Comments on: 20-25-2

By: Tater

Tater — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:39:47 +0000

No new posts for awhile. Hope all is well.

By: scooter in brooklyn

scooter in brooklyn — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:23:17 +0000

i was infected 30 years ago too.

eldon, above, has it exactly right.

on another topic, brett – where are you with the canadian government falling? your friends to the south need your perspective on it.

cheers,
scott

By: eldon

eldon — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:26:46 +0000

as a person who’s lived with the virus for 29 years, and with a t-cell count that just went up by a hundred, anybody who doesn’t have the virus really doesn’t know what it’s like to have it.

growing up thinking i was genetically gypped, i realize i was wrong.

people are still dying and i live.

the only thing i combat these days is survivor’s guilt.

the stigma stopped affecting me years ago, i caught it when they hadn’t even heard about it.

i think that when we wipe out the stigma, AIDS day might truly be something to celebrate.

be good.

eldon

By: snotty

snotty — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:50:40 +0000

I was in Montreal in October. A couple of young attractive guys half my age wanted me to fuck them. Not only were they not willing to practice safe sex, they had contempt for the idea. That’s where we are today. I walked away, but I wish there was someway to make them care about themselves and their partners.

By: Dark Horse

Dark Horse — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:43:35 +0000

When I was working at an HIV prevention program, I was working with a clinical psychologist regarding prevention information and message apathy. We were finding that while most guys were getting HIV prevention training, they were apathetic to the message. One of the most surprising things we were noticing was an increased prevalence of self-loathing coming from the younger generations of gay males. While they were coming out at younger ages, and being accepted by a larger majority of their parents and peers, they actually had a lower sense of self-worth.

I’d really like to see a much larger study done about this, but sadly, it’s probably never going to happen. We lost most of our funding, so we had to ditch our small-scale study.

One interesting trend is the national target age-range for new HIV cases (at least in the US) shifting from a younger age of 18-35 to an older 30-45.

By: Dead Robot » Dead Robot

Dead Robot » Dead Robot — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:58:28 +0000

[...] bstewart23 wonders why there are two people a day infected with the HIV virus in the city of Toronto. I blame online ads. [...]

By: David D.

David D. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:40:28 +0000

I’d guess that a), c), and f)–with a dash of g)–probably account for 75 to 80% of new gay male infections in Toronto.

By: KnuckleCrack

KnuckleCrack — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:11:50 +0000

As a 27 year old safe-sex loving guy. All I can guess about these numbers is “ooops,” “whatever, “He looked safe!” and “It was just once!”

Also, although I used to refuse this idea, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the youth, say the 13-25 year olds are an example of the blind leading the blind. Those of the older generations, save a few, aren’t speaking out loud enough about their experiences, about the friends they lost, about the anger, about the torment, about the government’s slow response, about the sense of chaos, urgency, emergency, desperation, grief and loss and somewhere along the lines between Safe Sex advocacy and the celebration of living-healthy-with-HIV we lost focus on “staying negative” and it became the same ol all inclusive, bureaucratic, red-taped rainbow parade where the focus shifted from “staying negative” to “let’s encourage them to ‘stay negative’ while being really, really, really, really, really, really, really careful that we don’t offend anyone – let’s be so careful and all inclusive that we’ll get to the point where we’ll miss the point, but hey at least we haven’t offended anyone..right?”

or something.

Wait where was I? Oh right, watching bareback porn in my local gay bar.

By: Tater

Tater — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:19:29 +0000

I concur with Michael. Under the misinformation heading, I would add the “It’s a manageable disease”, and pharma advertising showing gorgeous healthy men in their advertisements for HIV medications. There is a disconnect amongst those in our community who did not bear witness to friends and loved ones dying from the ravages of this disease. They also don’t have a clear idea about how shitty and painful the “management” regimen is for many taking meds, nor the physical consequences are from long term use. Too sad. We’ve lost so many in one generation, must we really take on another round of staggering loss in order to learn a hard lesson?

By: David D.

David D. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:13:15 +0000

“President-elect Obama and President Bush will both deliver remarks today commemorating World AIDS Day: “Both will attend a civil forum hosted by Saddleback church pastor Rick Warren in D.C., where Bush will receive be awarded a medal for his efforts fighting AIDS.”

I. Am. Screaming.

By: Kay

Kay — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:17:50 +0000

Seriously? I think your post is awesome and I agree with you. But some people don’t, apparently:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_med_challenging_aids

Gah. My poor dad is spinning in his (proverbial) grave.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:29:25 +0000

a) ignorance
b) misinformation
c) denial
d) rape
e) tina
f) desperation
g) “It won’t happen to me”
h) “I’m gonna live forever”
i) “I’ll show you”
j) stupidity
k) addiction
l) poverty