There's so many positive 4 letter words:
Love
Like
Hope
Care
Life
Then there's negative:
Hate
Evil
Dead
For once in her life Desdemona wanted to hear negative. The word in itself: Negative. Instead she heard positive. Her whole world came tumbling d...
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Miranda Garnet
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Athena Davenport
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Saanvi "Vi" Ambani
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Paloma Gray
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Caswell "Casanova" Jean-Pierre
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Cassius "Chaos" Jean-Pierre
DISCLAIMER
If you're coming into this story with prejudgments about people with STD's or are simply ignorant please exit this book. It's one thing to be uneducated, but to be willfully ignorant is another thing. If you would like to learn, stay.
The school system does a terrible job of properly educating people on sexually transmitted diseases. You can make jokes & judge the main female character all you want, but it can also BE YOU. Anyone can get STD's & STI's. The things that you think can never happen to you, CAN.
HIV stigma is real. HIV is like any other disease. The negative viewpoints in society come from how the disease is contracted & what it's associated with. Their are a lot of misconceptions about HIV. People with STD's are still human. It's not a death sentence & the life expectancy is longer.
"The question of HIV positive versus "full blown AIDS" comes up fairly frequently. We don't use the term "full blown AIDS" anymore, as there is no such thing as partially blown AIDS. In many ways we really shouldn't be using the term "AIDS" either, as it is an artificial diagnosis. The more appropriate and accurate terminology would be HIV disease, which can then be further characterized by words, such as early, asymptomatic, advanced or late stage, etc. The term AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) was coined by the CDC before we fully understood the cause of HIV/AIDS. It was an epidemiological tool used to track the spread of the disease. Today, in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), the term no longer suggests the same dire clinical course of rapid progression to death. In fact there are many HIVers who carry the AIDS diagnosis but who are quite "healthy." Some are actually more "healthy" and immunologically fit than some folks who don't qualify for AIDS and are "only HIV positive."
It's your responsibility to educate yourself on HIV, AIDS, & other STD's. Get tested often & make sure your sexual partners have gotten tested as well. Thank you, enjoy.
