Just as a Michigan man accused of biting the lip of his neighbor sees charges against him of biological terror dropped, a Denver man who spit on another guy is being charged with attempted second-degree assault with a deadly weapon. It’s just the Denver district attorney’s way of saying: Don’t get tested!
If You Continue Criminalizing HIV, How Long Before Nobody Bothers Getting Tested?
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Aaron
Better yet … If you continue to not get tested, how many more people will you infect?
Qjersey
FAIL. The laws vary state by state, and yes some are STUPID because the behaviors outlawed can’t transmit HIV or have a VERY low likelihood of doing so.
But if you know you are Poz and lie and say you are neg and then cum in someone’s ass, sorry but you deserve to be punished severely. If it was a case of “don’t ask, don’t tell” then it’s a much grayer area. If you didn’t ask and then let someone cum in your ass, well the fault is with you.
Ricky
As with any thing, the law can tend to go overboard… BUT not getting tested should never be a consideration. Sleeping around and not knowing only makes you iggnorant, it doesn’t prevent the disease from spreading.
DR (the real one, not the guy who made post #12)
Queerty, I realize that you have a specific agenda in reporting the news in these cases, but I really wish you’d present it in a better manner. More professional, if you will.
This is a serious issue. HIV rates are still rising among gay men, especially young gay men. We know this from those who get tested. Now how many more people are wandering around out there who are poz and haven’t been tested? And have they unintentionally infected anyone, or are they getting sick themselves?
Some of these criminal laws are quite draconian. But this makes a joke of getting tested. People need to know their status so they can inform their partners, make appropriate decisions about their health and well-being, etc, and constantly making light of this need based on these outdated laws just isn’t funny or realistic.
Yet Another
Yeah, Queerty’s editorial commentary generally sucks. But the point isn’t that bad of one.
Criminalizing HIV transmission when there is knowledge does provide disincentive to getting tested if the person is committed to unsafe behavior. Yes the law is there to protect the uninfected but there is question of the long term effects on poz and negative behavior.
Honestly, the laws are a very short-sighted and ill-informed effort. It would be much easier and more direct to simply mandate HIV testing where possible and include privacy measures.
Fitz
“Plausible Deniability” hasn’t really been tested with HIV. So if you are Mr. BB Powerbottom 2003 through 2009, and a frequent flyer at the local video booths, it might be considered a “reasonable assumption” that you are positive. Ignorance is not likely to be immunity, legally any more than in microbiology. So, despite this headline– yes get tested. It wont likely cost you your legal immunity, and may make you live a longer easier life. (not to mention not being a walking vector).
Jack
Queerty editors really have a hard-on for this sorta thing, but it highlights their noticeable lack of logic skills. No sane person is going to go untested for HIV so that they can commit criminal acts and receive less of a punishment while risking their health by going untreated (if they are HIV+).
Unpopular
I don’t care, if you knowingly transmit HIV you should be shot. Done.
Jesse Helms
@UNPOPULAR: What do you expect? Most gay men are sluts and have anonymous sex with total strangers in parks, public restrooms, bars, bathhouses, and at the gym. Some behinds are so loose, they will not be able to hold their waste and don’t forget the fisting. That’s just nasty. If they live long enough and become old Queens, they call hustlers for pay sex. Many gay men will grow old and lonely, after their looks are gone with no families to be their to take care of their old behinds. Many should start preparing for their funerals and pick out those pick caskets. LOL
drums
I respectfully disagree with this opinion piece–deliberately trying to infect someone with a deadly disease is a major douchewad move, and I think that the law should continue to punish douchewad behaviours. It’s just the Denver district attorney’s way of saying: don’t be a dick!
Judge Judy
@Jesse Helms: that response shows a diseased mind. Better prepare your own casket – your own inner rot will claim you first, I predict.
Anyone who thinks HIV-related court cases don’t have an effect on people getting tested is seriously naive. Don’t give me crap about what people “should do”. It’s what people actually do that matters. Sanity has nothing to do with how people behave. Who among you hasn’t done something unthinkingly selfish or ignored long-term consequences? Cast the first stone then.
And people (like many of the above) who see the world in black-and-white terms only have the mental development of a child. I certainly don’t want decisions being made by children (think “Lord of the Flies”). Even law isn’t black-and-white, always looking at the gray areas. The Internet has become the basest playground, complete with bullies and idiots – I don’t think the Founding Fathers had this in mind when thinking of freedom of speech.
Young gay guys don’t get tested because it ensures social standing. Openly poz guys are still lepers in the community, and that’s quickly learned upon coming out. You can have HIV for many years without any symptoms, and not knowing your status allows sexual freedom, the freedom to explore your sexuality, the freedom to date anyone (there are too many hurdles in dating already), and the freedom from facing mortality and daily medication (i.e. if you even have access to it).
Deliberate attempts to infect with HIV are justly criminal. Lawyers using the law to heighten HIV hysteria should be judicially censured, because it doesn’t help the situation. The fact that poz people are still seen as lepers just demonstrates the education efforts have failed.