(Don’t worry, I’ll get there.)
Okay, the Globe headline says “Impact of HIV baby case
unclear.” In case you haven’t heard, a Mississippi
infant has just been cured of HIV. However, we are assured in the Globe article
that -- when it comes to AIDS -- “a cure has not been found.” Now how can a
baby in Mississippi
be cured of AIDS, when there is no cure for AIDS? Isn’t that a contradiction? Sounds somewhat Orwellian, doesn’t it?
‘Freedom is Slavery’ ‘War is Peace’ ‘A Baby is Cured of AIDS but There is No
Cure for AIDS’.
Wuh?
Any discussion of the AIDS is clouded by a gigantic miasma
of emotion around sexual and moral issues that completely blocks out the
facts. Doctors would like us to think
that AIDS is all about science, and that they are never homophobic, and that all
of the pure ‘information’ we receive about the disease is unclouded by
prejudice or stigma. But this is simply not the case.
The elephant in the room around the baby who was cured of
AIDS -- but who, for some reason, is reported to offer gay men very little hope
-- is the alluring notion of the ‘innocent victim.’ In the 1980s, when little
HIV positive children in the deep south were hounded out of their classrooms by
their hateful peers – the infected children were defended as ‘innocent
victims’ -- that is, unlike gay men, prostitutes, or drug addicts.
The concept of the ‘innocent victim’ arises because AIDS offers
an excellent opportunity for social control through fear. In 1981, when AIDS first appeared, we were experiencing
a huge backlash (led by The Orange Juice Lady Anita Bryant) against homosexuality. The 1960s was
very dangerous to the patriarchy – because the pill was available to
women, and gay men had access to antibiotics that effectively killed venereal
disease -- so there seemed to be little or no consequence from unprotected sex.
For the sex-haters of the religious
right this had to be stopped; AIDS fed right into their agenda.
The result: there will never be a cure for AIDS. In terms of
the mysterious Mississippi
case, doctors assure us that even though one innocent baby is cured, other
people (do they mean gay men, prostitutes Africans, and drug addicts perhaps?)
will never be able to get all of the HIV out of their system, and thus will likely always
be infected. The situation is, I posit, simply this -- if scientists told
us AIDS could be cured, then people
might wish to return to the lovefest some of us remember as the happy carefree 60s.
Well I just got back from a vacation in Palm Springs, and let me tell you it’s still
the 60s there. For hot young gay man on the resort scene it’s all about
barebacking and drugs! Gay conservatives would have you believe that all gay men
want to get married, adopt children and attend church. But there is a terrifyingly sad swell of self-destructive
behaviour among young gay men these days. I have no statistics. But I am very
promiscuous, and I know what everyone is doing and trying to get me to do.
Why is this happening in our community? Because, the fact of
the matter is, we are not all perfectly adjusted, homophobia is not dead, and gay men
are friggin’ angry about being told not to have sex, and about AIDS being used
as a method of social control in order to stop them from being sexual. They are tired of being
told, over and over again, that unlike babies, they are not ‘innocent.’
What’s with the Treasure Island Media’s unsafe sex porn, and
all the young gay men who want to gobble
ejaculate, and are greedy to get sperm up their butts without a condom? I’ll
tell you. It’s because AIDS organizations -- instead of dealing with the
incredible trauma
inflicted upon us by the demonization of gay men and the demonization of gay sex -- have happily jumped on the
social control bandwagon. All they can do is wag their fingers at us. Gay
men need a lot more help than finger-wagging to compensate for what the trauma
of AIDS. Nobody likes to be told that sex is bad, pleasure is bad,
and that skin should never touch skin. And if nobody is willing to talk about the
fact that using AIDS to stop people from screwing is unnatural and sick, then yes, young gay men will hate
themselves and get angry and continue
with crystal meth and unsafe sex.
Which is where we finally end up.
I told you so.
