AIDS isn’t like diabetes
Tags: AIDS, AIDS awareness, bisexual, Clint Walters, gay, gay men, HIV, hiv positive, Irish AIDS Day, lesbian, positive, risks, sexual health On Tuesday, which was AIDS Awareness Day, figures were released that showed a 42% increase in detected HIV infections in gay and bisexual men. We had a taste of these figures back in December when the increase appeared to be even worse.
It seems that HIV has lost its bark. To be clear, HIV has not lost its bite.
UK activist, Clint Walters, had a lot to say about this alarming and worldwide trend:
We have the facts and yet we are still missing the message. Don’t buy into the myth that HIV is like diabetes, there is nothing manageable when dealing with an uncertain future, side effects from medications, and to top it all off rejection based purely on your positive status. A HIV diagnosis can rip through to your core and make you question everything. Yes, I was very lucky to be a baby in the early 80’s and the medications I started in 1997 turned mine and many more people’s lives around. Thankfully, we’re not dropping off like flies anymore. However it’s not a good enough reason for the growing trend showing increase in HIV infections and STI’s pointing towards people taking more risks than ever.
from PositiveNation (2007)
And while HIV positive people may not be “dropping like flies”, Clint himself passed away in April at the age of 31, 14 years post-diagnosis.
HIV still kills. Why are we still taking these risks at all, and now, why are we taking more risks than ever?
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lol@how this is turning...
Simple.
Education.
Can anyone of us reading this post say that they received any education in our school days on safe gay sex?
I certainly can’t, and I’m fresh out of the system.
That and the bloody stigma attached to it, another factor towards our gross lack of education.
Julian Lewis – “Gay sex as dangerous as war”.
I was at first awash with horror at reading this headline, but as I read on, it became all too apparent – it’s true. In the article the shadow minister was attempting to qualify his view that the age of consent to gay sex should be raised, restoring it to 18 in the UK. Why? Well, because “we no longer allow 16 and 17 year olds into frontline situations in the armed forces.”
Essentially, he was going with the reasoning that in a day and age when we don’t allow soldiers march out to duty unarmed, we shouldn’t let our young men expose themselves to the dangers of gay sex.
What he failed to mention, however, was the poor level of sex education; the major contributor to the rise in HIV/AIDS detections. No, we wouldn’t send a soldier out onto the frontline unarmed Julian, and so why should we send our young men (and women for that matter) out into the world unarmed with the knowledge that keeps them safe.
Raise an age limit, and you’re giving a man another two years; educate, and you’ve saved his life.
I have to say I didn’t get any education specifically about gay safe sex, but we were told about dental dams and condoms, so the lessons were good either way.
However, I wasn’t educated in Ireland. Certainly in a Catholic school, do they even teach about contraception?
With a 42% increase in detected HIV infections in gay and bisexual men – you chaps still want to donate blood to the rest of us?
Please don’t.
Paula…
Every blood donation wich reaches the Irish Blood Transfusion Service is tested for Hepatitis B, HIV and Hepititis C. If EVERY donation is checked, why should a gay man’s blood be rejected?
Correct me though, I haven’t researched it enough I don’t think to give a properly informed opinion.
CanuckJacq…
Aye, I was in a single sex Catholic school. When I was in Scotland we didn’t get that education either though, maybe it was to come later, I guess I was only about 14 leaving that school. But, yeah, in Ireland… They actually went into quite a bit of detail into the straight realm of things, in rather too much detail If I remember rightly :/
Aye, nothing on gay sex. Nilch. Nada. Well, we don’t seem to exist in the Irish system. Whenever teachers referred to relationships etc. it was all he/she, boyfriends….or maybe that was just the teachers’ awkwardness to the idea, but then that should be stamped out in the in-service days.
Mn, I remember once actually on the way home from a debate being told that in one of the 3rd year classes the students had been told by their religion teacher quite blatantly that lesbians shouldn’t be allowed to adopt. Granted, it was a religion class I think – and everyone should be allowed to express their opinions – but a teacher… Such an influential figure – these kids were only about 13/14! That’s so irresponsible. And the shame of it is that if this sort of thing were to be reported, nothing would be done about it. The principle’s a nun and from my experience with her, she would completely overlook it.
I feel bad now for mentioning her status in the church along side the way she deals with situations, as if that should have anything to do with it. I’ve come across some really brilliant nuns, hmm, I guess I’m just not a great fan of religion having anything to do with our education. It’s too important and should be given impartially.
On another rambling…we get three 40min classes of religion a week, and only one 40 min class of P.E; religion coming before physical health, it’s aggravating. Not only that but we have those three classes a week on religion and yet we only have a couple of paragraphs in our science study on evolution.
Grr.
Rant over:)
Sorry
Sex ed for me, back in the 80s, was about the biological implications and the religious implications. You’ll get pregnant and be a whore, basically.
It was the time of the advent of AIDS, I even remember when it was referred to as GRID (Gay Related Immunodeficiency Syndrome) and was then changed to HIV/AIDS.
There was lots of talk about safe-sex, and pious sympathy for those poor gays, god bless them in their sin. But none of it felt revelvant.
In typical Catholic School form it was sex=shame or death.
Bloody hell!
It’s easy to forget how far gay rights really have progressed!
I’d like to add that I’m pretty sure this is the first year in a very long time that HIV cases in gay and bisexual men have risen more than among straight people. I’m not sure how that would compute to the likes of Paula.
Why should straight people be allowed to give blood, with their history of reckless ways? Hm? I mean it’s obvious they have unprotected sex all the time. They even talk openly about it.
Hey, CanuckJacq, just wondering, where are those stats relative to? I’m guessing their Irish given this site, but, aye.
*They’re! Gah.
@ Banana2: The Health Service Executive in Ireland (a front to distance the Minister for Health from her responsibilities ..ahem) released figures on Wednesday on reported infections of HIV and on reported figures relating to people with AIDS.
The figures were released through the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre. The Press Release can be found here, and the report (not too many pages) can be found via a link here.
Grr All Bark Bite…
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