If you’ve seen the news lately, you’ll know about Charlie Sheen’s recent disclosure on NBC.
Sheen has come out and revealed that he is HIV positive, and has been for a while. While HIV positive, he has said he slept with many women. No one has heard about this fiasco until now as Sheen has allegedly been paying millions to keep people intimate with him from blabbing his business out in public.
While paying any kind of money to keep news like this private already makes anyone a prick- sorry, it’s hard to hold back- what about the fact that he may have spread HIV to his partners?
It’s so easy to wear a condom.
Sheen obviously must have pressured his partners into agreeing to let him go au natural while having sex with him. (He has said that he always disclosed his condition).
And when the pressure comes from such a big star and public figure, who is at times providing his partners with a big pay check-if you’re a prostitute or working in the porn industry, of which Sheen is fond-the likelihood that the partner would comply with a high-profile client’s wishes is pretty great.
No condom with that giant wad of cash? No problem!
Does the fact that Sheen told his partners that he had HIV before having sex, make the partners who were involved with him exempt from blaming him if they did contract his HIV? Not in my opinion.
He was holding the seat of power, and shouldn’t have asked.
One of Sheen’s ex’s, nurse Amanda Bruce now says that she was kept from getting HIV while having unprotected sex with Sheen, whom she was dating at the time, by taking a pill called pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP.
This once-a-day pill is said to protect partners of people with HIV from contracting the virus.
PreP, which comes with a hefty price tag, can provide up to 90% protection for those who are intimate with partners who have HIV or anyone who comes in close contact with the virus, such as drug users who share needles.
Taking the pill, combined with the person who is HIV positive taking a drug cocktail for treatment can significantly help to reduce the chances of a clean partner contracting the virus from someone who has it.
According to a report on NBC’s website, Sheen’s doctor, Dr. Robert Huizenga prescribed PrEP to several of Sheen’s sexual partners.
“In numerous situations he (Sheen) would inform his partner and then he would often have the partner see me and we would have an incredibly frank discussion about their exact risks based on their known information and their options,” Huizenga told NBC News.
The Center for Disease Control states that only about a half of 1 percent of sexually active adults have a high risk of catching HIV.
But, as NBC points out, that adds up to about 1.2 million Americans at “substantial risk.”
The point of NBC’s report is that more people should know about PreP, since it can be so life-changing.
But does it absolve someone of a crime if they are HIV positive and they do still transmit the virus?
Sheen’s got some thinking to do. Or, maybe he doesn’t care.
Either way, in my view, it doesn’t look like ‘winning’ anymore, (if it ever did).
Photo credit: Denis Makarenko/Shutterstock
