AIDS Continues To Rise In Gay Community

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/NewsContent/072803cdcMeet.htm

The number of gay and bisexual men contracting HIV/AIDS has risen for the third consecutive year. The number of new cases overall rose by 2.2 percent last year, but among gay and bi men the increase was 7.1 percent. Over the past three years the increase is a staggering 17.7 percent.

"These numbers are a national tragedy and should be seen as a wake-up call that we need a swift and sweeping national commitment to a comprehensive science-based prevention plan to combat HIV/AIDS in this country," said Human Rights Campaign Political Director Winnie Stachelberg.

"The administration has consistently favored abstinence-only programs over comprehensive science-based approaches and it is clearly not working. Without a change in direction, we are likely to keep falling further and further behind."

[ronnykmarshall]

1. I hate hearing this.

I'd like to personally put a condom on every gay man in this country. Ok, so it's sounds like a joke ..... but seriously I lost my brother to AIDS and I can't stand this whole "barebacking" bullshit that is going on.

Sorry guys, but taking the meds is not the answer. Sometimes I feel like slapping the shit out of my fellow gayboys that don't place safe.

[MuseRider]

3. ronnykmarshall, I too lost

my brother, just last December. Boy did I ever get a fast lesson on HIV/AIDS. My dear brother, so shamed by the fact that he was gay (something I will never understand being ashamed of) refused to be checked and by the time he was too sick with lymphoma to recover he was found positive. By the time he died the HIV was essentially gone because it was virgin virus. So many think the drugs and low viral loads mean they can't spread it. It is almost like being back in the Reagan years. This will be ignored, just like then and it will get worse, just like then. PLEASE all be careful. ronnykmarshall I am sorry about your brother. Damn disease, it is so unfair.

[ronnykmarshall]

8. Thank you MuseRider

It's so hard to lose someone. My heart goes out to you as well.

[bluestateguy]

2. I'm sure the Religious Right is applauding

Maybe not in public, but the fundies just love what AIDS has done to gays. They secretly applaud it.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

5. Gays are doing it to themselves

You can't blame the fundies for this.

[MuseRider]

6. When education

is not provided I can blame the fundies who think Jesus and abstinance are the answer. The small amount of education provided is simply NOT enough. It took me several months of digging and hassling my brothers docs to learn what I did. The really important info is not always out there.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

12. Well in Seattle, you can't really blame it on education

Unlike the 80's and early 90's, the knowledge is there, but so is the carelessness and blatent disregard.

Their needs to be a renaissance in the gay culture. It is already happening around the idea of making gay pride parades more "family friendly". Many gay people have families now and they are not hot on having their young children witness the age-inappropriate behavior of boa bedecked, hairy fat guys in assless leather chaps and leashes striding down the street with their scotum sacks hanging out. Pride is one thing, but I don't want my kids to see straight people having public sex either.

Gay people who are having unsafe sex in this day and age must take responsibility for their own behavior.

[MuseRider]

14. Here it is not as good I am afraid

"Gay people who are having unsafe sex in this day and age must take responsibility for their own behavior"

This I agree with. We all need to do that.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

16. But it is even more critical in gay communites where

anonymous, unsafe sex is part of the culture. Gays in general are way more promiscuous than straights. That means they need to be even safer as the odds are greater that they will catch and spread disease.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. To my Gay Friends:

Please, do the right and intelligent thing. One petit morte is not worth a grand morte.

This is one straight guy who wants you to stick around and help change things for the better.

[Heddi]

7. totally---this breaks my heart

I have many gay and bisexual male & female friends, and 99.9998% of them are either in long-term monogamous relationships, or if dating, use every precaution in the book. But I have one friend who is very, very casual and uncaring with his approach to sex.

He is gay, and he may or may not be HIV positive. He refuses to get checked, even though he may or may not have had casual unprotected sex with people whose first names he can't quite recall.

Gay or straight, that is VERY very very needlessly risky behaviour. He's very intelligent, so it's not that he doesn't 'understand' AIDS or HIV, he just doesn't care. He feels that if he gets infected, he'll take medicines and live to the ripe old age of 50 and everything will be fine and he'll never get sick, and will always have $$ and support and friends and a doctor and insurance.....and that his life will unfold like a Julia Roberts movie where in the end a miraculous cure is found and everyone lives a happy life :-/

And the sad part is that he doesn't care about himself to even find out, but what I think is even SADDER is that he doesn't care about the people he sleeps with and whether THEY will become infected.

Shit--he could have ghonnorhea for all he knows---he just doesn't care.

And it saddens and angers me. I love him dearly, but sometimes I just want to slap the shit out of him and shake some sense into that very bright head of his.

[MuseRider]

9. You just have to hope

that the people he has sex with are personally responsible. Sometimes that all any of us has is our own good sense. I hope he is OK although I could stand in line behind you and smack him around a bit too. AIDS is not a good way to go.

[Heddi]

11. I meant to put this in my earlier post

but one of the reasons this is so.....retarded to me, is that he's seen TONS of his friends die from HIV and AIDS. He KNOWS it's not a peaceful ending.

He knows that death is not like "Philladelphia" where everyone's gathered around the hospital bed holding hands and singing "Amazing Grace" and you have everyone you love around you as you whisper your last words and then--pan away from bed. Cue ending music. Roll Credits.

Not---

I hope that the people he's with are smart enough to use protection even if he doesn't. I am aware, though, that there is a somewhat sizeable group in the gay community that are called 'gift givers' and HIV neg men hook up with HIV pos men in the hopes of contracting the disease. I've heard about this, I've read about this, and No, it's not the majority in any sense of the word but there are folks out there like this, and I feel my friend is bordering on this behaviour.

He sees HIV/AIDS as a badge of honour. He has alot of problems with his sexuality and feels that having HIV/AIDS will make him "more gay" and somehow better as a person. It's very sick and very sad.

[MuseRider]

15. That is sad

I am not sure I really buy into the story of gift givers. It seems like something to discredit the community however I am not gay and do not pretend to know. I know my gay friends are unsure what to think about it but we are not a large city and things are a bit different here in smaller town America.
It sounds to me like if he does become ill he will at least have you to be with him. You sound very commited to the friendship even though you would like to smack him around for his behavior. I told my brother just that when he turned up positive after refusing to be checked ever. After I told him that and then I just held him while he died. That is all we can ever do for anyone. Everyone is stupid about something.

[ClintonTyree]

10. C'mon guys..................

wrap that rascal. We need every one of you to change the perception that you don't give a *hit. This gives the religious right more ammunition for their anti-gay crusade. I've had an uncle and a friend I graduated from high school die from this disease. Wrap it up fellas.

[ronnykmarshall]

13. Wrap that rascal!

I think you just came up with a good phrase!