Several days before I was scheduled to make an appearance and publicly speak on behalf of my non-profit organizations’ partner, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I had a very vivid dream. I dreamt that I tested positive for HIV, and I immediately thought about taking my own life. I believed that my life, as I knew it, was over and not worth living anymore. Having been diagnosed with the virus, which would ultimately lead to the disease that would cause my death, coupled with ostracism from my friends and community, why go on?

The thoughts racing through my head were traveling at the speed of light. Where did I contract the virus? From whom did I contract it? WHEN? I began to think of the conversation I was going to have to have with former partners, not knowing when the virus was contracted and considering it can lay dormant for a significant period of time. Jesus, strike me down now!

And then a voice inside my head said to me, “Now you know just how full of crap you are and have been.” And I knew what it meant. I’d been preaching the word, the gospel, about HIV/AIDS Awareness, Prevention and Education for years. Sitting up on panels, encouraging folks to always know their status and to act responsibly and sitting up on my high horse knowing I had been afforded certain luxuries that allowed me to live a very responsible life. I didn’t have to sell my body in order to make money for baby formula. I didn’t live in poverty, and I didn’t live in an area with a statistically high rate of prevalence, increasing the chance of crossing paths with an infected sexual partner. And so, it seems, I could preach with a subtle sort of arrogance and apparently ignorance.

“So,” this voice said to me, “Let’s see just how full of it you are. Are you going to become a REAL advocate like Magic Johnson, Maria Davis and Marvelyn Brown, or are you going be a coward and go out like a sucker and end your life?” It’s at that point that I woke up. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wake up with an overwhelming sense of relief. It was just a dream, and my test results still said negative, but I was unsettled. I realized that if some young person followed my advice and got tested and tested positive, I would have no answers for them as to where to seek help and medical assistance. In that way, I was no real advocate, and I was STILL full of crap. So, I began to seek answers to the questions that needed asking–that no one ever wants to ask but so many of us should and will have to–if the statistics don’t change in the African American community.

Where can I get tested for HIV? And do the tests hurt?
The test involves a painless swab of the inside of your mouth. You have the choice of going for a confidential test at your doctor’s office or at a nearby clinic. Local health clinics usually advertise that they do free testing so it’s as easy as walking in and requesting it. If you wanted to get tested anonymously, you can get tested free of charge at a testing site offered by your states’ Health Department. You do not give a name; your test is processed by a number. If your test comes back positive, you can request professional counseling so you are made aware of all of your options in regards to health care and help with partner notification. Or you can look up free testing sites on HIVTest.org if your state health department doesn’t provide testing at their offices.

How often do I need to be tested for HIV?
Anytime you have shared needles during drug use or had unprotected sex, you should be getting tested for HIV. If you’ve had one or more STDs (Sexually Transmitted Virus) in the past, that increases your chances of contracting HIV through unprotected sex and drug use with needles. Keeping your sexual partners to a minimum and practicing safe sex is your best chance at staying healthy, where a once a year test is all that is needed.

Does testing negative for HIV mean I’m negative for all other STDs?
No it does not, and while on your next doctor’s visit, in addition to requesting your HIV test, request a test for all STDs. Our doctor’s are testing for certain things, like abnormal and possibly cancerous cells, during our PAPs and physicals. We need to verbally REQUEST all other testing for things such as Syphilis, Gonorrhea and HPV Human Papilloma Virus).

If I only give and receive oral sex, am I still at risk of contracting and passing along the HIV virus?
The risk exists but is extremely hard to determine. It’s advised to partake in this type of sexual activity only with partners you have a trusting and perhaps monogamous relationship with.

I tested Positive for HIV; what do I do now?
If you test positive for the HIV virus, prompt medical attention and consultation is an absolute necessity. Early medical treatment and a healthy lifestyle can delay the onset of AIDS, which is the disease. To determine when is the best time to start HIV medications your doctor will take 2 tests: one is a viral load test which determines how much HIV is in your blood stream; the other is a T-cell test, also known as a CD4 count, which determines how strong your immune system is. There are cases of people living with the HIV virus for up to 10 years without a single symptom, but that isn’t for you to determine on your own.

Your doctor will want to test you for Tuberculosis and other STD’s as they can cause serious health problems for you.

I have no health insurance and I have limited finances; how do I pay for treatment?
There are programs that assist those that fall below a certain income levels. The AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) offers federal assistance, but a number of different local groups in each city also offer assistance. Www.Health.gov is a website that can help you locate local groups that offer assistance in your city.

HIV/AIDS is a serious but chronic manageable disease.  People who get treatment tend to live relatively normal lives, generally longer than the 1/3 of Americans with serious cardiovascular disease or diabetes.  It is far more treatable than most cancers, specifically breast and cervical cancer, which kills at a significantly higher rate than HIV.  However it is quite serious and has a real impact on those who live with it, and will eventually kill most people who are infected and get no doctor’s attention or treatment. But most people in this country live many decades after becoming infected. According to Robert Bailey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Person’s infected with HIV who begin treatment early are 96% less likely to transmit the virus to their sexual partners, and more likely to live very long lives because early treatment lowers the amount of HIV in the body. What’s unfortunate is that, of the 1.2 million American’s living with HIV, only 28% are receiving regular care, taking the necessary medicine and have viral suppression, and that needs to change.”

We need to stop thinking and talking about HIV/AIDS as if it is still 1981, and start to develop the same kind of supportive environment for those who are HIV positive as we do for victims of cancer or heart disease.  A lot has changed in terms of medical advancement for HIV care over the last 30 years – however, the level of public ignorance about it remains quite stagnant and the disproportionate contraction rates in our community in comparison to other nationalities only supports this fact; as the saying goes “What hurts just one hurts us all”.

To get the facts about HIV/AIDS visit www.actagainstaids.org.

Imagine that your every move is being cataloged and investigated, that everyone you interact with is placed under surveillance and that your health care provider releases your confidential records to a committee of people trying to publicly label you a menace, get you off the streets and thrown into the deepest hole they can find? If you have HIV, this committee is the US Criminal Justice System and this is how they are legally allowed to annul your rights.

In the first part of this series, I stressed how important it is to know your status and how you should never compromise yourself or your health, even when it comes to love and relationships. In the first part of this series, I stress how important it is to know your status and how you should never compromise yourself or your health, even when it comes to love and relationships. Trust, after all, can be manipulated. Whether to cover up dirty deeds or otherwise, like in the case of Marvelyn Brown, the wrong choice can come at an extremely high price. For Brown and many others who have been diagnosed with HIV, the price is even higher. In addition to being ostracized from her family, friends and communities that serve as daily reminders of the cross she bares, criminal statutes and laws in the US triple her angst by threatening her right to privacy and potentially her freedom because of her publicly disclosed status.

As much as I consider myself to be an advocate in the fight to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, I sit on the side of the fence of preventing as many people from contracting it through education and persistent campaigning. I have rarely had to address when someone follows my advice–or the advice of federal and state public health officials–gets tested and comes up positive, but I will address that in my final article in this series.

I placed people who are HIV positive in two categories: the public advocates whom I greatly admire such as Maria Davis, Hydiea Broadbent, Marvelyn Brown and, of course, Erving “Magic” Johnson, a personal friend of mine. The other category (and it’s with shame that I admit this) is the one I placed people like Nushawn Williams in, the 19-year-old man convicted in 1997 of knowingly infecting his sexual partners with HIV. Without any research or investigating on my part, I subscribed to the propaganda and the sensational media coverage that paints him as a monster. There was a part of me that believed that there are folks out there, intentionally infecting others through irresponsible sexual behavior; this belief was supported by the statistic that 1 in 5 people don’t know their status because they’ve never been tested, which could lead one to think they don’t want to know it.

After conducting weeks of research, my perspective has been drastically altered. In order to offer a vivid picture as to how perceptions and attitudes have (or have not) changed towards HIV/AIDS since its discovery 30 years ago, I turned to several experts on the subject of public health and safety and legal experts who work directly in the field of HIV Criminalization.

One such expert is Ms. Catherine Hansenns, Executive Director and Founder of The Center for HIV Law and Policy. It was through my conversations with her and the information provided on her website that I began to see the true threat caused by the stigmatization and permeated ignorance of which we treat the subject of HIV.

HIV statutes and prosecutions contradict and, therefore, undermine public health goals by, basically, scaring people into refusal of testing.  On one hand, you have both federal and state public health officials urging the public to get tested and to know their HIV status; on the other hand, there are laws who punish those who have taken the step to get tested and who have been diagnosed as positive. Says Ms. Hansenns

“The government has taken the position through its laws that people with HIV are so dangerous and so toxic that we need to develop special laws in which to punish and control them.”

Arrest records show people criminalized by this process have faced charges ranging from assault and aggravated assault to depraved indifference and a host of fines with lengthy prison sentences. In the case of Nushawn Williams, former mayor Rudy Guiliani pushed to prosecute him for attempted murder (this charge didn’t stand up in court).

According to Ms. Hansenns, once someone is convicted of HIV criminal laws and statutes, you are subject to involuntary commitment past the length of your sentence if you are considered to be a menace and threat to public health. More and more, involuntary civil commitments are being used against people with HIV. In addition to this, registration with the National Sex Offenders Registry database is also a strong likelihood which would lead to future employment, rental and home ownership and privacy issues.Not only may laws like these discourage people from getting tested, but it may also discourage people, who are positive, from taking part in other kinds of preventive activities. If going to speak to someone at a health clinic and discussing with them your sex life and who you are involved with can trigger a criminal investigation, who in their right mind would welcome that kind of intrusion into their lives willingly?

The 5^th amendment of the constitution allows for a person to withhold self-incriminating information; HIV laws are loop-holing around this by using the public health system in order to determine and remove who THEY believe pose a threat to the general public, simply because of a positive HIV status. With this idea in place there may as well be a pre-crime division within the police department, arresting people for their thoughts. In order to opine as to what someone who is HIV positive would do, once they’re aware of their diagnosis, is to ask yourself that question: Would you suddenly make it your full time objective to infect as many people as you could? Studies show that most people with a positive status actually become more conscious of their health.

It would be foolish to think that there aren’t instances where a person knows their status is positive and still acts irresponsibly, having unprotected sex. But when you talk about sex, the concept of legal and consensual sex, excluding sex taken by force, incest and molestation, there are two consenting individuals involved during a the act.

Whether that act is protected through condom use or not, the choice is made by both parties. In order to maintain the quality of life we are all entitled to, a sense of self worth and personal responsibility must exist. YOUR status is YOUR responsibility, so the onus of asking the “unromantic” but necessary questions about a perspective partner’s sexual health history falls on YOU. In 2011, with all of our advancements in medical care, a positive status doesn’t have to mean a death sentence; but in the eyes of the law, it certainly can mean a life sentence.

For more information about b condoms, HIV/AIDS or World AIDS Day, please check out @bcondoms, www.bcondoms.com, or worldaidsdays.org

Actress and model Melyssa Ford will be serving up a four-part series on the state and importance of black sexual health, delving into the topics AIDS/HIV. Be informed, be safe and protect your worth.

Here is a proposed statistic for you: it’s said that no less than 60% of African American women are single in this country, and they say that’s the low end of the statistic. It’s safe to assume quite a lot of us are currently in some stage of the dating game. With all of our social networking activities, we’ve increased the amount of perspective partners we have access to 10 fold.

Now, we all have our checklist of things we look for in a man (provided you aren’t looking for the second coming of Jesus in the form of Adonis, like Chilli was!), but I wonder where do health and all communication on things related fall on your list of priorities? It goes without saying, right? It’s top priority, but the statistics on the spread of HIV in the African American community don’t really support this notion.

African American women are still disproportionately affected by the spread of HIV. They are 15-20 times more likely to contract it than their white counterparts and three times more likely than Latina women–the third largest cause of death amongst African American women. That basically says that a large portion of us are a) not getting tested, b) not practicing safe sex and, c) not carrying around our negative test results and demanding that our partner show us proof of the same or the cookies STAY in the jar!

But what about those women who contracted HIV from an unscrupulous partner while in–or what they thought was–a monogamous relationship? Were they expected to ask for their partner’s status report every six months? Aren’t relationships built on trust? Yes, they are, but… Consider the situation faced by Marvelyn Brown, a beautiful chocolate sister who’s an enthusiastic advocate in raising awareness about HIV/AIDS and co-author of the book The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive. She’s been living with the disease for eight years; she contracted it while in a monogamous relationship when she was 19 years old.

Like many of us, she grew up watching Disney fairy tales, always believing that her prince would come along one day. And from the day she laid eyes on David (not his real name), she believed that day had come. She loved everything about him: his walk, his talk… his scent. Prior to meeting this man, Marvelyn had never before been tested for HIV and was largely ignorant about the virus itself. Her discovery that she had the virus came while she was at the hospital for non-HIV related pneumonia. Upon being told by the doctor that she was HIV positive, she describes herself as feeling empty, simply because she didn’t know what it was or what the total life changing ramifications of this diagnosis would create. Marvelyn didn’t care to listen to any information provided about HIV prevention because she didn’t feel it applied to her. Because of her lack of understanding of the virus or the stigma attached to it, she told her family and friends and her boyfriend.

David broke up with her because he didn’t want anyone to know his positive status, and word spread about her positive status through her community and her church. At home she was forced to eat off paper plates and use plastic utensils; at church, she found judgment and scorn. Experiencing complete ostracism from her friends, she eventually dropped out of school.

What do you think, as women, we value most about life? The support and love of our families, socializing with our friends and the feeling of connectedness with our communities, correct? Have you ever asked yourself, if you were robbed of these three critical components of our identities, would life even be worth living? Who would care about the new Christian Louboutin’s we just copped, or the law degree we’d achieved or that we’d just lost our job due to downsizing? How would your faith hold up, knowing that your church–an institution that is supposed to embody the notion of the importance of social cohesion and that we are all equal under the eyes of God–has branded you an outsider and created a perceptible wall of dismissiveness between you and everyone else?

These circumstances became Marvelyn’s reality. And although she has turned a negative, life-changing experience into her own positive circumstances, what she’s had to endure is nothing she would wish on anyone. The eight pills with the nauseating side affects that she has to take every night in order to sustain her health is something she hopes you don’t have to deal with.

So the next time the “unsexy” subject of comparing sexual health status between you and a perspective partner arises, ask yourself the following questions: How much does your life mean to you? Does the concept of trust in your mate outweigh your sense of personal responsibility and self-government?

Traversing through relationships and dating these days is already like a mine field without the slippery slope of hasty or poor decision-making becoming complete self-compromise in response to another’s discomfort or objection. As women, we are the givers and nurturer’s of life, and we’re succumbing to illnesses and diseases brought on by poor choices and lazy attitudes. As it relates to our health and well-being, the only constant is this: the choice is yours.

For more information about b condoms, HIV/AIDS or World AIDS Day, please check out @bcondoms, www.bcondoms.com, or worldaidsdays.org

Please check out The Naked Truth: Young Beautiful and (HIV) Positive By Marvelyn Brown with Courtney E. Martin.