The landmark Partner study that everyone is talking about—which tracked HIV transmission risk through condomless sex if the HIV-positive partner is on suppressive antiretroviral medication—has so far found not even one case of an HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load transmitting the virus to a partner. But people in your everyday life may still be a little disbelieving.

“The most common response I get from disbelievers is that positive men use ‘undetectable’ as a way of getting people to sleep with them without a condom,” says Tyler Curry, an editor with the new group HIV Equal, who has written about his frustration with gay men still ignorant about what it means to be undetectable. “Positive men don’t want to transmit the virus to someone who is negative just as much as a negative person doesn’t want to become positive,” Curry emphasizes. Read More