A Good Report on AIDS, and Some Credit the Web

[kweerwolf]

The conversation over tossed salad, dinner rolls and iced tea was about dating. Mostly predictable stuff, like where to meet guys and the hottest men-seeking-men Web sites.

But the gathering last week at a coffee shop in the largely gay Castro district here was not a casual pickup session. The dozen or so men were infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and the talk was of "responsible sex," not through condoms, necessarily, but through choosing sex partners who are already infected.

"I don't think I could sleep at night if I knew I had infected another human being," said one of the men, Don Stewart, who tested positive for the virus, H.I.V., five years ago.

The monthly social event, called Positive Space and organized by an AIDS prevention group, is among the scores of educational meetings, workshops, seminars and parties that health officials here say may be contributing to a significant decline in the incidence of H.I.V. among gay men in San Francisco.

http://nytimes.com/2005/08/18/health/18aids.html?hp&ex=1124424000&en=da946aca6642b737&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[ecoalex]

1. It is illegal to knowingly infect another person