DISCLAIMER: this post has lots of psycho-drama and explicit content. Readers have been warned! Posted in: #fediblog, #hiv, #personal

Risks and fears

Someone on line asked me: “Is there a situation where you have taken a risk and never regretted it?”

I gladly and explicitly answer: the risk I never regretted was when I stopped using condoms with my husband.

I can't deny I spent months in fear before this decision: who made me do it, could I continue as I was used to? Impossible!

At the time, 2017-18, I was seeing this strange acronym going around the Internet: “U=U,” “undetectable = untransmittable.” Complex concept for those unaware of HIV but I had already understood it referred to the quantity of virus in my blood.

A fundamental discovery that could have stopped the spread of HIV in a few years and yet at least in Italy it did not have too much media coverage, in fact only a few HIV activists were talking about it.

Then my doctor would throw in, “yes, that’s right, it’s proven by many studies, but I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.”

For me and my beloved HIV negative man, there were more doubts than enthusiasm about what doctors and international associations were saying regarding the lack of sexual transmission due to antivirals' effectiveness, and when you know about a new protection strategy but are afraid of the unknown, you may as well go on with your usual life however, the acquired awareness has already torn you out of your comfort zone by making you feel, even physically, a discomfort you didn’t even feel before.

Realizing how this matter threatened to send us into a crisis, we allowed ourselves the classic “pause for reflection,” which if for others it means politically correct version of “breaking up”, for us, on the other hand, was true reflection on a situation we could not and would not ignore any longer.

Had I been more of an asshole, I would have sneaked the condom off (stealthing) that, however, is sexual abuse and would have resulted in a catastrophic breakup because I would have betrayed him in the worst way, with a real sexual assault.

HIV and condomless sex: science before U=U.

The virus was not yet with me when between 2007 and 2008 there was talk of studies first in Switzerland then in Canada confirming the impossibility of transmission to the negative partner of a serodiscordant couple. There, however, the sample focused more on hetero couples seeking pregnancy so, more than that, I didn’t delve into it. There were antivirals though compared to current years, 2007-2008 is a geological era ago.

Even at the same time a newspaper article had come out, which I can’t find now, in which they talked about a gene being isolated in people exposed to high HIV risk and who remained negative; “test available within two years,” the Japanese said. And I dumbly thought “come on let’s hope it comes out soon worldwide so I can do it too and if I’m protected I don’t have to worry about AIDS anymore”-I barely understood the difference between HIV and AIDS.

Come 2009, then 10 and 11, that story went under the radar; in 2012, however, PrEP pre-exposure prophylaxis started coming out in the U.S. and I, still negative, was reassured: OK a few months of patience and it will come to Italy!

Months however became years because this therapy for negative people who want to avoid getting infected came to Europe in 2016 but I had already been HIV positive since 2013 after an abusive relationship.

I was in the worst of situations even though, had it been up to me, I would have gone on PrEP as soon as it came out even if it meant being the first to test it on myself. How fucking scared I was of AIDS in my teens, to hell with all of them and their serophobia.

U=U: the end of paranoia.

Between 2007 and 2016, three studies involved several gay and hetero serodiscordant couples in which the HIV-positive partner was on antiviral drugs, and in no case did transmission from sexual contact without barrier protection occur. Since then gradually people have been talking about it on specialized forums, first half-heartedly then increasingly loudly.

U=U, undetectable viral load, I thought I was hearing an unfamiliar language because still in 2017-18 in Italy this evidence was not widespread. The Italian scientific community only made it official on November 12, 2019.

I, however, had grown tired of standing behind the condoms because for years the test results had been speaking very clearly: first “less than fifty copies,” then “undetectable,” the virus inside me was always relaxing and probably even saying to the lab technicians, “do me the favor of telling my human that I’m not going to touch his husband! He still doesn’t get it!”

As a poz man, I was unable to hear what HIV was saying to me, let alone neg folks in the hospital! So I went on for quite a while longer keeping the “condoms” option in the grocery note even though, while not letting it weigh on me, I was growing impatient: living together planning to get married, having the scientific evidence U=U at home but behaving as if we were in a serodiscordant couple in the early days where the virus was still scary.

Freedom

If sneaking off condoms is abuse, “accidentally” forgetting to buy them isn’t! Shit happens!

So, that night I just inserted my hand under the pillow and said, “oops, yeah, darn I thought there was still one left, I actually felt like I forgot to buy something! Now what do we do?”

I was comfortable because I had consulted with the doctor earlier, “we would like to get married and experience an easier intimacy but just in case, I would like my husband to go into PrEP; what do you think, doc?”

To make a long story short, the doctor replied that since I have an undetectable viral load and our relationship is monogamous, pre-exposure prophylaxis is unnecessary; so I gave my partner a provocation that was a little bit ironic a little bit not: “perfect, then if you cheat on me and add an extra virus to our family, don’t blame me.

What do we do, give it up or U=U? “The second option,” he replied. And I was being a jerk as usual: no, I didn’t understand, the second option that is? I want to know what you decided. No shortcuts or unspoken words. Explicit consent or dissent.

Only when he looked me in the eye and said “U=U” did the evening go on. The following days were not easy because – I admit – he conditioned me a little bit with paranoia “what if you got the virus raising up in your blood and you don’t know,” “what if medicine decided not to work, science I don’t know if and how much to trust, there is always bad luck.”

How could I tell him “if you don’t trust the doctor trust me” if it was a situation I had little control of myself as well? To hear him tell it, they should have invented a device that could be hooked onto a finger (which one of the 21 of them?) that would monitor viral load minute by minute.

OK, now we are both laughing about it however then I would have felt like throttling him and being widowed early because it was starting to bring back my fears too, so I kept myself ppatient by letting him wait for the window period and get the HIV test while rationally aware myself first of what the outcome would be.

Finally with his negative result in hand I took him to celebrate at a nice place where we had appetizer, first course, second course and dessert both of us. That is, three with the virus.

We were free and this state of mind would last forever, with the condom to be used only if we voluntarily chose it. I most of all felt as liberated as I had ever felt before.

At the end of the evening, in a coincidence we will never forget, our car's radio played a song that I still carry in my heart to this day: “my freedom” by Zucchero. Song on which I finally proposed to him and we ended up like two jerks singing “my freedom talking, my freedom walking.”

NOTE: I chose Zucchero’s song for the English article as it’s about a guy setting free from an abusing relationship and was suitable for me, my husband and our past HIV fears. But the true song playing that day was in Italian and is a sort of hymn to freedom.

It’s now been years since the never-purchased box and we got married in the fall of 2019; my husband’s still HIV negative, he’s still putting up with me, and I’ve never regretted looking at the pharmacy sign that day and moving on. Then, truth be told, during the Covid emergency we became more afraid than before and stocked up on condoms, but the awareness we gained also allowed us to ironize about preventing the two viruses together: where does the mask go? Where does the condom go? How does your face look? And mine?

Since meeting my HIV virus, I swore to myself that I would always use condoms even in a long-term relationship. But what about now? Yes, come on, but in 2013 the situation was different and U=U had not yet been discovered.

Okay, I would have liked to close this post talking about the song but I don’t feel like it because the risk is still high: true that we U=U poz folks are the safest people, in fact we periodically get tested for all sexually transmitted infections. This is also true for neg people under pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) since the therapy in question involves regular check ups, from Chlamydia to syphilis and so on.

The reality, however, is complex, and the circulating virus is not something to be taken lightly. Especially here in Italy there is poor information about U=U and PrEP, years of stigma shared by wrong communication campaigns is still causing problems so much so that screenings for sexually transmitted infections are still fully paid for by patients because sexuality is still seen as a whim and not a human right; for hetero, gay and any involved group.

Then condoms still remain a necessary aid to protect yourself (and others) in case you are unaware of your health status. I chose to share my experience just to make the point that, today, HIV prevention no longer comes through physical barriers alone – and stigma has never been a protection method.

DISCLAIMER: there is irony in this post, but also a fair bit of Drama Queen behavior: readers have been warned.

Posted in: #fediblog, #hiv, #personal

POSITIVE change

Right now, it’s not “Gifter” speaking, but Alessandro, sharing a post about my experience as a person living with HIV to dismantle the prejudices of those skeptical about my participation in this blog, which started as a satirical project.

Negative event? Yes. Devastating news? Absolutely. But since when “positive change” comes along you just have to deal with it, it's worth acknowledging and learning to live with it as peacefully as possible over time.

2013: Think twice!

I listen to all kinds of music because I'm passionate about it, but there's one particular track I can't bring myself to face: “Think Twice” by Celine Dion.

Yet, back then, I used to adore this track because it was the one that brought me and Alberto together—the great love and mistake of my life.

At 32, I should have already been an adult, but instead I fell for someone who promised to be faithful while being a serial cheater. I kept forgiving him even though, with the benefit of hindsight, the signs of an unhealthy relationship were glaringly obvious.

Eventually, though, one day—finding yet another stranger's sock under our bed, I packed up all his stuff and left his suitcase outside the door.

If I had found used condoms instead of socks, it would have been disgusting, but at least I would only have had to deal with his cheating. Instead, I was forced to face a “positive change” I gladly would have avoided.

I even managed to grow to hate “Think Twice.” Fortunately, that relationship didn't drag on much longer, but Alberto’s scenes outside my house or on the phone begging, “Alex, please forgive me,” with that song playing in the background, repeated themselves from mid-January 2013 until March—and I'll skip the details about Valentine's Day, when he risked me filing stalking charges against him multiple times.

So now, just the opening notes of that song make me as irritated as when a solicitor rings the doorbell hoping to sell me things or preach improbable religions.

I’ve never allowed myself to do that to anyone at the door, but I did throw more than a few buckets of water out the window at Alberto when he came to bug me. In the middle of winter, that’s not ideal, so if he caught a nasty cold, he brought it entirely upon himself.

On the bright side, during that same cursed period, I had caught a terrible flu myself without even being hit by any buckets of water—or at least, that’s what I considered it to be. Relationship over, stress, but with a pill and some rest, everything disappears.

As soon as I recovered, I went to the dump to throw away the last pair of underwear Alberto had left in my drawer, perhaps to delude himself into who knows what. But the old Gifter—or rather, the old Alex in this context—once he decides to close a chapter, he closes it with no room for second thoughts. I was still unaware that, objectively speaking, you can't just throw away all the “gifts” left behind by an ex.

2013: Rite of Passage

When you get past the climax of post-breakup stress, what do you think? “Cemeteries are full of irreplaceable people,” there might be someone else to love, and you realize that at 37 maybe, just maybe, it's time to “get back on the market” so you don't end up like an austere 19th-century widow.

So, with the idea of starting to meet people with a classic “we'll see,” I made an important decision: to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, because I felt in perfect shape. However, knowing that I had been monogamous while Alberto hadn't, I considered myself sufficiently vulnerable: in the worst-case scenario, I would at least safeguard any potential new short-, medium-, or long-term relationships.

We gay men have developed a certain awareness over decades of HIV or AIDS being primarily associated with our sexual orientation: viruses don't care if you're monogamous or polygamous. All they need is an open door to enter, and they don't give a damn if you make love without protection because you “trust” your partner, or if you're with a completely anonymous stranger you only care about until you're dressed again. Viruses walk into your house without knocking or asking, “May I?”

To be fair, it's the same for straight people too. However, the latter most of the time feel lulled into the media's “comfort zone” regarding risk categories. Even if the serial cheater is the “next-door neighbor” who devotes themselves to home and family, the average straight person often fails to consider the possibility of STIs, doesn't get tested, and then tragedies happen—like a husband or wife with full-blown AIDS after years of silence, or an HIV diagnosis discovered during a pregnancy.

I don't care if I sound brutal, but since life pulls no punches, I don't pull mine when expressing my views on these topics.

With the tests, I planned to officially close the Alberto chapter, and I even joked about it with my best friend: “Come on, I can't be unlucky enough to be cheated on and HIV-positive? I can handle the betrayal, but I don't know about HIV.”

Adriano, however, is much more astute than I am and dropped the hint: “I'm sticking to you like a barnacle because that flu you had a while ago didn't sit well with me at all.”

Who even remembered that flu? Certainly not I! But like a good “leech”—as I still call him today—he never misses a single sign of vulnerability from me, and even back then he said, “The two of us can handle the weight of any misfortune. I'm with you.”

He’s been close to me since we were teens; he was the first person I confided in that “I didn't like pussy” (boy, did I phrase things poorly back then). That’s a friendship spanning decades. We’ve been through so much and we feel completely secure — there’s not even a risk of stealing each other's partners since he's straight!

2013: The Answer

The flu — what could it be? I had already read on the internet that the “conversion” from HIV-negative to positive could trigger flu-like symptoms, but I never wanted to let myself get influenced by that. After Alberto, I hadn't allowed anyone to approach my life until I was certain of “being CLEAN”—which was how I defined being HIV-negative at the time. So, I had my blood drawn without any dramatic thoughts. All in all, I was calm: I had “a clear conscience,” “I had behaved well,” the test was just a precaution, and generally speaking, “AIDS only gets those who aren't careful.” I too was a victim, in some way, of poorly executed media campaigns.

The screening was for all sexually transmitted infections; I hadn't gone to one of those clinics offering anonymous HIV-only testing, and I waited for the results.

I remained at peace until my cell phone rang: the doctor wanted to “see me to discuss the results.” At that point, I even snapped at the receptionist: “For fuck's sake, young lady, don't beat around the bush, just tell me I'm HIV-positive and hang up!” She was formal yet polite: “Sir, please have patience, I am not authorized to give you information over the phone, I kindly ask you to make an appointment with the doctor!” Friday, May 3, 2013—fine.

Adriano accompanied me that day, the only person I could trust, and he waited outside while I was shut in the room talking with the doctor. “All negative, except for HIV, I'm sorry.” No, fuck no! Me, HIV positive? No! Alberto couldn't have done this to me!

Receiving news like that shatters every certainty you have, but everyone reacts in their own way: at that moment, I no longer had a doctor in front of me, it wasn't a clinic anymore; I felt as though I were sitting at my dining table at home across from Alberto, and all that was missing was Think Twice playing to make me completely lose my mind.

Treatment and Psychotherapy

That doctor had (and still has) the patience of a saint. Only once I had calmed down did he explain the whole roadmap ahead. I was too terrified of the “aftermath,” and I still remember saying, “Doctor, please, if you give me a treatment that doesn't turn me into a walking ghost, I'll take it.”

He did much more than that and gave me the opportunity to undergo both antiviral and psychological therapy. Thanks to that, I have recovered my balance and have no trouble talking about it openly.

Alberto? Naturally, he tested positive too, and to this day I am convinced he wasn't aware of it. Just as he paid little attention when driving, he was the same way with sex, and the consequences showed. Yet, over time, I let go of the resentment toward him because hatred wasn't making me feel well.

Despair and Loneliness

Psychotherapy lasted a year and a half. The first few months felt completely useless to me because I loathed myself so much that I locked myself indoors for days without taking a shower. Adriano, for his part, came to visit me, but less and less often.

“You don't want me as a friend anymore because I have HIV,” I wrote to him one day, but his response was merciless: “If I don't like coming over to your place, it's because you smell like a goat. Do you think you're going to scare off the virus like that? More likely, I'm the one who'll leave! Keep going like this and HIV will remain the only one sticking by your side, but only because it has to and can't detach from you or it'll die.”

No professional will ever say a line like that to you, but a childhood friend will— especially when he watches you self-destruct and doesn't know what else to do to help.

To top it all off, there was the shock therapy from the psychologist, to whom I confessed that I had spent the summer of 2013 figuring out the best way to die before the virus killed me.

He confronted me head-on: “You're describing so many ways to die. But if you spend days thinking about it without actually doing it, I gather you don't really want to kill yourself. What do you say? Let's start from here: you don't actually want to die.”

“Of course I don't want to die,” was my reply, “but it's HIV forcing me to think about it! At 37, an expiration date! It's not fair!”

Adapting and Living With It

That holy man let me rant nonsense nonstop, and then started telling me the exact words I had already heard from the doctor: “It's no longer a death sentence,” “take your therapy regularly,” “have as healthy a lifestyle as possible.” It took a long time, but eventually, besides making peace with HIV, I made peace with my own self-esteem and eradicated the internalized stigma and homophobia I had carried inside for years.

Chapter closed on hating the infection too: I am now emotionally at peace, to the point where the virus is part of my family just like the cat, and I take care of it by staying regular with my pills and medical check-ups.

I should exercise more, but me and my HIV are like this: whenever one of us wants to go for a walk, the other coordinates with Jupiter Pluvius and makes it rain. Like human, like virus! TV series, couch, horizontal activities! At least, being in symbiosis, there’s no risk of HIV rooting for the opposing team while we're watching sports.

I admit it, after all the trouble it put me through just to get welcomed in, I've actually grown fond of this virus. It forced me to question far too many certainties built on nothing, but in the end, it allowed me to find much firmer ones—including some solid friendships and loves that perhaps were there all along, but I couldn't see them.

Ugly to say perhaps, but without it, I probably wouldn't have befriended @elettrona, the creator of this blog, who shares this experience with me from the opposite perspective: that of an HIV-negative person and former partner of a man with the virus.

What more could I want? To go back to being negative? At the moment I don't think about it because it's not possible, save for those leukemia patients who receive stem cell transplants that the media occasionally reports on.

It would be enough for me to keep HIV at the Undetectable = Untransmittable threshold without having to take medications; research is focusing in that direction, so it's just a matter of patience. For now, my desire is simply to live and enjoy it to the fullest—I've already wasted too much time on bullshit!

In closing, I reassure readers that I have no intention of writing books and profiting off my experience; I just want to tell my story to help defeat the stigma.

Valentino Talluto

We came across an Italian-speaking podcast telling the story of Valentino Talluto, a man convicted of transmitting HIV to many people, a case that shocked Rome and the whole of Italy and brought a dramatic truth to evidence: when dealing with HIV, media talk less than expected. And often in inappropriate ways. Unfortunately the podcast is in Italian only so we won't link it here.

The same old toxic narrative

When the news covers an extreme case like that of Valentino Talluto, journalists' tone is always the same:

• “He was kind, gallant, I trusted him, and yet inside there was a monster”: as if a person living with HIV couldn't be kind and caring towards their partners;
• “HIV-positive man has unprotected sex with dozens of people”. They forget the detail that modern treatments can make it possible to have sex without condoms while, at the same time, not spreading the virus;
• “He killed her by making love to her”… No comment needed.
• The use of words like “plague-spreader”, which stigmatize people living with HIV, when the correct term would be sexual predator.
• The morbid storytelling, hunting for salacious details about the protagonist's sex life.

This fuels stigma against HIV-positive people, who are considered solely responsible for other people's health when, in fact, everyone involved should be accountable for their own sexual behaviour. The immediate consequence of media-guided serophobia is that, once they learn a friend, colleague or partner is HIV-positive, far too many people still push them away, as if just talking to them could transmit the infection, without knowing that nowadays the greatest danger is someone who has never been tested because they consider themselves immune to risk, yet goes around passing the virus left and right: this is called unscreened HIV.

The girls Valentino Talluto harmed are therefore victims twice over: of their abuser, and of a distorted culture, especially present in Italy, built on prejudice about sexuality and sexually transmitted infections, HIV included, which are seen almost as divine punishment for “immoral behaviour” rather than as conditions to be diagnosed and treated in time, like any other. Media-guided serophobia hurts them too.

In 2014 a young woman filed a complaint against Talluto, but he had been spreading the virus since 2006 (or perhaps even earlier). Proper sex education, along with prevention campaigns focused on risk behaviours rather than on “risk categories”, would have given every girl all the tools to protect herself, testing included, and the cases of intentional infection would probably have stopped at one (which would be too much as well, of course), but the man would have been stopped from doing harm right away.

In fact, we think that if pre-exposure prophylaxis were offered as a preventive drug to the whole sexually active population, disturbed people like Valentino Talluto wouldn't be able to do this much damage.

PrEP exists, but there isn't enough information about it in the so-called “mainstream”.

There's no point crying over spilt milk, or pitying those who find themselves facing a chronic infection because of someone else; the State has every new infection on its conscience until it starts dealing with prevention in a truly concrete way.

Right now, instead, prevention is moving slowly, at least in Italy. Politics priority is to hide the situation, because HIV only concerns “certain groups”; people keep repeating “I trust him, so I don't protect myself”, as if trust were a form of prophylaxis, and in doing so they leave the field wide open to a twisted mind like Talluto's.

We want to remind our readers: we are all sero-involved. For better or worse, HIV and the feelings connected to it concern everyone, and knowledge is the only way to defend ourselves against a condition that today is completely preventable.

Unprotected sex while HIV-positive?

It's not us saying it, it's science: if a person with HIV is on effective antiretroviral therapy, they cannot transmit the virus sexually, so in theory they can have sex without a condom, although, of course, nobody recommends condomless intercorses, since there are dozens of other infections, more or less manageable, transmitted that way.

Unfortunately this kind of information does not easily reach mainstream media, because the idea of sex as “sin” and illness as punishment still suits those in power.

Clearly, extreme cases like Valentino Talluto are people who are NOT on treatment and have a very high viral load. Then there was the uproar over the news of a priest who organized chemsex events but, as usual, nobody bothered to find out whether he was on treatment, or whether the other participants were on PrEP. Newspapers only care about the homosexual HIV-positive man infecting the world. Setting aside that this person probably wasn't a saint, despite wearing a cassock. To public opinion it seems that being HIV-positive is the real crime, while any other offences fade into the background.

Sexuality, AIDS and death: an ancestral fear

A distorted view of sexuality has given rise to many urban legends about HIV and AIDS: AIDS Mary, a woman who hooks up a man at a club and, after the one-night stand, writes on the mirror in lipstick “welcome to the world of AIDS”.

Even the Italian band Elio e le Storie Tese poked fun at this tale, as they did with all the others of the “my cousin told me” kind.

There's also a male version, AIDS Harry: unlike the female one, though, the villain is a handsome, kind, romantic young man who sweeps the unfortunate woman off her feet during a holiday and gives her a present, telling her to open it only on the flight home. Inside the package, of course, the usual surprise: “Welcome to the world of AIDS”.

Stories like these exist to feed morbid curiosity, and we won't hide that we thought of an Italian “AIDS Harry” when we first heard about Valentino, but sadly it was all true; fortunately this man received a final sentence of 24 years in 2019. But nothing will give the girls back their HIV-negative status, nor will it erase the prejudice spread by articles and reports built on a morbid narrative. A stigma exploited every first of December, World AIDS Day, or to stoke outrage against the latest maniac; and one for which those very journalists remain responsible.

Conclusion

Some people, given the ironic tone we use when talking about HIV, decided to claim that we promote intentional transmission of the virus or justify those who act like Valentino Talluto. Nothing at all: we completely distance ourselves from irresponsible sexual behaviour and, since both of us have experienced HIV up close, one directly and one not, we have always dealt with the condition properly, showing our faces and talking about it when needed. We only make fun of all the serophobes wallowing in prejudice, exposing their absurd contradictions and throwing them right back in their faces.

Unfortunately, yet another tragedy of hidden HIV has occurred, reported as usual through serophobia inside mainstream media: witch-hunt the disease carrier! But meanwhile, an Italian woman has died. Rest in peace, Stefania Gambadoro!

Stefania Gambadoro: who is she?

She is Stefania, an Italian civil lawyer from the province of Messina. “A respectable person” living “a normal life” — and already with these two terms we could talk about toxic narrative, but let's move forward anyway. She had a romantic relationship with Luigi—a “successful professional from Messina's high society,” as they say—a relationship from which a child was born, but shortly after, the two split, as happens all too often.

The Third Wheel

We could finish the story here, as this case's main character had a united family that supported her, allowing her to raise her little boy as best as possible, while also enjoying professional fulfillment. Instead, an unwanted third wheel stepped in.

In 2015, she began feeling ill, losing weight, and experiencing other symptoms severe enough to force her into the hospital. Anorexia, leukemia—doctors supposed anything, only to refute themselves later.

The final diagnosis, AIDS, arrived two years later. Decidedly too late to remedy the situation, and Stefania passed away in July 2017.

Dying of Serophobia

Here is the key point: we are not in 1987, but in 2017, when it has long been proven that thanks to effective treatments, sexual transmission of HIV virus can be blocked and, above all, progression to AIDS can be prevented.

Therefore, if a person dies in a country like Italy where antiviral treatments are available, the cause can certainly be drug resistance, complications, allergies to medications, or other clinical difficulties. However, unpredictable cases aside, most of the time the real problems are the false beliefs of those who do not get tested because “it only happens to others,” a lack of prevention culture, or in this case, the deep-rooted serophobia among healthcare workers who wasted precious time.

In short, it is one of many episodes linked to hidden HIV, a topic addressed by our friend Nadia Galliano in her book “Seguimi con gli occhi” – “follow me with your eyes”, an Italian book concerning unscreened HIV situations; there, a 14-year-old girl discovers the tragedy after he brother's death, who contracted HIV and subsequently AIDS because his girlfriend was unaware of her own condition.

Here, however, if possible, the situation is even sadder than the story told in Nadia's novel, because in Messina something horribly real occurred.

Like Alison Gertz

Inevitably, Stefania's death reminds us a young woman to whom we are both deeply attached, even though she passed away when we were teenagers: Alison Gertz, one of the first American HIV and AIDS activists. Heterosexual, white, coming from a wealthy family, in the early 1980s she became positive from a one-night stand, and when she was diagnosed with AIDS in 1989 until her death three years later, she fought so that young people like her would become aware of the precautions to take:

“If I can get AIDS, everyone can”, she used to say, to emphasize that the disease does not care about social class, sexual orientation, or habits. Her very status of being outside the so-called “risk categories” prevented doctors from immediately understanding what illness afflicted her, causing her unnecessary suffering.

But at that time, long-term effective medications did not exist, and this is what makes Stefania's death even more tragic: nowadays we can know everything about HIV and AIDS. How can doctors justify not having considered this hypothesis immediately? She died of stigma—that is the reality—and we feel that Alison's sacrifice served very little purpose.

Overcoming AIDS Prejudice

Fortunately, Stefania was helped by someone who did not rest and rightfully wanted to investigate till the end: her sister Silvia, who, like Alison Gertz, fought against doctors' prejudices but, above all, managed to understand where the virus came from.

The person who transmitted it was that very same Luigi, the “successful professional,” who from 1990 to 2019 slept with half the world without disclosing his condition, causing the AIDS-related death of Stefania, his first wife also died in 1991, and the infection of other women. He was sentenced to 22 years in the first instance, as is right, but what about the doctors full of prejudice? Will they answer for their actions? We hope so, and that Silvia finds the strength to fight against them until her very last breath.

Believing that “a respectable person” cannot contract HIV in the 2000s is an offense to medical profession! Since when does medicine operate on stereotypes regarding other people's sexuality?

When prejudices Kill

If in this case a stereotype allowed a disease to progress because it was not treated in time, years ago in Russia something worse happened: her name was Irina Gaidamachuk, and she killed 17 people with a hammer. In that case as well, law enforcement moved slowly because, based on the violence committed, they assumed the serial killer was a man or a group of men. Thus, Irina got away with it for a few years, undisturbed as she murdered innocent elderly women who, without male chauvinist cliches, could have been saved.

Witch-hunt the Carrier!

The same old story: when mainstream media talks about a person who has transmitted HIV to their partners, the tone is always “witch-hunt the carrier!” They just splash “monsters” on the front page without ever digging deeper into the problem, because it is enough to mourn the dead and offer a pat on the back to comfort the surviving victims (provided they never show their faces, of course!). Except for Stefania Gambadoro and a few others, people who have become HIV-positive due to sexual predators almost always remain anonymous.

Then, when the reassuring news comes out that the criminal is in prison, the chapter closes until the next story, for which the script repeats: rage, insults toward the person and toward people living with HIV in general, sentencing, prison, curtain call. And the infection always remains “someone else's problem.”

But are we really sure that the protagonists of such news stories spread HIV just for the thrill of it? On what basis do we think that without the virus, these people would be good individuals who respect their casual or long-term partners? “I got infected, and now the same fate must happen to you”—surely there have been individuals like that, but we have serious doubts that everyone is driven by such a real or presumed urge.

Victims and Perpetrators

We would all like such tragedies never to happen again, right? Then why is there never the courage to dig down to the root of the problem? It is far too easy and convenient to criminalize HIV! Is disclosing one's status to a partner a matter of respect? Absolutely, but let's be serious: with currently existing stigma, do two people flirting in a club or online immediately talk about HIV? That does not seem like a realistic scenario. Nobody looking for a casual encounter wants to hear psychodramas, right?

In the 2000s, there are endless brands of condoms and, for those who can access it, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for those who are negative. Let's stop with the nonsense that an HIV-positive person must feel responsible for everyone else's health too.

Furthermore, the vast majority of people who are HIV-positive are on effective treatment and cannot sexually transmit the infection—this is a scientific fact that allows these individuals to no longer feel obligated to talk about it.

Before a negative person decides what positive people should do in bed, it would be wise to consider that in a world as full of serophobia as this one, a casual contact could easily turn out to be a blackmailer: “Pay me or I'll disclose your status,” “Sleep with me or I'll talk,” etc.

We need to change this media narrative surrounding the virus, because stigma forces people to keep HIV a secret. If it is already difficult to come out for someone who respects themselves and others, what happens if you are a person who has never cared about others' life? Let's not fool ourselves: the world is full of selfish people who are indifferent to what happens around them; one does not need to be disturbed like the Italian case of Valentino Talluto. To have no regards and pass HIV to unsuspecting partners, a much simpler profile is sufficient:

• “I think it's a disease that only affects certain people; I never get tested, I only go with people I trust” (these are the majority, and they transmit it WITHOUT knowing it);
• “I contracted the virus; I am ashamed because I thought it couldn't happen to me. I am a respectable person and I don't want to take pills for the rest of my life. I deny reality hoping everything goes smoothly; if I talk about the virus people will judge me or worse, blackmail me, so I just focus on my own pleasure and stay quiet”;
• “I read on the Internet that HIV doesn't exist, it's not the cause of AIDS—antiviral drugs are a poison. I comfortably have unprotected sex because condoms don't actually protect you” (these are the damages of information overload on the Internet, combined with widespread ignorance);
• “I liked you too much; if I told you, you would have rejected me, and I was afraid of losing you” (pure selfishness, disguised as love).

All of these are conditions that transform stigma victim into a perpetrator. Far be it from us to defend those who behave this way; justice must punish them, as harming others is not the solution to facing serophobia. The fact remains, however, that as long as stigma is widespread, the probability of these extreme stories will always be present. The sooner we realize this, the better, because even before HIV, such individuals did not care about human life, and the virus is merely yet another tool to prove it.

We are nevertheless aware that, as reassuring as it may be to see the “monster” in prison, no one will give HIV-negativity back to the people involved against their will, nor will it bring those who died back to life.

There were similar figures during COVID as well, walking around without protection or vaccinations while shouting about “freedom,” only to scream “witch-hunt the carrier!” when discussing those who do not protect themselves during sexual relations while concealing their HIV status. They are all cut from the same cloth!

“Monsters,” HIV, and Therapy

HIV related true crime stories share another common element: no one ever talks about therapies, or the topic remains vague. All that matters is that the main character of the story is positive and spread the infection, whereas details about therapy are fundamental. We will repeat it to the point of exhaustion: an HIV-positive person taking antivirals regularly CANNOT transmit the virus, even during unprotected sex!

Speaking of the man from Messina, news outlets claimed that he “had been positive since 1990 and had been receiving treatment for years”; other sources state that “from 1990 to 2019 he transmitted the virus to five women.” To us, this story only makes sense up to a point: if the outcome was so tragic, something definitely went wrong!

Given his first wife and Stefania's deaths, we rule out that he was completely off medication, because in that case, he would have developed AIDS and died as well. The same applies if the therapy had been ineffective and he had never changed it. Instead, we believe that he was inconsistent with taking his medication, keeping his viral load far above the undetectable threshold and thus retaining the ability to transmit it.

Nobody understands the damage caused by such superficial reporting, and above all, nobody is held accountable for it: distributing news in this manner breeds confusion, leading to misinformation and ultimately stigma. They care little if Stefania's now-teenage son—who is in the care of her sister—is caught in the middle. Decadent media reporting exposes him to bullying and insults: “child of a disease spreader,” “child of plague victims,” or worse, being treated as a perpetual victim. Given his mother's unknowingly positive status, he was fortunate enough to be born without the virus; the offense induced by misinformation should not be loaded onto his shoulders as well! Have the media thought about any of this? We have serious doubts about that. They are interested in publishing the most morbid stories possible—after all, who is going to speak up? Those living with HIV always stay quiet, so no one will pay damages after instilling even stronger prejudices in public opinion. God forbid they talk about sex education; for them, it's better to keep treating HIV as a “punishment” or a misfortune brought about by a “plague spreader.” ...And the chain reaction continues. Until the next dead person to mourn or victim to pity when shown faceless and with a distorted voice on yet another TV show.

Stefania Gambadoro Died of Serophobia: Update December 2022

The appeal trial for the man's conviction was scheduled for October 25, 2022, but a procedural flaw emerged: two of the jurors turned 65, the age limit for that role. So, just so we don't miss out on any absurdity, the trial will have to start over from scratch—from the court of first instance. Beyond the doctors' serophobia, bureaucracy is also hurting Stefania Gambadoro. We truly have no words left.

Stefania Gambadoro: Update March 2023

The trial has restarted from the beginning; we do not know much, and if we are not adding more details about it at the moment, it is because all media covering it continue to fuel media-enabled stigma, and we do not want to encourage them by giving them extra visits. We are following the story and will see how it progresses, but as for the doctors who delayed the diagnosis, there has been no conviction so far.