Bill Weintraub:

This is yet another in our series Your Safer-Sex Establishment at Work -- and it's yet another knee-slapper.

Gabe McCarthy, president of the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS, blames "cultural conservatism" for denying people the info they need to engage in "safe sex."

Yet as we've seen, MSM condom campaigns are going full blast in Australia and New Zealand -- to the tune in Australia alone of $812 million per year, which is a lot of money given the number of people affected -- 16,000.

That comes out to -- hold on to your hats -- a whopping $50,750 per year per "victim."

FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Of course the money was supposed to be spent on prevention.

Yet there were a total of 820 people diagnosed with HIV in 2004.

That means the taxpayers of Australia spent $990,000 per new infection.

Almost a million bucks.

You'd think that would be enough to get across that very basic "Use a condom -- every time, every time" message which they've been promulgating for more than 20 years.

Apparently not.

Ms McCarthy then adds "And we must not forget that since the advent of effective treatments for HIV there are more people with HIV living than ever before, so the number of occasions when an accident could happen are increased."

"An accident."

An accident is what happens when you're toilet training a child.

These are not children and these are not accidents.

These are men who've had more than twenty years of "safer sex" messages directed at them who are nevertheless willfully and purposefully choosing to bareback.

This is the statement from UN AIDS, hardly a bastion of what Ms. McCarthy deems "cultural conservatism": "Newly-acquired HIV infections, largely attributable to unprotected sex mostly between men, are increasing, which plausibly reflects a revival of sexual risk behaviour."

"attributable to unprotected sex mostly between men"

To repeat:

These are not children and these are not accidents.

These are men who've had more than twenty years of "safer sex" messages directed at them who are nevertheless willfully and purposefully choosing to bareback.

And spread HIV.

And any other anally-transmitted illness, like HPV and hep C, they may happen to be afflicted with.

That's what they're doing.

And what Ms. McCarthy is doing is infantilizing them.

Treating them like children.

Who have "accidents."

Is it surprising then that they continue to have accidents?

I have a better idea.

That we stop treating these males like children and start treating them like MEN.

That we tell them they're responsible for their actions.

That we tell them that anal penetration is not only intrinsically and incredibly dangerous, but degrading and dishonorable too.

And that we show them there's a better way for them to have sex.

One which is responsbile, and which honors both their Masculinity and their Manhood.

What awaits those who don't hear or will not respond to our message?

Side effects cast shadow over new HIV meds

By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

Mon Jun 19, 2006

WASHINGTON - The excitement over a novel class of drugs being developed to fight HIV has been dampened by fears they could pose serious safety risks, including the possibility they might actually speed the progression of AIDS.

The new class of drugs, called CCR5 receptor antagonists, blocks a secondary but crucial doorway typically used by the human immunodeficiency virus to enter cells in the body. Researchers have known for more than a decade that people who lack a working version of that doorway, called a receptor, are, at best, highly resistant to infection by HIV and, at worst, slow to develop AIDS once infected.

From a treatment standpoint, drugs that provide the same benefit would be a welcome addition to the mix of medicines now used to fight HIV. More dramatically, the drugs would represent a shift in the fight against HIV, since they don't target the virus itself, as do the 27 other treatments already approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

That difference is at the root of much of the concern surrounding the drugs. The drugs attack a target on human white blood cells that play an important role in the immune system.

..

[emphases mine]

Bill Weintraub:

The rest of the article is more in that vein and speaks to how difficult it's become to find new HIV treatments.

The point being, that with 27 drugs already approved, and none of them a cure, scientists are now being forced to look at drugs with truly deadly side-effects -- drugs which are unlikely to ever be approved for human use.

So: what happens when you infantilize males instead of treating them like responsible MEN who could EASILY AVOID HIV?

Answer: they get infected with HIV and are faced with a lifetime sentence of daily ingestion of toxic drugs.

And of course, as Ms McCarthy correctly pointed out, once infected they're able and indeed liable to infect others.

In Africa, the ABC program, as it slowly displaces the condoms-only campaigns which have proven so disastrous in places like South Africa and Swaziland -- in Africa, the ABC program is finally *beginning* to reduce the rate of new infections in other countries, like Kenya, just as it's done in Uganda.

Suppose, 20 years ago, we had instituted Chuck Tarver's version of ABC for gay and bi men in America:

Avoid Anal, Be faithful, use a Condom only if you won't do the first two.

Would American MSM HIV prevalence be at 25%?

NO.

Every day 55 gay and bi men get infected in America alone -- and that's the conservative figure.

For so long as infantilizing condom campaigns are the sole intervention, that will continue to be the case.

It's time to start treating gay males as MEN, and it's more than time to start offering them a real choice -- between true sex and shit sex.

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.