Question
My girlfriend wants to have sex without a condom?
31 October 2025. Related: All topics, HIV transmission, Sero different couples, Sexual health.
Hi there. My viral load has been less than 20 for the past three to four years now. My CD4 recently come out at 608. My girl friend want us to have sex without condom but I am scared of infecting her. What do I do?
Answer
Hi there
Thanks for your question.
Also for sharing how people living with HIV worry about the health of our partners.
Because your viral load has been undetectable for so long, your partner will be completely protected from HIV. This means that even if you don’t use condoms, there is zero risk of transmission.
Many studies have shown this is safe, including the PARTNER studies where couples had sex over 100,000 times and no partners became positive. See:
https://i-base.info/u-equals-u/
The science is the easy bit though.
Having been worried for so long, you also have to feel happy to do this. This might mean taking time to let this new information sink in. Maybe talk in confidence to your doctor or health worker if this might help.
This all assumes that your partner knows about your HIV status. In some countries there are legal problems from not telling a partner about your HIV status, even though there is a zero risk.
In many countries this doesn’t matter, but you didn’t include those details.
If you do want to tell your partner at some time in the future, some people would definitely value you have the conversation before stopping the condoms. Even though the risk is zero this can be an issue of trust if this relationship is one you really want to last.
At least now this can be with all the support information about these being a zero risk.
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