The PrEP Squad

Family attorney and father David Johnson does not fit the image of the average “Truvada whore,” a crass term for people smart enough to use PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), the scientifically-tested drug that prevents the contraction of HIV.

In his enviable Cherry Creek corner office, looking out over Denver and the Front Range, he sits at his expansive desk in front of a sculpture of a muscular hunk, no more fit than Johnson himself, and talks about his own story, how he found himself on PrEP, and how it has changed his life. David is proud to have been part of the first wave of Denver Truvada users and is thrilled to spread the word.

David came out during his first year of law school at the height of the AIDS crisis. The disease had taken the life of his college roommate. AIDS haunted his sexual encounters.

“It was a death sentence. Sex was scary. It was dangerous,” he says. “I was always afraid.”

Early on in his legal career, he worked at a community health center where he helped people living with HIV write their wills. These experiences exacerbated his fear but, like most gay men, he still rarely used condoms. Most of his relationships were monogamous; it wasn’t much of a worry.

Soon, he found himself in a relationship with an HIV-positive man. AZT, the so-called “AIDS cocktail drug,” had come out and it shifted many peoples’ perception that HIV was a death sentence many now considered it merely a lifelong chronic illness.

The couple went to the doctor to get better educated about HIV and how they could still have an active sex life without sharing the disease. If David’s partner kept his viral load at zero, David’s risk of contraction was minimal.

“We never practiced safe sex,” David says. He also never contracted HIV. “My partner had a zero viral load. I was lucky.”

David stayed up to date on AIDS research, and when Truvada finally hit the market as a drug that could be used to prevent the contraction of HIV before exposure, David was eager to try it out. He went to his doctor at Kaiser who knew nothing about the drug. David believes he was the company’s first PrEP client, and his doctor was not particularly sympathetic.

David was referred to a different doctor and a counselor who worked internally at Kaiser to create protocol for prescribing PrEP. Once David received his prescription, he was required to see a counselor, have regular urine tests (one uncommon side effect of the drug is kidney failure), and get an HIV test every three months.

A one-month supply of PrEP cost him $15.

While Kaiser did a decent job establishing protocol to prescribe PrEP, David shifted his insurance to Apex, who he says prescribes the medication frequently and does not have a counseling requirement.

Every morning, with his daily vitamin, fish oil, and glucosamine-chondroitin, David takes his blue pill. “Some people say, ‘I don’t want to take a pill every day.’ How is that difficult? It’s just like any other supplement.” He finds his routine simple to follow.

A serial monogamist, David stayed on Truvada to explore life as a single, eligible gay man when he and his partner split. The shift away from long-term, committed relationships has opened him up to new sexual and relational possibilities.

He travels monthly to San Francisco. Where he finds Denver men ignorant or suspicious of the drug — at least, until he shows them the science — most HIV-negative men he meets in the Bay are on Truvada or, at the very least, know about it.

David doesn’t like using condoms — he never has. While he is aware that Truvada does not protect him from syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea, he notes that all of those infections are treatable. “I’m used to living with risk,” he says.

Forgoing the bars and the baths in favor of online sites like Grindr and Scruff, he finds hooking up easier than ever. Morbid conversations about HIV have subsided. He still talks with most partners about sexually-transmitted infections, but the threat of death is no longer ever present, and a potential partner’s HIV status is no longer a worry.

“Truvada means we can have sex without putting on armor and going into battle,” David says. “Sex is fun again.”

After years of helping couples navigate divorce, he’s writing a book about the changing nature of relationships in San Francisco. An entire chapter will be devoted to Truvada.

David observes that relationships are shifting away from the Disney vision of love. “It doesn’t work.” People have sexual acquaintances, friends, and other lovers. “Technology has driven that.”

So has PrEP.

On a trip to San Francisco, he travelled to Delaney Park, once a focal point of the sexual revolution. There, David witnessed something he had never seen before. “There was free sex, free love. People were lying around, picking up where we left off in the ’70s. We’re on the verge of a sexual revolution.”

PrEP is leading the charge.