CARNAL NATION

The Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier reports that Nick Clayton Rhoades, 34, of Plainfield, Iowa, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for failing to disclose that he was HIV positive before having sex with another man in June, 2008. The sentence is the maximum punishment allowed for a Class B felony.

Rhoades and the "victim" exchanged messages through an Internet chat room and later met at the "victim's" home in Cedar Falls, IA. When asked about his status prior to engaging in sex, Rhoades denied having any sexually transmitted infections. He had, in fact, been diagnosed with HIV in 1998 and was also being treated for human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes at the time of the meeting. The two men then engaged in consensual sex. Rhoades was arrested in September and charged with knowingly transmitting HIV. Nearly a year after the sexual contact, the "victim" remains HIV negative. The initial charge still stands because Rhoades lied about his status.

At the sentencing, the "victim" read in a statement to the court: "I should have had the right to choose whether to be intimate with someone who was HIV positive. Instead, Nick was manipulative and denied me that right. He lied online, and he also lied to me in person when I asked him directly if he was 'clean.'" As he handed down the sentence, Judge Bradley Harris told Rhoades, "One thing that makes this case difficult is that you don't look dangerous; you don't look like most of our criminals that sit here. But the risk is still there, just like if you would have shot a gun."

In addition to the prison term, which may be adjusted any time within the next 12 months by the judge, Rhoades must also register as a sex offender, undergo a sex offender treatment program, and, following his prison term, will have lifetime parole.

There is no word from the "victim" on whether or not this regrettable incident will inspire him to make any changes to his own personal safer sex practices.