Why are Primark promoting "Found Family"

I just want to clearly explain that. I don't have any questions, because I know what your answers will be.

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You're not exactly unpredictable, Tea.

If it’s your view that non-disclosure of HIV status even in a zero risk scenario amounts to sex without consent, that depends on the test described upthread - would a reasonable person who is HIV+ know that their sexual partner does not consent (or would not consent if they knew).

So where does that test end? If it’s about consent, then surely any issue that might cause someone not to consent to sex should be disclosed? And failure to disclose would be tantamount to rape according to your logic.

It's my understanding that transwomen are at a far, far greater risk of HIV than other cohorts.

I think this explains it! But it's double Dutch to me.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4965251/

TeaKlaxon

There are plenty of people who wouldn't sleep with someone with HIV. Even if the risks are painstaking explained. For a variety of reasons. And even more people once they knew it hasn't been disclosed at the outset.

I understand your belief in whether it should be criminalised rests on the risk of transmission.

But for others it rests on lack of consent. Which the person who was HIV positive would be well aware of, making it worse.

I just want to clearly explain that. I don't have any questions, because I know what your answers will be.

There is a difference between intentional transmission, and non-disclosure.

If someone is intentionally dishonest and misleading about their HIV status and there is transmission as a result, that is one thing.

I’m talking about someone who knows their risk of transmission is zero, or someone who is only engaging in safe sex. Criminalising that person for non-disclosure would be abhorrent and would set back the significant public health progress that has been made over the last two decades.

Sorry but your knowledge of how viral loads work is the problem here.

Someones viral load doesn’t just shoot up overnight. If it rises it rises slowly and any rise would be picked up by regular check ups well before it became a risk.

Every third film and TV show out of Hollywood over the last decade seems to have had a strong message about "Found Family". Especially anything of the comic book / superhero / fantasy genres. Like someone above said, by itself it's not a bad message though it's weird we no longer just call that friends, but messaged like crazy and in the context of trying to replace your actual family for the sake of political marketing, it's unsettling.

Like it or not but family is one of the foundational units of society and it has long been targeted overtly or otherwise by authoritarians. I find stores actively pushing stuff like this very creepy and suspicious. The messaging is very clearly "your family don't accept you. Find a new one. Our one." Isolating people from their family and surrounding them with a new set of people with the values you want is cult behaviour.

And I haven't been commenting on the rest of the thread, so just wanted to agree with this post way upthread from OldGardinia.

I agree. Also that someone made the decision for me. And felt they could make that judgement call.

There isn't much trust in a relationship where one partner is not being told something they should have knowledge of because the other partner thinks they will not then consent if they find out.

In all this discussion about HIV, what had struck me is that it a significant sexually transmitted disease and that this affects people of any sexual orientation. The treatment of HIV is life changing in that it means a person is medicalised for life.

However there is also this abiding narrative that all people with HIV are honest and reliable and that a prospective sex partner must be ignorant or offensive to doubt that honesty and integrity. Maybe it is my upbringing in discovering many people around me are not honest and reliable that I don’t have this trust level that others seem to either have for others or expect from others.

People who are HIV+ know whether or not their viral load is undetectable.

No they cannot know this absolutely because your body processes and how it reacts to medication and other substances are not always within your control. As discussed. It's not possible with any medicine to entirely rule out every possible kind of interaction. For eg obscure Ayurvedic herbs when you've decided to do a "detox"?

Even most of the online sources say things like "effectively zero" and "very low to non existent" risk. It's based as far as I can see on a couple of cohort studies. It's political, rightly or wrongly. But it's not your decision to make for someone else, morally. And even if they are wrong, they still should have the right to know whether they are sleeping with someone with an STI that the person knows about.

If you’re now shifting to say the law should not criminalise non-disclosure but that non-disclosure is nonetheless ethically wrong, then that is progress.

I haven't "shifted" at all because I haven't discussed the law question on this other than to post clarification of what the current legal position is.

Huh?

A found family. Like your fellow child labourers

This entire discussion is about what the law should criminalise, arising from the Feminist Declaration.

I’ve said nothing about what the ethical obligations of disclosure might be. I’m discussing the issue of what the law should say because that is what we were discussing.

If you’re now shifting to say the law should not criminalise non-disclosure but that non-disclosure is nonetheless ethically wrong, then that is progress.

This has been explained to you a number of times.

People who are HIV+ know whether or not their viral load is undetectable.

If they know it is undetectable they also know there is zero chance of transmission.

Undetectable viral loads don’t shoot up overnight because someone takes some St John’s Wort. If viral loads increase they increase slowly. And the threshold for undetectable (20) and zero risk (200) is a big one which means any indications that someone might in the future become transmissable are spotted early and addressed.

So yes, someone with HIV who is undetectable knows with certainty that they remain undetectable for as long as they continue their regular check ups.

It's morally wrong for men to compete unfairly against women at sports in the sex class for women. It's not against the law though, so that's ok.

I think maybe that's why you're so ok with males barging their way into female spaces where they aren't wanted by most women. It's not against the law. Well no, but it's morally wrong for them to violate women's boundaries in that way.

Does your moral code only cover things that are prosecutable by law?

And as I have said, it's not a case of "zero risk" because it depends on remaining below a threshold of viral load. Very little in life is zero risk. Even if it's a billion to one chance that's still a risk, albeit minuscule. You don't have the moral right to decide for someone, like you wouldn't have the moral right to give them a vaccine without telling them, even though you think it's ok and the risk may be tiny.

Which is only transmissable by 11% of people who are HIV+. The other 89% know with certainty that they cannot transmit HIV.

For that 89%, a law that makes them a criminal for not disclosing a health condition that has no impact or risk for a sexual partner is wrong and counterproductive.

This entire discussion is about laws criminalising non-disclosure of HIV status.

Of course it’s about the law.

It's a sexually transmitted disease.

It's not about the law. It's about your personal ethics. It's wrong to withhold that from a sex partner who you think might otherwise refuse consent.

Because someone with an undetectable viral load has the same chances as passing on their HIV to a sexual partner as someone with bipolar disorder has of passing that on to a sexual partner (I.e.zero).

The law should not demand that people disclose
personal health issues which pose no risk to sexual partners.

It’s not just invasive and illogical. It’s also really stupid in terms of tackling the spread of HIV.