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Writer's Block: AIDS Awareness
Dec. 1st, 2008 04:00 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
It's probably easier to ask how has it not changed my life; coming out at the tail end of the damage in the mid nineties I missed (partly intentionally) what my partner John experienced - basically that it decimated a whole generation of gay men. There is a massive hole in the age group 40-50s, which is still noticeable, but hearing stories from John about the weekly/monthly funerals I cannot even imagine.
The effect on me was minor yet damaging - the 6 years in the closet where in part due to the warped perception and stigma of AIDS - the idea if I was gay then dying from AIDS was what the future held for me - seems laughable now but during the AIDS panic of late 80s it seemed far more possible and likely.
It's why I have a pathological hatred of gay films and dramas that used HIV as a cliched and cheap throwaway drama gimmick; it just perpetuated the idea that gay = HIV = death. It's why I love Four Weddings and a Funeral - a non typical gay couple and one of them dies of a heart attack. It's like when John was ill everyone assumed it was HIV related til I corrected them. It's that insidously leeched into the mass subconscience that I think it's toxic.
Anyway I eventually came out and had some good people teach me the ways of safe sex, which have mostly held, keeping me *touch wood* safe so far.
The issues of self esteem![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gorkabear raised are important; not just with HIV prevention but with suicide and mental health. The mental effect of being made to feel somehow 'other' and bias, phobia and discrimination makes people search for self-worth in the most dangerous of places, or not care, or have a death wish, take drugs or be ill. Not to say everyone who does these activities has a deathwish but there does seem to be real self-image, self-esteem and lack of support issue within the gay community - those years of feeling queer, seperate and unlovable as a teenager or later can cause a lot of damage, as well as abuse, bullying and hate crimes.
It seems that the biggest problem in HIV though is the large percentage of uninformed, mostly straight people who think it could never happen to them. That needs dealing with as much as the almost stereotypical self-hating queer, which sadly isn't just a dramatic device for bad soap operas.
It's probably easier to ask how has it not changed my life; coming out at the tail end of the damage in the mid nineties I missed (partly intentionally) what my partner John experienced - basically that it decimated a whole generation of gay men. There is a massive hole in the age group 40-50s, which is still noticeable, but hearing stories from John about the weekly/monthly funerals I cannot even imagine.
The effect on me was minor yet damaging - the 6 years in the closet where in part due to the warped perception and stigma of AIDS - the idea if I was gay then dying from AIDS was what the future held for me - seems laughable now but during the AIDS panic of late 80s it seemed far more possible and likely.
It's why I have a pathological hatred of gay films and dramas that used HIV as a cliched and cheap throwaway drama gimmick; it just perpetuated the idea that gay = HIV = death. It's why I love Four Weddings and a Funeral - a non typical gay couple and one of them dies of a heart attack. It's like when John was ill everyone assumed it was HIV related til I corrected them. It's that insidously leeched into the mass subconscience that I think it's toxic.
Anyway I eventually came out and had some good people teach me the ways of safe sex, which have mostly held, keeping me *touch wood* safe so far.
The issues of self esteem
gorkabear raised are important; not just with HIV prevention but with suicide and mental health. The mental effect of being made to feel somehow 'other' and bias, phobia and discrimination makes people search for self-worth in the most dangerous of places, or not care, or have a death wish, take drugs or be ill. Not to say everyone who does these activities has a deathwish but there does seem to be real self-image, self-esteem and lack of support issue within the gay community - those years of feeling queer, seperate and unlovable as a teenager or later can cause a lot of damage, as well as abuse, bullying and hate crimes.It seems that the biggest problem in HIV though is the large percentage of uninformed, mostly straight people who think it could never happen to them. That needs dealing with as much as the almost stereotypical self-hating queer, which sadly isn't just a dramatic device for bad soap operas.
