I Am HIV-Positive. This Is What It's Like to Date

My First Time is a column and podcast series exploring sexuality, gender, and kink with the wide-eyed curiosity of a virgin. We all know your "first time" is about a lot more than just popping your cherry. From experimenting with kink to just trying something new and wild, everyone experiences thousands of first times in the bedroom—that's how sex stays fun, right?

This week, writer and activist Juno Roche shares her experience of living and dating with HIV. You can catch My First Time on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Acast or wherever you get your podcasts.

I did an HIV test and it came back positive. Back then, they’d give you a document that entitled you to certain benefits, and it said that you weren’t expected to live for more than six months. That was a very tough thing. It felt punishing. But I remember feeling tenacious: I was the first person in my family to go to college, and I told myself that if I was going to die, I was going to die with a degree.

It’s hard for people to fully appreciate what it was like before HIV medication. AIDS was seen as a plague that you had brought upon yourself, and you deserved to die, and you were going to die, so you wouldn’t be anyone’s problem for long. You were just going to be around for a short period of time, and disappear—as you should. That was the general feeling. It was difficult to live through that period of time. Even things like getting a doctor and dentist were hard, as they wouldn’t want to treat you. People didn’t want to touch us.

My college had never had anyone with HIV, and they wanted me to leave. They’d say things like, “What if you cut yourself?” People with HIV were told that they had toxic blood and that we needed to keep it in. I was doing a fine art and philosophy degree, and I stayed. My work became about being HIV positive. I’d make installations where I’d paint the walls of someone else’s installation white, or carpet the floor for them. They were invisible installations. Because that’s how I felt: like the world wanted me to be invisible, or go away, so the art was a way of existing in the world whilst simultaneously being hideously submissive and polite.

My partner survived, and we split up. At that time, my overriding memory is a sense of feeling like an outsider. None of us would want to feel like that, but I learned how to be an outsider. You’d go to people’s houses for dinner, and they’d watch me to make sure I didn’t accidentally pick up their glass. But I didn’t feel angry, not then—you become quite submissive. But what HIV did do was make me tenacious about sticking at university.

I remember meeting someone I liked and wanted to have a relationship with, and I got other people involved to find out how they might react if they knew my diagnosis. When we did have sex, it was difficult because—even though I found them incredibly attractive—I was so worried. Mentally, I wasn’t there, because I was trying to make sure that everything would be fine with the condom and everything.

Even today, if I put “I’m a trans woman living with HIV” as my strapline on Tinder, I’d never get any hits. But I understand my body and how valuable I am in the world, and I find myself sexy and attractive. I also tend to find transmasculine people attractive, which is comforting, as I feel like I have my people and my community. So dating for me has become wonderfully exciting again, in my fifties.

As my viral load is undetectable, I don’t necessarily feel I have to tell potential partners I have HIV, as I can’t pass the virus on. Nowadays, it’s completely and utterly safe for someone who is on good medication and taking it robustly to have sex. One of the good things for young people who are diagnosed now is that they can become undetectable very quickly.

If someone were to reject me for being HIV positive, I would think, The world’s a really crappy place because of people like you. Why can’t people like you disappear? I think it's really important for long-term survivors of HIV to share their lessons with people. I’ve just started a global project called “Life and Love with HIV,” and it’s a platform for women around the globe to share essays about the experience of living and loving with HIV.

The advice I would give to people who’ve just been diagnosed with HIV is: breathe. Give yourself time to let it sink in. Build a set of people around you that you really trust, and share it with them. Because it will feel like the end of everything, but it’s not. Medication nowadays is brilliant—I’ve been on the same drug now for 17 years, and have hardly any side effects. And be kind to yourself. Because life’s too short to take on board other stuff that people want to put upon you.