Do it TOGETHER

AP- Newly dating and slightly anxious, an innovative program called Testing Together would allow them to hear their test results minutes later, while sitting side by side.

Testing Together, now under way in Chicago and Atlanta, takes and unusual approach. It encourages gay male couples to get tested together and hear their results together. After delivering the results, a counselor talks with the couple aboutt what to do next, including agreements they may want to make with each other about sex and health.

The idea is to bring honesty to sexual relationships. Relationships offer only "mythical protection" from HIV. Some couples may have avoided talking about each other's HIV status.

The Testing Together program challenges conventional practices in the U.S., where HIV testing is usually for individuals only. At most clinics partners are denied getting results because of confidentiality concerns. But the number of gay Americans telling the U.S. Census they're living with same-sex partners nearly doubled in the past decade and a new line of research suggests that up to 68 percent of new HIV infections in gay men come from a main sex partner, in part because main sex partners are more likely to forgo condoms.