From DallasVoice.com
A bitter dose of AIDS reality
By Hardy Haberman - Contributing Writer
Jul 2, 2008 - 4:29:28 PM
Younger generations of gay men have bought the myths and marketing, leading to an alarming increase in new HIV infections
It’s as simple as just taking a little red or blue pill every day.
That’s the illusion.
The reality is much more somber.
T-Cell counts, viral loads, hospitalizations, changing medications, staggering drug bills and, in many cases, a long slow decline in health — that’s the illusion of HIV/AIDS versus the reality.
Unfortunately lots of young gay men have bought the illusion being sold by pharmaceutical companies and uninformed peers.
“AIDS is just like diabetes,” I heard one young man say. “It’s a manageable chronic condition.”
I suspect he will end up being one of those contributing to the 12 percent increase in new infections among the gay community, and that will be a tragedy.
It’s a tragedy because it’s preventable and has been preventable for several years. The problem is that our community has fallen into complacency and failed to educate the next generation.
There are young gay men who have never attended three or four funerals in a month. There is a whole generation of young men who have never sat beside a friend in the hospital and watched them turn from a vibrant healthy man into a withered shadow of their former selves.
Worse, this generation has been bombarded by advertising that portrays AIDS as something easier to treat than the common cold.
Slick magazine ads with healthy, buff hunks all smiling as they are kept sexy and hot by the “little red or blue pill.” It makes for great marketing, but it’s lousy sex education.
And then there is the whole “bareback” thing — a culture of folks who insist on unprotected sex, because it’s “hotter” or “more raw” than wearing a condom.
Again, it’s marketing that has brought on this problem. Producers of gay porn who portray unprotected sex may have a market, but they are eroticizing a dangerous and potentially fatal act.
Add that to the sparse sex education in our schools and you have the recipe for a new epidemic. We have done a piss poor job of equipping the next generation of gay men with the knowledge and tools they need to not only survive but to stop the AIDS epidemic in its tracks.
Nonprofits spend their resources trying to care for the people already affected by HIV/AIDS and have little money left over for and adequate countermarketing effort.
That, sadly, is exactly what is needed to combat the current rise in infection. To reach the next generation, it will take innovative and creative ideas. The demographic is much different than it was when the epidemic first started.
Many of the men being infected do not even think of themselves as “gay.”
Messages will have to be tailored for specific minority communities and even the terminology may need to change.
All of that will take money and commitment. It will also take a change of attitude.
I know that there was a big push in the 1990s to change attitudes toward people with HIV/AIDS.
We began using the expression “living with AIDS” as opposed to “infected,” or worse, “dying of AIDS.” It helped to reduce the stigma of the disease and made life for those affected better.
The dark side of that move was the trivialization of the disease.
Though “living with AIDS” made those who had the infection feel better, it also made those who did not feel more secure.
In less than a generation that security became complacency, and now we are seeing the side effects: a rise in infection rates.
At some point we are going to have to make the reality of HIV/AIDS more “real” for the young gay men of the next generation.
It will not be easy and I suspect it will not be cheap.
It is my hope that as the administration in Washington changes, so will the attitudes on resources for HIV/AIDS prevention. To make that change it will take work and money and votes, but I sincerely believe it can happen.
But we must do something now.
I am reminded of the scene in “The Matrix” when Morpheus offers Neo the pills: “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
Well, it’s time we all took the red pill.
Hardy Haberman is a longtime Dallas LGBT activist and a board member for Stonewall Democrats of Dallas. You can read Haberman’s blog at
http://dungeondiary.blogspot.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 4, 2008.
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