To clarify, it was with an English guy, so anyone who's ever had sex in the UK is in the same boat as I was.
Having unprotected sex with the kind of guy who has unprotected sex in Africa isn't all that much better.
That's an exaggeration. According to 2008 data collection, 1 in 6 South African residents over the age of 25 is HIV positive. So it's no worse than Russian Roulette with a conventional revolver really. Focus I'm a miracle of idiot luck. I assume that I've used up so much luck avoiding STD's that the lottery is forever beyond my reach. Never been infected, tested clean every time. Even with my immune system being kind of shit and having had sexual partners who had them, I've never even had a cold sore - nothing detectable that even might be transmissible. Closest I've come is hair lice when I was 6 from a girl who I caught during a game of Catch and Kiss and a few colds that might have been passed on from slags.
This will sound horribly racist, but here goes: in my experience, we (expatriates) tended to have relationships with other expatriates, so although it was by no means as safe as banging your high school sweetheart from Idaho, the chances of infection were reduced because for the most part we weren't having sex with the demographic that was highly infected. A great book is The Invisible Cure. Helen Epstein goes into the hows and whys of HIV/AIDS, and how it spreads so prevalently through mainly eastern sub-Saharan Africa. EDIT: Oh, and to further clarify, I lived in Uganda. Uganda has nowhere near the infection rate of places like South Africa or Zimbabwe. Last I heard it was somewhere around 6% of adults. And Uganda is one of the few countries to actively reverse the HIV trend - there numbers have consistently gone down over the years.
My girlfriend thinks she has pinkeye right now. I think I'm going to play it safe, cut all contact wither her and burn anything in my apartment she touched. Can't be too careful folks... can't be too careful.
Whatever you do, do not lick her eyeball. I know it's tempting and all but serious side effects, man.
Most times there's been a sufficient opportunity to raise the issue well before getting into the bedroom. It usually takes a few dates to get to know someone enough before I want to tell them, because I'm not going to bother if it's not going any further. Blurting it out on a first date is usually enough grounds for a restraining order, so I tend to avoid that. For example, a couple of relationships ago I was dating a nurse. We'd seen each other a few times and she commented that she'd like to come and stay at my house for the weekend, while we were watching tv at her place. I told her there was something she had to know first, and proceeded to tell her plain and simple and then answer all her questions (how long, who from, how bad... that sort of thing). She was fine with it, even double checking with some of the doctors at the hospital she worked at. I've had one situation where things went a little faster and the girl was keen on jumping me sooner rather than later. My insistence on backing up and slowing down prompted her to ask what the problem was. So I told her. She asked if I had protection, I did, and she said no problem. Maybe a lot of it has to do with the education down here that people realise HPV isn't a massive issue. But I'd think it has more to do with naivety.
This plus the NASCAR thing makes me thik your IQ is somewhere around 80. Slightly smarter than Forrest Gump.
I dunno, man. Forrest might've signed up for Vietnam, but he sure as hell didn't spend his time watching colorful cars go real fast around a loop. So far, I've avoided anything, I'm guessing having less girlfriends than languages studied will work those odds in your favor. Hooray, not having shit growing on your dick! Not so hooray, long dry spells!
Jesus guys. I dated a white British guy for three months, and we happened to live in Uganda while it was happening. You're acting like I went into a South African free clinic and picked someone up for a random one-nighter.* *I save that kind of thing for special occasions, when I'm feeling lucky.
I'm not sure if it's funnier that you just opened the door to jokes about your poor taste (British guys? You couldn't find enough poor dental hygiene in the trailer parks at home?) or racism implications (You think Aids is some kind of darkie disease? White people get it too lady. Are you actually that white supremacist chick from the old boards with a new name?) - Either way, I don't think anyone is judging you any more than they would have just for being a woman who's not sleeping with them. You could always divert their attention by posting a picture of your tits or something?
Besides, everyone knows that all British guys in Africa are just there to fuck the midget tribal types.