Gay UK man guilty of HIV transmission

Gay dot com UK

Wed Apr 5, 2006

SUMMARY: A 47-year-old London-area gay man becomes the first person in the United Kingdom to be convicted of recklessly transmitting HIV.

A gay man has become the first in the United Kingdom to be convicted of recklessly transmitting HIV.

The unnamed 47-year-old was convicted this week after a court in West London found him guilty of knowing he was HIV-positive, but not telling his 37-year-old partner.

After being quizzed by his partner, he apparently refused to admit he was HIV-positive and continued to have unprotected sex with the other man.

According to press reports, the partner only learned about his partner's HIV status through a friend. By then, he was also infected with the virus.

The unnamed man had planned to plead not guilty, although he changed his plea at the last minute to admit grievous bodily harm.

Speaking at Isleworth crown court, officers involved in the case said the decision was correct.

"He is a callous individual who has behaved in an unfaithful way," Detective Constable Elliot Toms told London's Mirror newspaper. "He gave us no indication as to his intent or motivation."

However, HIV activists have long fought against the conviction of gay people, arguing that the convictions will stop people from getting tested and will criminalize HIV.

"We oppose all prosecutions for reckless transmission," a spokesperson for the National AIDS Trust told Gay dot com on Wednesday.

"We're extremely concerned at the way cases are currently being brought and investigated and are working as closely as we can with the Crown Prosecution Service and the police," said Lisa Power, head of policy at Terrence Higgins Trust.

"We advise anyone with HIV to find out their rights and responsibilities in this area, and how best to protect themselves as well as others," she said.

[emphasis mine]

Bill Weintraub:

So: A buttboy is successfully prosecuted for recklessly and callously giving his "lover" HIV -- an incurable and still universally fatal pathogen --

and what does the UK's National AIDS Trust, which is "entrusted," among other things, with preventing HIV transmission, say?

"We oppose all prosecutions for reckless transmission."

Why?

They argue "that the convictions will stop people from getting tested and will criminalize HIV."

Nonsense.

Saying that prosecutions for reckless transmission of HIV will criminalize HIV is like saying that prosecutions for drunk driving will criminalize alcohol.

Or that prosecutions for reckless driving will criminalize driving itself.

The issue isn't driving, or alcohol, or even HIV.

The issue is recklessness, and a depraved indifference to human life and in particular to gay male lives;

a depraved indifference which "AIDS Service Organizations" and "safer-sex educators" like Terrence Higgins Trust and the National AIDS Trust seem determined not to end, but, amazingly, to protect.

This bullshit is left over from the early 1980s, when there was tremendous and horrific prejudice and discrimination against "people with AIDS," as they were then known.

None of whom had a clue that their actions in the 1970s would lead to infection and death -- theirs or anyone else's.

Furthermore, their government resolutely refused to provide them with any protection whatsoever.

But that was then.

Fact is, we've known since 1984 not only what causes AIDS but how it's transmitted.

And in Western countries today, people living with HIV / AIDS are protected against discrimination and have treatment and a variety of social welfare programs available to them.

Prosecuting someone today for knowingly spreading HIV is sensible and rational.

It's an effort by government to protect the innocent from reckless and negligent acts.

As indeed it would have been at any time since 1984.

The poz buttboy in this persecution stuck his dick up someone's butt and ejaculated.

Not as immediately fatal as sticking a shotgun up someone's butt and pulling the trigger -- as happened to a friend of mine -- but still reckless, callous, and depraved.

I repeat: These prosecutions are an effort by government to protect the innocent from reckless and negligent acts.

As indeed such prosecutions would have been at any time since 1984.

In my view it's a pity that it's taken 22 years for the first such prosecution to be successful in the UK.

This is Larry Kramer speaking in NYC on 11-7-04:

Does it occur to you that we brought this plague of aids upon ourselves? I know I am getting into dangerous waters here but it is time. With the cabal breathing even more murderously down our backs it is time. And you are still doing it. You are still murdering each other. Please stop with all the generalizations and avoidance excuses gays have used since the beginning to ditch this responsibility for this fact. From the very first moment we were told in 1981 that the suspected cause was a virus, gay men have refused to accept our responsibility for choosing not to listen, and, starting in 1984, when we were told it definitely was a virus, this behavior turned murderous. Make whatever excuses you can to carry on living in your state of denial but this is the fact of the matter. I wish we could understand and take some responsibility for the fact that for some 30 years we have been murdering each other with great facility and that down deep inside of us, we knew what we were doing. Don't tell me you have never had sex without thinking down deep that there was more involved in what you were doing than just maintaining a hard-on.

I have recently gone through my diaries of the worst of the plague years. I saw day after day a notation of another friend's death. I listed all the ones I'd slept with. There were a couple hundred. Was it my sperm that killed them, that did the trick?

It is no longer possible for me to avoid this question of myself. Have you ever wondered how many men you killed? I know I murdered some of them. I just know. You know how you sometimes know things? I know. Several hundred over a bunch of years, I have to have murdered some of them, planting in him the original seed.

[emphases mine]

"I know I murdered some of them."

Larry's unusually honest.

Suppose that the first successful criminal prosecution for "reckless transmission of HIV" took place ten years ago.

One of our critics, Andrew Sullivan, says he was infected in '96.

And then, it's alleged, he barebacked with others.

Did he infect anyone?

I don't know.

But suppose a high-profile gay "leader" like Sullivan had been successfully criminally prosecuted for reckless transmission of HIV in 1998?

Would that not have had, in Gore Vidal's phrase, "a wholesome effect?"

Unfortunately, no such experiment has been carried out on any of our gay leaders.

Yet that's who our critics are guys.

Barebacking, homicidal, buttboys.

Who, according to Larry, "for some 30 years have been murdering each other with great facility."

And now -- now!!! -- when the government of the UK dares to intervene, the buttboys and their analist ASO allies cry foul.

It's difficult not to believe that what they really want is more seroconversions.

In the meantime, another UK news source, the BBC, carried this precis of a program examining bug-chasing:

in the programme, [the reporter] also interviews an ex-Jehovah's Witness named Chris, who is HIV negative.

Chris says that he is engaging in a great deal of unprotected anal sex. He knows he will become infected and has made a conscious decision to welcome it into his life.

HIV diagnosis

In the course of filming, Chris is diagnosed HIV positive and in an on-camera interview tells his story.

Chris came out as gay to his parents 14 years ago and was told he would be dead in the eyes of God and the Jehovah's Witness community if he embraced his homosexuality.

Chris chose to leave home and live as a gay man.

Though he engaged in a great deal of unprotected sex for years and welcomes the "inevitable" arrival of the virus, he says he is not a bug chaser.

"I wasn't scared of the consequences of getting HIV," he says. "But by accepting it, I'm going to take the sting out of its tail."

According to the Health Protection Agency there has been a steady increase in diagnosis rates in the UK among men who have sex with men from 1500 in 1999 to over 2000 in 2004 - a 30% increase in five years.

"I love being HIV+" is on BBC3 at 2100 BST on Monday, 10 April.

Chris, who "engaged in a great deal of unprotected sex for years and welcomes the "inevitable" arrival of the virus, ... says he is not a bug chaser."

(Chorus of dead queens from on high: "Of course you're not dear.")

He welcomes the "inevitable" arrival of the virus, but he's not a bug-chaser:

"I wasn't scared of the consequences of getting HIV," he says. "But by accepting it, I'm going to take the sting out of its tail."

What a bizarre statement!

By his own admission, this guy has been courting HIV for years.

He's a bug-chaser.

Yet in the program,

Will Nutland, head of health promotion at Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "The concepts of 'gift giving' and 'bug chasers' are definitely based more in fantasy than reality.

"Most gay men with HIV do not want to pass HIV on, and most gay men who do not have HIV do not want to get infected."

And Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust said: "There is very little evidence of people trying to get infected with HIV.

"The real issue is why risk-taking behaviour continues when HIV positive men have no wish to pass HIV on HIV negative men wish to avoid infection. [sic]"

Hmmmmm.

Let's try to parse that out.

According to these UK ASO spokespeople,

"There is very little evidence of people trying to get infected with HIV.

"The concepts of 'gift giving' and 'bug chasers' are definitely based more in fantasy than reality.

[Yet] "Risk-taking behaviour continues when HIV positive men have no wish to pass HIV on [and] HIV negative men wish to avoid infection."

They assert that "risk-taking behaviour continues" even though

"HIV positive men have no wish to pass HIV on"

"HIV negative men wish to avoid infection"

Does that make any sense?

NO.

If you don't wish to give or get HIV, you don't do condomless anal.

Indeed, you don't do anal at all.

We've known that since 1984.

If they're "risk-taking" -- that is, engaging in ANAL -- they're knowingly giving and getting HIV.

That's what Larry was saying:

gay men have refused to accept our responsibility for choosing not to listen, and, starting in 1984, when we were told it definitely was a virus, this behavior turned murderous.

What part of that statement is not clear?

"Gay men have refused to accept [their] responsibility

"for choosing not to listen,

[which means, for continuing to do anal]

"and, starting in 1984, when we were told it definitely was a virus, this behavior turned murderous."

"MURDEROUS BEHAVIOR"

Advertisement for barebacking site.

What was Chris doing if he wasn't trying to get infected with HIV?

Barebacking is bug-chasing.

Both are facilitated by the dominant culture of anal penetration

Which includes people like Will Nutland and Deborah Jack, who are telling these men that their "risk-taking behavior" isn't bug-chasing, isn't murderous, and should NOT BE SUBJECT TO PROSECUTION.

By so doing, Will and Deborah are FACILITATING ANAL AND PROMISCUITY.

And let's be clear: ALL anal -- not just condomless anal -- is risky.

Stephen Goldstone, MD, FACS, of gayhealth dot com:

Anal sex is the highest risk sex act that men who have sex with men can perform. Virtually every STD can pass between partners during anal sex, and for most, penetration isn't necessary and a condom may not protect you. STDs are harder to diagnose when they are inside your anal canal and not on your penis. STDs commonly passed during anal sex include: HIV, herpes simplex, gonorrhea, syphilis, molluscum contagiosum, crabs, human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis, and chlamydia.

The Surgeon General of the United States:

The Surgeon General has said, "Condoms provide some protection, but anal intercourse is simply too dangerous to practice."

Condoms may be more likely to break during anal intercourse than during other types of sex because of the greater amount of friction and other stresses involved.

Even if the condom doesn't break, anal intercourse is very risky because it can cause tissue in the rectum to tear and bleed. These tears allow disease germs to pass more easily from one partner to the other.

What's more, you can be sure that our non-bug-chasing barebacker Chris, who "welcomed the arrival of the virus," IS GOING TO GIVE THIS GIFT TO OTHERS.

That's why HIV diagnosis rates among gay and bi men in the UK have increased 30% in five years.

That's not a fantasy.

That's reality.

Nor is it an accident.

These men know perfectly well what the risks and consequences are.

The best you can say about people like Will Nutland and Deborah Jack is that they're in strenuous denial.

"MURDEROUS BEHAVIOR"

That's what it is.

How do you stop murderous behavior in a civilized society?

You put the felons in jail.

We do it with drunk drivers.

We do it with reckless drivers.

Why should men who recklessly infect others with HIV be treated any differently?

I HAVE NO QUESTION THAT WERE WE TO DO THAT CONSISTENTLY AND VIGOROUSLY, IT WOULD DETER MEN FROM DOING ANAL.

BECAUSE THEY'D HAVE TO CONSIDER NOT JUST THE POSSIBILITY THAT THEY WERE GOING TO INFECT SOME NAMELESS MAN THEY'D NEVER SEE AGAIN.

BUT THE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES AS WELL.

And isn't that what these so-called HIV activists fear?

These people are not "HIV activists."

They're ANAL activists.

If they were sincere about reducing HIV prevalence, they would pursue every avenue -- including prosecution for acts which are clearly beyond the pale of civilized society.

Instead, they do everything in their power to prop up and support anal penetration and promiscuity -- the very two behaviors which spread HIV, HPV, and EVERY OTHER ANALLY-VECTORED PATHOGEN among gay and bi men.

That's ANALISM in action.

Analism, like anal penetration itself, is a social evil.

NEVER FORGET what it's really about: murder, death, disease, dysfunction, and dysphoria -- all the myriad forms of human misery.

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