“It’s still difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact I’ve had an STI for as long as I’ve been alive. I used to sit in health class and listen to the lectures about how abstinence was the only way to prevent STI’s, and that your life was basically over if you contracted one, but I didn’t have sex until I was 21, so there I was left with the recurring question - what about me? HIV stigma is understood as people not wanting to touch things I’ve touched, or share food or drinks, or even have sex with me because I’m HIV positive. But stigma goes deeper than that and there is a whole world of it living inside every HIV positive person. The stigma I put on myself is stronger than any stigma I’ve faced from others. What people don’t see is the hours I spent as a young girl numbing out in front of my mirror because I wanted to get as far away from my HIV positive body as possible. Or the relationships I ruined because I was so wrongly convinced that if I let anyone near me all my body would do is hurt them. Or the hours I’ve spent in the middle of night sitting in the shower, praying to the God I don’t believe in to somehow wash this thing out of me so I could experience life without feeling inherently tainted. I grew up believing my body was the worst, most flawed, most disgusting and dirty body to ever be brought into existence. Living with HIV as a little girl taught me that my body was not one to ever be desired, and I was no one to ever be loved because of it. What I never expected in my process of reclaiming my body was finding power and healing through sex. It wasn’t until I first had sex and the world didn’t explode, no one died, and my partner tested negative that I realized every negative concept and belief I internalized about being HIV positive was absolutely incorrect. What was even more powerful was what happened afterward - people still wanted me and I felt more at home in my body. Stigma taught me that I would never have anything good. Sex taught me that my body is desirable and capable of giving and receiving pleasure without harming anyone in the process. It made me see my body in a totally new and de-stigmatizing light. Aside from sex, HIV doesn’t weigh so heavy on me now. It’s just a diagnosis. My body is my body, and it’s a pretty great one that I now know is full of desire and love, for me and my partners.”