When I took the second test, I thought to myself, 'Shit, what if in the time period that wasn't covered by the first test I converted?'" "The first test was done in reaction to the crisis of John testing positive. "The second time was more stressful than the first," Ross told me. Ross, 37, who in chapter 11 explained his reactions to learning that his partner, John, was HIV-positive, got tested a second time because his first test had been done too soon to rule out HIV infection. Nonetheless, many of them had retested at least once, usually because of concerns about the validity of their first test or about risks they had taken after it. Most of the men I interviewed were not on the "testing treadmill" that Vernon described. It is no wonder, then, that thoughts of retesting and seroconversion occupy HIV-negative gay men. Indeed, HIV-negative gay men sometimes see seroconversion as a betrayal not only of their own lives but of the gay community as a social entity. Thus, seroconversion may be interpreted as a failure of responsibility. Testing negative sets men up to view their HIV status as something they have a responsibility to protect.
Testing negative sets men up for the possibility that they might test positive after having tested negative, an event with different psychological and social meaning than testing positive on a first test.
Testing HIV-negative, on the other hand, does not eliminate these concerns it fuels them. But testing HIV-positive eliminates the need to test repeatedly or worry about seroconverting. Of course, many HIV-positive men are concerned that HIV-negative men not become infected. Retesting and seroconversion are issues of concern primarily to those who test HIV-negative. Beyond this, Vernon suggests, some gay men reveal through repeated testing their conviction that becoming infected is inevitable, that it is only a matter of time before they seroconvert. The "testing treadmill" attracts men who doubt the validity of their test results as well as those who are not sure about the risks they are taking in their sexual lives. With these metaphors, Vernon captures several important aspects of what being HIV-negative is like for many gay men. "It's like becoming a cat with nine lives: these guys come in thinking they only have so many negative tests in them, and one day they'll just use them all up." "I see a lot of gay men who are just stuck, stuck, stuck on a testing treadmill," said Vernon, a 45-year-old HIV-test counselor who works in an urban health center. New York: Insight Books-Plenum Press 19 Retesting and Seroconversion HIV-Negative: How the Uninfected Are Affected by AIDS