Serosorting
Serosorting is the practice of using HIV status as a decision-making point in choosing sexual behavior. Frequently the term is used to describe the behavior of a person who chooses a sexual partner assumed to be of the same HIV serostatus for the purpose of engaging in unprotected sex with the intent to reduce the risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV.
Knowledge of HIV status is based on the result of a person's HIV test, with a positive result indicating that a person has HIV and can transmit the disease to others during sexual contact in which body fluids are exchanged. There are many causes which lead to situations where one person who asks about the status of another cannot get accurate information, for example, the person asked might be truly ignorant about their status due to not having had a test since their last risky sexual encounter.
Because of difficulty in accurately determining serostatus outside of a clinical setting, serosorting has limited efficacy. As people typically do not engage in sex practices with the expectation of contracting or transmitting HIV, failed attempts at serosorting are a leading cause of people contracting HIV.
Etymology
The word "serosorting" comes from the Latin word "serum," which refers to blood serum. Sorting refers to choosing partners based on HIV status, which can be determined from a blood test among other ways.
"Serodiscordant" sex refers to sex between an HIV positive person and an HIV negative person. Typically persons practicing serosorting make an attempt to find someone with a matching HIV test result, otherwise known as "concordant serostatus."
| AIDS and HIV articles |
|---|
Chat rooms • What links here • Copyright info • Contact information • Category:Root