‘Is sex worth the risk?’ Monkeypox just the latest virus to threaten gay intimacy

‘Many people – even many queer people – have internalized the idea that contracting STIs is bad, shameful, and should be hidden.’ Photograph: franckreporter/Getty Images

Last week, I went to my doctor’s office for a long-scheduled sexually transmitted infection checkup, and started to cry a few minutes into my appointment.

Like many gay men, I am on a daily drug called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which prevents me from becoming infected by HIV, even if I were to have sex without a condom or use injection drugs. At 44 years old, I am of the generation who knew about Aids before we even knew about sex; from childhood, I conflated sexuality and fear. PrEP was a gamechanger in taking that fear away.