Dating with HIV: will I ever have sex again?
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Dating with HIV: Will Jessica ever make love again?
What is it like dating with HIV? This is the true story of Jessica, an HIV positive woman, learning to love again after her diagnosis.
[Edited podcast transcript βΒ Sex Like This Podcast | S1 E1 Two Wrongs and Mr. Right]
Jessica
Itβs so weird to lose brain function because you just always assume that you will have control over yourself, and when you donβt, and you actually are going out of control, there is no way to stop it.
Nicole Edwards Β Β Β Β Β Β
There are over 7 billion people on the planet, and most of us are looking for love. So, if we all couple off, you know, unless youβve come up with a more interesting arrangement, that means there are theoretically about three and a half billion people in the world that could be the one for you, and counting. So, with all of these options, why do we always hear the same love stories? The able-bodied, hetero, storybook version of what itβs like to fall in love is told over, and over, and over again.
Well friends, that stops here. Youβre listening to Sex Like This. A podcast brought to you by Uncomfortable Revolution about sex and dating with a chronic illness or disability. Iβm your host, health journalist,Β Nicole Edwards.
Jessica
He was someone who I went to elementary school with. We stayed in touch through junior high school and high school. We both had respective partners. We get together once a week probably, like all of us, just hang out, and yeah, and we just always stayed connected. Honestly, itβs one of those things, it never crossed my mind. I never had a crush on him. It wasnβt a thing. His ex-girlfriend in high school hated me. She was convinced that we were secretly in love, which is not true. Say what you want, because we did end up being together for so long. We would not β¦ It never even crossed my mind, and then it was literally like zero to a hundred, and it was like one of those weird things where you just look at someone, you just see them differently. You just β¦ youβre like, βHey, Iβve never really considered this guy. Maybe you should consider this guy.β
Nicole Edwards
Thatβs Jessica. Sheβs one of those people thatβs instantly relatable. Sheβs bubbly, friendly, mischievous. Iβm guessing she was the kind of kid that convinced her friends to skip class in school. Anyways, she and her friend from high school made it official. They moved in together, and after 10 years they even got engaged. But, like a lot of long-term relationships, especially ones that start so young, Jessica was starting to get restless after a while.
Jessica
The problems, the disconnects started to add up. I donβt know, and then I just met someone. Weβre getting into it and Iβm just sort of like, βWho is this guy?β Like, βWhat? This is the best conversation and the most electric feeling Iβve had in just such a long time.β And I was just like, βWho is this guy?β Like, you meet thousands of people, all the time, and itβs crazy when all of a sudden you meet someone, and it just feels a thousand times different than those other thousand people youβve met.
Nicole Edwards Β
So a few months go by, and Jessica and this new guy are still talking. One night her fiancΓ© gets a call from work saying that heβs needed on a last-minute business trip.
Jessica
And I think I knew exactly what would happen the second he got on that plane.
Nicole Edwards Β Β Β Β Β
You might be able to guess what happens next. Jessica and the new guy finally scratch the itch and sleep together, but it was messy for them both for more reasons than youβve already heard. Thatβs because her crush was also in a long-term relationship when he slept with Jessica, and the situation, they both agreed, was just a little too messy to last, so after a while they ended up breaking it off. Then Jessica decided she was going to tell her fiancΓ© what happened, and the two of them broke it off too. And with that, Jessica found herself single for the first time in a decade.
Jessica
Bumble, Tinder, Feeld, which many people donβt know about it. Itβs kind of like if Grindr was for straight people. I just went on as many dates as I could. I just filled like all the apps, and I literally, I think I went on a date with a different person every single day for two months. But basically, on early April, I started to feel like I had a yeast infection, so I went to a clinic. Three days later, Iβm sitting in bed and I have probably a 103-degree fever. So, I just, after a few more days, finally went to this clinic, and basically, they take a look, and the lady basically, pops her head up and goes, you have herpes. And I was like, βWhat? Fuck.β So, they gave me antiviral medication, told me it would go away in a couple of days, and I just start getting sicker, and sicker, and sicker. I couldnβt eat anything. I was shedding weight like crazy. I probably dropped about 10 pounds in two weeks, and my parents are just looking at me like, βPlease go see the doctor tomorrow. Something is wrong.β
Nicole Edwards
Then Jessica says she started to feel really confused. Sheβd been dodging work emails for a while as she tried to shake this fever, but there was this one client she couldnβt put off, so she pulls herself together and gets into a cab, and then when she gets out of the cab she realizes that she told the driver to take her to the completely wrong place. And Jessica knows the city like the back of her hand, so when it dawns on her after sheβs gotten out of the car that sheβs in the wrong neighborhood, she gets really freaked out by her mistake. She canβt imagine how she couldβve made it.
Jessica
Basically, whatβs happening at that time was my brain was starting to get the infection, and I really was confused. I also didnβt know why I was in this wrong place. Itβs so weird to lose brain function, because you just always assume that you will have control over yourself, and when you donβt, and you actually are going out of control, there is no way to stop it. Like, it was happening, and I was completely at mercy of it, and so basically, I finally get to this thing, and the second I walk in the door, I faint.
Nicole Edwards Β Β Β Β Β
At this point, Jessica finally realizes that she probably has something more serious than the flu, and she goes straight to the emergency department.
Jessica
I wake up the next morning in the hospital, and my arms didnβt work. I started losing all of my function. Like everything that connects to my brain started going away, so I lost all motor ability in my arms, I couldnβt move them. I started to feel it in my legs. I would get these crazy spells of vertigo and I would literally get thrown to the floor, and I couldnβt move and Iβd be in paralysis.
Nicole Edwards
After a few days in the hospital and a bunch of tests, she gets a diagnosis.
Jessica
Herpes encephalitis, which is basically, the idea that you have herpes, and the infection has spread to your brain.
Nicole Edwards Β
So, Jessicaβs herpes turned out to not be as manageable as doctors had initially thought. Thatβs because the first doctor she saw didnβt quite have all the information they needed. And frankly, when Jessica wound up in the hospital, she didnβt have all the facts either. She was about to receive one more diagnosis.
Jessica
They come in and they go, βWe took an HIV test, and it came back inconclusive. And weβre going to redo the test right now. And we want you to know that the chances of it being a false positive are really, really, really low.β I couldnβt believe it. Like, I could not believe it. Because I was told I had herpes encephalitis, so I was like, βOh, the reason this is happening is because I have herpes. Cool. Case fucking closed.β And it turned out to not be like that at all. I actually shed the herpes virus. It wasnβt just, βOh itβs in me.β I was like having an outbreak at the same time when I was experiencing seroconversion, and the combination caused the infection to just erupt in my body, and went straight to my brain, and basically, that just became a super deadly combo.
Nicole Edwards Β
Just a side note here, after a person contracts HIV, it takes a little while for it to show up in tests, so, seroconversion, simply put, is when HIV is in someoneβs system, and the body is starting to react to it. Itβs the point where indicators of the virus become traceable in blood tests. So, Jessica informs everyone that she hooked up with on Tinder that they need to get tested. Then she calls new guy. Remember β the one she met before splitting up with her fiancΓ©.
Jessica
I was like, βHey, you know how like Iβm now in the hospital, thatβs because I have HIV.β And he basically, immediately went and got tested.
Nicole Edwards
Turns out that new guy did not have HIV, and after Jessica gets out of the hospital, she stays with her parents for a while, and then finally decides itβs time for a place of her own. Physically sheβs on the mend and she has a lot to think about. And it turns out that new guy has been thinking about her.
Jessica
He kept kind of checking up on me and coming over and just like making this really big effort, and I got this bed delivered from Ikea and it needed to be assembled and my arm still didnβt work, and he assembled the bed for me. Heβs halfway done assembling this bed, and weβre just sitting on the ground. Heβs drinking a beer, Iβm drinking a water, and he just looked at me and was like, βPeople can do what they want, but like Iβm not going anywhere. Iβm not afraid of you. Iβm not going to run away from you. Iβm not afraid to touch you. Iβm here.β
And he just gave me this huge hug, and we just cried, and I donβt know, it just meant so much to me. And yeah, we just started kind of flirting again, and talking again, and reigniting those feelings again, and then something that just showed so much his character, and just how amazing he really is, and how amazed I knew he likely was, was just his, yearning to learn and to be educated, and to walk through this with me. Kind of navigating, what undetectable means. What are the limitations? What does it mean to be in a sexual relationship with someone whoβs HIV positive, and isnβt at an undetectable status yet?
Nicole Edwards
So, being undetectable when you have HIV, basically, means that thereβs so little of the virus in your system thanks to medicine, that itβs almost like the HIV isnβt strong enough to jump from one person to another. So, if an HIV positive person whoβs undetectable has sex with somebody who doesnβt have HIV, the person whoβs negative wonβt contract the virus. Someone with an undetectable viral load isnβt contagious. Amazing. Right? But Jessica says, despite what doctors were saying about being undetectable, she was still really nervous when it came to her and her guy having sex.
Jessica
Itβs HIV. You just assume itβs fucking rampant, and you can just give it to somebody. And ah, like scary. Things that are huge pieces of this, we had no idea, and so weβre learning it together, and we just both became kind of obsessed with educating ourselves and getting really well versed in everything.
And then by the time I was undetectable, it was like we had been through so much education that we were able to really take that step with real confidence. And yeah, I mean it was a huge process. Those three months were heavy. Like, heavy conversations. And itβs really hard when the doctors are telling you youβll be undetectable. You can never give it to them. Youβll be able to have sex without condoms. You will live a full and healthy life. You will just take one pill a day and it really wonβt inconvenience you. You will live as long as everybody else. And when theyβre telling you all that stuff, you just think theyβre fucking out to lunch. Like, you just think theyβre out of their mind. And it took a really long time for us to both mentally feel like what the doctors were telling us was true, but just internalizing that, and not just knowing it was true, but really believing you really are just in shock. Like, you cannot believe that they have basically, figured this out. At some point you just go, βOkay, well it must be true, because weβve been having sex for four or five months now, and you ainβt got it.β
Hereβs what I want to say. When I was diagnosed with HIV, basically, the person looked at me and said, βYou will have sex again. Donβt worry, you will have sex again.β But I think what might be a better build on that is, βYou will feel sexy, sexual and confident again. And then because of that, you will have sex again.β And I have lived through it. I have completely realized how true that is, and my sex life now is the best itβs ever been. Yeah. Itβs an HIV love story
Sex Like This is an Uncomfortable Revolution podcast hosted and produced by Nicole Edwards.

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UR is on a mission to change the way we talk about sensitive health topics, one awkward blogpost at a time. Posts by this author are from the Editors at UR.