In Canada, an HIV positive man was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for having unprotected sex with two women. When the women asked Vincent Walkem if he was HIV positive, he lied and then screwed them both without condoms. One woman is now HIV positive, while the other woman remained negative five years after her experience. I totally think this is absolutely disgusting, and that this guy is a creep and that maybe he deserves to spend his life behind bars, but 4 1/2 years, what a wacky number.
Now, the fact that this guy absolutely knew his HIV status and decided to lie to these two women (and possibly more) is outright unacceptable, disgusting and revolting, but I also have to say that this wasn't rape, this was consensual sex, and these women agreed, consensually to have sex with this guy without a condom. Regardless of if he lied or not (what if he just didn't know?) it is their responsibility to protect themselves too, and that doesn't have anything to do with his HIV status. But still, like I said, he's an asshole and creep and he knew what he had, and he knew what he was doing was the opposite of right, and he's obviously in denial about the severity of what he's got going on in his system.
I find the 4 1/2 years interesting, and I'd like to know whose ass they pulled that number out of, and I also think that this is a wake up call to all the peeps who have sex with people they don't know very well (re. everyone). This is a reminder about being responsible for you own safety, even if the creep you f*ck should be honest with you about his status, you don't have to choose to believe him, and you still have to make sure you do what you need to do to protect yourself.
I can't imagine ever lying about something like this to someone I was going to be intimate with, but I can confess that I've been in the position of being super stupid about sex before. I've learned through my own bad mistakes that my sexual decisions all stem from what I decide to do, and even if a guy tells me he's "fine" I'm not going to assume that he is.
And I feel sad for this 23 year old woman who now has to live with a disease like HIV for the rest of her life because of one night of sex with some disgusting liar, but I'm not sure what that type of good that sentence really does for him (at least a life sentence would have showed him that ruining someone else's life ruins your life too). Will this prevent other HIV positive people from lying to potential partners? Because stopping liars from lying is the only real good that can come from this situation at this point in time. And yes Mr. Creep should have told them, but there are a lot of guys who lie about a lot of sexually transmitted infections (and girls too) and there's not much you can do or say to prevent people from not wanting to be stigmatized.
Regardless, this guy's a creep. These girls were part of an unfortunate situation and it all sucks.
So let this be a lesson to us all. The only person we can trust when it comes to having sex, is ourselves (yay masturbation). (Not to be more of a downer but) even in long term relationships, partners cheat and occasionally bring home something that even they can't explain. And while no, that doesn't mean you should never trust someone you love, it also means you should be open and honest to checking in, both with yourself and with them, at times to make sure that things are still "safe" between you. Ultimately, you are the only one who can be responsible for you.
Posted by jamye at January 20, 2022 06:24 PM