Deadly Encounters

Since the emergence of the AIDS/HIV pandemic, there has been a phenomenon which has garnered little attention: the misrepresentation of HIV status between sexual partners. HIV-positive individuals of all backgrounds are often inclined to mislead their sexual partners when it comes to their infection status; there are many reasons for this. Relying on the first-hand testimony of both individuals who misrepresented their HIV status, as well as individuals who were infected with HIV as a result of someone else s misrepresentation, the body of research and analysis of this work sheds groundbreaking light on the problems and issues which arise from the misrepresentation of HIV status between sexual partners. The work sets out to describe in extensive detail the phenomenon at hand, then offers a complete academic analysis of the many facets of this complicated subject. Next, the author presents a contextual taxonomy and explanation of the progression of the phenomenon, then continues with extensive discussion of the motivations and rationale of the various parties. It concludes with solution models which discuss how this phenomenon might be partly or even completely averted.