For a time I felt like I was on trial. No accusation was ever made against me, but it hung in the air, like a bad rumour, something whispered. I suppose that faced with my confession people were incredulous that someone could be so reckless and an obvious assumption is that there was deliberate intent. On reflection I think I was accusing myself, conducting my own whispering campaign. But when people asked me why I did it I found it hard to explain, not sure in myself of the reasons.

This is where I began accusing myself, and became suspicious of others accusing me; I began thinking that I must have wanted HIV, at least on some subconscious level, or worse that I was being disingenuous to myself, to others, and should just damn well admit to being a 'Bug Chaser'. It's only with time, that I began to make sense of my actions.

So the question has to be asked. Why would someone, a person with all his mental faculties intact, and aware of all cautionary advice offered, engage in such behaviour with an apparent abandonment of its likely consequences? To put it more simply: why did I knowingly engage in unprotected sex, not once, but many times over?

Depression and isolation had a lot to do with my behaviour. The worst thing about depression is the feeling of numbness, the lack of emotion. It's as if everything shuts down and you are left with an almost callous lack of empathy for yourself and others even. But with this void comes a desire to feel something, anything, pain even. Sex for me, became my way of engaging with an emotion again, chiefly anger. The sex I sought was urgent and aggressive.

But more important than the nature of the sex, or whatever emotions it did or didn't exorcise, was the fact that the sex had to be un-safe. And this is the heart of the matter, the crux of my story, and what in essence has become almost taboo, a crime even; this is the point where I attempt an explanation of something that was irrational and yet perversely rational.

For me safe sex was too cautious; it lacked spontaneity and above all lacked the complete physical intimacy I needed. Condoms came to symbolise not only a physical barrier but an emotional one, something almost metaphysical. Sex was the one area of life where I felt I could let fly, engage with something, with someone; and yet here it seemed was just another petty restriction on my life that I felt compelled to ignore – and ignore it I did. I wasn't so much sticking two fingers up at the world, as at life itself.

It's not that I didn't worry about getting HIV, I did, I dreaded it, and had regular check-ups. But even the lesser STD's, such as gonorrhoea and syphilis -  infections that orbit around HIV like satellites sending out warnings signals – even these only managed to moderate my behaviour temporarily; eventually, inevitably, I would slip back into my old habits.

Of course it was only a matter of a time. You only get so many chances before someone leads you along a never-ending corridor, sits you down and says 'unfortunately your test is showing positive.' Those words now seem like a moment foretold, a line etched into the palm of my hand, a small cut across the life-line. It wasn't so much shocking as numbing, and I still live with that numbness today, seven months later.

I'd like to tell you that HIV has given me the kick up the arse I needed, that my life is back on track, that I'm going to university to do the degree I should have done twenty years ago, or such like, but in reality the human soul rarely moves that fast. Some things have changed; the initial feelings after diagnosis have passed; feelings like wanting to rip my veins out to be rid of it, feeling like a leper – even the ridiculous things like worrying that yesterdays underpants are toxic, infectious. Sex too has changed: I have far less partners, preferring to go with other HIV+ men; I bite the bullet and confide my status, trying not to feel hurt when I get the inevitable knock-backs.

But life, for the moment, continues much the same as it does for anyone else. An early diagnosis means there is no immediate need for medication, and my immune system seems to be holding firm for now. What HIV has given me is an acute sense of my own mortality; it has removed that youthful arrogance that tells us we will live forever – or at least until eighty. It forces you to consider the age old question of what does one do with Life. And then aside from all this profundity there are those small consolations, those sunny days when I sit in the garden reading a book, drinking tea, and can forget, just for a while, that all this ever happened. Life, as they say, goes on.
 
Having read all this you may think my attempt at analysis and explanation is self-delusive, specious even. You may even think it just an elaborate excuse, a feeble attempt to garner sympathy for what could be considered nothing more than the confessions of a slut. And you may be right. But if you are, and it is just an excuse, then one has to ask: 'What's yours?'