Your Health Is Not Someone Else’s Game: Consent, Contagion and Accountability

OPINION & PUBLIC HEALTH | TORONTO, CANADA | OCTOBER 8, 2026

An encounter in Toronto raises uncomfortable questions about deliberate exposure to infection, bodily autonomy and the social consequences of treating another person’s health as entertainment.

Some behaviours are disturbing not because they are difficult to understand, but because of the extraordinary disregard for other people that they would reveal if carried out deliberately. Among them is the idea of exposing someone to an infection without their knowledge or consent—and then describing that possibility as a thrill, an accomplishment or a private joke.

Recently, I had an experience in Toronto that made this subject intensely personal. During a social encounter, I heard statements about alleged groups of people who supposedly find satisfaction in exposing others to infections. Those statements concerned me enough to seek medical evaluation and testing. I had already undergone testing before the encounter.

I am not naming anyone. Nor am I claiming that an infection was deliberately transmitted to me: that has not been established. My concern is the attitude conveyed by such remarks and what deliberate, non-consensual exposure would mean for a person’s body, livelihood and sense of safety.

What personal grievance could possibly give you the right to turn another human being into a target?

Personal Suffering Is Not a Licence to Harm

Rejection, loneliness, humiliation, abandonment and emotional distress are real human experiences. Most people have encountered some form of them. But no experience of suffering grants moral permission to impose suffering on someone else.

If you feel isolated, the answer is not to make another person afraid of meeting you. If you feel powerless, infecting or frightening another person is not an exercise of strength. And if you want recognition, making other people’s well-being expendable is a remarkably destructive way to seek it.

From the standpoint of ethics, knowingly placing another person at significant risk without informed consent treats that person as a means to an end rather than an autonomous human being. Consent is not a decorative word attached to intimacy. It is a practical boundary: people have the right to make informed decisions about risks affecting their bodies.

The Social Isolation You Create

Here is something I want to say directly to anyone who actually believes that endangering people is entertaining:

If your ambition is to end up alone, with no one willing to be close to you and an intimate life increasingly closed off because you refuse to care for the people around you, then deliberate dishonesty and disregard are an excellent way to get there.

Do not mistake another person’s silence for permanent secrecy. People talk to trusted friends, partners and health professionals. They compare experiences and ask questions. A persistent pattern of irresponsible or intentionally harmful behaviour can damage a person’s reputation and relationships long after the original encounter.

But suspicion is not proof. Becoming ill after contact with someone does not, by itself, establish who transmitted an infection—or whether any transmission was intentional. Responsible accountability requires evidence, not gossip or a public accusation assembled from coincidence.

That distinction does not weaken the criticism. It makes it more serious. The issue is not whether someone lives with an STI, has an active sex life, or prefers privacy. The issue is the deliberate decision to deny other people information or safety that they are entitled to expect.

A Disease Can Cost Someone Far More Than Their Health

Health risks also have an economic dimension. Following a possible exposure, an individual may need appointments, diagnostic testing, follow-up care, time away from work and the emotional labour of waiting for answers. When illness occurs, those disruptions can become much more severe.

Not every exposure results in infection, and not every infection causes the same consequences. Yet deliberately imposing a preventable risk can shift potential costs onto someone who never agreed to carry them. In economics, this is a form of risk externalisation. In ordinary language, it means making someone else pay for your decision.

If you would resent losing your wages, why would you take pleasure in the possibility that another person might lose theirs? If you depend on your income to afford rent or food, what makes another person’s work and stability any less important?

Someone else’s livelihood is not collateral damage for your entertainment.

What the Latest Available Ontario Surveillance Reports Actually Show

The latest detailed Public Health Ontario reports available for this article were published in 2026 and examine confirmed infections in 2024. These are not complete 2026 infection totals.

Chlamydia: 42,812 cases were reported in Ontario in 2024. The provincial incidence rate decreased by 9.4% from 2023, to 265.5 cases per 100,000 people.
Gonorrhea: 13,608 cases were reported in 2024, a 4.1% decrease in case count from 2023. The incidence rate fell by 7.0% from 2023.
Infectious syphilis: 2,904 cases were recorded in 2024. The incidence rate declined from 21.1 per 100,000 in 2023 to 18.0 in 2024—approximately a 14.7% decrease.

These numbers describe reported infections and surveillance trends. They do not measure how many infections were transmitted deliberately, and they should never be presented as evidence of an organised campaign of intentional transmission.

Even where reported rates are declining, the scale of the underlying public-health responsibility remains substantial. Testing, treatment, accurate information and access to respectful care matter—not only for individuals but for the wider community.

Freedom Cannot Mean Imposing Your Choices on Others

Since arriving in Canada, I have sometimes experienced a cultural shock in social settings where provocative declarations seem designed to test how much another person will tolerate. This is an observation about encounters I have had, not a characterisation of Toronto, Canada or any community as a whole.

There is a profound difference between openly discussing personal preferences and using provocative disclosures to normalise the disregard of someone else’s boundaries. Candour does not replace consent. Openness does not absolve responsibility. And calling something a joke does not automatically erase the fear it may cause.

None of this is an argument against people who live with HIV, mpox or another infection. An infection is a medical condition, not a moral identity. People deserve dignity, evidence-based treatment, privacy and meaningful relationships. Nor should mental illness, sexuality or trauma be invoked as shortcuts for diagnosing cruelty.

There must be a clear distinction between living with an infection, transmitting one unknowingly, and deliberately trying to expose an uninformed person to harm. Collapsing those categories increases stigma while obscuring the conduct that actually demands accountability.

The Boundary That Should Never Need Explaining

I do not claim to be a perfect person. I have contradictions, limitations and moments of poor judgment, as everyone does. But perfection is not a prerequisite for recognising an elementary obligation: we must not treat other people’s safety as something we own.

If you want freedom in your private life, exercise it with people who can make informed, voluntary choices. Do not impose your risks on strangers, acquaintances or partners who have not consented. Do not weaponise trust. Do not turn another person’s concern into a game.

There is no courage in endangering someone who trusts you. There is no sophistication in turning their vulnerability into a spectacle. And there is no meaningful freedom in denying someone else the ability to choose.

Humanity does not need flawless people. It needs people who understand that other lives are as real, fragile and consequential as their own.

Editorial note: This is a first-person opinion column. It records the author’s concerns and reported impressions, not a verified finding of intentional infection or misconduct by any identifiable individual. Public-health figures refer to Ontario’s 2024 surveillance data as reported in documents published in 2026.