02/12/2005
Let's Not Relive This
Drug resistant HIV strain found in NYC. Leads to full-blown AIDS within two to ten months of infection. Found in man with links to unprotected sex and crystal meth. Time to wake up, folks.
"Aids News Causes Alarm But Little Surprise [NYT]
HIV/AIDS basics [GMHC]
Crystal Meth resources [HIV Forum NYC]
Posted 12:01 AM EST by Andy in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Amen, Andy.
I don't know if this is the same strain, but I had a chat a number of years ago with a senior doctor in the county health department (he and I were on a committee together when I worked for the county). He told me of a strain of HIV that was easily spread. He said this strain could easily pass from women to men--and contributed to the rapid spread of AIDS in Africa--as well as passing easily between gay men, from bottom to top as much as from top to bottom. He was worried about the day it made an appearance in this country.
You're quite right, Andy. People need to wake up. Safe sex isn't just a good idea. It's a choice between life and death. As great as sex can be, no sex is so great that the risk of death is worth it.
You know, boys, there is one other answer to this issue. Find Mr. Right and settle down. There's both safety and the joys of love in that. I know, I know--it's not easy to find Mr. Right. Still, the search is worth the effort.
Okay, my soapbox is creaking. Time to get down off it.
Posted by: Jess | Feb 11, 2005 10:58:07 PM
Exactly. If gay people continue to have unsafe sex, they are going to die. The New York Times said that 45% of gay men have sex without a condom.
45%!!! I'm sorry, but what the F*ck. That's disgusting. Makes me embarressed to be gay.
Time to wake up indeed.
Posted by: Downtown Lad | Feb 12, 2005 2:09:21 AM
I once thought that most people in my generation grew up with safer sex messages and condoms and in an age of widespread disease. But after reading about these studies and talking to friends, people are still just damn STUPID.
And as much as these people hadn't taken in the information provided to them, the drug companies are also to blame. How many ads have we all seen about HIV positive men and women climbing mountains and hitting the beach because they take drug x, y and z to live their life just fine with HIV. These treatments are false advertising for a happy life. It's allowing for people to think that it's a completely treatable disease that won't affect you with a pill a day and it's completely disgusting that people have eaten all that up.
Wake up people. Safer sex sometimes is not safer sex at all.
Posted by: chris | Feb 12, 2005 5:54:25 AM
Gay men are dirty and disease prone. I am gay and I will say that because no one else is allowed to but ourselves. We fight for the message that being gay can be normal, can be conducive to family life, can be healthy... and that is all true, it can. But the reality is the lifestyles the majority of gay men are living - and accepting as o.k. - aren't.
Posted by: Kasper | Feb 12, 2005 8:09:27 AM
It's this combination of crystal method, craigslist, and barebacking that is just sick and creating super strains of HIV. You see it everywhere in NYC now. It is so sad. Why can't the 'community' organize and fight this. We are to permissive. We need to say some behavior is just not okay.
Posted by: Green | Feb 12, 2005 10:26:41 AM
Actually, I DON'T think finger wagging or lecturing is effective. Effective prevention comes through education and exposure to the real effects of disease, unsafe sex, and crystal use. I remember being much younger and seeing, for the first time, a man with AIDS, 30 years old, in a wheelchair, with his face caving in from all the weight loss, covered with lesions. That image, and our talk about the way the disease destroyed his life, is what convinced me to make the decision, over and over again, to engage in safe sex only.
Too often, now, the ads for HIV drugs feature buff, smooth, hot guys whose bodies don't show the side effects. The editorial commentary doesn't reveal how restrictive a daily regimen of drugs really is. People don't SEE the crystal queens who sit in their house all day, hitting the pipe and searching for sex online.
The people engaging in dangerous practices don't give a sh*t what I, in my grad school life, with my long term, monogamous partner, think about them. They are autonomous individuals who have to be given the information themselves so they can make their own decisions. Otherwise, we're just preaching to the converted. It's all about visibility, baby.
Posted by: BB | Feb 12, 2005 10:35:10 AM
so what does bush do?
http://www.washblade.com/2005/2-11/news/national/cutsaids.cfm
Posted by: kuros | Feb 12, 2005 10:46:03 AM
This is scary, distrubing and sad...yes. But, come one guys, so are some of your comments. Listen to what you are saying. Gay men are not the only people dealing with the issues of unsafe sex, drug use and HIV/AIDS. This is a human issue not a gay issue. Yes, gay communities can and should 'organize' (again) to battle this disease and the social issues that surround it, (as should all communities) but to make this out to be a gay thing and to make comments like "gay men are dirty and disease prone" is just as harmeful and damaging to gay men as the disease itself. It was attitudes like this that had to be battled in the early 80s before the hard battles against HIV/AIDS itself could begin. I am not saying you can't be critical and upset by the behavior of SOME men but demonizing these people, making them 'others,' and marginalizing them within gay communities will do nothing to solve the problem. Dig back into the history of the early years of HIV/AIDS and you can see the same self-hating attitudes being spewed, creating barriers to actually dealing with the problem.
Posted by: nightswimmer | Feb 12, 2005 11:01:27 AM
i cannot use condoms they cause my sking to to break out in sores
and is this ture?
Condoms have holes that are larger than HIV. Holes in condoms average something like 5 microns and HIV, if I remember correctly, is 2.4 microns.
Posted by: kuros | Feb 12, 2005 11:23:15 AM
oh i found the answer
http://www.iaen.org/qa/answer/10756/
Posted by: kuros | Feb 12, 2005 11:28:05 AM
14 What is 'safer' sex?
No sexual act is 100% safe.
Safer sex involves taking precautions that decrease the potential of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, while having sex. Using condoms correctly and consistently during sex is considered safer sex.
15 How effective are condoms in preventing HIV?
Quality-assured condoms are the only products currently available to protect against sexual infection by HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). When used properly, condoms are a proven and effective means of preventing HIV infection in women and men.
However, no protective method is 100% effective, and condom use cannot guarantee absolute protection against any STI. In order to achieve the protective effect of condoms, they must be used correctly and consistently. Incorrect use can lead to condom slippage or breakage, thus diminishing their protective effect.
http://www.unaids.org/en/Resources/faq/faq_prevention.asp#15
Posted by: Alfredo | Feb 12, 2005 11:33:50 AM
Re: "This is a human issue not a gay issue."
This reminded me of something in "Beyond Shame" — a really great book, by the way. An excerpt from a chapter called "Owning AIDS":
---
"We must insist on ownership of AIDS as a disease that, in America, affects primarily gay men... This will not be easy and it cannot be accomplished by only the most at-risk groups of gay men. We face a future where the youngest, most isolated gay men with the fewest resources are left to respond to a crisis that decimated powerful, connected gay men twenty years ago.
"I do believe that we are entitled to it, if for no other reason than because the gay community's current relationship to AIDS is allowing young gay men in America to become infected at rates as high as those seen in the developing world. The groups of people living as self-described gay men must, unfortunately, reclaim AIDS in hopes that we will form an identifiable community of support for [closeted] 'men who have sex with men.' It seems to me that there is no way to fight AIDS without owning it."
---
In other words, as long as it's a "human" problem, a lot of gay men would rather have some other "human" deal with it than actually organize and instigate the radical change of gay activism in the '80s and early '90s. (This "hands-off" model doesn't seem to be working at present.) It also brings up the issue of shame, which is antithetical to our so-called gay pride: If we're ashamed to claim ownership of AIDS, can we ever really muster up the self-empowerment needed to prevent it? It's an interesting thought.
Posted by: Norman | Feb 12, 2005 12:17:05 PM
Oh, yes. All those guys barebacking? All that crystal? What did we think would happen? What happened the first time?
And please skip the part about how horrible gay men are...ug. Give me a fucking break. I mean, I'm not doing crystal or barebacking. I'm HIV negative and gay as a Christmas basket. Ven diagram, anyone?
And that condom micron holes argument is, well, full of holes. It might possibly have a slim chance of -er- holding water if it weren't for the facts. See, we humans spew cum out our wee little blowholes, not refined, pure HIV Virus. Since the virus is in the cum, no passey throughey.
And Norman hit the nail on the head, pretty much. In the numbers game, HIV is still all ours in America and Western Europe. If you count heads. But if you count percentage of heads, the African-American population of this country is in absolute crisis.
Ah, well. Keep fighting. You can't save everyone, but everyone is worth the old college try.
d
Posted by: david | Feb 12, 2005 1:05:00 PM
It IS a very interesting thought Norman, and one that I agree with. LGBT communities need to continue taking ownership of AIDS (in many ways these are the only communities who have and we should be proud of that). My arguement was certainly not about trying to distance ourselves from AIDS or being shameful of it. It was the exact opposite. It is dangerous to marginalizing people within these communities as "dirty and disease prone." This attitude, I believe, IS an attitude of shame & an attitude that creates the 'other', which is certainly not empowering nor is it ownership. This doesn't mean that LGBT communities need to take a hands-off approach to this issue or that people shouldn't speak out about certain behavior. But, again, demonizing people, rather than getting at the root of these social issues, isn't likely to do much good, even if it is, in a sense, 'hands-on'. Further, you can have ownership of the disease while recognizing the reality of it's existance outside of LGBT communities. You can also have ownership of the disease while recognizing that gay men are not the only group of people struggling with issues of drug use, sex and HIV/AIDS. My fear is that with the increasing infection rates and new strains, etc there will come a social backlash (especially with all that has been going on socially & politically the past few years). And, without recognition that this disease goes beyond gay men, that backlash will, once again, be targeted solely at gay men.
Posted by: nightswimmer | Feb 12, 2005 1:15:28 PM
There is a lot more to "finger wagging" than you think. Gay culture is so permissive because we've established this idea that no individual has the right to judge the way another lives his life.
But given the effect of peer pressure and "group think" on an individual, what gay culture collectively defines as o.k. can play a large part on the actions of individuals.
As an example, I refuse to have friends who do drugs (even on a casual basis) or condone the drug usage of others (even casual). Because of this I have a very difficult time making gay friends, according to the conventions of gay culture I should be "more tolerant" and accept the fact that I cannot judge another individual's choices. I consistently face the pressure to either change what I believe to fit in and make friends, or stay the way I am. It's a very powerful and influential force, and I often wonder what it would be like if the situation were in reverse; if young gay boys felt they needed to be drug-free to fit in and make friends vs. doing tina on the weekends for the same purpose.
Posted by: Kasper | Feb 12, 2005 2:03:09 PM
years ago, when i lost 4 friends within a year and half to this "new" disease, i assumed the horrific sights we had seen would encourage other gay men to be safe...
...but as it's been said above, if you don't see it, you don't know it, which is why my younger friends in their early 20s are so blah about playing safe.
who's fault? i don't fault gay men - really, i don't (and to the self-haters above who do, seek therapy and fast).
i put the blame firmly at the doorstep of a government with a tragically failed aids education policy. the government does not care if we all die.
gay men in their 30s and 40s who've witnessed the devastation need to get the word out to the younger ones. i know, i know, it's a pain, but if we don't, then we won't have only lost an early generation, but the one to come.
Posted by: cafegogo | Feb 12, 2005 3:03:12 PM
1. As the drug companies are certainly NOT going to do it, HIV/AIDS nonprofits should pay for a widespread ad campaign with some of those "before I got AIDS-after I got AIDS" photos we used to sometimes see. No preaching--just illustrations of the potential consequences of some choices.
2. Peer pressure IS the ultimate weapon. And it sure beats the suggestion long ago of William F. Buckley, the fascist still giddily embraced by cognoscenti "liberals" like Charlie Rose: put an AIDS warning tattoo on every infected person's ass--youngins, I kid you not. But I am not terribly optimistic given that so many gay men will go to any length, pun intended, to remain in with the in crowd.
3. How about peer pressure at the piers, and elsewhere. Don't just stop going yourselves, or socializing with those who do, but demand that gay nonprofits--particularly those directly "fighting" AIDS--stop taking money from, let alone sponsoring themselves [NGLTF, Empire Pride, et al., yes, I'm talking about you] circuit parties and similar localized events which depend upon extensive judgment-altering drugs for their success. Apply the studies of new HIV infections directly related to these events and/or the drug abuse begun at them that lasts long after the music dies and one could get some pretty accurate numbers of how many new infections could be stopped tomorrow if these events did. Meanwhile, Rome burns to the sound of an electric fiddle being played....
Posted by: Leland | Feb 12, 2005 3:31:38 PM
Crystal Methadone and HIV don't mix. The Meth causes the dormant HIV to become lively in the bloodstream, which brings the next stage, these days called "full blown" AIDS.
Posted by: visibleh20 | Feb 14, 2005 5:14:43 PM