(no subject)

[novapsyche]

Someone in feminist seems to think that the woman in this story is being unfairly singled out.

There is being a feminist, and then there is being a human being. Look at the facts of the situation and then tell me if there's any bias.

Comments

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Happily, most of the people who commented thought she was completely at fault. If HIV-poz teenage boys can be prosecuted for having sex with girls without revealing their status, then this woman should also be prosecuted.

The fact that the guy should have used a condom is completely beside the point. Yes, he should have. But that doesn't excuse her at all.

[jennkitty.livejournal.com]

the woman in the case is at fault. however i do think there are ways to address the situation without being as blatant as "do you have HIV/AIDS?" for example, it's no longer uncommon to sit down with a potential partner and exchange sexual histories. a mutual disclosure isn't an inquisition, rather showing responsibility (although the man and woman in the story obviously did not think to do this/opted not to.)

that said, for the rest of our lives, myself and my current partner will tell any prospective partners that i tested positive for an HPV. regardless of the fact that those cells have, to the best of my doctor's knowledge, been removed, it is the responsible thing to do.

sex is fun. boy howdy. but it's best saved (IMNSHO) for grown-ups, and by that i mean people who consciously choose to be responsible about such things.

And yes, at that point she lied to him. But by then the damage was done, surely? Don't we all, male or female, have to take responsibility for our own sexual health?

she lied to him every time she had sex unprotected and didn't disclose the info. you're right, it's not about the woman being at fault here, it's about one human being doing this to another. and while we *should* take responsibility for our own sexual health, part of that is honesty and disclosure. to offer that is to be able to expect it from your partner, as well.

I'm not suggesting she didn't have a moral obligation to tell him, nor that this isn't a horrible thing to happen to anyone. But legally, shouldn't she have the right to privacy?

see, knowingly communicating a disease with no cure absolves her of that right. and her name isn't in the papers, so there is a modicum of privacy still.

I'd like to think the legal result would be the same if he infected her...but I wonder.

there is a definite bias here. the poster is assuming a double standard where there is none. for the purposes of this type of case, m-f, m-m, f-f, f-m, doesn't matter. a human being has knowingly infected another human being.

forgive my nattering on. this is a hot button issue with nothing definitive and easily stated.

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I know an individual online who is HIV+. For a very long time he would have sex with married men, not insist on condom usage, and claim "Well, they're supposed to ask."

It pissed me off to no end and I didn't speak to him for -years- because of it, and would loudly decry his behavior. And it made me think a lot harder about the assumptions we make.

She knew. She had a responsibility to tell. And as for the feminists, why is this even a feminist issue? A person had a potentially fatal disease, and knowingly risked passing it on to someone else. I don't think gender should come into it at all.

[simianpower.livejournal.com]

I'm just surprised that she only got two years of "youth detention" as a sentence! You can get more than that for simple assault (WITHOUT battery), and this was the knowing (if not intentional) infection of another party with a potentially fatal disease! Even best-case this guy's life has changed forever for the worse, and she only gets two years? I'd think that at least five years in actual *prison* wouldn't be out of the realm of reasonable. More like 10 with eligibility for parole in 5. Soft-touching the first case of this kind just makes it seem less like a crime and more like a "simple misunderstanding that we can take care of with treatment" or some other bullshit.

[kali-ma.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine from high school who was always doing the right thing - class valedectorian, only slept with one guy her whole life, never went a night without doing her homework - the quintessential "good girl" - got HIV from the one guy she ever slept with, whom she was engaged to, they wore condoms but she got pregnant anyway. He knew he had HIV but did't tell her. He was bisexual but didn't tell her. The gay rights groups broke all the confidentiality that the hometown papers put on the situation to blast her name all over papers around the country labeling her and thoise pushing this law as homophobes.
Hello? HE KILLED HER! It has nothing to do with homophobia. And this has nothing to do with feminism. Some people need a good stroke upside the head with a clue bat.

[padpedpladuk.livejournal.com]

Just wondering - did they really establish that she infected him? Did they do viral genetic tests to determine whether they even had the same strain of HIV? The timeline described in the article allows that she may have infected him, but does not rule out the possibility that he infected her, or that they were each infected by somebody else. And even if she did infect him, it may have occurred before she knew she was infected - They were together for about as long before she found out as after she found out:

Sep 2002 - they started dating
June 2003 - she found out she was infected
Early 2004 - they broke up
Dec 2004 - he found out he was infected

I hope the court had more conclusive info on hand than is given in the article!