Navigating Intimacy: 5 Tips for Sexual Fulfillment as an HIV+ Woman

1. Don’t conform to others’ expectations of you.

We often try to live up to what others expect of us, but what we should be doing is asking ourselves what our expectations are.

Below are five questions that we need to be asking ourselves.

1. Do I want to limit my sexual desires and partners, and why?
2. Am I interested in having sexual relations with males and females, and why?
3. Do I want to be in a monogamous relationship, and why?
4. Do I want to get married, and why?
5. Do I want to become a mother, and why?

2. Don’t allow sex-negativity to influence you.

Our society uses sexually transmitted diseases as a mechanism to control our sexual behavior by implanting fear and shame instead of teaching us the tool we need to care for and express ourselves sexually. Humans are sexual beings; we should own our sexuality.

Our HIV status isn’t a sign that we are a failure; it’s a sign that our society has failed us as a whole.

3. Seek education, care, and support.

When we feel ashamed and unworthy, these feelings can cause us to isolate ourselves and not get informed. Most individuals are poorly informed before their HIV diagnosis and have already been influenced by our society’s sacred tactics created around the virus.

Scared tactics intentionally emphasize the worst dangers to create fear and anxiety within us in hopes that the fear alone will prevent us from engaging in sexual behaviors that don’t align with monogamy. Since fear and anxiety have been implanted into us, when we do receive our HIV diagnosis, we continue to be consumed by our pre-existing fear and anxiety around the virus, which causes us to once again not seek education and support.

Education and support are essential if we want our sexual needs fulfilled because knowledge helps us overcome fear. Fear is caused by the unknown, and once we know, we can begin to realize that our HIV diagnosis isn’t the end of our love and sex life; it’s only the beginning of it.

The best sources to receive HIV education and support are by speaking with our specialized HIV doctors and by intentionally connecting with HIV advocates that aim to uplift the HIV community, advocates like me, Zora Voyce. I care tremendously about empowering the HIV community, and that’s why I created My Purora to help people like us.

4. Acknowledge that you are entitled to your sexual needs.

As females, we are continuously being told how we are supposed to feel and need sexually. We tend to often seek validation and approval of our sexual feelings before acting on them. This mentality results from female sexual oppression that has been placed upon us by our cultural values. It’s important to acknowledge the sexual oppression that females and males have to endure if we want to have our sexual needs fulfilled, especially if males are our sexual preference.

For us, HIV-positive females, we experience an additional layer of sexual oppression; people often categorize us as broken women, which entitled that our entire existence is for someone else. As females, we need to own our interests and desires in this world and not become an extension of the male existence, which will only lead to personal unfulfillment in every part of our lives, including our sexual lives.

Our sexual expression is equally important as any other form of self-expression; we need to connect with them and start expressing them with ourselves and others.

5.Confidently express yourself with yourself and others.

We need to give ourselves permission to own and express our sexual interests. As females, we tend to keep our sexual thoughts in a box, and the reason we don’t allow ourselves to express ourselves outside that box is because of fear of being slut-shamed, which is intended to devalue our worth. Our sexual expression is worth the attention because we are worth it; therefore, our partner should want to support us in our sexual needs, and we should do the same for them.

We need to become aware of our sex-negative culture and retrain how we think about our sexual feelings. Our sexual feelings are valid; we should own them and be optimistic about them. When exploring them, we can end up facing challenges, which is normal when we start to own a part of ourselves we hadn’t in the past; we should look at them as an opportunity to learn from them. We will never know what we like and don’t like it if we don’t try.

When people invalidate our sexual needs, be understanding because, after all, they are influenced by our sex-negative culture.Remind them that we are all worthy of having our sexual needs fulfilled, respectfully. We need to keep in mind that other people’s disapproval shouldn’t stop us from pursuing the type of sex life we envision for ourselves. It’s an opportunity to enlighten others because when we own our sexual needs, we inspire others to do the same. People’s disapproval often comes from a lack of understanding and awareness of human sexuality and the oppression caused by our cultural values.

Let’s start having open conversations about our sexual needs, and let’s witness where it will take us.

My ultimate goal is to encourage self-love and to empower you to speak up to design a relationship that fits your needs, especially for individuals living with HIV.

That’s why I created My Purora, and I openly talk about my HIV experiences on Instagram Zora Voyce.

Let’s stay connected!