In a recent posting I suggested that the possibility to show your HIV status online proves “how much has been accomplished in stamping out stigma”. A reader objected that “Actually, no. This is a move to culturally pressured disclosure so that people with HIV can be further minoritized and excluded, and presumed HIV-negative people can couple with potentially dangerous self-satisfaction.”

A search on the Fridae.com website which allows for publicly showing one’s HIV status returns 280 profiles (110 of them Caucasian) stating being HIV negative at the last test (a period that covers up to a year back) and three stating being HIV positive in London. The total number of profiles located in London was not available but they were more than 500, the maximum the site could display (Gaydar records more than 5,000 users and Gayromeo more than 15,000). Even taking into account that Fridae is a “niche” website the figures support the fact that few people know their HIV status. Furthermore, the number of users disclosing their seropositivity certainly does not fit the estimated proportion of HIV+ MSM in the capital. Though these figures comes with caveats, the number of people who know their status,  particularly those who are HIV positive, and share it clearly shows that the reader above may well have a point.

There are evidences to support knowing one’s HIV status, and some benefits sharing the information with potential sexual partners and with some people in some circumstances, but what about making it public? Nowadays that privacy is being challenged or redefined by websites like Facebook, what does it means to share your HIV status online?

It is certainly easier to advertised oneself as HIV negative, but less to do so when HIV positive. Then as hinted by the commentator, how long ago was the test done? And how often unprotected sex occurred since then? Indeed people who are “HIV-negative at the last test” are only HIV negative from the last time they tested until the next time they have had unsafe sex. Add that there are evidences that testing negative can lead to unsafe sex and that there is a degree of self-belief in safety just because a potential sex partner claims being “clean”, the rationale behind sharing publicly your status becomes debatable.

Does advertising your HIV status “expose the blunt self-interest of the HIV negative”? I would not say so. I would say that it exposes the fear of many MSM, their need to believe in other’s honesty as well as being re-assured. Sharing your status online, when HIV negative, is a way to deal with stigma and unfortunately to put the onus on other to ask the right questions and behave appropriately.

Can making your HIV status public contribute to slow down the HIV epidemic? This is difficult to answer without a proper study. There may well be a certain amount of pride in knowing and sharing one’s HIV status. But pride does not protect against HIV infection. Looking at the figure from Fridae, HIV+ men are obviously not comfortable with the practice. But the idea exposes an inherent problem with the practice and by extension with serosorting – the way sex is performed between sexual partners who (believe they) know their respective status: that if advertising your status and serosorting are rational choices they are certainly not reliable ones.

There is a risk, not to say a reality that on a websites likes Fridae, someone who does not advertise his status becomes immediately subject to suspicion and ostracism, as much as someone who selects the “needs discussion” option when it come to the practice of safer sex (another option available on various sites).

What could be better? A “yes” and “no” would be enough and a “Do you care about the HIV status of your sexual partner?” The answer to that question may not be as self serving but at least it tells more about yourself than your presumed HIV status does and as the commentator noted: “Maybe if we cared about both HIV-negative and HIV-positive people equally, our strategies might better reflect a mutual respect?”

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