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“Initially I was in shock and thought, ‘will I ever feel horny and have sex again?’
But, that didn’t last long. My partner and friends were a big help with that.”

“I’d been having a lot of unsafe sex before, so after I was diagnosed I thought it would be tough to use condoms. But, I didn’t want to infect someone else. It’s been easier than I thought, and I still have the sort of sex I like.”

“I was positive, my boyfriend was negative. We thought it would be the other way round. We needed to find out more about safe sex. It’s one thing to have ‘safer’ activities like oral sex when you don’t know - but when you’re having sex with the man you love and you know you have the virus and he doesn’t it’s a different story. We’ve now worked out what’s safe for us and so far everything has been OK.”
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Sex, Intimacy and HIV

For many men, adjusting to a HIV diagnosis will involve a period of intense, changing, and often contradictory emotions, and having to deal with a lot of issues about sex and relationships.

Everyone responds differently. Many guys find that having HIV has little impact on their sex lives, while others find it difficult to form sexual relationships because of the prejudices they feel or experience. It is not uncommon for men with HIV to feel undesirable – especially shortly after diagnosis. For some guys, adjusting to a diagnosis involves having a lot more sex than before.

Having sex is more than just the physical acts: it is about feelings, desire, emotions and confidence. Following diagnosis, you may have to work at regaining your confidence, especially in relation to feeling sexy, learning how to avoid transmitting the virus, working out how and when to disclose to partners, and handling relationships.

Some of these issues are covered in this booklet, and there are various other resources and support services available to help in working things through (see our Contacts section for more information on services you may wish to access).



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