Sex and prevention concerns
for positive people

September 2002     View PDF     En español

The reality of safer sex

You put yourself at risk for infections through unprotected sex with a partner—activities that expose you to your partner’s blood, blood products, urine, feces, semen or vaginal or anal fluids. In some cases these infections may never harm your partner, but they might be life-threatening to you should your immune system weaken as a result of HIV.

If your partner(s) is also living with HIV, neither of you is immune to new infections. Be aware of both the real and theoretical risks as you discuss and negotiate safer sex. Every sexual behavior or activity carries some level of infection risk. It’s generally believed that some activities are less risky than others, but low risk obviously doesn’t mean no risk.

Negotiating safer sex and using risk reduction to prevent passing or getting HIV or other infections is not easy. Safer sex requires the involvement of willing partners. This is especially difficult for women because safe and low-cost woman-initiated methods of HIV prevention do not currently exist. For people in situations where domestic violence occurs, this willing involvement can be almost impossible. In this case, seeking family violence prevention services is probably the safest and smartest plan of action.