Last week, a 20-year-old Buffalo man was charged with first degree reckless endangerment for allegedly engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman without informing her that he was HIV positive.

Darryl Fortner was arrested and held at the Erie County Holding Center in lieu of $15,000 cash bail.

This isn't the first, or even the highest profile such case to hit Western New York. Nushawn Williams was convicted of reckless endangerment (among other charges) for infecting as many as 13 women with HIV. In addition to earning the nickname the "HIV Predator" Williams spent a dozen years in prison before completing his sentence. However, the case garnered even more attention when Williams was held even once his sentence was fulfilled as part of the Civil Confinement law.

Fans of Olympic Horse competitions may remember Springville rider Darren Chiacchia, an Olympic Bronze Medalist, was charged in Florida with the same crime for not informing his partner that he was HIV positive.

With the arrest of Fortner, I began thinking about the other two cases (and I'm sure there are more with local connections) and wondering: Do we really want big brother legislating inside our bedrooms?

On the surface, these cases may scream, "Lock 'em up and throw away the keys, they may have given other people a death sentence."

While that may be true, where is the accountability on the part of the sexual partners of these men? Should they not be responsible to engage in safe sexual practices with their partners to protect themselves? There are many absolutes in life. Two of them are that people lie, and men will most certainly lie if there is sex involved. Had the sexual partners of these men insisted on the use of condoms, or not engaged in the activity with men, that at least in some of the instances they had not known for an extended period of time, they would have greatly reduced, if not eliminated the risk of infection.

If the facts are true, should Fortner have informed his partner of his condition? Morally, or course. But in reality, he did what too many other selfish, egocentric 20-year-old men would do. I'm just not sure he deserves a lengthy prison sentence for it.

According the Centers for Disease Control more than one million Americans are infected with HIV with more than 18,000 Americans dying every year from AIDS.

With HIV/AIDS still killing people every day in this country, with herpes, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases rarely talked about but still prevalent, protection is a two-way street. When partners choose to engage in sexual contact there is a mutual acceptance of the risk.

If a man had three convictions for reckless driving, he isn't required to inform every potential passenger in his car of his past. Sure, they may all be at risk of dying if they get in the car, but he has no obligation to disclose his past.

Though abstinence is the only absolute defense against contracting HIV, there are certainly ways to protect yourself. If the sexual partners of these men chose to not take any precautions, there seems to me to be mutual culpability.

When it comes to sex, people control their own fate when it comes to choosing partners and deciding what activities to engage in with those partners. Morally, think what you will of these men, and the others who have been convicted around the nation under similar laws. But in my mind, it is a slippery slope and one I think the government should stay out of.

I also see these laws as giving people some false sense of security. With or without laws, people with HIV will continue to have sex with people without disclosure. Add to that the fact that the CDC says more than one in five people who have HIV in this country don't even know they are infected, and it comes back to everyone taking responsibility for themselves.

If a partner becomes infected, there is the option of pursuing a civil case, but people put others at grave risk every day in Buffalo and across the country with their actions. To stigmatize this issue and single it out seems unfair and it glosses over the need for people to accept more personal accountability in their lives, both in and out of the bedroom.