• Portraits
  • Fashion
  • Projects
  • Video
  • About/Contact
Menu

Francesco Di Benedetto

Photographer
  • Portraits
  • Fashion
  • Projects
  • Video
  • About/Contact

and so it happened

Medical advances and the availability of PrEP have certainly improved and changed the lives of the HIV-positive community in recent years. Public attitudes, however, have not kept pace. The stigma endures and the need for better understanding remains. And so this project provides a safe platform where the portraits and the stories of those either living with HIV or on PrEP are shared, because openness is key to tolerance and no one should have to hide — whatever their status.


Richard

December 1, 2017

"One night I went over to a guy's house to have sex. He had a friend over and we all were fucking but I believe his friend didn’t know he had just contracted it. So he passed it along to me. A few months later the guy and I reconnected and we both found out we were newly diagnosed. I never told the guy I think he gave it to me.

I have Medicaid through the State of NY and take Genvoya.

Because of HIV I'm more confident. It made me grow up fast. I had to learn who I was and what I wanted to be so much faster and now I feel I have a very distinct voice. I know what I have to say and I know who I am when I say it.

I don’t think PrEP has changed how I feel sexually. But I do feel it has changed how people are sexual with me. Everyone seems to be a little more open to fucking bare now that there is PrEP than before. And they think less of me as someone with this so-called deadly virus. People are definitely more open to sex with me than before."

Richard, 23, undetectable. Brooklyn, NY. Theater Artist.

← BryanWhat does undetectable mean? →

and so it happened

 

Medical advances and the availability of PrEP have certainly improved and changed the lives of the HIV positive community in recent years. Public attitudes, however, have not kept pace. The stigma of an HIV positive diagnosis endures and the need for better understanding remains. And so this project provides a safe platform where the portraits and the stories of those either living with HIV or on PrEP can be shared, because openness is key to tolerance and no one should have to hide — whatever their status.


Copyright by Francesco Di Benedetto © all rights reserved