Marriage over life

OK. This has been a nagging irritant for me for months -- actually years. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trangender leadership in the U.S. have made the determination that marriage equality is the most important battle in the gay rights movement. To show that support, the leading groups like HRC and NGLTF has sunk millions into marriage equality in a variety of states that have not suffered the evil effects of so-called "Marriage Protection Amendments" to their Constitutions.

Starting Medications

It’s just a pill.

Well, in my case, it’s three pills. But still, it is medicine. But why is it imbued with so much emotional debris? That is something I am sorting through as I prepare to go on anti-retroviral treatment at the end of the month.

I have been HIV-positive since March 2007, and I have known since July 17, 2007. I remember, very clearly getting the phone call from my doctor saying I needed to come in right away. It was 3 p.m. in the afternoon and I was meeting with the head of the Lansing Parks Commission about Shakespeare productions we had coming up. He offered to drive me.

Documentary: "Gasland"

From the Spam Folder...

OK, so here it is again, another installment from the Spam Folder.

First up is another robo-mail attempt at poetry.

Pussy and her epoxy staircase


wren hippopotamus soda office
(URL removed)


Babe squirms and backbone whiskey


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(URL Removed)


No Subject


I was tired of always having to borrow money I kept telling myself to stay optimistic this turned my luck around!! (URL Removed) now I feel whole again just wanted to help out a friend

In other news, evidently I have a hip replacement which has been recalled. I merely need to click on the link attached to the phrase: "Hip Replacement Recall Eligible for Compensation -- Just Click Here."

Of course with my "compensation" from that hip replacement I can start a business in Nevada. 

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And that is it for the From the Spam Folder...

On this 30th anniversary of the first description of HIV/AIDS

I have spent the day today curled up on the sofa, generally laid flat with back pain. While this was a beautiful day, it was spent on the sofa with the dogs. But I was able to do some reading -- specifically about HIV/AIDS.

I am doing research for a book looking at the rhetoric associated with HIV prevention for gay/bi men. And what I am finding as I read, is that prevention rhetoric has been tied up and twisted around with presumptions, exclusions and insensitivity to the community.

Why is the gay community so important in this evaluation? Because in the U.S. something like 52% of all cases are the result of homosexual activity -- specifically anal sex, and being even more specific, receptive anal sex (bottoming). The rhetoric is stunning when we look at it.

Take for example the very category in which gay/bi men are pigeon holed when they test positive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (CDC) identify such transmission as men who have sex with men. Share needles to shoot up meth? That is intravenous drug use. Are you a woman with HIV? You are categorized likely has high risk heterosexual. Are you a lesbian with HIV? You are likely identified as women who sleep with women.

Look at those categories again. Only gay or bisexual men are identified specifically by the sexual behavior they engage in. Heterosexuals engage in the same behaviors as gay men (yes straight folks have anal sex). IVDUs are completely de-sexualized (unless they are men who have sex with men. Then they get their own category). Women who sleep with women -- well now, isn't that lovely! They can have nap time but they don't fuck, do they?

Men who have sex with men was a moniker created by the CDC to describe men who engaged in anal sex with other men but did not identify as gay or bisexual. Personally, I believe if you are fucking another man, or getting fucked by one, you are at least bisexual -- whether YOU decide to use that label or not. But I digress. So in an attempt to avoid identifying men with homosexuality -- as if it was worse than being HIV positive or having AIDS -- we have authorized a complete eradication by the government of the reality of our intimate and emotional lives. The government is telling us that as same-sex attracted men (a lovely 12-step identity created by the rightwing anti-gay pray the gay away Christian movement), we just fuck. We don't "sleep" with each other. We don't have relationships -- hell we don't even bother to identify the intimacy involved, only the fucking. Even heterosexuality is identified in a way to promote a relationship and an identity. Those in that category are high risk heterosexuals (HRH). Why aren't we identified as high risk homos or high risk queers or high risk faggots...

In the same way, prevention messages continue to focus on those with HIV, but not on those without the infection. The uninfected are not identified as a target. They are not encouraged to stay negative. Instead they are presented with information that implies they will end up positive. No wonder there is a bizarre sense of inevitability of HIV infection.

I also have to say I have been stunned at the silence by friends about this anniversary.

As if spam were not abysmal enough...

So I occasionally review my spam messages, in part because some people like adding my email address to various lists. Spam is generally mundane, at best. A link to a porno site, or what I imagine is a hot breathy voiced come to see hot college co-eds naked.

But these two pieces take the cake:

Subject: jet clarinet

Hello, onion cucumber south korea
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Bye

or this one:

Subject: Two blondes playing with hole-to-hole dildo horse ex-wife polyester

Hello,
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[URL REMOVED]
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Bye

Almost poetic in a random sort of way...

Viral Apartheid: America and its HIV underclass

Introduction

(The following is the beginnings of the book I am writing in relation to HIV in America, criminalization and issue of blame, responsibility and prevention in American culture.)


When a handful of gay men were identified as suffering from a rare cancer or pneumonia nearly 30 years ago, it was something that only a few in the halls of public health took notice of. It was, after all, just a disease killing queers.

That was 1981. That indifference continued for a year. It continued when the bizarre illness began taking Haitians and intravenous drug users. They were, like queers, disposable people in American culture. They were not worthy of serious attention. No person with the disease struck a cord until researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta discovered cases of what would become known as HIV in blood product users and infants, the alarm bells began ringing.