Alexander Cheves grew up on a 500-acre farm in rural Georgia, raised by evangelical missionary parents who blocked gay websites and warned him that choosing this "lifestyle" meant choosing death. At sixteen, he decided to come out anyway, convinced he was trading a long life for a brief, honest one. He tested positive for HIV at twenty, in 2013, during his final year of college.

What followed wasn't the manageable adjustment the medical timeline might suggest. In the six months after diagnosis, Alexander fell into a depression so severe he nearly didn't survive it. He went through a period of manic sex without disclosure, behaviour he's since written about with unflinching honesty in his memoir My Love Is a Beast. He later learned from infectious disease specialists that this response is statistically common, though rarely discussed.

This conversation covers Alexander's decade as a sex worker, his move from Atlanta to New York to Berlin, his relationship with drugs and nightlife, and his views on HIV criminalisation and personal responsibility. He talks about friends who didn't make it, including one who died after "bug chasing" and never sought treatment. And he reflects on turning thirty, an age his father once predicted he wouldn't reach, and discovering that life only got better from there.

00:02:25 - Growing up isolated. Alexander describes the 500-acre farm, the Christian parental blockers, and arriving at college in 2010 believing gay life still looked like 1985.

00:05:18 - Choosing death over the closet. At sixteen, Alexander made a conscious decision that a brief, honest life was preferable to survival in hiding. He wrote a 13-page poem debating it with himself.

00:09:37 - The closet is unendurable. Alexander reflects on why so many queer men choose perceived shorter lives over staying hidden. The daily anxiety of concealment, he argues, is a form of suffering that cannot be sustained.

00:12:20 - College and consequences. With no sex education from his parents, Alexander went wild. He was in and out of the student health clinic constantly. In hindsight, testing positive at twenty was no surprise.

00:14:43 - The drive to the clinic. When the clinic refused to give results over the phone, Alexander knew. The six months that followed were the hardest of his life to survive.

00:16:05 - 2013 realities. Pre-PrEP, pre-U=U. Doctors worried about medication adherence in young patients. Alexander was told disclosure was entirely his responsibility.

00:18:04 - No one would touch him. Overnight, his sex life ended. The only partners willing to engage were older men who understood HIV. These "gay daddies" saved his life.

00:19:52 - The manic period. Alexander describes anonymous, strategic sex without disclosure in the months before medication. He later learned this response is clinically documented, though he'd thought himself uniquely transgressive.

00:24:22 - Sex work and healing. Alexander spent nearly a decade as an escort, learning that many clients simply wanted someone to talk to. The loneliest were often older men who'd lost everyone in the plague years.

00:29:02 - Drugs, loneliness, and gay culture. Higher rates of substance abuse among gay men, Alexander suggests, stem from isolation, societal trauma, and a culture built in spaces of consumption.

00:30:17 - Harm reduction, not abstinence. Therapists at Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York focussed on moderation. Combined with daily meditation started after diagnosis, Alexander found a relationship with drugs that works for him.

00:36:09 - The friend who didn't make it. A fellow sex worker and friend, into bug chasing, caught HIV deliberately and never sought treatment. Alexander believes shame killed him as much as the virus.

00:41:01 - HIV criminalisation. American law still places responsibility entirely on the positive partner, even in consensual encounters. Alexander argues this is outdated, weaponised, and ignores individual agency.

00:45:48 - Bareback culture as safe space. In spaces where everyone shares responsibility, status becomes irrelevant. For Alexander, these environments were healing.

00:50:38 - Surviving past thirty. Alexander's father predicted he wouldn't live beyond thirty. When that birthday came and went, Alexander realised he'd never planned for a future. He moved to Berlin to live the life he hadn't imagined.

00:56:38 - Shame as disease. Alexander rejects the idea of "good shame." He believes shame kills people, and the only antidote is self-love, however hokey that sounds.

01:06:08 - On the other side of nihilism is joy. Life has no meaning, and that's liberating. Black holes will swallow everything eventually. In the meantime, there's no reason not to enjoy it.

01:09:51 - Remembering Sean. Alexander recalls a gay couple in Atlanta who gave him a room for almost nothing. When one of them, Sean, died of cancer in his forties, the community came together. Sean was one of many gay elders who provided shelter when a lost young man needed it.

01:13:24 - The postcard. "There's no more important thing you'll do in life than love yourself."

Alexander Cheves is an American writer and columnist for Out magazine, currently based in Berlin. His erotic memoir My Love Is a Beast: Confessions won the 2022 Jeff Maynes Non-fiction Prize. He writes about sex, identity, kink, and living with HIV with characteristic honesty. His second book is currently in progress.

1. Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) - gmhc.org - New York-based HIV/AIDS service organisation
2. The Sero Project - seroproject.com - Network of people with HIV fighting stigma and criminalisation
3. Prevention Access Campaign - preventionaccess.org - U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) information and advocacy
4. Terrence Higgins Trust - tht.org.uk - UK's leading HIV and sexual health charity
5. Positively UK - positivelyuk.org - Peer-led support for people living with HIV
6. My Love Is a Beast (Author’s Page): Unbound Edition Press
7. Alexander Cheves’ Columns: Out Magazine - Sexy Beast
8. Gay’s The Word (UK LGBT+ Bookshop): https://www.gaystheword.co.uk
9. HIV Criminalisation Information: HIV Justice Network