Happy new decade! I hope the next ten years bring far more good news around sexual health than the last ten.

To refresh what I have been discussing here:  in November 2008, I had fairly good reason to believe that I, an HIV-positive person, had been sexually assaulted. From that realization, I made several quick decisions that worked for me personally: 1) to shower, 2) to get screened for sexually transmitted infections twice in the year that followed, 3) to advise my assailant (via a third person) within 72 hours on the option of securing preventive medication to reduce the likelihood of HIV transmission. You all who are reading, now discover number 4: not to press criminal charges. Several reasons why.

First of all, I did say I showered, so I did not have a rape kit done. However, as I sat for my physical exam, I already began to think about how to tell (can I just call him) BoyWithNoManners (BWNM) about HIV post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). You all might think I am a saint for doing so, but this was my logic at the time:  Barring any sort of physical evidence – BWNM continued to deny he did anything wrong while I told a mutual friend to tell him about PEP  – I knew that if he went to the emergency room to get PEP, this in itself was an admission of guilt. This fact was in the back of my mind when I washed the blood from my underwear. No one takes 28 days of HIV meds for fun.

I knew I had the ability to press charges if I wanted to, but it was almost time for finals and I was not going to let BWNM ruin my semester.  Another part of it was that I was afraid. I was afraid that he would press charges against me, saying I consented to what he did and that I did not disclose my HIV status.  As I said before, I did not consent because I could not (BWNM clearly needed to get women drinking to get some).

The laws in my state of Georgia make the following “reckless conduct” a felony. Disclosure laws are so terribly written that I faced the possibility of going to prison as the person who was assaulted if BWNM convinced a jury that I consented:

“A person who is an HIV infected person who, after obtaining knowledge of being infected with HIV: Knowingly engages in sexual intercourse or performs or submits to any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another person and the HIV infected person does not disclose to the other person the fact of that infected person’s being an HIV infected person prior to that intercourse or sexual act.” O.C.G.A. § 16-5-60 (c) (1)

Finally, even if I had successfully pressed charges, then what? What was the public health message among young men who think it is a rite of university to take advantage of women who drink alcohol? Would his peers even know or care that he had been sentenced for a crime? There had to be a better way to make a final lesson out of this…

READ PART 1

READ PART 2

This is a guest blog post by Nina Martinez

Nina Martinez, 26, is a public health student at Emory University in Atlanta with a focus in epidemiology. Nina’s premature birth facilitated the need for a blood transfusion that infected her with HIV when she was six weeks old in San Francisco, California.