Health : How One HIV-Positive Man Overcame His Own HIV Stigma

The original story was written in Spanish for imaginamas.org and was translated by Matthew Morris. 

I hate selfies.

The selfies where it’s just me, I mean. I take a ton of selfies with friends, family, and my husband.  My Facebook page is full of these photos. However, taking pictures of myself has always terrified me because I don’t feel at all comfortable in front of a camera. I start to make weird gestures, my jaw takes on a life of its own, I close my eyes at the exact moment they have to be open. Same with my ID photos, same with professional photos.

So that’s why I hate selfies.

However, during the months that followed my HIV positive diagnosis, I was taking selfies compulsively. I took selfies in front of the mirror (the picture from Grindr that I posted a few weeks ago is one of them), naked ones, A LOT of naked ones, in the bedroom and in the bathroom.  I had a standing mirror that I carried around the whole house and I used it to take selfies. I took pictures of my face, my cock (with and without a condom), my back, my legs, my ass.

I was living in Havana during those months. Shortly after my diagnosis I moved there for a semester for work, and that’s where I went through the whole process of reconnecting with my body. An anthropology professor at my university, John Borneman, teaches a course on subjectivity called “From self to selfie”.  I think my selfie story was the reverse: “From selfie to self”.  I had lost myself, I was looking for myself, and selfies were a place where I could find myself: in the mirror, in the photos, with filters. Now, several months later, I think I can explain that obsessive behavior. At least I have part of an explanation, something that is starting to make sense to me.

Before I was HIV-positive, I was HIV-phobic.

There are many ways to be HIV-phobic, it’s a long spectrum, from those who want to avoid contact with people with HIV because they are still living in 1982 and think that HIV is transmitted through a simple touch, to those who show tolerance and good-natured acceptance on the surface, but behind closed doors harbor a ton of prejudices against HIV positive people. These latter types reason that they can avoid exposing themselves to the virus by choosing their sexual partners according to their HIV status, a process called “Serosorting.” Basically: they do not have sex with people with HIV.

I was a lot like this. Of course I had positive friends who I loved (and love), but I never considered having sex with an HIV positive person. In my head I would recite different versions of “it happened to you because you were reckless,” and when I heard “I’m undetectable” it sounded to me like they were making excuses for themselves, or in some cases, trying to get me into bed.

There are two moments in particular where I remember the open display of my HIV-phobia.

Once in New York I met a couple. Both were extremely attractive, very friendly, and it was clear that there was an intimacy in our conversation, a mutual attraction, to the point that we started talking openly about having sex together. They were direct with me and told me that they were both HIV-positive and undetectable, and would love to sleep with me. In that moment I pretended everything was fine, so when the conversation ended, there appeared to be the same good energy we started with, and we parted ways with the promise of meeting again.

I never again answered their messages or their calls.  I disappeared.

On another occasion, I had an argument with my husband about someone who was HIV positive. I did not know the person well, but he stirred up a lot of mixed emotions within me for various reasons, and I exploded with a torrent of prejudices against this person for being HIV positive. It is very hard for me when I remember all that I said that day.

In the first post of this blog I said that when I went for my HIV test I was very confident in the waiting room, reviewing my notes for the defense of my thesis proposal. Everybody gets a little nervous during these tests, including me, but for some reason, this time, I didn’t feel that way, or I had more important things going on in my work life to worry about.  Basically, I thought that I was safe from HIV, I would never be infected, that this test was simply a routine thing. I’m a good guy, I do things right, I am responsible.

And in that state of mind I got the news.

During the first months after my diagnosis I took so many selfies because I no longer recognized myself. Suddenly, the HIVphobic Miguel lived in the same body as HIV-positive Miguel. Those were long months to understand that not only had I contracted the HIV virus, but also to gain clarity around many things. The HIV phobic Miguel ran out of arguments, and I think my defensive reaction was to try to understand how and when I was infected. I think looking for a reason for all of this is justified; what is not fair is searching for the reason or how I got infected in order to have arguments that would allow me to remain HIV-phobic:

“I’m still a good kid, this happened to me simply because of bad luck, others are infected because they deserve it.”

The thing is that I was having these compulsive thoughts for a few months, months in which the HIV-phobic Miguel was winning the fight against HIV-positive Miguel.

The thing is that I was having these compulsive thoughts for a few months, months in which the HIV phobic Miguel was winning the fight against HIV-positive Miguel. Because yes, you can be HIV-positive and HIV-phobic. Those months in which I took pictures of myself obsessively, it was as if I was searching for myself in these two conflicting identities.

Gradually, the seropositive Miguel prevailed. Fortunately. The unconditional support of my husband was fundamental; his support is unconditional, yes, but that doesn’t make him indulgent. I wrote this post because he had reproached me directly (and rightly) for my previous HIV stigma.  In order for seropositive Miguel to triumph over HIV-phobic Miguel, it was also crucial to have the support of my friend Marcelo, who visited me in Havana, and with whom I had many memorable conversations on the Malecon, the streets of Vedado, and in my little house at Zapata with B.

Over time I also realized that HIV-phobic Miguel was rooted in the irresponsibility of not taking the time to inform myself what HIV really means today, not taking the time to listen; living in fear of the unknown, of becoming infected, of “getting myself dirty.”

OK, so neither ignorance nor fear prevented me from seroconverting. All I got was being a jerk with a couple who had been kind and honest with me, and a prejudice against people who I never met or took the time to get to know. I thought they were already defined by the fact that they were HIV-positive.

Today I do not know if I’m completely finished with HIV-phobic Miguel. What I do know is that I want to be done with him, and the truth is, I have him against the ropes. Sometimes he is looming there, desperately, showing himself in some misplaced comment or in a furtive thought. But he knows I truly want to get rid of him.  On a positive note, I would say that this experience helps me deal with the HIV phobics I encounter now. When someone says something intolerant or ignorant to me, I am aware that they speak from ignorance and/or fear. Just over a year ago I was there too.

But fear and ignorance can’t be an excuse, and they don’t save anyone.  Quite the contrary: if you do not inform yourself properly, you put yourself at risk.

For this post I took a couple of selfies (pictured above) just before my barber gave me a really terrible haircut. In them, in my image, I see myself as seropositive Miguel, grateful for everything I have learned this year, aware that I still have much to learn. I hope this blog helps me to do that.

Miguel Caba for HIV Equal

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