HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: HIV-Positives in Search of Love, Click Here

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Wilson Johwa

JOHANNESBURG, Sep 24 2005 (IPS) - Real love, as they say, can be hard to find. And, the odds of coming across a caring partner are even slimmer if you’re open about being HIV-positive.

But, what if you confined your search to a group of people who had also contracted the virus? Would this increase the chances of finding a significant other? These types of questions prompted Ben Sassman to set up an online dating agency in South Africa for people living with HIV/AIDS, two years ago.

The internet enthusiast, who works at an international recruitment agency for medical personnel by day, says his HIV-positive friends would complain of how prospective dates tended to slip away the moment they disclosed their status.

“They were saying that when they meet people and disclose their status they don’t get a second chance,” he told IPS. As a result, ‘www.thepositiveconnection.co.za’ was born – apparently the first online service of its kind in the country.

“I thought it would add a little class to how they (HIV-positive persons) can meet new and interesting people,” says Sassman.

Has the site lived up to expectations?

On the financial side, Sassman says he’s disappointed that the flurry of media attention which accompanied the agency’s launch has not translated into corporate support. “They (large firms) do not want to associate their brand names or company names with my site. Even your big drug companies, they all told me the same thing,” he notes.

This has put a spoke in plans to conduct an online marketing campaign that would attract more visitors to ‘thepositiveconnection.co.za’. Membership has yet to hit the 300 mark, when Sassman plans to introduce a fee for joining the agency. At present, signing up is free – and he uses his own time and resources to keep the site running.

The agency also has to contend with South Africa’s gaping “digital divide”.

While there would appear to be no shortage of clients for ‘thepositiveconnection.co.za’ in a country with a 21.5 percent HIV prevalence rate (this according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS), a hefty proportion of those living with HIV/AIDS are simply too poor to log on to the web regularly – if at all. Most of these people form part of South Africa’s black majority, which is still struggling to emerge from the poverty inflicted on it under apartheid.

This puts Sassman’s site beyond the reach of many of the 6.2 million HIV-positive people in South Africa, which has a total population of about 45 million.

Those who have access to the agency, however, find themselves confronted with a diverse array of personalities.

Set on a bright yellow background, the homepage of the site features images and links to tips on condom use, getting tested for HIV and information about the nature of the virus. Subscribers can post personal ads, upload photos (also voice and video clips), and even “chat instantly with other members.”

“MC”, one of the women registered with the site, describes herself as light-skinned and hazel-eyed. The 29-year-old Zambian health worker “would really love to find an honest loving man to share my love and life with.”

She says her ideal match would be a Christian, and that if he is HIV-negative, he “must be willing to accept my status.”

“Babes29”, another 29-year-old, lives in the coastal city of East London. “I am an HIV-positive lady who is very sensitive and down to earth,” she writes. “I am a go-getter, (an) honest, reliable person; am a very principled person.”

Among the men who have signed up to the ‘thepositiveconnection.co.za’ is “Ultraman”, one of the few to have posted a photo. “Together we can explore the intimate details of your body and mine,” says the 30-year-old “entrepreneur”.

Richard Yell, a gay motivational speaker, also signed up to the ‘thepositiveconnection.co.za’ – although he believes he may have met his match through another online dating service, for gays.

The former marketer’s experience on sites for HIV-positives has convinced him of their importance. “Nobody contacted me for months except him (the new-found partner) and I believe this was really only since he was HIV-positive himself,” Yell says.

Critics of agencies such as the ‘thepositiveconnection.co.za’ claim they isolate HIV-positive people, thereby strengthening the stigma which many who have contracted the virus still endure.

“It’s segregation of some sort,” says Tendayi Kureya, an HIV programme manager for Zimbabwe at the Irish government’s development agency, Development Cooperation Ireland.

Others beg to differ. “Stigma is already there, I don’t think it does (re-inforce it),” says Johannesburg-based AIDS activist Connie Setjeo.

For Yell, the possible social impact of online sites matters less than the benefits they stand to deliver.

“We all need someone to love – and to be loved by somebody gay or straight, black or white, HIV-positive or negative,” he says.