeing some infections in porn. Not one man has caught HIV from a woman in porn yet, even though for decades, most scenes did not use condoms and to this day, many still do not.
It’s so hard to get HIV from a woman in the US that most guys should not waste time worrying about it. If you regularly have sex with women who shoot dope, you have more to worry about. If you have a regular partner, you might want her to get tested if you don’t know her status, as regular sex with an HIV positive woman over 100’s of acts is somewhat risky.
It’s always nice to know people’s status. I know mine. It’s negative. I’ve been tested. A few times.
Males get HIV infection in three ways.
- Gay sex. Usually receptive anal sex. Other acts and positions are much less risky.
- Sharing needles with illegal drug users. Don’t do it.
- Heterosexual sex. The number of cases is so small that I would almost say don’t worry about it, but not quite.
All these Black and Hispanic guys with HIV who are giving it to women in their communities are getting it by gay sex and sharing needles. With the Black guys, there is a lot of down low gay sex and some needle sharing. With the Hispanic guys, it’s almost all needle sharing.
If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site.
