“In my experience, people who are in porn are either positive and on medication, or they’re on PrEP, so the risk of HIV transmission in the gay porn industry is minimised.” John Thomas (right) with fellow performer Donnie Argento at the GAYVN Awards in Las Vegas, January 2020 (Image: HNS Imagery) “When I applied to Tim Tales, which is the company I started working with, I disclosed my status as part of the application and it wasn’t a barrier to working with them at all,” John explains. In the age of PrEP and undetectable = untransmittable (U=U), John’s HIV status never once proved to be a barrier to his adult film aspirations – though he does admit he knows of HIV-positive models who believe they’ve been overlooked because of their status. “Rejection does still happen and it’s hurtful to HIV-positive people.”Įntering the adult film world had been something John had toyed with from the age of 21 and throughout his twenties while working as a theatre director, but it wasn’t until he turned 30 that he decided to take the porno plunge. “I had one guy, we were talking about going for a coffee, and he found out I was HIV-positive he canceled the coffee date because he – these were the word he used – ‘didn’t want to risk it’. Some incidents do stand out in his mind, however. “I had just started seeing a guy who was HIV-negative, so I assumed he wouldn’t want to keep on seeing me, but he did and we had a relationship for four years.” “I am very close with my mum and my family, so in many ways I was very lucky – I went back home and told her and felt like I could do that, because some people feel like they can’t tell their family. I felt like my sex life and dating would now change forever, that was a big feeling I had at the time”, reflects John. “It definitely felt like I was going to be a bit rejected by other people who were HIV-negative, both as a sexual partner and as a boyfriend. Rapid developments in HIV testing and treatment over the last two decades mean that living with HIV is now a manageable health condition – a far cry from the devastating diagnoses of the ‘80s and early ‘90s currently being dramatised on Channel 4’s It’s a Sin.īut while John “knew HIV wasn’t a death sentence” at the time of his diagnosis, the lack of progress in educating others as to the changed reality of living HIV since the ‘80s – that if you’re on the right medication and your viral load is undetectable, you cannot pass on the virus – meant that the potential stigma he might face as an HIV-positive man weighed heavily on him for some time. John Thomas in Bristol in 2016, six years after his HIV diagnosis (Image: supplied) John says his speedy treatment and recovery from Hep C served as a valuable reminder that “it’s better to go sooner and deal with something that isn’t too much of a problem than leaving something too long.” John’s quick diagnosis and referral to doctors also meant that medical professionals were able to quickly spot a second, potentially more serious infection – Hepatitis C, which if left untreated can cause possibly life-threatening complications. “If I’d not had a test for a long time, in terms of my personal health it might have been OK, but I may have really struggled with feelings of guilt of possibly unknowingly passing it on to other people over a much longer period of time.” “I’d had a negative test in December and a positive test in March, so it really narrowed the window that I knew I’d probably contracted it, and that I’d potentially put other people at risk”, he explains. John Thomas in 2010, shortly after being diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C (Image: supplied) While John admits he was “quite shocked a quite vulnerable” immediately after his diagnosis, he’s keenly aware that the fact he had been getting testing regularly before his diagnosis minimised any potential wider fall-out. “I thought I was being careful, but there were times when I guess I wasn’t, but I was testing regularly so I found out I was positive in Easter 2010.”
I was aware of HIV and felt like I knew how to protect myself – to use condoms and test regularly… “I guess I was lucky, my mum was quite forward-thinking and gave me some extra sex education about condoms and things. We were told it was OK to be gay but not to have gay sex.” We were taught, in terms of heterosexual sex, not to use condoms. “Our sexual health education in school was taught through religious education and was very limited.