HIV+ activist and advocate, Zora Voyce, discusses the stigma of being born with HIV, and how she changes the narrative when engaging others…especially when dating.
Zora’s website can be found here.
The following is a transcript between Karl and Zora.
ZORA
It’s the best decision I ever made.
KARL
Hello there. Welcome to plus talk on Plus life where we’re all about turning positive into a plus. My guest today, Zora Voyce is an HIV advocate and does so much good with her social and online platforms in spreading the good word about what it means to live with HIV. Hi Zora.
ZORA
Hi thanks for having me.
KARL
It is my pleasure. Let’s dive straight into it. What do you think is the biggest misconception about HIV?
ZORA
People believe people can still get it into sex. They’re not really educated about the undetectable part yet.
KARL
You’re talking about U equals U, undetectable equals untransmittable.
ZORA
Yes.
KARL
How is that a game changer for HIV positive people when it comes to sex?
ZORA
Now they can feel confident mentally that they won’t transmit HIV to their partners and their partners can also feel comfortable too. But the great thing is they also have prep, so they’re not comfortable with that. The HIV negative person can take a medication that can prevent them from getting HIV.
KARL
Now, you’ve, you were born with HIV, you’ve, that’s what you’ve known your entire life. You’ve been living with HIV, but you also through what you do online, you are very candid and open about sex and sexuality. So what is your advice to somebody who might have just received an HIV diagnosis and thinks I can never have sex again? No, it’s never gonna happen. I’m disgusting. No one wants me. I
ZORA
Think first they need to do a lot of internal work. I would recommend really think about their families and really apply it to real life situations. Do a lot of people living with HIV and their sex lives are not over, and I also advise them, maybe join a support group of other people who have HIV and hear their stories. So that’s a really good way to cope with your HIV diagnosis and to feel more confident living with HIV and having sex while having HIV. And the good thing about me is I help people with that, with my branding, mypurora. I talk about embracing your sexuality even though you have HIV
KARL
Yeah. And your, you, you speak of mypurora there and, and certainly on your social media platform, you, you post a lot of really kind of sex positive messages and positivity, especially for women living with HIV to feel good about themselves. Where do you get your inspiration from?
ZORA
I always been a sexual person, so I, I never really let my HIV get in the way of that, even though I was told that it should. I just explored by just telling different people, friends and strangers. I have HIV to get comfortable with that idea of people knowing. And from my own experience, most guys, some guys don’t like it, but for the most part, most guys are okay with still having sex with me. So that helps me. They’ll feel comfortable having staff. It’s a process.
KARL
What advice do you have for somebody who is going through that process right now? You talk about support groups and things like that, and obviously, you know your, your site, mypurora.com and what you post on social is, is a good help, but how can somebody start to change how they view themselves and go from, as I said, being, you know, I don’t like who I am because I have HIV to almost embracing the HIV as a superpower.
ZORA
Yeah. I really do make courage journaling or like even seeing a counselor, I seen the counselor when I was like 18 and my counselor, I just analyze what my counselor was doing, like a technique. And I started applying that technique to journaling. And every time when I felt some type of like emotion, like negative emotion, I wrote it down and I explored, asked myself why, and I kept asking myself why until I fully understood why I was feeling the way I was feeling. And then you, you create a solution to that as well. And usually the solution involves like telling other people what you’re going through or like, for example, it can be about sex. So maybe talk to strangers about like your HIV status and see their thoughts on it. And that might bring you comfort, but everybody not comfortable about doing that. Everybody gotta find their right way of doing that. But I, I definitely would say journal
KARL
Journaling is a great idea. Keeping with the theme of sex and sexuality, do you have any tips or advice for people on how to approach disclosing their status to a potential partner? ’cause that can be really daunting and intimidating.
ZORA
See, I’m not perfect. I haven’t really figured that out myself. The way I, the way I did it was becoming public about my status. That was the best way for me to do it because one of the things I hated the most about having HIV that gave me a lot of anxiety was disclosing my status. So me just having it on social media and it’s related to my career is easier for me to talk about because I love career related topics so I can make sex about career. It makes it, it normalize a conversation in a sense. It doesn’t feel so taboo. It could still feel taboo, but when it’s your career you can kind of make it seem different.
KARL
Yeah. Well, and as you point out, I mean, everybody’s different. Perhaps not everybody wants to put their status out on social media or tell the world, but for you personally, how empowering is it owning your HIV status?
ZORA
It changed my life completely. It’s the best decision I ever made. I feel like I can really take control of my own narrative. People understand me better. They actually want to be associated with me because I’m being my own dentist self.
KARL
Yeah. I, Hey, amen. I hear you. So our voice, it has been a pleasure having you on plus talk. Thank you for making the time to join me today.
ZORA
Thank you so much for having me.
KARL
Absolutely. That’s gonna do it for this episode of Plus Talk. If you want more information or you want to check out Zora’s page, mypurora, we’ll put all of that up on the website. You can follow us. We are on social media at Plus Life Media and our website is plus life media.com. Again, thanks Zoa and thank you for tuning in. We’ll see you next time. Take care. Bye-Bye.