Okay, there are a number of points that this raises, which I’ll come back to when I can (it’s very late as I’m writing this and I’ve got to sleep), but, briefly:

An estimated 25% of infected people do not know they have it in the UK. At what point they became aware can be difficult to prove when you factor in the issue of how long it can take a person to get tested or come to terms with a diagnosis. (And stigma plays a fundamental role in many people’s probability to engage in risk taking behaviour, non engagement with treatment, denial, and so on. Coming out as positive can be a potentially life threatening deal for many people so we need to sort this out rather than going “these people are entirely lacking in moral fibre” out of hand). It may not, with a long term regular partner, be easy to pinpoint when they knew, and when both partners knew, against when sexual activity has happened. In law there is “intentional” and “reckless” and “accidental” infection. To prove intentional is very hard. It is very complicated and convictions are consequently rare.

What I am really trying to say, though, is that this shit is really rare and extremely difficult to describe reliably. However, in the absence of reliable evidence to go on, it is a thoroughly dominant narrative used to demonise and criminalise people, and particularly to stigmatise HIV (it is a trope so strong that several sex ed campaigns have used it to try to highlight risks around unprotected sex, which has conversely only made life more difficult for people facing stigma, and hence made some people less likely to test – see also: the scorpion ads, the 2009 ‘HIV is a murderer’ Hitler ads, etc).

I don’t want to be overly simplistic and compare other issues and groups of people too freely but think of how irritating it is when you have to have the “BUT SOME WOMEN DO MAKE UP RAPE CLAIMS TO SPITE MEN!” conversation, or the “trans* women: OUT TO TRICK CIS DUDES!” conversation. I am so sick of this being seen as hugely common when, you know, in terms of documented cases, it’s not. I don’t think there are many brought to court, either – again, HIV’s spread owes more to education and stigma issues than to maliciousness. For me it’s not about “BUT IT *COULD* HAPPEN!” so much as “but why is this the first story we clamour to tell, the first thing we raise? And why do we behave as though our own stigmatising acts have no bearing on the context in which reckless infection might occur?” The answer, I think, lies in the lack of decent detailed HIV education – beyond simple “stay safe” edicts – in classrooms and more generally.

For more on HIV and the law, this is useful: http://www.avert.org/criminal-transmission.htm

This timeline has a grand total of two cases cited: http://www.hivaware.org.uk/be-aware/timeline-of-hiv.php

I’d also recommend reading about the Swiss Study and ‘treatment as prevention’ as they also raise ideas that complicate a simple “has infection, infects another person, CRIME” linear view.

I think it’s important to hold into the idea in discussions like this that many people affected by what we are discussing are not ‘over there’ somewhere in the ether – rather they may be reading along or participating…

OKAY I GUESS THAT WAS NOT BRIEF

I AM NOT VERY GOOD AT BRIEF AM I :D

Hmm, interesting corrolary here, in that whilst I’m sure the stereotyping is true, and it is patently offensive, it’s also the case that (in this country) deliberately or knowingly infecting someone with HIV is not a crime. Personally, I’m of the opinion that this is disgraceful. If you know you have an STD and sleep with someone anyway, without telling them, thereby increasing their risk of infection… well, it’s definitely some sort of crime to my mind.

Ugh, God, I know. I am so weary of that question (I work in a similar environment).

I’m basically sick of the “deliberate infector” as one of the dominant stereotypes that surfaces in pop culture when HIV comes up from time to time. It’s this whole lazy, shitty bogeyman stereotype thing – the media often focus on cases where people are accused of it way more than any other HIV issues, of course – and it really sucks.

HE IS AN INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY OKAY

HE GOES BY MANY NAMES