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<div>Was the message here that abstenance is the only safe approach,
to take a blood draw and have it tested before engaging in another sex
act with a relative stranger, or that one needs to put a ziploc in
your mouth before oral sex in lieu of an oral condom?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Probably none of the latter. It's probably just another
"oh well we're all going to have sex so let's just, as they used
to say on Hill St. Blues, 'be careful out there' "</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Assumptions are great until reality rocks one's world.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>s</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font size="+2"><b>Learning safe sex the
hard way</b></font> <a
href=
"http://www.argonaut.uidaho.edu/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=993&Itemid=48&pop=1&page=0#"></a></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font size="+1">Written by Sam Taylor
-Argonaut Friday, 20 January 2006 Sarah is a senior.
She has many friends, is involved in several organizations on campus
and considers herself an activist.<br>
<br>
That’s why she wants to get her story out. While Sarah is not her
real name — she asked to remain anonymous — she still wishes to
tell others of her experience. It begins with a random encounter, like
any other that might occur between a man and a woman at a bar. The
story has no ending yet, because the man is on trial.<br>
But what matters to Sarah is that others know about her experience
with Kanay Mubita, who is alleged to have transferred his body fluids
to her and 14 other women in Moscow, all the while knowing he was
HIV-positive.<br>
<br>
During the second or third week of October 2005, Sarah spent an
evening at CJ’s and was buying drinks when the tall, lanky man
approached her.<br>
“He told me, ‘You’re so beautiful,’” she says.<br>
<br>
She thought it was a weird encounter. Mubita told her they couldn’t
talk because he was black and she was white. She had noticed him
before — usually “with a whole bunch of girls around him.”<br>
<br>
So Sarah left him to go back to her group of friends, approaching him
again after a girlfriend suggested she ask Mubita to dance.<br>
<br>
This was months before she would find out, from friends and newspaper
articles, that Mubita had been arrested. That night, she says, he told
her a story of law school and how he had just passed the bar exam. She
was impressed and thought nothing of it, she says.<br>
“I trust people, I guess.”<br>
<br>
The two eventually ended up at Mubita’s apartment, where he cooked
her dinner. Afterward, he suggested that they lay down in his bed. He
pressured her to have sex, she says, but she refused. The pair did
engage in oral sex without any type of protection.<br>
<br>
Sarah admits she was intoxicated that night. That’s part of the
lesson, she says — that people need to not let “alcohol be a mask
to what is going on.”<br>
Sarah stayed at Mubita’s apartment for nearly a week. He even gave
her a key to his apartment.<br>
<br>
But during those days, she says, it became apparent that Mubita was
not completely truthful with her.<br>
<br>
Friends told her they had never heard of him being enrolled at the
University Of Idaho College of Law. They had not heard of many things
he told her.<br>
Sarah says Mubita weaved many tales — so many that he eventually
confused even himself.<br>
<br>
After telling her the plight of his infant son and how he and his
girlfriend had recently broken up, Sarah says he also informed her
that he was getting a $15,000 check soon, that he owned a business
with a friend and that his ex-girlfriend was moving to Washington,
D.C., because she was in the Army.<br>
<br>
Sarah would find out later, during a witness deposition as part of a
preliminary hearing at the Latah County Courthouse, that his
ex-girlfriend happened to be his first alleged victim, and that she
was mentally disabled.<br>
<br>
“He was so caught up in this world of lies that they started not
making sense.”<br>
The two engaged in oral sex several times throughout the week Sarah
stayed with Mubita, she says, and all the time he tried to pressure
her into sex. When the issue of condoms was brought up, she says,
Mubita apparently told her that he did not need them.<br>
<br>
Sarah says she brought some over to his apartment just in case.<br>
“Eventually, I think he finally understood we weren’t going to
have sex and he gave them back to me.”</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font size="+1"><br>
Sarah says she also feels bad, because one of the reasons why she did
not have intercourse with Mubita was because he was from Africa, and
she knew that HIV and AIDS were prevalent there. She says she wished
at that time that she had not stereotyped the Zambian man.<br>
<br>
“There’s this stereotype, and I know this is going to hurt the
situation even more.”<br>
The Saturday after they had met, Sarah says, the lies unraveled and
she gave Mubita his house key back. He attempted to remain in contact
with her, asking her if she was mad at him and randomly showing up at
her apartment.<br>
“I was trying to ignore him.”<br>
<br>
The last time they had any contact was when he called her before
Thanksgiving, she says, telling her that he was going to England for
some time and wouldn’t be back for a while, so he wanted to see her.
She refused, she says.<br>
Sometimes, Mubita tried to seek sympathy from her, Sarah says.<br>
<br>
“He would say, ‘Don’t talk to me, I’m nothing,’ but I told
him at the time, ‘What are you talking about? You’ve got a lot
going for you right now.”<br>
She found out the whole truth the Sunday before finals week of the
fall 2005 semester.<br>
<br>
“He knew what was going on in his life. I can understand how you
could feel like nothing if you had HIV.”<br>
<br>
Friends had read in the newspaper that Mubita had been arrested and
that he was HIV-positive. Sarah looked into the issue more herself and
eventually called the police.<br>
<br>
She says she was shocked, worried and scared.<br>
“I was just a wreck. Nobody expects that to happen with someone you
know. You don’t expect it to happen to you.”<br>
<br>
While Sarah has tested negative for HIV in the initial two months
since she had sexual contact with Mubita, she will continue to be
tested for a six-month period. That is the length of time it can take
for the virus to show up in the body after initial contact.<br>
<br>
North Central Health District officials did tell her that there was a
good chance she would not be infected because of the initial results,
but she says that does not mean she doesn’t worry.<br>
<br>
“I want to move on with it, but it’s probably going to consume my
whole semester. Petty little issues don’t mean anything now.”<br>
<br>
Sarah hopes that by hearing her story, others will learn to be more
careful in similar situations.<br>
<br>
“We hear about it on the news all the time, but the fact that it
happened in Moscow, Idaho, makes it more profound,” she says. “I
want people to know the situation, that it happened to somebody here.
I really want to use this experience to help people. This gives me the
tools.”</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
_____________________________________________________<br>
List services made available by First Step Internet,<br>
serving the communities of the Palouse since
1994. <br>
<span
></span>
http://www.fsr.net <span
></span
> <span
></span> <br>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<br>
ØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØ<span
></span
>ØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØ</blockquote>
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<div>Thanks,<br>
s<br>
<br>
<br>
* * * * * * *
*<br>
Sean Michael<br>
.dwg<br>
<br>
<br>
"the climbs are life"</div>
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