Love hard to find for gay men

It’s worse if you are HIV positive

Finding love is hard generally, but according to Pontsho Sekisang (21), it is even harder to find it within the gay community; add being HIV positive and it’s like climbing Mount Everest. And so sadly, he says, you end up settling for whatever you can get. “A lot of time is organised around sex for either straight or gay people. But I find that what we have done as gay men is organise our identity around sex.

And that is self-destructive. And to make things worse, promiscuity has become the norm,” he says. Gay men, he adds, are so 'hardwired' towards finding casual sexual encounters. “It is a lonely existence.” Sekisang, who is longing to be in a loving and committed relationship with hopefully a white or Indian man and to raise children, shares that unfortunately a lot of time, he gets to deal with “closeted older men who only want to meet up late at night.” “My last sort of relationship ended two weeks ago when my 49 year old partner found out about my status.

It is these outdated attitudes from people about HIV that is a challenge.” He says he talks about his HIV status with good humour now, knowing that the effective treatment he is on means he can’t pass on the virus. “There is still so much stigma out there that needs confronting, especially in the gay community,” he says. “I have been threatened, been told to get lost and die when I have told people I am HIV positive, because they think I’m spreading HIV. Some people also say they don’t date or sleep with people ‘like me,’ to which my response is ‘that you know of.’‘The truth is they may have slept with people who have HIV and don’t know it or even guys who know their status but haven’t disclosed for fear of rejection, because there are a lot of gay men who remain undiagnosed,” Sekisang explains. Another major challenge he has noted is how 'extreme vanity' has been 'sewn into gay culture.” “We like material things, the Somizi type of lifestyles.

And I’m including myself here. I like trendy things and to trend. But this in itself, he acknowledges, makes otherwise intelligent young men like himself settle for being treated as “sex objects on a demeaning meat rack.'