Nicole Byer wants you to have better — and safer — sex. The comedian and host of the Why Won’t You Date Me? Podcast, where she and guests drop hilarious takes on dating and mating, is sending out a message for singles on keeping those late-night hookups cute and safe, arming them with the knowledge and tools to reduce the spread of HIV.
The numbers are staggering: Black women account for nearly half of all new HIV diagnoses among women while making up just 13% of the female population. It’s a public health crisis that people haven’t been talking about.
“Sexual health and HIV prevention are important to me,” the star told EBONY exclusively. “I’ve hosted a podcast about love and sex for exactly 47 years. I love hot, steamy intimacy and want people to talk about sexual health without shame or stigma.”
Byer wants to help make those conversations a whole lot easier. She is part of a new campaign, Up to Date, part of Gilead’s Care for the Culture initiative, a movement designed to spark honest, empowering conversations about sexual health in Black communities. The spot encourages people to have candid conversations about their HIV status.
“If you’re grown enough to have sex, and everything in between, you’re grown enough to talk openly about your HIV status and help protect yourself and your partner,” declared Byer. “This campaign encourages people to talk about sexual health and HIV prevention.”
Directed by Howard Grandison, it features Byer playing both the impulsive and practical voices in our heads: one that’s ready for some action and the other that tells us to make sure we’re safe before we engage. “Why wouldn’t you avoid something you don’t want?” Byer exclaimed. “And if you choose to engage with someone sexually, you can move forward and protect yourself to play safe.”
They haven’t forgotten the fellas. Saturday Night Live alum Devon Walker joins as her male counterpart, advising men on how to protect themselves and their partners. Byer’s own advice, though, cuts across gender lines: “My advice is always to have safer sex, know your status, and use a condom,” she advised. “If your partner pushes back on any of that, you leave or don’t go; you gotta worry about you.”
Byer, who was deeply involved in the campaign’s direction alongside more than 1,500 Black men and women in focus groups, remembers how nerve-wracking it was to wait for test results back in the day. “It was anxiety-inducing… but today it’s easier to get your results quicker, and you can avoid any anxiety by testing regularly, so you can have hot, sloppy, safer sex knowing your status.”
And that means a lot more crazy stories for the podcast. “I’ve had my wig fall off, got steamy with a date in a car while my friend ate a chicken sandwich, and gone home with a man who did a pretty mid Obama impression… I have a lot of stories,” she joked.
When she’s not encouraging people to protect themselves — or collecting stories for the podcast — she’s back to the other things she loves: “Lots and lots of cuddles with my dog and being with friends and rewatching old RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
The Up to Date campaign starts on Monday, July 20.