World Aids Day: What I learned from my first HIV test

Regrettably, many of my peers have a very laissez-faire attitude to HIV testing. Photo / Getty Images

I was 24 before I got my first HIV test.

Despite being sexually active for some time, at that age I just didn't comprehend that HIV or AIDS were within my generation's reality. I understood that AIDS killed my forefathers in the 1980s, of course, but to my knowledge didn't know anybody affected.

How naïve I was. I'd met many people living with HIV and I just didn't know it.

It was a couple of tidbits of information, told to by the nurse at the testing centre that woke me right up to HIV. This was the UK, circa 2009, and I was told two facts: the first was that one in four gay men on "the scene" in London (i.e. those on the partying circuit) were positive. The second nugget of information was that, at the time in that part of the world, the majority of new HIV diagnoses were heterosexual women.

What did this tell me? That HIV was, quite literally, everywhere. And it didn't discriminate.

I haven't had unprotected sex since I got that first negative test result, and vowed to never put myself in unsafe situations in the future.

Regrettably, many of my peers have a very laissez-faire attitude to HIV testing. Most straight friends of mine have never been tested, despite many unprotected sexual encounters. My LGBT friends are more onto it, but there is a certain attitude amongst some younger LGBT people that HIV is something that will simply never happen to **them**.

A lot of work has gone into campaigns in the last 30 years to de-stigmatise HIV, which is one of the best things to happen to the LGBT community in particular – as I said, HIV doesn't self-select and general society has accepted it as something that can affect anybody, no matter their sexual orientation or gender.

Medical advances have also made the virus easy to live with. Although it remains incurable, effective treatment can get an HIV-positive person to a level where the virus is undetectable in their body.

This is why HIV testing will forever remain paramount for all people. Especially here in New Zealand, where HIV infections have been rising annually and last year we hit an all-time high. Regular testing – the recommended rate is three monthly if you're sexually active – is vital in countering the spread of HIV.

When you get tested you become informed, no matter the outcome. Either you learn you're negative and are re-reminded of the importance of continued safe sex and ongoing testing. Or, you learn you are positive and can embark on the journey of dealing with it.

Today is the 29th World AIDS Day. It's a reminder that people all over the globe, from every section of society, can further HIV and AIDS education from within our own social groups and communities. We all need to get tested; we all need to unite on this issue.

Those living with HIV need support, free of judgement. Offer it to them in the same way you support cancer or dementia or mental health awareness.

And do it today, but not just today. Because HIV/AIDS is something that, for them, lasts a lifetime.