Although she says many will take the attitude “it will never happen to me” because of Charlie’s well-documented promiscuity, the resulting scandal is a timely reminder that sexual health testing in Australia has still not caught up with modern behaviour.
“We need to be a little more proactive with this,” implores Nikki, also a dating and relationship expert.
“When you have people having multiple partners in one weekend the old advice of ‘get tested before each new partner’ is not the best advice to be giving any more.
“The heterosexual community need to take that advice similar to that being given to promiscuous gay men – to get tested once every three months if they are having multiple sex partners.
“It just baffles me why this advice is being promoted to gay men but not within the heterosexual community.”
Nikki says using condoms and discussing sexual histories are also essential safeguards, but the influence of drugs and alcohol prevalent in the party style environment means these precautions aren’t always practiced.
If anyone is fearful they may have the HIV virus Nikki says it’s vital to get tested through the adequate avenues.
“While GPs are a great recourse, there are some out there who specialise in this area and have a more in depth understanding and knowledge of the virus and how to treat people who are concerned about it,” she says.
Meanwhile, one of Charlie’s former flames Amanda Bruce says she had unprotected sex with the actor even though she knew he was HIV-positive.
Amanda, who is a nurse, says she made the decision to have sex with Charlie, 50, after he broke down in tears and told her about his condition.
“There’s a very big scare about it [HIV] out there and I think it’s obviously just a lot of social stigma that came back from when there wasn’t treatment for this and this was a death sentence,” she said during an appearance on The Dr Oz Show.
Asked if she thought she was playing Russian roulette by having sex with Charlie, she replied: “I think the real Russian roulette comes with not coming forward about conditions for having unprotected sex frequently with partners.”
- Dr Nikki Goldstein is the author of #singlebutdating – 10 Steps to a More Dateable You
