This article has been a long time in the making. Since I was diagnosed actually. So let’s see, May 30, 2008 was my diagnosis day. Excluding a couple of exceptionally intimate hug/kiss/necking moments, coming up on May 2019, it has been almost 11 years since I had sex. That is a long time to not have sex, albeit not intentionally. I made the choice over time, and then over time, I wasn’t making a choice. I just wasn’t having sex anymore.

It just wasn’t happening. I wasn’t interested in doing the disclosure to do the dance. I felt this overwhelming need to stop everything I was doing in quite a few, actually more than 5, attempted and failed relationships. After a pretty brutal spiral out of something like sheer stupidity, occasional terror and often fear of losing it all, amazing to me, I realized how much I hated myself for contracting HIV. Amazing how self pity, loathing and shame are invisible when you are in it, but with time self awareness begins to replace the cycles of negative self talk.

Regardless of how I “contracted” the virus, I was simply unable to come to terms with the fact that if I had been more responsible I would not be HIV positive. Responsibility is a weird question mark surrounding sex, gender, and society. When you are left floating you learn balance and letting go, or at least that’s how it feels for me..  I think of it as kind of like letting go of balloons because you can’t take them home and it’s better watching them float into the sky, than watching them pop on the ground. So, in time I just stopped having sex all together, or even thinking about it, watching the balloons float away was just for me, a better visual.

Over time, I have realized that self loathing and shame are not my most attractive qualities, but try telling that to me in the summer of 2008/9.  I don’t think I was capable of feeling anything different. I wallowed in self pity, pride ,and the true arrogance trauma and privilege brings. Which in turn equated to as much self destructive thinking as I could muster.  Something had to change, I knew I could grasp change if I could move forward, or just off the island of self indulgence and shame I had created around me.

How the fuck was that going to happen? Was the medication going to fix that shit? That seemed incomprehensible and not worth knowing the answers to.  And, enough people had already chosen sides, and I don’t weigh that much. Good thing about sinking is knowing how to swim, and especially learning when you are drowning.

Life without sex. What changed? Everything or a small part, or nothing at all depending on your perspective. No sex = more masturbation, personal reflection, and time to grow a thicker skin and learn how to spell resilience.

Life without sex. What changed? Everything or a small part, or nothing at all depending on your perspective. No sex = more masturbation, personal reflection, and time to grow a thicker skin and learn how to spell resilience.

I started to live with the virus instead of it ruling my life.

I started talking to poz folks. I reached out and I took a few tiny risks, like walking through the doors of an ASO, and not wearing a wig and sunglasses to do so.  I got involved with a group of women and we did this amazing writing / slash performance experience sharing our stories called “The Viral Monologues”. I started to volunteer and I actually started talking about HIV. What I didn’t expect was that eventually I would find a way to learn to honour and respect the most important relationship in my life; the one with myself.

I started to realize from poz women I spoke with that my experience is not as unusual among women living with HIV. In the CHIWOS study (the Canadian HIV Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health Cohort Study) found that around half (49%) of women were sexually inactive (had not engaged in consensual oral or penetrative vaginal sex in the six months before they were interviewed). Furthermore, among women who were sexually inactive, half (49%) were satisfied with their current sex lives. The sexual lives of women are diverse, and vary across the life course, dependent on psychological, physical, social and cultural factors. Then throw in the criminalization of HIV non disclosure and it only amplifies the challenging choices women are in a position to make.

It has been a constant struggle to maintain a healthy self esteem that is not ridiculed by the past or influenced by those who continue to cut me from their life and/or choose not to engage with me because I let them down, or didn’t live up to their expectations of me. I  learned to let go of the loathing and self stigma this virus fuels from the ignorance of those who choose not to listen, or read the science, or show any empathy with the propensity for hate and judgement. I can’t change them no matter how hard I try. I thought, I could do something, I know now.  Some scars are indelible and others are not. Like a tattoo and a mark. I have one on each ankle, one asks the question and the other responds.

I choose to love myself and, accept, that some folks are simply not kind.  I want to create moments that talk about stigma and intolerance a teaching moment when they appear.  I am a powerful and wiser women who has learned all of what I know on the backs of those that came before me, and it was the HIV community, that for the most part, welcomed me with open arms. I believe I relate best to those who respect the impulse of spontaneity. It is  in my soul and why I love horses, rabbits and sailing, but that’s another article altogether.

This article was going to be about why I haven’t had sex in almost 11 years, but the truth be told, that’s not the real story. The real story is that’s how long it has taken for me to be truly comfortable in my own body and, truly feel love and compassion for myself. Some days, it is not there, I am just not up to “self care” and I need to spend some time grieving loss, of my life before HIV and, all of the people I have lost since.  Family, friends, clients and peers.

With thicker skin, a heavier coat, and occasionally armour, I am able to walk further in the coldest and darkest of days. That’s what resilience is about for me, keeping as safe as I can and warm, moving forward through the worst of storms.

Women fascinate me, I have loved a women with my entire soul. I like men too, dependent on their ability to love and respect strong women. So, no, I haven’t had sex in almost 11 years, however, I have a hand and a heart, and, I have learned to love myself with a similar touch, knowingly never the same as a human one. These days, I care about whether I love myself enough to be intimate with someone again, and my gut tells me, that day is coming like a sleeping dragon will awaken. Let’s hear it for sex in your 60’s.

Summer is coming.