Fact: Tremendous stigma still surrounds HIV. Just ask any gay man living with HIV.
Bang Bang Ladesh belongs to the Manchester chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. He recently shared a conversation he had with a man on Grindr, along with the caption: “And the fight to end HIV discrimination and stigma continues, even from within the LGBT community….”
And the fight to end HIV discrimination and stigma continues, even from within the LGBT community….
Posted by BangBang Ladesh on Tuesday, March 27, 2018
In the exchange, the guy sends Bang Bang a photo of himself along with a friendly simple “Hi.” Moments later–presumably after taking a closer look at Bang Bang’s Grindr profile, which mentions that he’s poz–he sends a second message.
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“You’re poz? Sorry I take my Hi back.”
Then the guy blocked him.
Related: So the guy you like just told you he’s HIV-positive — Now what?
Speaking to Gay Star News, Bang Bang, who tested positive for HIV seven years ago, explains: “I would never speak to someone like that. Why would you? Maybe he got me at the wrong moment, but he blocked me and I can’t answer back so I decided to screen shot it and just put it out there.”
“If I could get one person to see that that’s not acceptable behavior, then good.”
He adds that messages like this aren’t terribly common, but they do happen from time to time, and they do have an affect on him.
“I did have a cry. I don’t constantly have the energy to stand up and fight. Sometimes you’re home alone with your cats with some cold pizza and then you get a message like that.”
Despite feeling a bit down, Bang Bang says the experience reminded him about the importance of talking about HIV and educating others.
Related: If you meet Mr. Right and he turns out to be HIV-positive, he’s still Mr. Right
“Don’t be afraid of revealing your status,” he says. “Stand up to the bullies. We stand up to racism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia–we must fight against HIV stigma and ignorance.”
“Get out there and say you’re HIV positive. It’s not a big deal and I’m going to stop other people making it a big deal.”
Word.
h/t: Gay Star News
Kieru
I don’t understand this sort of nasty response.
If a persons HIV status is a deal-breaker in whether you want to have sex with them fine. I don’t particularly share that sentiment but I get that for some any risk is too much risk. His status was disclosed and not noticing it was on you. You’re the one with the issue. You’re the one wasting peoples time.
Apologize for wasting their time. What was done here was just purposefully being a douche.
Troyfight
^…yeah, true Kieru,..& looks like the douche’s name is Beardon – glad he got exposed…..it’s funny, on these sites you put part of your heart out there, but at the same time, you have to “brace” yourself from these arrows….hang in there Bang Bang Ladesh….
Thud Hardbutt
Yup! Definitely Beardon. The small minded pr!ck messaged me on Grindr too
Neal65
And even if you are afraid to have sex with someone that is positive why can’t you still have a friendly text conversation and let them know you’re uncomfortable without being rude.
pudman56
Just cuz you’re gay doesn’t mean you can’t be an ignorant asshole. I’m open about being poz and yeah, I still read a lot of “I’m clean/ub2”. I just tell them I shower every day and to Fuck Off.
ChrisK
The LGBT community has allot of hurt in it and sometimes we take it out on our own. Grindr is notorious for that. I’ve been called a fa*got for just responding to them more then once by other gay men.
CastleSF
Brad, I am still clueless about the system you are so fixated on. This story is about a rude and heartless man blocking another man due to his HIV status.
LABrad
I can’t believe that there are still people using do it yourself sero-sorting via the honor system as a method of safe sex. Because men who are horny and trying to hook up with strangers would never tell a lie to speed things up. Would they?
ChrisK
Sero sorting is choosing to have sex with other people with hiv. Not sure what’s so bad about that.
ChrisK
Actually I take that back. Thanks Queerty lack of editing. Yes. That’s usually where the most risk is.
CastleSF
This man doesn’t want to be with an HIV+ guy. He is incredibly rude in his manners but what does that have anything to the so-called sero-sorting? What an odd term and do people really understand jargons like this anyway?
LABrad
My point was, the guy in this story (the one who was rude) is having bareback sex with strangers just because they tell him they’re neg.
LABrad
Sero-sorting is categorizing people as safe or not safe. The problem with it is that it’s based on the honor system. It’s been the #1 cause of new hiv cases for many, many years now.
CastleSF
Some people just don’t want to be with HIV+ guys for whatever reason. There is no mention in the screen shot of what kind of sex this guy was looking for or if he was even looking for it at the time.
LABrad
CastleSF Wow. Ok, so you think asking a horny gay man who wants to hook up with strangers what his status is…. is a fool proof plan? You don’t see anything faulty with that system?
hashtag DeleteGrindr
About 70% of them would, according to one study. But you know, science is the devil’s work. ?
Daniel-Reader
It all depends on context. Perhaps the guy who blocked him blocks all hiv positive guys because he wants to infect only non-positive guys. It is a;ways a naive presumption that the guy who blocked him is negative or has good intentions for anyone. Perhaps he was lucky to be blocked because the guy doing the blocking could be downright destructive.
DHT
The guy who blocked him IS downright destructive…deliberately promoting HIV stigma is an entirely destructive social construct.
CastleSF
Your story that a deranged soul is out there to infect unsuspecting men with HIV just gets curiouser and curiouser. If I am being honest, your thinking is totally absurd.
Wordsmith
Slap a glove on it, if that’s your concern (though I hardly believe it is). I would ‘bang bang’ Bang Bang in a heartbeat!
revjshoregoss
He could have been more polite but which is worse I am sorry i don’t hook up with positive guys or UB2 in the profile either way just be responsible for yourself if you do not realize not all men are honest and even if they are honest not all men get tested regularly…If you do not take your own precautions then URNXT
pudman56
Ever hear the saying “err on the side of caution”? I’m sick of poz people being the only one’s responsible for telling people instead of negative people asking. If a person’s going to lie, they’re going to lie. I’m not ashamed of being poz, just tired of neg’s thinking they don’t have to ask.
Caine
@CastleSF – I guess you are not HIV+ cos pretty much anyone who is knows the term sero-sorting – it’s been tossed around for at least 15 years
glitteredsins
Having checked Bang Bang’s FB page – it appears whoever messaged him on Grindr was using another man’s picture. The man in the picture is actually a HIV educator/activist.
Alonso Sierra
Just to be clear, the guy in the picture is not the one who sent the message… somebody was using his pic… please double check your sources before shaming someone who is innocent.
ChrisK
Kind of what I suspected. Trolls love Grindr.
Bradsman
The way he rejected the guy was rude but he was just saying what many guys think. HIV may be treatable but who wants to take a pill everyday of your life? In a friend it doesn’t matter to me but someone I’m going to be intimate with? Why get involved with that when there are many guys who at least claim to be neg?
ChrisK
So many things wrong with what you just said. This story isn’t even about safe sex practices. I’m sure you and Beardon are more common then not.
dwes09
There is not really much wrong with what he said. If someone wishes to avoid falling for a person with HIV because they hope to eventually have unprotected sex in a monogamous relationship what exactly is wrong with that?
And though PrEP currently seems to prevent infection better than condom use alone, many folks do not want to take drugs with unknown long term effects (either to prevent or manage HIV infection), especially with the history of past antiretrovirals encouraging lymphoma, physical deformity and heart disease. There are also folks who discover after infection that they simply do not tolerate HIV meds very well (I have friends in that situation, occasionally housebound because of it) , or rarely, not at all. For them HIV is not “an easily manageable disease like diabetes” as the drugmakers are fond of saying, ignoring that diabetes still has nasty side effects even when well managed.
Plus, evidence is beginning to emerge of new strains of HIV that resist known meds. This is not unexpected, but as with antibiotics, it is a poor assumption that new drugs will come off the production line forever.
While the grinder message was unacceptable at best, there are any number of reasons for not wanting to be part of a discordant couple. And none of those reasons are “wrong”, though how folks deal with them might be tactless or worse.
CastleSF
I have to agree with dwes09. If you are HIV+ and still in your 20s or early 30s, you are probably deemed as “damaged goods” by many gay guys. Who can take a chemical pill for the rest of their life just to be with an HIV person?
ChrisK
@CastleSF. No one is ‘damaged goods” and I’m sure you’ve carefully chosen that word for maximum impact. Ehhh..Jaxton.
CastleSF
Chris, you are right. It’s not OK to use that term. I wish I could edit or delete my comment.
Brian
Correction, there isn’t much wrong with what he’s thinking. If you don’t want to be with a poz guy, that’s certainly your prerogative. What he said, however, was just cruelty for the sake of cruelty. He could have easily just not responded if the guy said hello back, instead he decided to be a complete asshole to a complete stranger.
Creamsicle
I was under the impression that people who are HIV+, responsibly taking their meds and regularly testing undetectable, physically cannot transmit the virus. That is sort of the whole idea behind PrEP, even though PEP is a different drug cocktail that includes PrEP medications like Truvada.
CastleSF
HIV is nothing to feel ashamed of but truth be told, it is considered a — baggage — by many gay guys, and rightfully so.
dwes09
Rightfully so?
Another example that you live in your mind and not the real world.
There are a huge number of sero-discordant couples out there where for many years one has avoided infecting the other. There is ample evidence of the efficacy of PrEP, though given the increase in multi-drug resistant STIs, condoms remain prudent in non-monogamous relationships.
You seem to assume in pretty much all your comments here that your imagination is a reliable source of information and insight; that naivety is experience.
Brian
I was in a 4 year relationship with a poz guy in the late 90s. I remained negative, and still am. It really isn’t that difficult to do.
Kieru
I think that users like @dwes09 and @Brian are being too critical here.
Serodiscordant couples, especially prior to the popularization fo PrEP, made a conscious choice: The desire to be together outweighs the risks of transmitting HIV. That’s not an easy choice to make, especially if it comes as a surprise early in your relationship (i.e. Your partner wasn’t aware he was HIV+)
PrEP has certainly made that choice easier, but it’s still accepting a certain level of risk and a certain amount of responsibility. For some people any risk is too much risk, and while it’s not a decision I would make today it’s also not one I would condemn in others.
I know back in my 20s I had the opportunity to date the sweetest guy. He was funny, caring, smart and ambitious. He was also HIV+. Truvada hadn’t yet been approved for PrEP so my options for risk-mitigation were fewer. And while I’m not proud of it his HIV status was the deciding factor in my not asking him out again. I wasn’t ready to accept that level of risk or responsibility in my life.
Kangol
Cruel and malevolent seems par for the course these days, not just on sites like Grindr, but across social media. I’m glad Bang Bang Ladesh exposed the hateful creep.
hashtag DeleteGrindr
But you have to admit, Grindr is the worst of the worst. If there’s another app that is more of a confused, drama-laden, judgmental trainwreck, I’m not aware of it.
hashtag DeleteGrindr
(Apps for gay guys, anyway. That’s what Grindr started as, and still is, but will soon lose. The absolute worst social application is Facebook, hands down. I’ve quit using both of these garbage dumps.)
Morrisson
I don’t think the issue is Stigma, it is self preservation. If you do not wish to sleep with someone who is positive due to the risk (however insignificant) then that is your choice. Your body your choice. In saying that the guy does seem like an arrogant arse.
NateOcean
Even a simple “white lie” would have worked here:
“Oops, I mis-clicked….I was trying to say hello to a friend. Happy hunting!”
PinkoOfTheGange
It was the delivery.
hashtag DeleteGrindr
This is the kind of stuff that makes people lie about their status. But it’s a tactical mistake not to accept that status, because positive usually == undetectable, so ironically, safe(r). A majority of “negative” guys are lying, or have never even been tested.
Side note: There are better, friendlier, less sketchy apps than Grindr, which is now 100% owned by Beijing Kunlun Tech Company and its straight CEO. Think about who’s got your data now.
prarie pup
Any reasonably intelligent person is now aware of the private data collected by sites like Grindr and does what he or she can to either keep their private data private, or give them false data. I have plenty of online accounts and I’ve not posted accurate personal data on either one.
prarie pup
There is no excuse for intentional rude, dickhead, childish remarks, no matter the forum be it Grindr or anywhere else. What an unloved, empty person that guy must be.
Franklin
I have a question and I might get flamed for this but here goes. I’ve seen many people repeat on articles dealing with race and gindr, that people like what they like and shouldn’t be forced to sleep with someone just to be PC. Well I’m curious, what’s the difference between that and someone not wanting to sleep with someone who has HIV. I mean people like what they like. Some guys prefer not to sleep with guys that have HIV. Shouldn’t they have a right to have those preferences?
Vince
Damn your good. You saw right through it. This article is about hiv positive guys holding a gun to negative guys heads and trying to force them into sex.
You should win the nobel prize for something. Serious.
Brian
The issue is not about having preferences, obviously everybody is free to sleep with or not sleep with whomever they want. If you feel forced by political correctness to sleep with someone you don’t want to, your problems are way bigger than your preferences.
The real issue is about how obnoxiously some people feel the need to trumpet their preferences to the world. There is an ever growing number of people who don’t even feel the need to treat people online with basic decency, and entire generations growing up thinking that this kind of narcissistic behavior is completely normal and acceptable. Which is especially ironic, since these generations have had anti bullying, diversity, and the world revolving around feelings shoved down their throats their entire lives.
We need to start shoving the importance of online conduct down their throats, the way we’ve been shoving environmentalism, gender issues, and the democratic party down it for the past decade.
Franklin
Brian and Vince. This is exactly my point. No this article isn’t about people holding a gun to someone’s head and trying to force them to sleep with them, but neither are the articles about race and dating. Yet the people who attempt their experiences of how they are treated online based on their race are accused of doing exactly that. I think most guys that bring up the issue, and I’m saying most here because there are always exceptions, are just like the guys here wanting poeple to be a little more respectful about how they communicate their preferences.
Kieru
To me this reads as an oversimplified argument; something to try and make a spurious correlation feel stronger. I’m not sure there is really any malicious undertone to this so much as just a less than thought-out consideration.
A person who refuses to date an HIV+ person is basing that decision due to a transmittable, incurable, medical condition. At worst they have an uninformed perception of the risks associated with serodiscordant sexual encounters. At best they are informed and still perceive that risk to be too significant.
A person who refuses to date a [insert race/ethnicity here] person is doing so based on either the perception that that race/ethnicity is inferior (see also: racism) or that to date they haven’t found someone of that race/ethnicity they find attractive so they assume that the never will (see also: racial stereotyping). At worst this person is well… racist. At best they are still guilty of stereotyping an entire group of people based on their relatively limited exposure which… is still pretty prejudiced!
And sure… yes, you have the right to have preferences whether those preferences are rooted in something as vile as racism or just on whether or not your dick throbs when you see him, or that you don’t want to have any risk with regard to catching a communicable disease.
But when you’re a complete asshole about it you deserve the clapback you’re going to get.
seaguy
Just remember karma’s a bitch so that idiot will get what’s coming to him at some point. He was the one who should have read the profile before saying hi.
Heywood Jablowme
You’re right, and I’m surprised when I read thru all this comment thread that there aren’t more comments like yours.
The poz guy was being honest (and didn’t want to waste anyone’s time etc.) so I thought the salient point was that the dumbass DIDN’T EVEN READ THE PROFILE.