I was always seen as the most popular girl in my school. I would stand outside in between breaks for school and people would just gather around me like I was some type of guru type of person. It was a real hard role to live up to.

Wanting to be liked by everybody and wanting to have the approval of everyone, my peer group as well as adults, led to recreational drug and alcohol use, sexual involvement, not knowing how to say no to somebody, because I didn't want them to not like me.

I think that society has placed that image on adolescent girls, that you're supposed to have sex and you're supposed to please guys. And that's what I did. But it was also something very personal to me. I felt that that was my role because that was something I had experienced in my life.

I had a non-consensual sexual experience in my life. That made me act out sexually later on, and made me feel that this is what love is. That played the biggest role in my life, on why I have HIV today, I think.

All photos ©2010, Dan Habib