Living with HIV

Sex

After receiving a positive HIV diagnosis many people may feel like their sex life is over. This is not the case. Many positive people say that they felt like this at some time early after their diagnosis but you can still enjoy exciting and fulfilling sex and be positive.

If you are feeling like you cannot have sex any more it may be useful for you to talk through some of the concerns you may have. You can do this by contacting the Positively Sexy office or any of the other support services listed on this site.

If you have a current sexual partner it might be helpful to talk to them about the way you are feeling. They may be confused and need to discuss new or different ways of having intimacy and sexual fulfilment. It is important that you both feel comfortable with the sex you have, this includes keeping you both safe.

Emotional intimacy and sex is good for us and is just as important after a positive diagnosis as it was before. If you don’t feel comfortable engaging in penetrative sex at the moment you could look at ways of gaining sexual fulfilment in other ways for example massage, mutual masturbation or using sex toys. As long as you follow the clear guidelines for safer sex HIV transmission risk can be reduced. Many people do feel that using condoms spoils the intimacy of sex, and may wish to take the risk of not using condoms. If you would like to talk to someone about how to experience intimacy but still use condoms you can contact the Positively Sexy office.

If you are having sex please remember that HIV is a very clever virus and develops and adapts. You should continue to have safer sex with all your sexual partners even if they are also HIV positive. You can be re-infected with a different strain or drug resistant type of HIV which is different to your original infection. If you are re-infected with a drug resistant strain or different HIV type some of the therapies that you may need to use could be ineffective and your virus may become stronger quicker.

It may take time for you to gain the confidence to have sex again but remember that your diagnosis should not stop you from having a safe and fulfilling sex life.