Bill Weintraub:

Probably Mr Pinkerton's most important observation is this one:

And if perma-funding for the dying becomes the new "mode of production" -- that is, a lucrative career path for the press-savvy and the politics-connected -- then a legitimating superstructure of ideology will emerge.

In other words, if there's enough money in it, an ideology will emerge to defend it.

That's what's happened with AIDS: the creation of an entrenched bureaucracy with its own ideology.

For example, a couple months ago the firm which has developed a simple, 20 minute saliva test for HIV, tried to get it approved for over-the-counter (OTC) sale.

If available OTC, this test would revolutionize HIV awareness.

Because no one could claim that they didn't know, or have a chance to find out, their partner's HIV antibody status.

And this test could have been distributed -- along with, or separate from -- condoms.

Two groups vociferously objected:

One was the lobby for the labs which now test blood samples.

And you can see why: they stand to lose a lot of money if people can test at home.

But the other were the ASOs and their "safer-sex" counselors.

These people insisted that those who might be HIV + must be counseled both before and after the test, lest they commit suicide when learning the result.

That's a remarkable stance to have taken.

Of course it's possible that someone might commit suicide if he or she learned they were poz while home alone.

Though the mandatory inclusion of material on treatment options with the test would prevent that in most cases.

But against that possible suicide must be weighed all the literally thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of HIV seroconversions which this test could prevent.

More than 40,000 people per year seroconvert in the US.

Suppose the test prevented 20,000 of them, and there was one suicide.

Wouldn't that have been an acceptable cost?

The truth is that the "safer-sex" counselors are dependent upon the continuation of the epidemic to earn a living.

And this test would have done away with much of their reason for being -- and eating.

After a lot of lobbying, the test was approved for use in doctor's offices and health clinics and where "safer-sex educators" are present.

But not at home.

Whatever happened to "power to the people"?

It appears to have been replaced by the never-ending quest for "funding for the ASOs."

Next, observes Mr Pinkerton,

Absent any short-term hope for a cure, the activists seem determined to make the band play on -- that is, to preserve maximum sexual freedom for all, no matter what the cost. In Bangkok, all discussions on abstinence were dismissed; out in front of the convention center was a giant condom, described as a "victory monument.

The condom of course is a "risk-reduction" intervention.

Those pushing condoms know that condom failure rates run somewhere between 10 and 20%, and that even with consistent use, something which virtually does not exist, 10 to 20% of those relying on condoms to prevent HIV will become infected.

That is literally MILLIONS OF PEOPLE PER YEAR.

And those infections, which, since they are occuring mainly in poor countries or among individuals in rich countries who in general have poor access to health care, will most certainly result in MILLIONS OF DEATHS.

That's the truth.

And that's what's so sickening about what's going on.

There are proven ways to prevent HIV infection:

Among gay and bi men, don't do anal sex.

Among heterosexuals, delay the age of onset of sexual activity -- usually called abstinence; and be faithful to one uninfected partner.

"Avoid anal, Abstain, Be faithful" would end the epidemic.

And everyone knows it.

Fact: tens of thousands of gay and bi men in the industrialized world have remained HIV negative by avoiding anal sex.

Fact: Uganda, one of the poorest countries in Africa, has reduced HIV prevalence 12 years in a row by emphasizing Abstain, Be faithful.

While African countries which have relied on condoms alone have seen their HIV prevalence soar.

And first world countries have seen HIV infection rates rise among gay and bi men as they revert to pre-1980 levels of anal sex and promiscuity.

Condoms are a failed strategy in all parts of the world.

Yet our friends at the ASOs and other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) think it's more important "to preserve maximum sexual freedom for all, no matter what the cost."

Pinkerton continues:

In the lobby stood a display honoring -- yes, that's the right word -- sex workers; the Debby Project, the Australian art protest troupe that sponsored the exhibit, declared: "It is not necessarily degrading to have intimacy with strangers. In fact, it is one of the most liberating things you can experience."

That statement is so goofy that it's difficult to even respond to it.

In Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, women do not become prostitutes because it's liberating.

They do it for money.

And as such it's known among anthropologists and epidemiologists as "transactional sex": sex in return for money or favors.

Do gay and bi men engage in transactional sex?

Yes, argues Mart Finn in his article CockToCock.

Of course most "anally-receptive men" are not bottoming for money -- they're bottoming to play a role and fulfill a cultural expectation.

The role of *she* who services and serves as a sperm receptacle for a real man.

Which is the reason so many gay men refer to themselves as sluts and whores.

Because they're playing a prostitute's role and they know it -- all they're doing during anal penetration is pleasing another man.

While not getting pleasure themselves.

Not only is this dangerous, it's degrading.

As I said in an earlier post, it's one thing to make yourself "useful" to an employer by tilling his fields or typing his letters or writing his software.

It's quite another to make yourself "useful" to an employer by taking into your body his blood, his spit, and his sperm.

To do that is to degrade yourself, whether you're a man or a woman.

That's why humanity despises and denigrates whores.

What about the gay male community?

They've managed to take transactional sex to whole new level of objectification and alienation -- and is so doing, seriously damaged themselves physically and psychically.

As Mart Finn points out on our Definitions page under Transactional Sex

In my work I do not associate any exchange of money or goods for sex when I talk about the experience being a 'transactional'one. By transactional I mean a kind of sex, whether it be casual or in a relationship, where one party or usually both are psychically distanced from each other. They are 'doing sex together' ... for themselves.

The concept is inextricably linked to the commercialisation of gay male attitudes to sex and often life. Sex is just another activity. To be compared and evaluated against previous experience and those of our peers and dominant subcultural norms. ...

[emphases mine]

(The alternative, by the way and according to Mart, is Interactional Sex. Ck it out. Mart is one of the finest thinkers about sex on the planet.)

Finally, observes Mr. Pinkerton:

Tragically, avant-garde thinking on AIDS is returning to where it was two decades ago: No pesky disease should get in the way of sexual liberation. That was the overwhelming message, and it's a killer. In the words of Abner Mason, a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, who was appalled by what he witnessed in Bangkok: "They think they're defending a lifestyle. But actually, they're creating a death-style."

Mr Mason is right.

Anal promiscuity is not synonymous with sexual liberation.

And a sexual subculture built on sleaze, raunch, and kink cannot stand.

It's the equivalent of a relationship founded on a suicide pact.

Either everyone's going to die, or someone will walk.

The guys on our sites -- Cockrub Warriors, Frot Men, members of The Man2Man Alliance, practitioners of Heroic Homosex -- have walked.

But the old gay culture still stands.

Why?

Because the ASOs, using your taxpayer and donor money, are propping it up.

The ASOs are no longer the solution.

They are the problem.

Mr Pinkerton understands.

Do you?