This article by Gus Cairns first appeared in aidsmap here.    Giving both pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and antiretroviral therapy (ART) to heterosexual couples where one partner has HIV (serodiscordant couples) can almost eliminate the chance of infection in the HIV-negative partner, a study presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2015) in Seattle, USA, yesterday has shown. This study was a first in a number of ways. It is the first to combine the

When Chanse, a 19-year-old gay man living in Shreveport, Louisiana, tested HIV-positive a few months ago, his mother reacted with understandable emotion and concern. And then she did something both odd and beautiful: she threw Chanse a coming out party.  “We had a couple of dozen family members and friends there,” Chanse told me during my recent visit to my hometown. “And halfway through the party we started pinning red ribbons on everyone. They didn’t know what to make of it.” Hi

Levi Hastings This story by Evan J. Peterson first appeared in The Stranger here. Copyright material reproduced here with the specific permission of the author.  The pills are sky blue. Large, but not horse-sized. The corporate stamp, GILEAD, is printed on them in all caps. Holding the bottle, I wonder if I'm ready to take it. I've read the list of potential side effects—mainly liver damage and bone density loss. My friends who've been on the drug for over a year have experienced neither

When I opened my very first bottle of Truvada, the first thing I noticed was a small cylinder container of silica beads (put there to keep the Truvada moisture free.) I didn't know what to do with it, but I felt an urge to save it for some reason, so I decided to set it on the edge of a shelf in my hallway closet.  I was certain I would get pregnant immediately, so I didn't think much more about those silica containers in my closet. Of course, as the months wore on, and I opened more and mo

Flashback to August 14, 2012 where I'm in the bathroom looking at a positive pregnancy test, and surprised by the first emotions that are welling up inside of me. Not joy. Not elation.  Not excitement. But BITTERNESS. SADNESS. REGRET. A sense of deep regret that it took 14 years to end up where the journey first started...with the idea of taking a pill to reduce risk associated with exposure to HIV. I felt (and still feel) that the medical community failed us. And said failure was caused to

This article originally appeared in French on The Warning’s website here. An emerging trend We are now seeing the emergence of profiles where guys self-identify as PrEP users on cruising sites and apps like Grindr and Squirt. Is this a signal that PrEP is now a part of gay men’s sex lives? I decided to check out one of these sites to see what was happening.  I chose BBRT to see if guys were self-identifying as PrEP users. Actually, HIV prevention workers in Toronto are the ones who p

This article by Gus Cairns first appeared in aidsmap.com here.   The Steering Committee* of the PROUD trial of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in gay men in England announced today that participants currently on the deferred arm of the study, who have not yet started PrEP, will be recalled to their clinics and offered the opportunity to begin PrEP ahead of schedule. This is because the effectiveness seen in the trial has exceeded the threshold set for trial continuation. Although the exact

I met James (1) on Grindr. Well, not exactly – he was a friend of a friend, who also happened to be a fan of my writing. We had connected years ago and intended to meet up, but we never found the time. So when James pinged me on Grindr, my interest was piqued. He was gorgeous, successful, and hung like a fucking horse. I thought to myself, “okay, what’s the catch?” We made plans to spend a weekend in his hometown, a two hour drive from me.  But before I got in my car and made the sc

This new position statement appears on the website of ACON,   originally the AIDS Council of NSW, here. Read the PostiveLite.com review from Editor Bob Leahy following the statement, ACON Position Statement - What is Safe Sex?   The HIV prevention landscape has changed considerably in recent years. Condoms, used together with lubricant, remain the most effective barrier against the transmission of HIV, though they are no longer the only option. Additional biomedical technologies and ne

 This article by Benjamin Ryan first appeared in POZ magazine here.  In the age of using antiretrovirals to prevent HIV transmission, some gay men have started to believe that condoms don’t matter at all, even for sexually transmitted infections.  Now that science is showing us that antiretrovirals can prevent the transmission of HIV, a new conversation about the place of condoms in gay men’s sex lives is taking place. This is thanks, for example, to a study published in July that est