The FBI statistics reveal that hate crimes against our community are on the rise, whereas other types of hate crimes are going down.

But I’m a little suspicious- the homicide numbers seem low. They say only 5 LGBT people were killed last year. But the video from FightOutLoud.org I mentioned back in early March documented 7 deaths in just the first two months of this year: Shanesa Stewart, Adolphus Simmons, Alexio Bello, Patrick (”Patricia”) Murphy, an unidentified transgender woman in Detroit, Lawrence King, and Simmie (”Beyonce”) Williams Jr. How can only 5 have been killed in all of last year when we had 7 die in just two months this year?

I haven’t been tracking the stats very well since then, but just the other day two elderly gay men were bludgeoned to death in their home - Milton Lindgren, age 70, and Eric Hendricks, age 73. I’m sure there are others as well.

I’m guessing the FBI’s standards for calling something a hate crime are a bit too stringent. Looking at who’s been killed so far this year it’s overwhelmingly black, hispanic and/or transgendered people getting killed. It makes you wonder if those killings are getting handled properly and correctly labeled as hate crimes.

Also, given how the campaigns have gone, it’s pretty clear which presidential candidate will be more likely to A) have the FBI report the data correctly, and B) take meaningful steps to reduce the violence against our community.

The gist of the study is that repeated exposure to other strains of HIV maintains a strong anti-HIV immune response in the bodies of guys who are already poz. While super-infection is theoretically possible, it’s extremely rare. What’s more normal is for the poz bottom to actually benefit from the poz cum he’s getting in his ass…

We found that individuals, who regularly engaged in unprotected receptive sexual intercourse with an HIV-1 infected viremic partner, displayed higher T cell responses to HIV proteins compared to those who were not regularly exposed to a viremic partner. None of the individuals within this study showed evidence of systemic super-infection. Exposure had limited impact on general activation or poly-functionality. These results are clearly of importance for HIV-1 infected individuals who chose to engage in unprotected sexual activity with other HIV-1 infected individuals. These data also reveal a more general mechanism that occurs in infectious diseases: immune responses to chronic viruses are influenced not only by the virus within the host, but also by exposure to the virus from without.

So from an HIV perspective, poz guys apparently will stay healthier if they take loads up their ass from other poz guys, at least on average. Of course you also have to factor in the negative effect of the other STDs you’re likely to get - it’s not 100% beneficial.

Read the study

Personally, I don’t get it. I can see criminalizing lying about your HIV status, but I don’t get how it’s the poz guy’s responsibility to tell if the neg guy doesn’t ask especially in anonymous situations. What happened to the concept of personal responsibility? NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR HEALTH EXCEPT YOU!

He’s living with his father, so if he’s really lucky his dad is cool with him having guys over. Once his probation is up I’d suggest he come to some place like New York where disclosure isn’t mandatory.

I mean, a guy who’s that hot should have all the sex he wants…  I know I’d fuck him 

ADDITION:

One thing I want to add here… If he’s on meds and has an undetectable viral load. He’s safer to have sex with than a “neg” versatile guy who’s running around barebacking and not getting tested regularly.

The laws were written in an era where poz guys were pretty infectious pretty much all the time. That’s not the case any more and I’d love to see one of these laws challenged on the basis of the person in question had an undetectable viral load.

To say that all poz guys have to disclose all the time and not require neg guys who haven’t been tested in say the last three months to disclose that their status is actually “unknown” simply makes no sense. The current policy is a lot like a scarlet letter.

Now compare that to this…

There’s so much I could say about that clip, but the point is many of us grew up around people like that (in my case they managed to state their bigotry a bit more tactfully, but the bottom line was about the same). It’s vital that young gay teens see that when they get the opportunity to get out from under those circumstances there’s a life waiting for them that’s worth living.

Here’s a clip with Matthew Shepard’s mom. Please be as vocal as this wonderful straight woman in protecting our rights.

And if you still don’t understand why it’s important to vote for Democrats this year - issues like this are where you see the clearest difference between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans are the ones who consistently vote against hate crime legislation for the LGBT community despite the fact they themselves are protected by hate crime legislation (for religion-oriented hate crimes). On the other hand Democrats consistently vote for hate crime legislation. Yes, there are good Republicans, and I’ve voted for them, but don’t think that just because both haven’t quite figured out that “separate but equal” is a bad idea in terms of gay marriage and civil unions, doesn’t mean there isn’t a very real difference between the parties in matter that can affect you personally.

And just a reminder it’s still going on 10 years later even in urban areas…

Things are close now and from what I can tell there are plenty of white people in the US who just won’t vote for a black guy as President. Hell, if we have gay guys who can’t understand why Obama is a better choice than McCain, Obama is shit out of luck.

Palin compensates for a lot of McCain’s shortcomings - she’s young, female, and vibrant. All those feminists that wanted a woman in the White House just might vote Republican. Who knew feminists would vote Republican?

To me this is just all really sad. I don’t get why people don’t understand that McCain is just 8 more years like Bush…

Oh well, at least I live in a wonderful liberal bubble called NYC, where even many of the Republicans are liberal (if you can find them).

UPDATE: So after a few days now it looks like Palin would be even less qualified than G.W. Bush to run the country should something happen to McCain (which is completely possible given his age). Apparently she left the little town she was mayor of in financial ruin and her being on the PTA is still consisdered relevant experience by the Republicans.The question will be who is more qualified - Palin or Quale?

So, any thinking person would never elect her to the #2 spot in the free world, but then again after the last two elections where Bush’s incompetance was so obvious, I don’t see the US electorate made up of thinking people anymore… So, all I can say is, if McCain/Palin win, the US derves every minute of misery they’re sure to heap on them - lost jobs, soliders dying in pointless wars, human rights restrictions, etc.

Ten New York Republican Senators have introduced legislation to the State Senate that will ban homophobic bullying in schools. The ‘Safe Schools for All Children Bill’ calls for training to help teachers identify and respond to bullying and places the responsibility of keeping tack on bullying cases with schools. The bill also includes protection for transgender students and teachers and a cyber-bullying stipulation.

In other words, even Republicans in New York understand that you need to protect gay kids. That’s so far ahead of so many places in the US - usually you just find that stuff in New York City, not new York State as a whole. Kudos to the NYS Senate!

I didn’t grow up here, but I’m still proud to call myself a New Yorker - it truly is a great state!

Get this - the owner of Manhunt has given the legal maximum to the McCain campaign. If in the past we boycotted companies like Coors for working against gay rights, I think we need to hold members of our own community to an even higher standard - especially ones that make their money by facilitating gay sex!

So here’s what I’d like you to do… Use the customer service link on Manhunt to tell them what you think of their owner’s politics. They’re making $30 million a year off of us having sex, they should not be working against us.

Next, make it so your membership does not automatically renew - change it so you have to manually renew. If they haven’t fixed the problem by the time your membership renewal date rolls around, don’t pay them more until they’ve reversed their policies (a big contribution to the Democrats would be nice.)

And lastly, put something in your profile telling other people to write customer service as well. Let’s make it clear that if they want our money they cannot support people who don’t like gay people.

Yes, they have every right to be self-hating jerks, but not with our money. Use Adam4Adam instead (it’s free), or better yet BarebackRT - anything but Manhunt. Do not give your money to someone who is going to give even a cent of it to the Republicans and set our rights back even further!

UPDATE:

Just to make things perfectly clear… Here is where McCain stands on gay rights vs say abortion rights (which we know Republicans hate) in terms of whether he’d consider a running mate who was pro-choice or pro-gay…

I think it’s a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far more so than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, you know, a number of other issues.

So there you have it - being pro-gay is an anathema to the guy - pro-life he can live with (surprisingly), but not pro-gay - god forbid! Which explains why it’s unforgivable for the owner of Manhunt to give him money (in case there was any question).

UPDATE #2:

Well, there’s been a big development… The guy who donated to McCain (Jonathan Crutchley) has stepped down from Manhunt’s board of directors. The problem is that he’s probably still the main recipient of Manhunt’s profits. To me, that’s a good first step, but it’s not over yet… I want to know when I give them money that none of it will get to Republicans.

A massive donation by Jonathan Crutchley to a very liberal gay cause would go a long way right now…

UPDATE #3:

I had this whole blog post written which I’m not going to publish. The bottom line is Manhunt is a bit of a divided company. It appears the a majority shareholder (Larry Basile) is pretty liberal, but his co-founder (Jonathan Crutchley) is a Log Cabin Republican who gives to conservative causes. While Crutchley has stepped down he will continue to get a huge share of Manhunt’s profits and will continue to give to causes most of us abhor.

Manhunt (the company) is hiding behind the excuse that the company didn’t give the money, an individual did, but for me the bottom line is that money from customers is going to people and causes most of their customers have huge problems with. Yes, Crutchley has the right to give the money, but he shouldn’t expect his customers to want to give him more money to give to conservative causes.

The company is also being completely rude to their customers who object. If you put anything about it in your profile (like “I won’t fuck Republicans who give money to McCain”) they remove it and send a pissy message saying Manhunt is not a political forum. To me that’s bullshit. If their profits can go to conservative political causes, then they should at least allow funny polticial commentary in profiles. And for god’s sake - APOLOGIZE! The letter they send is so fucking harsh and never once acknowleges that people have a completely understandable reason for being mad at them.

Basically, given how they’ve handled the situation they’re saying what Crutchley did is reasonable. I have a big problem with that. They need to be on their knees apologizing for his actions and separating themselves from him. They really need to buy him out, bu I understand that takes time.

Here’s what I urge all of you to do…

• Stop giving Manhunt money
• Try out other hookup sites like BarebackRT and Adam4Adam
  
• When you have to ask other Manhunt members to e-mail you pics, explain why you don’t have a paid membership.

IMHO, I don’t think a formal boycott of Manhunt will work. The issue is too complicated since there are liberals at Manhunt, and people feel sorry for the employees of Manhunt. As far as the employees I’m not too worried about them as a group - the jobs Manhunt will lose, some other hookup site will gain.

But don’t take this lying down… Please send a clear message that Jonathan Crutchley is a liability for Manhunt and the sooner they buy him out, the better…

“It was stunning to see how quickly the immune system was affected,” said Haynes, who is the lead author on the study.

To deal with the shrinking window, clinicians can check for the presence of HIV more often, but the potential for catching cases early enough for intervention looks bleak. The earliest and most infectious stage of HIV has vague and practically unnoticable symptoms.

“It looks like HIV does a lot of damage very early on,” Haynes said. “Now we feel that the opportunity to intervene most effectively may range from about five to seven days after infection.”

Doctors are going to have to start screening patients for the HIV virus even if they come in with what seems like a headache or a common cold, Leone said.

Why they say 5 to 7 days when the window for effective PEP has been 72 hours for a while now, I don’t know…

The upside is that good HIV tests should be able to detect infection much more quickly. Which means you don’t have to wait 3 months to be sure you’re neg. It also means that if your doctor does a blood draw and tells you to come back in two weeks - by then it’s too late to do anything about it. That may be fine for routine checks, but it’s not OK when you think you just got infected.

Have you ever wondered why black guys have such high rates of HIV infection? I mean look at this HIV infection graph the CDC released last month…

Black guys are off the charts. Yet it’s not like black guys are all that much sluttier or anything. Or why is AIDS such a problem in Africa? Once again people may start to wonder about black sexuality, but it turns out it’s not that at all…

A new report out today says the real reason is that 90% of black Africans and 60% of African-Americans have a genetic trait that makes them 40% more likely to become HIV positive than people without the genetic trait. The trait was actually a response in their evolution that made them resistant to a certain form of malaria, but now makes them more likely to become poz.

It’s a bit of a cruel fate really. Not only does Africa have long standing development issues, but now we find they’re basically cursed when it comes to HIV and AIDS. On the other hand, the ancestors of northern European whites, who have so many advantages already - their ancestors who survived Smallpox gave 1% of them the ability to be completely immune to HIV and 10% of them the ability to be “resistant” to HIV. It’s like the people with all the advantages just get more advantages, while the people with all the problems, just get more problems…

So if you’re black this is just one of those things you’re going to have to deal with. Black guys who want to stay negative have to be extra careful.

But the really sad thing is how AIDS will just continue to decimate Africa… Those of us who live in the West are so incredibly lucky - we have the wealth to pay for drug cocktails that take make a manageable situation out of a health crisis. Now imagine the equivalent of the gay community in terms of likelihood to become poz, only no money to pay for the meds - and no chance of being able to afford the meds. Always urge politicians to give funding for HIV/AIDS in Africa - it’s the least we can do as rich Westerners…

The one bit of good news today was that HIV positive people can now enter the US as visitors and as immigrants! This means there’s no fear you’ll be asked to leave the US if you become poz…

There are a number of things that are striking about the report…

First is the obvious trend with young black guys 13-24 shown in the graph above. That graph is of actual diagnoses, so think about what it means for that many black “kids” to be getting infected. Blacks are approximately 12% of the population nationwide, but they were 56% of the guys getting infected with HIV between 2001 and 2006 - in 2006 that went up to 59%. To be fair the 12% is the national average and the infection data is for 33 states, but still… Every year the rate of infection for young black guys goes up about 15%.

Next is the trend that’s sort of gets lost in the graph - and that is the rate of increase for young Asian guys 13-24 - it’s going up about 31% a year. Because of small sample size with Asians the number could actually be anywhere from 12% to 53% (95% confidence) - but that’s a huge shift… It used to be that Asian guys were always pretty conservative sexually, but that’s changing quickly and young Asian guys are having more and more risky sex.

Other trends in the full report were that the rate of infection is actually going down for some groups - It’s going down about 4% a year for guys in New York and New Jersey. It’s going down about 1% a year for guys ages 25-44 but that group comprises 64% of the new HIV infections. And the geographic regions with the highest rates of increase are the West and Midwest - about 7% a year increase…

So all in all there’s nothing really surprising in this report. Infection rates are down for older guys and up for younger guys, which we’ve seen reported before.

And the explanation is pretty simple. Young guys don’t have a memory of what it was like back when HIV was a death sentence. Their actions reflect what they see - that AIDS deaths are at an all-time low.

The other thing to remember is that the report can be affected by local pushes to increase HIV testing. For example I expect to see a spike in rates for Blacks and Hispanics because NYC is doing a big push to get everyone living in the Bronx tested for HIV (that one Borough accounts for 1/3rd of the AIDS deaths in the NYC even though it’s just 19% of the population).

However local pushes only have so much influence on the numbers. We’re still seeing a remarkable increase in infections among young Blacks and Asians. Even for young Hispanics who have the lowest increase for people in their age cohort - it’s still going up 8% a year.

Now compare that to the fact that young guys are more likely to use condoms (at least in NYC). That’s one statistic I think will be changing as more and more of them are apparently learning to enjoy barebacking…

Hi rawTOP

Your site is on my favourites list.

I tried but couldn’t figure out how to post a comment on “Researchers mean well, but…” and thought you might find this article on AIDSMAP helps answer your questions.

[The article basically says in Quebec they've found that 49% of new HIV cases were the result of people who were recently infected, 15% were the result of established HIV cases in people who were untreated, and 12% were the result of established HIV cases in people who had/were undergoing treatment, with the remaining 24% unclassified.]

I work for a Manchester, England HIV support charity and two weeks ago attended an expert HIV prevention seminar in London, organised by the National AIDS Trust. They will soon produce a paper outlining our findings. We had expert epidemiologists, virologists, clinicians and in prevention, put together a jigsaw of research findings from the UK and rest of the developed world, for us to discuss and then develop the outline of a new strategy for England.

70% of people who become infected show the 3 main symptoms of early (primary/acute) HIV infection - and for half of these the symptoms are bad enough for tough [sic] normally healthy gay men to seek medical advice, but unless you attend a sexual health clinic it is most unlikely that the doctor will recognise this for what it suggests. If these early infections were instead diagnosed at this early stage, we know from other research that there is then a 50% reduction in unprotected anal sex, and this is much higher in relationships where HIV status is known to be different. People with primary infection are, by a very wide margin, at the most infectious they will ever be. People with primary infection are the source of most of the new infections. By contrast, people monitored on treatment with a viral load that has been undetectable for 3 months or more, and no STIs, are only borderline infectious and only account for about 17% of all transmissions.

The thinking is to radically increase the proportion of people diagnosed in primary infection - by making gay men more aware of the 3 main symptoms of primary infection and the need to do something about it (like you and the young guy in your entry “How HIV teens become positive”), by better diagnosis by clinicians , and by the use of the new 4th generation HIV tests which can pick up primary infection at about 3 weeks. Persuading and supporting people diagnosed to then avoid onward transmission when they are at their most infectious has the potential to make a radical reduction in the numbers of new infections. In the UK people with primary infection can join a early treatment trial on our free National Health Service and this would also reduce infectivity within a few months.

In England we have excellent local and national HIV data and know where all the HIV hotspots are - London, Manchester, Brighton (a South coast city 50 miles from London), and Blackpool (on NW coast near Manchester). The great majority of new infections that occur here are among gay men and in these centres. We also have a national annual gay men’s sex survey so we know a great deal about risk-taking behaviours, awareness and attitudes and how these are changing. http://www.sigmaresearch.org.uk/

Everything the researchers ask for in this article you quote is now known in England and we are already on the case.

Switzerland is going for broke with a radical primary infection campaign - this asks all gay men to only have protected sex for the current 3 months, then all who are undiagnosed to get tested. This would make a radical difference because the temporarily universal safer sex would almost stop ongoing transmissions including primary infections. The testing would help further reduce ongoing transmissions after this, because a positive test result helps change risk behaviour. It will be easy to spot if it works - we will see a big rise in new Swiss diagnoses this year and then in future years a much lower level of new infections and diagnoses. The political/social culture in Switzerland is very different from the UK / USA; like some other small European countries, it has a culture of much greater mutual social obligations and expectations. Any reduction in risk behaviour arising from the campaign will help, even if only a small proportion of gay men take part. We would benefit from something radical here and in the USA, but it will need to suit our more individualist social climates. But we can expect a great deal without this, just by refining what we already do.

One of the things we also need to do in England is to make a big cut in the number of people who are undiagnosed - currently around 30%. Many gay men attend STI clinics but refuse HIV tests here. Half the gay men with undiagnosed HIV in Brighton leave the STI clinic still undiagnosed. Simply getting the gay men who have an other STI to have HIV test would make a difference, because other STIs make HIV transmission much more likely in both directions, and because men with STIs are clearly already taking significant risks.

You are right that stigmatising notices in bars will not cut the mustard. However contact tracing of partners of people who are diagnosed makes sense. This is already done confidentially and routinely here. If we now prioritise the contact tracing of partners of those in primary infection, that would make a big contribution. Research into the mini-bursts in Brighton shows half the men with primary infection were part of these bursts (we call them infection networks) and half of these passed on HIV to 2-4 others, and the other half passed on HIV within about their first year of infection to between 5 and 18 others.

Maybe you might post a few links under your General heading to accurate HIV information sites so guys interested in the things you write about HIV can follow them up?

Here’s an item from Manchester, England, about a successful primary infection initiative in the USA. We are always interested in news and views from around the world which help make a difference. http://www.ght.org.uk/news_and_views_news_article/1651

cheers
skinscribechris

So… The weak spot I see in his plan is how to increase HIV testing. If guys are going into STD clinics, where they’re offered HIV tests, and they refuse them, then how do you get them to change their mind? Obviously you can try to get guys who don’t go for testing of any sort to go in and some of them will get HIV tests. And you can get primary care doctors to do more testing (we’ve had ones who do HIV tests without asking first, not realizing they’re breaking the law by doing so - or they just casually mention they’re going to do one and don’t actually ask if it’s OK)…

But honestly, if guys are refusing HIV tests when they’re offered, that’s not going to change - and those are probably the guys who are in “infection networks”. At least some of those “infection networks” are by design - even if it’s subconscious and outwardly they just tell themselves they don’t care and don’t want to think about it, there are guys who want to get infected and others who want to pass on their HIV. I mean there are whole web sites that are devoted to bug chasing and gift giving…

Still I wish them luck (since they don’t seem to be advocating fascist methods to achieve their goals) and it’s obvious they’re thinking about things as realistically as they can. But it’s a difficult task, to say the least… These days the cards are stacked against them. My one suggestion is to get members of the bareback community onto their community advisory boards… They need a reality check for some of their assumptions…

So why do guys refuse a test?

In England, tests at STI clinics are currently offered on an opt-in basis and sometimes not enough is done to advocate the advantages of testing. However when testing is offered instead on an opt-out basis and normalised, testing rates shoot up. For example, when pregnant women were offered the test, midwives tended to make assumptions around risk depending on the woman in front of them. Rates of accepting tests were low, in one health district locally the average was only about 40%. The national Department of Health was faced with significant numbers of babies born with HIV, so it set a national target to raise this antenatal testing rate because of the risks of onward transmission to the baby, resulting in testing rates in that area exceeding 90%. That helps ensure a lot of babies don’t get HIV. When we studied the test acceptance rates achieved by different ante-natal clinics and for individual staff, there was a huge variation. Some retraining was needed to help the midwives overcome their reluctance to strongly advocate for testing, and this is an easier sell (compared with gay men) when the health risks to the unborn baby are pointed out and what can be done to minimise transmission to the baby. With testing and appropriate care and treatment for mother and baby, the transmission risk is now down to only about 1%.

The proposal is now to normalise testing at STI clinics, so the nurse would say we’ll test for all the STIs and list them and ask is that OK? People will continue to have the right to say no to any particular test, but the message will be that this is what we normally do in an STI clinic, that’s what we are here for, and to strongly encourage all to agree for these reasons….. . At the moment the script tends to be we’ll test you for x, y, z and would you like a HIV test too?

Another problem here has been a gross lack of capacity at STI clinics for testing because STI clinics are a cinderella health service. People a couple of years ago could wait 6-8 weeks for an appointment. Capacity is now very much better and still growing. There is a national target for access within 48 hours of asking and this is near being reached. The lack of capacity has inhibited major testing campaigns - these tend to attract the worried well in large numbers.

Clearly some guys will still refuse, and that is their choice. There are some men in sex / party networks who will say no, at least for the time being. Once people get ill with symptomatic infection, almost no-one refuses when their life and well-being is at significant and immediate risk.

The bug chasing and gift giving websites and networks contain a heady mix of fantasy and reality. Investigation here a few years back showed that they were largely fantasy. Some guys get off on the ideas, and raw sex is really appealing - as I know myself because I am old enough to have had a condomless sex life before HIV appeared, and the reappearance of a great deal of bareback porn shows very well.

When investigators attempted hook ups they were almost always unsuccessful. Maybe they were not reaching the right men and there are strong reasons (including prosecution) why most gay men will not ‘fess up to investigators - courts here can and do order the release of clinic / researchers’ data about men, when the police have to investigate after someone complains of having been recklessly or deliberately infected. Investigators and researchers are now unable to do this type of work because they can’t get ethical approval due to the risk their research data will be used against the men they interview.

UK culture rules out compulsion because of the high value our health service puts on personal autonomy - your right to decide exactly what to do with your own body. People can’t be forced to test or have treatment. But the culture is shifting - there are high profile campaigns about smoking with a ban on smoking in public buildings and workplaces like bars and clubs, around obesity and eating healthily, and about safe drinking because of our international reputation for drunkenness. But there is a world of difference between strong campaigns and compulsion.

Thanks for your suggestion about asking barebackers to help advise and guide us. Not easy with the risks to the men of their details being passed to the police after a court warrant, but we’ll try to find another way that won’t land gay men in legal shit. Many of these profile and and hook up websites want nothing to do with any attempts from HIV awareness and prevention services to reach the men using them, and the commercial ones usually want paying and the community HIV sector doesn’t have much money to pay advertising rates pitched at highly profitable porn providers.

Opt-out vs. opt-in… Hmmm… I can definitely see where that can be a help in the straight community where people may not realize they’re at risk, It will be interesting to see what effect it has in the gay community. Gay men know they should get tested. It’s not like ignorance is a big factor like it might be in the straight community. So going from opt-in to opt-out is just applying social pressure to not say ‘no’ to what the doctor wants. I’m wondering if anyone has really examined who the half of guys are who have HIV who leave without getting tested? Are they scared they’ll be poz? Do they think they’re in a monogamous relationship? It will be interesting to see what the effect is. I doubt it will be nearly as dramatic as it is with pregnant women and babies…

The lack of capacity at health clinics is just wrong. In NYC you can get completely anonymous testing the same day if you’re willing to show up early and a wait a few hours. And even at places like Callen-Lorde, where I usually go, you can often get an appointment the same day or the next day. In another post I said the US health care system isn’t all that bad (if you have insurance) and stuff like this just proves my point. Socialized medicine is supposed to be good at preventative care, but in this case it’s clearly not as good as it should be.

I’m not understanding the difficulty of having barebackers on community advisory boards. Perhaps you don’t have CABs in England like we do here in the States. I was on one for Project Achieve which is one of the HIV vaccine trial centers here in New York. Essentially I was put on a board which met with the senior research staff once a month. We made a commitment to serve for at least one year. The research staff would pass ideas by us that they had been thinking about the previous month and basically Project Achieve didn’t do anything without CAB approval. We were brought up to speed on absolutely everything they were doing (of any significance).

In the case of HIV prevention policy, you’d have a CAB and bounce ideas off them.We’re not talking about a research study where you confidentially get people to tell you what they’ve done, or a form of “outreach” to change people’s behaviors, but rather a policy committee that approves what you’re planning to do in their community. It’s important that you not take any action without their approval - otherwise they’ll think it’s a waste of time. You’ll want a mix of people on the committee - everything from barebackers to condom nazis to people who are indifferent, neg guys, poz guys, young guys and old… It’s your responsibility to make sure no one group dominates the committee and alienates the others. I can’t see that anyone could get in legal trouble for what they say in a policy committee, but if that’s really a concern just don’t record the names of who said what in your minutes of the meeting.

The benefit of having a CAB is that you get to bounce ideas off “average” people - see if they think what you’re planning makes sense, or if they have ideas and points of view you hadn’t thought about…

As far as the bug chasing web sites… Were your researchers pretending to be tops or bottoms? I’m guessing they’d have more luck as tops… But either way - watching the sites (one in particular) I’ve seen a shift over the last year or two. There are more stories that don’t feel like fiction, and more guys participating… Sure, there’s still a heavy dose of fantasy, but fantasy eventually turns into reality for many guys. You start reading stories and jacking off and end up not asking for a condom or even asking the guy to pull out when you know he’s poz…

But a lot of the young guys aren’t so much bug chasers as they’re addicted to cum and getting loads. They actually don’t want to think about getting pozzed, but still know it will happen eventually. I’d guess you’ll find a hundred of those for every one full-on bug chaser.

“What we have discovered is that some of the spread [of HIV] occurred in bursts, with groups of people becoming infected within a short period of time.”

“The tightness of clusters that we have found is frightening.”

…many men who became infected with the virus passed it on within a few months, often before they themselves had been diagnosed as HIV positive.

…the study findings indicated that the safe sex message was “not getting through”

“If we can find out how and where these clusters are occurring then we could target the appropriate groups.”

“It is important that information on the virus is available to gay men in the local areas where they are known to meet, to try to arrest the spread of HIV and AIDS.”

…bars and nightclubs could be targeted, as could the Internet.

While these researchers mean well, the flaw in what they’re saying is that if the guys don’t know they’re infected when they’re spreading it, then you can’t catch much of the mini-burst as it’s happening. You can only really spot a mini-burst after the damage is done. And as they pointed out, general safe sex messages are not effective.

It’s hard to say what will work. Perhaps compiling a list of sexual partners when someone is diagnosed and then as confidentially as possible contact those partners. I’ve heard of it being done, and it’s a bit dicey to do without stepping over the line, but it could be worth a shot.

But I can’t see putting up a sign at a bar saying “someone who recently tested poz spent a bunch of time in the backroom at this bar”. That’s going to lead to the department of health wanting to close the place down. Don’t like that option at all… People know the risks when they get fucked in the backroom of a bar or sex club…

I don’t know how large these “mini bursts” are. But I could see signs going up saying “An unusually large number of guys tested poz last month in this neighborhood. Please be extra careful…”

I don’t have a degree in public health, so can’t say what’s best. But I can say the researchers, while they seem to mean well, have some relatively naive recommendations…

First, take a look at the following graph…

What’s clear is that something changed for gay men in 1999. That was the last year there was a downward trend in HIV infections. The next year infections were up and they’ve gone up steadily ever since…

I think it’s noteworthy to mention that Treasure Island’s “What I Can’t See” came out in 1999. I view that video as being truly ground breaking - it’s a video every barebacker should own - if for no other reason its historical value (BTW if you want the video Tipo Sesso, who I’ve linked to, is having a sale this weekend - use promo code SPD08 and you get an additional 20% off).

Think about what porn was like in 1999. Condoms, condoms everywhere… And then there was “What I Can’t See” with a blindfolded, “take all loads” bottom getting gangbanged - guy after guy just stepped up, fucked him and came in his ass without him ever seeing their face.

It put on screen what a lot of us had been craving and we totally got off on it. That video redefined what was what we wanted - even if we only fantasized about it at first… Tops wanted a bottom like that with a cum-filled hole to take their loads without question. Bottoms started fantasizing about getting gangbanged and taking anonymous loads.

I’m not saying that video or Treasure Island caused the increase in HIV infections… Back in 1997, two years before “What I Can’t See”, I would go to West Side Club, a bathhouse here in New York. I could always find at least two or three bottoms who were taking loads. I even chatted with a fan the other day - he was one of those bottoms and most likely got himself pozzed at West Side Club in 1996. (For all I know he was one of the bottoms I fucked…)

Remember also that protease inhibitors came out in 1996. By 1999 their effects were clear - HIV/AIDS just wasn’t the same as it had been.

It’s hard to prove that bareback porn is responsible for HIV infections. But the tide turned in 1999. It was the year people generally started seeing HIV in a different light and “What I Can’t See” reinforced what they were already thinking, and by the next year HIV infections among gay men were on the rise and Treasure Island was on its way to being the bareback power house it is today.

There’s another trend in the report that stood out really clearly…

That graph is actually pretty amazing… All of the groups are seeing an increase, but it looks like young black guys are the ones losing their inhibitions the fastest, taking loads, and getting pozzed. From what I’ve seen I would have expected it to be Latinos, but they’re nowhere close to their African-American counterparts… I don’t see all that many black bottoms advertising for loads - there must be something going on in other parts of the country… Then again there are a lot of bareback sex parties for “in shape” black and latin guys…

Again, I wish the data went beyond 2005… But I think the take away is that barebacking, bareback porn, and HIV infections are something that’s not going away… Especially with the trends among the young guys… It’s clear these young kids love getting their asses filled with cum. They’ve caught the bareback bug (pun intended) and those desires are not going to go away…

This is a huge issue. With a LGBT person getting killed every 8 days, it just has to get more attention.

As they say in NYC - “If you see something, say something…”

We need a lot more people saying stuff like that…

While Ellen doesn’t think of herself as political, her comments were most definitely political. Her statement is exactly what I mean when I say to be political…

Well, part of that was answered this week when a report came out saying 40% of people in the Canadian province of British Columbia who died of AIDS-related illness between 1997 and 2005 were not on antiretroviral treatment. That says a lot about the Canadian system where your doctors are free but you pay for your meds…

Next time you say you want the Canadian health system for the U.S., think again. It’s not as good as you think. It’s sort of a toss up as to which one is better - the US system or the Canadian system. In the US if you have comprehensive health insurance chances are you’re better off than you’d be in Canada. But the poor are generally better off in Canada - except now we see there’s big problems there too…

But I’m not just trying to slam Canadian health care - since the people who are dying are often poor and…

problems of mental illness, homelessness, drug addiction and food security have to be tackled first because those infected may not be pursuing treatment of a long-term illness while they’re faced with more immediate concerns.

In other words it’s questionable whether the outcome would have been different if the health care had been better.

So, who’s actually dying of AIDS these days? Looks like the poor are group #1…

This has a big bearing on news out of China this week that the number of reported cases of HIV/AIDS went up a whopping 45% last year. That’s a country that doesn’t have big money for drugs so that’s really not good news. However, “reported” is the important word in that announcement since the finding may be due to increased testing. Still, if they’re not getting tested, they’re not getting treated, and we’re back to the Canadian scenario…

I’m curious… When was the last time you knew someone with good health insurance and a generally healthy lifestyle die of AIDS? The fact that I’m even asking that question explains a lot of why so many young guys just don’t care what their HIV status is… Can you blame them?

For starters he addressed the issue of anal sex saying (start at 9:30 in the video, in the link above)…

There are no data… of course one can logically assume that it [the results of studies on anal sex] will be similar…

Again, he’s not saying definitely zero risk, but he is saying the risk is probably greatly reduced - possibly no risk at all…

He also addressed the issue of why there was no data on anal sex and said it hadn’t been studied because the subject is “taboo”. And then he went further by saying political and community leaders think…

…you recommend a condom for everyone and everything and if anything happens it’s their fault…

Guys, you wonder why I say sex is political? He just summed it up perfectly. The politicians who fund the research that could result in more realistic, more believable, and more widely adopted safe sex guidelines (that would include how to have “safe bareback sex”) just don’t give a shit about us. Why? Because they think the kind of sex we have is “taboo”/”kinky”/whatever… They’d rather not tell us anything and let us go blindly on in ignorance - harming our community in the process. It’s not a problem for them, ’cause they’re not part of our community.

Watch the video - there’s other good stuff in it as well…

And please be political…

Today Lawrence King, a femmy 15 y.o. high school student, was shot and killed in his first period English class. The reason? Because he was a nelly queen who wore jewelry and make up. This was after being teased and taunted by classmates for a while. And this wasn’t in some hic town in the middle of nowhere - it was in Oxnard, CA - outside Los Angeles.

Femmy teens are in a really difficult position. Those of us who are “straight acting” can just play along and avoid problems, but fems don’t have that option. They are who they are and they shouldn’t be shot dead just because they are true to themselves.

This just drives home how hate crime legislation is important. Curiously, if you shot one of the people who doesn’t want gay men and lesbians to have “special protection” under hate crime legislation - you could be charged with a hate crime since they’re protected (for their religion) - they just don’t think we’re special enough to have the same protection they enjoy themselves.

Of course cases like this are typical in that most gay bashing is done by teens who haven’t yet become secure in their own sexuality. It may seem harsh to put a teen in prison for an extended period because they were motivated by their own insecurities, but that’s something for the juvenile justice system to deal with on a case-by-case basis. The point is we need to make a clear statement that violence against gay men, lesbians and the transgendered (and a few straight people who appear to be gay) will not be tolerated.

Also remember - intolerance of intolerance isn’t bad like other forms of intolerance. For all you math geeks - it’s a double negative and hence completely different. In fact you can’t aim for a tolerant society with out being intolerant of intolerance…

School administrators also needs to be held accountable for this. How in the hell did a gun get into the classroom and why didn’t they deal with the situation when it was just taunting and teasing? They aren’t just there to teach the kids reading, writing and arithmetic - they’re there to socialize them and teach them how to be civil human beings. A kid died in English class for god’s sake - I hope someone is held accountable in addition to the mixed up kid that pulled the trigger.

One of the lessons I learned in grad school from a wonderful radical lesbian feminist professor was that radical change rarely ever comes from the big things people remember - it comes from a whole bunch of little things and sorta sneaks up on you. You realize radical change has happened by looking back and thinking “gee, that couldn’t have happened 20 years ago” (e.g. electing a black man or a woman as President). So, be political in your every day lives - tell your friends about the discrimination and injustice we continue to face, and do the little things like always showing up to vote for the candidate with the best stance on gay rights. When enough people change the hearts of the people around them, and when we have political leaders who “get it”, the big stuff will follow.

OK, not exactly, but… This one is big, so pay attention…

[See the update at the end of this post...]

The Swiss Federal Commission for HIV / AIDS has put out their first ever consensus statement saying they all agree that HIV-positive individuals on effective antiretroviral therapy and without sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are sexually non-infectious.

That’s right - you can’t get HIV from a poz guy if all of the following are true:

• the person adheres to antiretroviral therapy, the effects of which must be evaluated regularly by the treating physician
• the viral load has been suppressed (<>
• there are no other sexually transmitted infections

That’s huge… They’re comparing this pronouncement to the statement many years ago that you can’t get HIV by kissing someone. It’s impossible to prove it for certain, but they’re unable to find any evidence that it’s wrong.

This has a lot of implications. In yesterday’s post I was saying that I didn’t think barebacking with poz bottoms was all that much more risky than barebacking with neg bottoms since the neg bottoms could have just converted and be highly infectious - looks like I was right on target - at least for guys who have been poz for a while and are on meds.

It also has implications for serodiscordant (poz/neg) relationships… Those couples can now breathe a sigh of relief - and even “safely” bareback each other. They just have to keep on top of those viral loads and avoid STDs for both partners.

But curiously it puts the burden for protecting the community onto the poz guys. I worry a little bit that there will be a pressure for poz guys to take meds earlier and earlier to get viral loads down to absolute zero and stay there. I’m not sure that’s completely fair, but the flip side is that I expect this will have poz guys feeling a bit better about the social implications of being poz.

And I’m guessing you’ll start seeing “undetectable for X months” in profiles to signal to neg guys that the poz guy is “safe”. In a way, this almost makes the poz guy safer than some neg guys to have sex with since the risk is more controlled and predictable. Wouldn’t it be weird if neg guys started preferring poz guys ’cause it was safer than it is with neg guys…

This does change the whole landscape of “safe sex”. Any guesses how long it will take the “condom nazis” to pick up on this news?

UPDATE:

The news is now out a day later that the Swiss researchers only looked at studies with heterosexuals in drawing their conclusions. So presumably most of the sex behind the studies was vaghttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifinal sex, not anal. [What were they thinking?]

So what does this mean for us gay guys giving and getting cum up the ass? I think the straight studies are parallels. In other words, if you can say conclusively that straight bareback sex with a poz partner is “safe” then you can say that gay sex with a poz partner is “relatively low risk”. In other words what they’ve shown is that the viral load of the poz partner makes a difference. That’s not going to change for gay guys, but it may not reduce the risk down to, or close to, zero in our case.

For me, it’s about relative risk and I still feel comfortable in hooking up with poz guys with undetectable viral loads. It may not be zero risk, but it’s relatively low risk and consistent. You’ll each need to make your own decisions. Hopefully they’ll look at the data for anal sex and give us a statement on that as well…

UPDATE 2: Please see my post on the video one of the authors of the statement gave…