I began taking PrEp, I told people the news very casually over drinks or in passing. Many times, this conversation has become a defense of my sex life. “Oh, so you’re a hoe now?” one person replied or “So you want to start having sex with everyone?”

Now that I’m taking the daily pill, the only thing I worry about is the next time I am going to be slut-shamed by another gay man for being on PrEP. When PrEP became FDA-approved in 2012, many long-time activists immediately began calling it a party drug for gay men who just wanted to have lots and lots of condom-less sex.

Others focused on “taking a drug that is poison to you”, like Larry Kramer, playwright and activist, who told the New York Times that being on it “lessened your energy to fight, to get involved, to do anything”, showing a fear that this new drug would make us lose our activist roots – that a way to save us from an epidemic that has ripped through the gay community for decades is a form of selfishness.

That’s quite a lot to put on a pill whose only job is to block the virus from staying in your bloodstream and becoming a chronic medical condition. Read more via Guardian