'The Naked Truth' of living with HIV

It’s hard to believe Marvelyn Brown is HIV positive. She’s young, vibrant, beautiful, intelligent and on the outside appears to be perfectly healthy. But looks can be deceiving. Take one look at the 24-year-old beauty and you’d never think of the six to eight horse-size pills she has to take everyday to keep her T-cell count up, or the pounding headaches even extra-strength Tylenol won’t cure, or the nausea, or the constant diarrhea, or the fatigue, or any of the other side-effects that come with HIV. Yes, on the outside she looks fine, but on the inside there was a story that had to be told.    

With new statistics and figures being released everyday, it can be hard to put a face to HIV/AIDS. While some media outlets may give the impression that the disease only affects starving children in Africa, homosexuals, or heterosexual men who secretly have sex with other men, the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS extends far beyond these well-defined boundaries, and no one is immune to the life-altering disease, including Brown.

In 2003 at the age of 19, Brown fell in love with a man five years her senior, who in her book she refers to simply as “Prince Charming.” Three weeks after having unprotected sex with “Prince Charming,” Brown discovered she was HIV positive.

In “The Naked Truth,” Brown gives readers a front row seat to her life as she candidly writes about contracting HIV from her boyfriend, being ostracized by friends and family in her hometown, and how she is coping with living with the virus. 

While preparing dinner in her New York City apartment, Brown discussed by phone her book and the realities of life with HIV/AIDS.

“I have my good days and my bad days — I am human,” she said. “I try to stay positive. HIV is something I have; it doesn’t define me or my life.”

Although it doesn’t define her, HIV has impacted one of the most important areas of Brown’s life: her love life. While Brown said she does “casually date” and is currently seeing someone (she refused to go into detail), she said having HIV does make her love life complicated at times.

In the book, she writes that once contracting HIV, she often lowered her standards and became involved with men whom she normally would not have dated if she didn’t have the virus. She was openly disrespected by men once they learned her HIV status and even had someone pour a drink on her in a club after he danced with her and learned she was HIV positive.

“Dating can be difficult, but I always make it a point to tell guys upfront that I have HIV,” she said. “I’m past the point of getting upset when someone doesn’t want to be with me because of my status. If a guy can accept me having HIV and all of the things that come with it, then that tells me a lot about his character. But I do date.”

As much as “The Naked Truth” is a cautionary tale, it is also a tale of self-love and acceptance, Brown said. The book explores events in Brown’s life that led up to her contracting the virus, including the absence of her father and lack of safe-sex education in her primarily black community of Nashville, Tenn.

Although the primary purpose of the book was to inform, Brown said she also wrote the book as a response to the increased media attention she received after sharing her story in a local newspaper. 

“I was getting so many responses and appearance requests that I couldn’t be everywhere at once and say everything I wanted to say,” she said. “I wanted to give a better detail of my story, and it seems like people could identify with me better once they read about my journey.”

“The response has been really positive about the book. The feedback is amazing. I’ve had women in their 80s, teenagers and some parents tell me how much they love the book.”

Since the book’s release in August 2008, one of the biggest criticisms Brown has received, mostly from HIV/AIDS activists, is that she is glamorizing the disease and exploiting herself. Prior to releasing “The Naked Truth,” Brown was already a well-known public figure. Her story has been featured on CNN, BET, MTV; she has appeared in Newsweek, Ebony and Essence magazine; and has been a guest on “The Oprah Show” and “The Tyra Banks Show.”

“I tell the truth,” Brown said. “I don’t glamorize anything. I may be glamorous and positive, but HIV is a serious disease and I never hide or downplay that. I can’t help how people perceive the book. The fact is that I am living with the disease, but I have a choice to how I respond to it  and I chose to be real.”

Despite the success of her book and the numerous campaigns, Web sites and activists devoted to raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, Brown said she is not shocked that the number of new HIV infections continues to rise. According to the D.C. Department of Health HIV/AIDS Administration, the nation’s capital currently has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infections in the country and one in 25 African-Americans are infected with HIV/AIDS, a rate comparable to Uganda where HIV/AIDS has been declared a national epidemic.

“I think people aren’t scared of the disease,” Brown said. “We see the numbers, but people think it won’t happen to them. With [HIV/AIDS], education is key, and I haven’t seen the country step-up the way they should, especially in minority communities.”

With the recent election of President Obama, many HIV/AIDS activists hope the new president will pass key health and safe-sex legislation; however, Brown said she is not concerned with the politics of the disease and prefers to connect directly with those impacted by HIV/AIDS.

“I don’t do politics,” she said. “I focus more on the advocacy side. I’m more about preventing. Information is just information. People have to know how to apply that information in their lives and I want to be an example to people.”

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