For a while now I’ve wondered who it is that’s actually dying of AIDS these days. I mean while HIV is going up and up among the young, AIDS deaths are at an all time low… So I’ve been wondering whether there are factors people have control over that influence the outcome? I wondered if it was guys who were mixing their cocktails with recreational drugs or what…

Well, part of that was answered this week when a report came out saying 40% of people in the Canadian province of British Columbia who died of AIDS-related illness between 1997 and 2005 were not on antiretroviral treatment. That says a lot about the Canadian system where your doctors are free but you pay for your meds…

Next time you say you want the Canadian health system for the U.S., think again. It’s not as good as you think. It’s sort of a toss up as to which one is better – the US system or the Canadian system. In the US if you have comprehensive health insurance chances are you’re better off than you’d be in Canada. But the poor are generally better off in Canada – except now we see there’s big problems there too…

But I’m not just trying to slam Canadian health care – since the people who are dying are often poor and…

problems of mental illness, homelessness, drug addiction and food security have to be tackled first because those infected may not be pursuing treatment of a long-term illness while they’re faced with more immediate concerns.

In other words it’s questionable whether the outcome would have been different if the health care had been better.

So, who’s actually dying of AIDS these days? Looks like the poor are group #1…

This has a big bearing on news out of China this week that the number of reported cases of HIV/AIDS went up a whopping 45% last year. That’s a country that doesn’t have big money for drugs so that’s really not good news. However, “reported” is the important word in that announcement since the finding may be due to increased testing. Still, if they’re not getting tested, they’re not getting treated, and we’re back to the Canadian scenario…

I’m curious… When was the last time you knew someone with good health insurance and a generally healthy lifestyle die of AIDS? The fact that I’m even asking that question explains a lot of why so many young guys just don’t care what their HIV status is… Can you blame them?

There was an important update to the Swiss statement a few weeks ago that people who are poz but have an undetectable viral load are not sexually infectious… Bernard Hirschel, MD, one of the authors of the Swiss statement, was interviewed at a conference by Regan Hofmann, a straight poz woman. He had a few important things to say…

For starters he addressed the issue of anal sex saying (start at 9:30 in the video, in the link above)…

There are no data… of course one can logically assume that it [the results of studies on anal sex] will be similar…

Again, he’s not saying definitely zero risk, but he is saying the risk is probably greatly reduced – possibly no risk at all…

He also addressed the issue of why there was no data on anal sex and said it hadn’t been studied because the subject is “taboo”. And then he went further by saying political and community leaders think…

…you recommend a condom for everyone and everything and if anything happens it’s their fault…

Guys, you wonder why I say sex is political? He just summed it up perfectly. The politicians who fund the research that could result in more realistic, more believable, and more widely adopted safe sex guidelines (that would include how to have “safe bareback sex”) just don’t give a shit about us. Why? Because they think the kind of sex we have is “taboo”/”kinky”/whatever… They’d rather not tell us anything and let us go blindly on in ignorance – harming our community in the process. It’s not a problem for them, ’cause they’re not part of our community.

Watch the video – there’s other good stuff in it as well…

And please be political…

If you think things in the US are pretty good for gay people and not at all like they are in Iran. Think again.

Today Lawrence King, a femmy 15 y.o. high school student, was shot and killed in his first period English class. The reason? Because he was a nelly queen who wore jewelry and make up. This was after being teased and taunted by classmates for a while. And this wasn’t in some hic town in the middle of nowhere – it was in Oxnard, CA – outside Los Angeles.

Femmy teens are in a really difficult position. Those of us who are “straight acting” can just play along and avoid problems, but fems don’t have that option. They are who they are and they shouldn’t be shot dead just because they are true to themselves.

This just drives home how hate crime legislation is important. Curiously, if you shot one of the people who doesn’t want gay men and lesbians to have “special protection” under hate crime legislation – you could be charged with a hate crime since they’re protected (for their religion) – they just don’t think we’re special enough to have the same protection they enjoy themselves.

Of course cases like this are typical in that most gay bashing is done by teens who haven’t yet become secure in their own sexuality. It may seem harsh to put a teen in prison for an extended period because they were motivated by their own insecurities, but that’s something for the juvenile justice system to deal with on a case-by-case basis. The point is we need to make a clear statement that violence against gay men, lesbians and the transgendered (and a few straight people who appear to be gay) will not be tolerated.

Also remember – intolerance of intolerance isn’t bad like other forms of intolerance. For all you math geeks – it’s a double negative and hence completely different. In fact you can’t aim for a tolerant society with out being intolerant of intolerance…

School administrators also needs to be held accountable for this. How in the hell did a gun get into the classroom and why didn’t they deal with the situation when it was just taunting and teasing? They aren’t just there to teach the kids reading, writing and arithmetic – they’re there to socialize them and teach them how to be civil human beings. A kid died in English class for god’s sake – I hope someone is held accountable in addition to the mixed up kid that pulled the trigger.

One of the lessons I learned in grad school from a wonderful radical lesbian feminist professor was that radical change rarely ever comes from the big things people remember – it comes from a whole bunch of little things and sorta sneaks up on you. You realize radical change has happened by looking back and thinking “gee, that couldn’t have happened 20 years ago” (e.g. electing a black man or a woman as President). So, be political in your every day lives – tell your friends about the discrimination and injustice we continue to face, and do the little things like always showing up to vote for the candidate with the best stance on gay rights. When enough people change the hearts of the people around them, and when we have political leaders who “get it”, the big stuff will follow.

UPDATE: Turns out, as of now, Lawrence King isn’t dead. He’s brain dead and they expect to pull the plug on him soon, so the net effect is the same. California does have hate crime legislation and they’re planning trying the kid who did it as an adult and charging him with murder with a hate crime special circumstance. In other words, this is going to be about as bad for the kid who did it as it gets…

Last night I wrote a post saying I think most “neg” bareback bottoms are actually poz. Now today the big news is that poz bottoms are now neg… At least in Switzerland…

OK, not exactly, but… This one is big, so pay attention…

[See the update at the end of this post…]

The Swiss Federal Commission for HIV / AIDS has put out their first ever consensus statement saying they all agree that HIV-positive individuals on effective antiretroviral therapy and without sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are sexually non-infectious.

That’s right – you can’t get HIV from a poz guy if all of the following are true:

• the person adheres to antiretroviral therapy, the effects of which must be evaluated regularly by the treating physician
• the viral load has been suppressed (<>
• there are no other sexually transmitted infections

That’s huge… They’re comparing this pronouncement to the statement many years ago that you can’t get HIV by kissing someone. It’s impossible to prove it for certain, but they’re unable to find any evidence that it’s wrong.

This has a lot of implications. In yesterday’s post I was saying that I didn’t think barebacking with poz bottoms was all that much more risky than barebacking with neg bottoms since the neg bottoms could have just converted and be highly infectious – looks like I was right on target – at least for guys who have been poz for a while and are on meds.

It also has implications for serodiscordant (poz/neg) relationships… Those couples can now breathe a sigh of relief – and even “safely” bareback each other. They just have to keep on top of those viral loads and avoid STDs for both partners.

But curiously it puts the burden for protecting the community onto the poz guys. I worry a little bit that there will be a pressure for poz guys to take meds earlier and earlier to get viral loads down to absolute zero and stay there. I’m not sure that’s completely fair, but the flip side is that I expect this will have poz guys feeling a bit better about the social implications of being poz.

And I’m guessing you’ll start seeing “undetectable for X months” in profiles to signal to neg guys that the poz guy is “safe”. In a way, this almost makes the poz guy safer than some neg guys to have sex with since the risk is more controlled and predictable. Wouldn’t it be weird if neg guys started preferring poz guys ’cause it was safer than it is with neg guys…

This does change the whole landscape of “safe sex”. Any guesses how long it will take the “condom nazis” to pick up on this news?

UPDATE:

The news is now out a day later that the Swiss researchers only looked at studies with heterosexuals in drawing their conclusions. So presumably most of the sex behind the studies was vaghttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifinal sex, not anal. [What were they thinking?]

So what does this mean for us gay guys giving and getting cum up the ass? I think the straight studies are parallels. In other words, if you can say conclusively that straight bareback sex with a poz partner is “safe” then you can say that gay sex with a poz partner is “relatively low risk”. In other words what they’ve shown is that the viral load of the poz partner makes a difference. That’s not going to change for gay guys, but it may not reduce the risk down to, or close to, zero in our case.

For me, it’s about relative risk and I still feel comfortable in hooking up with poz guys with undetectable viral loads. It may not be zero risk, but it’s relatively low risk and consistent. You’ll each need to make your own decisions. Hopefully they’ll look at the data for anal sex and give us a statement on that as well…

UPDATE 2: Please see my post on the video one of the authors of the statement gave…

Our freedoms don’t come cheap. In the Western world we may be fighting for things like bathhouses and backrooms at bars, but in other countries they fight for things that are a lot more basic – namely the right to live.

The kids in this photo are teenagers and they’re being executed for being gay…

The photo is from 2005 when two gay teens (14 and 16 years old) were executed in Iran for being gay. Now two more (Hamzeh Chavi and Loghman Hamzehpour – 18 and 19 years old) have been arrested and it looks like they might be executed as well… And to make matters worse, the news on the issue is pretty limited… I found out about it on a blog that usually has X-rated pics of muscle guys. It’s just sad that those of us promoting sex and porn are more interested in this than the mainstream press.

There is a petition you can sign urging the UNHCR to do something about the situation. While it might be a pipe dream to think we can stop the executions, it can’t hurt to sign it…

But the real issue is gay rights around the globe. It doesn’t surprise me that Iran is executing gay guys, but for all the progress we’ve supposedly made in the West, it shocks me that there isn’t more of an outcry about this. If you think you’ve got gay rights, think again…

The reason why we need deeply entrenched gay rights in the West is so our governments will act when they see these types of things in other countries. We need asylum policies that are generous to gay people facing persecution. We need our governments to pull strings and offer countries like Iran a way to not execute the men, but still save face (like deportation to a western country with lots of negative rhetoric. Hell, give them a beating and then give them to us – whatever it takes to keep them alive).

I doubt the Bush administration would think twice about doing anything. Even Canada with it’s liberal policies has a government led by Robert Harper – a Conservative who came in promising his fellow conservatives that he’d put gay marriage up for another vote to try to get rid of it.

The actions of our western governments matter a great deal. It sickens me that Bush was elected not just once, but twice – that our rights in this country have gone backwards over the past 8 years. Ironically Iran has one of the few somewhat democratic governments in the Middle East. But instead of our government doing what it can to quietly support the more liberal, educated elements in Iran, Bush labeled them “The Axis of Evil” and isolated them even further. That actually helped the conservative elements in Iran take back power – and guess what – Iranian gays started getting executed under the more conservative government. Who we elect as our President does have a huge effect on gay rights around the globe. Any of you “Log Cabin Republicans” should be ashamed of yourself. Your vote for George W. is helping kill these kids in Iran…

Until we have true equality, we have to be political – even little things can add up and make a real difference. Whether it’s shutting down bathhouses, or not being allowed to marry – don’t just sit there and take it. When you see the opportunity to say or do something – do it… And for god’s sake – don’t vote Republican in the elections this year!

Get this one… The great city of Memphis (where I had less than stellar success finding bottoms to fuck earlier this year) has just passed a law that requires everyone working in adult businesses to be licensed at a cost of about $198 the first year and $113 every year after that. The licensing process includes a criminal background check. So if you’ve ever been arrested for prostitution, you won’t be allowed to be a stripper – which is funny ’cause some might see prostitution as a job requirement for strippers. And if you’ve ever been arrested for “distribution of obscene materials” you can’t even work as a cashier in an adult video store. Isn’t the point of video stores to distribute obscene materials? The list goes on and on and the implications are pretty funny…

But the other thing about the law is that it creates a bit of a scarlet letter – permanently branding anyone in the sex industry with a public record of the job they had to take to support themselves and their kids. That’s just wrong – we’re headed into some iffy economic times and some mothers (who aren’t prostitutes) are going to become strippers to support their kids, and their stripping will now follow them around forever…

The problem is, I’d guess they’ll get away with it just like Giuliani got rid of sex shops through stricter zoning.

But the ultimate irony is this is happening in the same state where 40 year old, married, Tennessee Highway Patrolman James Randy Moss got a slap on the wrist (4 years probation, and loss of his job) for accepting a blowjob from porn star Barbie Cummings when he pulled her over for going 20 miles over the speed limit.