Posted at 4:00 p.m.
Jonathan is HIV positive. Risky practices, he knows. He gave. Thoroughly. He even hit rock bottom. Story of a 180 degree turn. Because yes, getting out of it is possible.
The proof: today, the smiling 40-year-old with clear eyes is involved in a sexual health organization. He also made a point of meeting with us when the 22e international conference on AIDS is in full swing at the Palais des Congrès, until August 2.
His battle horse: HIV and “the use of stimulating drugs in a sexual context”, known as “chemsex”, often without protection. Why ? “Because the two are intimately linked, in my case. »
Met in a small café on rue Ontario, at a table a little apart, the man here sometimes wears the hat of a confidant, sometimes that of a speaker. Or a happy mix of the two.
This is a subject that is not talked about enough. There is a great lack of education, and who suffers the most? HIV-positive people themselves…
jonathan
So, let’s talk about it: for his part, Jonathan made his coming out around 18 years old, “in the early 1990s, when we were still talking about AIDS. […] It was really intense. Many people were dying from it, mainly in the gay community, but not only. There were prevention messages everywhere in the toilets of the bars. And in context, “of course, that concerned me.”
This was also the first reaction of his mother: “OK, but I hope you will protect yourself. »
He also had his first experience with a friend, before having a “beautiful love story” at the turn of his twenties. “I was looking for my prince charming. I was very romantic. »
The story lasts three years. “I had done the trick. […] The prince is not that. » Jonathan then gives himself, and for the first time in his life, the « right » to explore, as he says, and dares the « one nights » and other « sex, without ties ». But beware: “at the time, I was really serious, risk-taking came later…”. In short, yes, it protects itself.
Mid-twenties, new “Prince Charming”, a story that lasts a few years and ends rather badly. Very badly, even. Think: marriage proposal, then cancellation. “It shattered all my illusions. »
It was then that our “great romantic” sank. Not halfway. He begins to “explore drugs”. What exactly ? “Crystal meth, MDMA, GHB — but back then they didn’t call it the date rape drug! — and, of course, Viagra. […] Ways to disinhibit and trip more, he summarizes. The word didn’t exist, yet that was it: chemsex. »
Basically, Jonathan ends up at parties, only with gay men, and it happens. The interest? “Oblivion, total abandonment,” he replies, in all sincerity. And then, lots of fun. »
It increases your pleasure. From three to 10 times stronger, more intense, longer. You can extend the trip one night, two nights, three nights without sleeping…
jonathan
And yes, he “tripped”. Strong. Lived from the highs. Then stockings. Moreover, “it would be the new crisis, after AIDS, indicates our interlocutor, taking up his speaker’s hat here. Because it can lead to suicides. We don’t talk about it, but people go far. They can go so far as to lose their job, their family, their money. It accentuates depression. […] It doesn’t take long for you to see the bottom of the barrel…”
And him ? We guess that’s when the condom takes the edge. “In this context where everyone is uninhibited, you don’t feel like arguing…”, he confirms. Sometimes, yes, he protects himself. But sometimes not. Once too many, we understand. Mid-thirties, exactly, the fateful verdict falls. “I thought of my mother. I felt like I had let her down…”
Fortunately, at the time, antiviral treatments had already made their appearance. The disease is no longer fatal. “If I had been diagnosed in 1990, I wouldn’t be here to talk about it…”
Parenthesis: not only is it no longer fatal, but its viral load is now “undetectable”. Basically, if Jonathan takes his medicine religiously, he cannot transmit the disease. End of parenthesis.
Still, at the time, the news stunned him. Literally. Assessment: “I fell even more disillusioned than I was. And I dove even deeper into drugs. It should have done the opposite, huh? »
This time, it’s every weekend that it happens. Repeat. “And not little ones trips three hours…” And yes, his life, his jobhis health and his (other) friends begin to suffer.
And no, he’s not really protecting himself anymore. Because “everyone is already HIV positive” in the group, he is told. “And it’s true, he confirms, there is a high prevalence of HIV in this community of drug users, but not everyone. »
He could have stayed there, and he knows it. But where Jonathan had a “tilt” was when he saw people injecting themselves. “I did phew. […] It was going too far…”
And yes, that was enough. Admittedly, “it did not happen overnight”. He had a relapse. Even a buffer relationship with a cocaine addict (“in my head, it was less bad, and almost as fun ! “). Nevertheless, at the turn of the forties, Jonathan decided to change his life. Career change, bonus.
The alarm signal had sounded. I had done it, my trip…
jonathan
He went back to college, got a degree, and found a job in a world both related and opposite: intervention. “I reinvested my libido in my studies. […] I want to do good! »
Better: he also met a new man, a guy who does not consume, does not have HIV (“a nice surprise”), with whom he now lives a “rewarding” sexuality.
Enriching? If you want to know everything, no, it’s not exactly as “intense” as what he has experienced in the past. Jonathan is formal. “It’s not as hot. […] We are less in intensity, more in intimacy. […] Except that there, having a boyfriend on Sunday morning who makes me pancakes, it has more value than intensity at all costs, more value than fireworks which do not last so long, finally… ”
* Fictitious name, to protect his anonymity