All right, being an HIV positive woman in the heterosexual community is not easy, especially if you wan to get laid. I know there is more to life than just getting laid. Even I want the husband, kids and utility-sports vehicle. Unfortunately, most men I come in contact with are hesitant to get involved.

It can’t be my looks or personality, as I am a Sex Goddess. But I have heard the phrase “short-term relationship” (you know, under an hour) once too often to think that every man I meet believes I’m going to dies soon. Or at least have a long, slow, painful death.
   
In the meantime, I still need affection, love and sex. My first though was to find someone who is also HIV positive. That can work. It’s just that they are so hard to find in the outskirts of Nowhereville, Pennsylvania. And I can’t stop myself from thinking that if I got into a relationship with a man who’s positive, it would be bound to end in his long, slow, painful death.
   
So then I thought maybe I could become a safer-sex surrogate for teenage boys. You know, initiate them into the world of safer sex. There’s more to it than just putting on a condom, you know. But I’d never be able to get parental consent, not with parents looking at me and thinking “slow, painful death and with Newt Gingrich being the local hero of my small Republican town. There is, of course, the possibility of not telling, which only works for a one-night stand, unless I’m willing to deal with the later possibility of reactions ranging from homicidal rage to monumental lawsuit.
   
So how does a girl go about getting laid? Me, I just talk ‘em into it. “Hey,” I say, “you are safer with me than anyone else. No, it won’t hurt a bit. Did it tell you I have tipples like eraser tips?” Then I pull out my bag of tricks.
   
This is the pièce de resistance, the surefire man-bagger. Every woman needs a big bag of tricks: Sex tools that include vibrators, dildos, lubricated and unlubricated condoms, vegetables, outfits (leather, lace, uniforms), memorized pornographic bedtime stories, dance routines, latex gloves, Saran wrap (non-microwavable) and a bag of Jolly Rogers (for when your tongue gets tired and to spruce up that latex flavor, although at this point the sight of latex makes me wet).
   
The well-prepared HIV positive seductress needs to keep her condom skills sharpened. Practice one-handed installation, mouth installation, removing without making faces and handling lube with grace—I use the Pump.
  
My high school initiatrix ploy having run afoul, I have instead appointed myself erotic safer-sex instructor to the HIV uninitiated around the world. And getting around the world is the best part. Airports are a fabulous place to meet a guy. You know he has a job or he wouldn’t even be there. Shining shoes, drug smuggling and terrorism are only three examples of the wonderful work he might have. Think of the vacation possibilities—Morocco, Saint Moritz, Sing Sing and Newark come to mind.
   
Each airport seduction is different. Sometimes it helps to be subtle: “Can you watch my bag for a minute? I need to go to the ladies’ room. This G-string is killing me.” Then there’s the direct approach: “Is anyone sitting here? No? Have I mentioned that I have nipples like eraser tips?” The worldly approach: “You’re from France” Mais non! Me, too! But I cream like hollandaise.”
   
Enough about airports, because I finally wrangled myself a new boyfriend and he will get upset. Let me tell you how I finally talked him into doing it (without using a gun).
   
We met at the Donald Ray Supermarket—its real name is Delray, but I renamed it after my late husband—in the icing isle on Thanksgiving. I was having a really bad day and was going to just have icing for Thanksgiving dinner. He was buying icing to make a cake for his girlfriend, and he was so cute. I asked him which icing he liked just so I could tell him that it was going to be my Thanksgiving dinner.
   
Well, he fell for it, kind of soul that he is, and invited me home to his family’s house for dinner. They all thought I was Molly, a speech writer for former New Jersey governor Jim Florio, so every time I told the we just met at the supermarket they would break out into hysterical laughter.
   
It turned out that he had hare of me (as an AIDS activist with a big mouth in a small town will tend to be known), so I never had to break the news to him. All I had to do was talk him into fucking.
   
I tried everything. I went to my homeopath and she said I need to massage my breasts every day. I went directly to his house and asked him could he do that for me. No. Well, it came down to love. After five months of begging—no, educating—him, we did it and it is great.    
   
At least no one can accuse an HIV positive woman of being easy.