Should your "I do" vows include getting tested?
Around this time last year, I took a poll on a newspaper’s Web site asking readers how many of them had been tested for HIV and AIDS. I was hoping I wouldn’t get many no’s, and unfortunately around 75 percent of the people who voted said they’d never been tested. I had a conversation with a married man about how discouraged I was by the results, and his response was that a lot of the readers are older and are probably married. I asked, “What does that have to do with anything? HIV and AIDS are not a young people’s disease or a single people’s disease.”
He responded by saying that he was married, had never been tested and was not cheating on his wife. I knew he wasn’t going to like my question, but I asked anyway. “How do you know she’s not cheating on you?” He scowled and said, “She better not be.”
I’ve run into this state of denial while speaking to married people before. While doing a book signing at a Chicago South Side church, I started talking about the importance of being tested after speaking about my second novel, “Round Trip” that focused on a Black male character who was spreading HIV on a college campus. People were smiling and listening intently before I started in on this subject, but as soon as I did, you could hear a pin drop. The interviewer changed the subject quickly. I wasn’t ready to change the subject and went right back to it. She changed it again. I nodded and went with the program, but I took note of it. (Side note: To this day, my first novel “Change for a Twenty” outsells “Round Trip” in triple amounts, and a buddy of mine told me flat out, “I liked the first book better because I don’t want to read about HIV. It’s depressing” even though both books involved the same characters.)
People usually get divorces for two reasons, money disputes or infidelity. And with so much cheating going on, why are people so quick to deny that they should be safe? Is it blind love for a mate? Is it simply because marriage vows should be sacred so neither spouse feels comfortable asking the other to be tested?
While volunteering with BEHIV, I found out about a woman who ended up with HIV because her husband got a faulty blood transfusion (sex isn’t the only way to get HIV and AIDS—take into consideration dirty needles from drug use and tattoos as well). In a January 2009 study, Medical News Today reported that 85,000 Ugandan individuals (13 percent) would contract the HIV virus because of unknowingly living with infected sexual partners. There are sexual partners who are infected not just in Africa but America too, so why not get an HIV/AIDS test?
And if you want to get tested but your partner doesn’t, that should not stop you from practicing safe sex until he or she has a change of heart. It also doesn’t stop you from getting tested anyway. But to get tested together and have the confidence to know neither partner has anything to worry about should be the motive. If President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama can proudly say on the radio that they’ve been tested for HIV/AIDS, why won’t other married couples do the same?
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Comments
Loved the article! You're right about married people needing to be tested for HIV. My husband and I have both been tested. I have been tested as part of complete blood work being done as a result of pregnancy. Hubby had to be tested to keep and maintain his life insurance. Embarrassingly, I’m sure we would not have been tested otherwise. Marriage provides a false sense of security to couples.
Simone, I don't think it's so much embarrassing to be tested but that so many couples continue to cheat. It's pretty depressing to hear about people taking those vows and then stepping out of their marriage, but unfortunately several people I know who have not been tested are currently cheating on their spouses. I'm not one to blow the whistle, but I do hope this entry makes people think twice about being tested.
The article was very informing....I am a nurse, a single parent of a adult son,and never been married....and I am African American.....When I read articles like this.....I see it from several perspectives.....as a single parent...not knowing how to raise a son..and date and deal with over night company of a man..my son was a pre-teen at the time and I had never lived with a man and I didn't want that type of relationship while I was raising him,and teaching him that he should abstain from sex and all the reasons why...while also arming him with knowledge of STI's and condom use... in case.....coupled with all of the worries that most women face in a relationship...is he cheating?....did he give me something?...I decided to end the relatioship with a man that I was seeing at the time.....and sit on the sidelines for a while....I've been celibate every since....approaching year 10.....and in our community....sad to say that people have said some of the most ignorant things when they find out that I am celibate..now why being celibate is such a threat to some people.... I have no idea....but it is......from a nursing perspective....seeing people of all races that are positive for HIV.....and some who die slowly...is just mind blowing....I remember telling another nurse a couple of years ago that...nowadays in a marriage you have to trust your husband to keep you safe...meaning that married people don't usually use condoms....and if he cheats and contracts a STI....the wife more than likely will be infected also...I also remember mentioning that I felt that if married people would get tested...there would probably be some devastating results for some people....and that I am not ready to trust a man with my life......The statiscs say that alot of African American women and men are infected.....I feel that this gives people in other communities...white..asian...hispanic/latino...etc....a false sense of security....the truth is anyone who has had unprotected sex at anytime needs to be tested....reguardless of race....people do not tell their partners or spouses everything that they do...or have done....even now celebrities, politicians,ministers,have been in the news for fidelity....and some of those relationships have produced children....which means they had unprotected sex at some point....which is a big risk....and unfortunately for many reasons.....infidelity is quite common for a lot of people....I feel pretty safe...my biggest and only risk for potentially contracting HIV is my job...ther is always some risk esspecially with needle stick injuries....other than that there is none...I haven't dated in several years..so there's no swaping spit going on....lol....I talk to a man recently who is single in his forties....and interested in me...I asked him had he ever been tested...and he said no he had and that if he was positive...he didn't want to know it...I was alarmed...because he didn't want to know his status and because I know on the inside our relationship could never go past talking....for a man to tell me that he doesn't want to know his HIV status is a deal-breaker!!...and unfortunately I talk to alot of people...and they to..men and women...feel like he does...it's as if they think that if they gets tested...then automatically they are positive...not thinking that they can be positive anyway...and that knowing your status is about taking responsibility for your life and for the life of other people that he/she becomes sexually involved with...........
I just wanted to add that....the man that I mentioned in the article above that is interested in me but does not want to know his HIV status..... is not African American.....people of all races who are or have been sexually active....need to know what their STI and HIV status is.....EVERYBODY!!!!............
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