Writer's Block: AIDS Awareness
2008-Dec-01, Monday 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtigger[Error: unknown template qotd]Back in 1987 before I ever had sex, I went for my first HIV test. I knew that testing was going to be a permanent part of my life so I wanted to get the first traumatic experience of testing out of the way when I already knew what the result would be. This happened back when they needed a full vial of blood in order to do a test, and it took 2 full weeks to get results back (sometimes a month). I dislike needles, I dislike screaming kids, and I dislike the antiseptic smell of the clinic environment. The county health center where I went had all of those things, but it was the only place to get anonymous testing back then.
I knew several people back then who died. Some died suddenly, never having had an HIV test beforehand. Some died after long illnesses. I knew to practice safe(r) sex, if I wanted to live to be an old man. My longest relationship was back around 1995 with a man who got his official AIDS diagnosis during our 2nd or 3rd month together. He had lots of money (from his ex who had died of AIDS in previous years) and could afford the various drug cocktails available to the ones who could pay. We broke up after only 1.5 years (my issues (autistic, I know now), not his), and I don't know if he survived to today.
Twenty-one years later, things have not changed a whole lot for me. I've only had sex once in the last 6 years, so I've stopped going in for my HIV tests any more. My "annual dose of mortality", as I came to call it. I worry about the younger folk today who seem to think that seroconverting is a kind of badge of membership worth seeking deliberately, that living with HIV infection is easily achieved. I don't have any health insurance myself, can't afford it, and I wonder how these young people expect to pay for the chemicals they'd need to extend their lives.
There's no such thing as safe sex, just safer sex. (Ignoring for the moment the online world of fantasy involvements by text and videocam.) It's a lesson that straight people need to realize too. I participated in gay and lesbian speaker's bureau panels back in the late 1980s and I warned college students back then about the crisis looming in Africa. Today, there are whole cities' worth of orphans trying to survive after this plague wiped out their parents.
I've already done what I know how to do. I leave it to the next generation to work out how they're going to address the crises that they will face. I hope they're paying attention.
I knew several people back then who died. Some died suddenly, never having had an HIV test beforehand. Some died after long illnesses. I knew to practice safe(r) sex, if I wanted to live to be an old man. My longest relationship was back around 1995 with a man who got his official AIDS diagnosis during our 2nd or 3rd month together. He had lots of money (from his ex who had died of AIDS in previous years) and could afford the various drug cocktails available to the ones who could pay. We broke up after only 1.5 years (my issues (autistic, I know now), not his), and I don't know if he survived to today.
Twenty-one years later, things have not changed a whole lot for me. I've only had sex once in the last 6 years, so I've stopped going in for my HIV tests any more. My "annual dose of mortality", as I came to call it. I worry about the younger folk today who seem to think that seroconverting is a kind of badge of membership worth seeking deliberately, that living with HIV infection is easily achieved. I don't have any health insurance myself, can't afford it, and I wonder how these young people expect to pay for the chemicals they'd need to extend their lives.
There's no such thing as safe sex, just safer sex. (Ignoring for the moment the online world of fantasy involvements by text and videocam.) It's a lesson that straight people need to realize too. I participated in gay and lesbian speaker's bureau panels back in the late 1980s and I warned college students back then about the crisis looming in Africa. Today, there are whole cities' worth of orphans trying to survive after this plague wiped out their parents.
I've already done what I know how to do. I leave it to the next generation to work out how they're going to address the crises that they will face. I hope they're paying attention.