While the press hasn’t really picked up on the story of Larry King, the teen who got shot at school just because he was gay, Ellen DeGeneris did a wonderful segment on her show recently about him…

We need a lot more people saying stuff like that…

While Ellen doesn’t think of herself as political, her comments were most definitely political. Her statement is exactly what I mean when I say to be political…

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?

A comment on another blog got my hair bristling the other day…

HIV is a disease of low self esteem. People with high self esteem don’t put their health at risk because they value their lives. Also, people of self esteem don’t need to go ‘bareback’ to achieve intimacy because they will already have far more intimacy in their relationships than random hookups will ever give. Finally, people who are in touch with their instincts and know how to detect character flaws very early on will not have to worry about cheating partners.

…

In the future, i imagine 2 classes of gay people emerging: those with high self esteem (almost all uninfected) and those with low self esteem (high rates of infection). I also imagine these 2 groups not intermixing when it comes to sex.

Those statements so outlandish I’m not sure if the guy is being funny or if he’s serious.

If he’s serious can you imagine what sex must be like with him? Do you think there’s ever a chance he’ll get a boyfriend or that the boyfriend will be monogamous?

But hey, if he ever does manage to get a boyfriend I’ll be happy to fuck the guy and seed his ass when he gets tired of the let’s-play-house “intimacy” with his boyfriend and just wants a proper fuck that leaves his ass all sloppy with cum. He won’t be the first guy like that I’ve seeded…

Just came across the blog of an LA top (Ted) who specializes in whoring out bottoms boys. He’s got two blogs actually – bottoms who want to get whored out, and tops who are available for gangbangs and pump-and-dumps.

And the remarkable thing is how hot some of his bottom boys are. (a few are TOTALLY my type – like this asian guy, this asian/latin? guy, this white guy, this white latino who says he’s “neg” (LOL), this latin guy, as well as Steve Tuck, and Jared Steel (along with comments about how big of a mess he’s become).

The more recent posts are pretty revealing actually – he posts e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and sometimes even addresses – depends on what information the bottom provides. From what I understand in most cases the bottoms have to take any load he sends their way.

At first I was thinking it would be completely cool to add a couple blogs like that to this site with cumholes and tops posting their availability. But then I started thinking that’s what Craigslist is for… The only difference might be there would be less hostility here, it’s not quite as public, tops could comment on their experience with the bottom (and vice versa), and I could send out geographically-based e-mail alerts. If I did it, I’d have it broken down so you can see guys in a particular area…

What do you guys think? Is it worthwhile, or redundant? If you think it’s worthwhile, I’ll add it…

Bottoms – if you want to be listed, click here.

Tops – if you want to be listed, click here.

Or, if you just want to comment on the idea, send me an e-mail or comment on this post.

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…