I would be OK with a harsh but reduced sentence for knowingly exposing someone to HIV without their consent if you used a condom. As I said, I'm OK with him being sentenced to 225 years for the 15 instances in which he did not use a condom
Well that is at least a semi reasonable answer. Treating protected vs unprotected sex as the same thing is nuts. Although I don't agree with the harsh part of it for protected sex.
I don't really like the sleepy driver analogy because everyone on the road knows you can get in an accident and die. Everybody has driven with less than 100% alertness. As a society we have decided not to criminalize this, save for the case in which you are so tried that you actually fall asleep at the wheel.
Yeah and to paraphrase Opebo everyone knows if you pick up a random gay guy at a dive bar and let him ejaculate in your rectum you can get HIV and die regardless of what the drunk idiot says. The fact that society has decided to let sleepy drivers off the hook and go ballistic about HIV+ people (regardless of the circumstances) doesn't mean the law makes sense, is just, nor Constitutional. This is the same society that decided collectively at one point slavery was a-okay.
On the other hand, you would not expect to contract HIV from a sexual encounter in which your partner specifically denies having any knowledge of being infected with STDs.
I don't even know what to say. emailking, you would seriously rely on someone's self reported status when deciding what to do with you dick?! Speak for yourself man. If some random drunk gay guy said "come over here and let me stick it in your rear, I promise I don't have HIV" are you going to trust that?!
Dude! 1 in 5! You're okay with playing Russian roulette with those odds but you think having a single instance of protected sex with an HIV positive person should result in "harsh" punishment for that person?! And let me tell you something about that 1 in 5. That 1 in 5 is statistically the most infections group of the HIV+ people out on the bar and club scene. The other group that is highly infectious is the people with full blown AIDS but they don't usually hang out in clubs. They are usually in a hospital, hospice, at home in bed, etc. And besides they usually look sick.
Your method gives a free pass to the people most likely to infect you and jails the HIV+ people who are least likely to infect you. That just doesn't make any sense to me. What is the point?
I don't agree with you that the title is a lie. Is it literally true? No, but it accurately conveys the severity of what the guy did.
Things that are not true are classically refereed to as lies. And "spreading HIV to 300+ people" is in an entirely different universe as compared to having protected sex with 300 people regardless of whether you are HIV+ or not. Conflating the two is 100% irrational and you have to wonder about the motivation for doing it.
I don't dispute any of your numbers, but I don't care about them.
Well at least you are being honest and for once 100% accurate. People can make all kinds of laws. That doesn't mean they are defensible or Constitutional. There are a lot of things I personally frown upon but I realize that doling out "harsh" punishments for them while giving a free pass to equally risky behaviors violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment. And the law as it stands also violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Bottom line if someone knows they are HIV+, lies about it, and has unprotected sex with someone there should be some kind of punishment whether the victim seroconverts or not. But giving a "harsh" punishment for someone who does that and has protected sex is insane and unconstitutional.