Spark In Darkness

I’m far from a doctor or any kind of health expert, but there’s something I think we can all do with having confirmed now – meningitis is not an STD. This seems to be confusing some people.

Yes, several gay men have caught meningitis in New York. That doesn’t make it an STD. Bacteria that cause Meningitis can be spread through coughing, sneezing etc – amazingly enough, gay men can actually catch diseases doing things other than fucking. Amazingly enough, gay men do actually meet other gay men for reasons other than having sex. We have social spots, networks, sports teams, even games nights – yes the gaymers are out there.

Of course any community that meets together has a chance of spreading an illness that spreads through close proximity. This is one of the reasons why meningitis scares – in the UK at least – tend to arise in sixth forms and colleges and schools. But no-one instantly breaks out the safe sex messages then.

For that matter, no-one decides that a meningitis outbreak in a school in New York is connected to one in Los Angeles either. But through gay men in the mix and it must be connected. What, do all gay men in the US gather for a grand convention or something?

Let’s be clear – whether you are sexually active or not has NOTHING to do with whether you are going to catch the bacteria that cause meningitis. Whether you use Grindr or other hookup sites is irrelevant. You can potentially catch the bacteria that could lead to meningitis by being close to someone else with those bacteria. All those headlines about being careful if you’re “sexually active” or that anonymous sex is causing the disease are outright lying.

And it’s funny how none of the many many cases of straight folks with this disease were labelled as being caused by STDs

 But a gay plague makes headlines doesn’t it? It grabs attention! After all, that meme is already really solid and the right wingers can jump on their usual judgemental horses and everyone can have a fun round of pointing and judging the dirty dirty dirty gay men. Another STD that is burning through gay men is a far better story!

 And you don’t want to cause hysteria? Of course you do! Hysteria gets attention and sales and notice! And you must know it’s going to happen – you’re creating the spectre of a deadly disease spreading among gay men. How do you think we’re going to react?! We’re a community that has been massively, overwhelmingly traumatised by AIDS.

 When I first heard about this I was nervous. Hell I was scared. Because I didn’t know – didn’t know how meningitis was spread, how many caught the disease, how fast it was spreading, whether it could be cured (it can if caught early). I wasn’t even able to find out because I just had a vision of a plague ravaging the community, running rampant among gay men, decimating us. Again. Because I am a gay man and we have been there. Because we’re still there. Because the images of a plague killing us en mass has been indelibly burned into our cultural context.

 And how dare you use that? How dare you exploit that fear, that community wide trauma?

There has recently been a kafuffle in Germany (I think) where a HIV+ woman is facing criminal charges for knowingly sleeping with men without protection.

Now, the reaction has been something along the lines of “ZOMG throw the book at her! No, throw the whole damn library at her!” and I can understand that, I had the same reaction myself

Let us not forget that AIDS is a terminal, chronic disease. Despite the increasing ignorance around the subject, no it cannot be cured. Yes it will be there fore life and yes, it has a significant chance of killing or being a contributing cause to the death of the sufferer. Yes, with modern medication someone with HIV/AIDS can manage it for a considerable length of time and live much longer lives than was previously expected – but it is still not something that can be remotely underestimated or something that can be handled with too much caution.

So, in that light, yes. She (and, indeed, any other HIV+ person who knowingly has sex with someone without protection) has done something reprehensible in the extreme and severely damaged and jeopardised other people’s lives. In these circumstances, she should most certainly have used protection. And, some are arguing, she should have disclosed her HIV+ status.

And now that’s why the merry train of my thoughts hits a great big, thick concrete wall. Because it’s all well and good saying that a HIV+ person should disclose their status, but that’s rather blinkered from the realities of society.

Let’s be frank, despite desperate attempts at education, people with HIV/AIDS are often treated like modern day lepers*. We still have an inordinate amount of people who live in terror of HIV/AIDS and believe silly things like it can be caught off a toilet seat or by sharing cooking utensils etc etc etc. Very few people accept that HIV/AIDS is spread by bodily fluids and that it has a very short lifespan outside the human body.

Someone who publicly admits their HIV/AIDS status is often going to take shit for it. They may be shunned. They may be ostracised. Many friends may drop them. Family may be more hesitant. And sex partners are certainly going to be leery. And I’ll put my hands up on this one, it’s not fair and it’s not right but I know a part of me is going to flinch if I learn a lover is HIV+

Demanding disclosure ignores the shit that HIV+ people take. In our society with the current stigma that exists, I can’t 100% get behind the idea that a HIV+ person has to disclose under any situation, not until that stigma is reduced.

Which brings to the alternative – protection should be used. ye gods it should be used. And a HIV+ person who KNOWS they are HIV+ should most certainly be using protection (and that doesn’t just mean condoms. You can catch HIV+ from oral sex – especially if you swallow). Knowing your status and not using protection? Well, yeah I’m reaching for that library again. I can’t excuse what the original person or any other person in this situation does here. I can make an argument about disclosure, but not using protection is much weaker.

But it brings in a related point. A lot of people, shockingly but unsurprisingly, don’t insist on condoms despite not knowing their partner’s status (and again. their word isn’t enough. And no, that doesn’t make them a liar – a sizeable portion of the people out there living with STDS do not know they have them). This, again, can be awkward for a HIV+ person insisting on protection (though much much less so that disclosure) because it isn’t demanded every time. Worse, some sexual partners pressure, push and bully so they don’t have to use condoms – I know, I’ve been there. I even had one very ex-ex who put a condom on, waited until I wasn’t looking and took the damn thing off. Sometimes someone will, for whatever reasons, comply with what their lover wishes even if it’s against their better instincts (and I‘ve been there as well). It’s not always simple.

I think we need to change our assumptions. We need to approach our sexual partners with the assumption they DO have an STD unless we‘re extremely sure they do not (again, by testing – not because they said so.) If they cannot prove to you they are disease free, then assume they are not. That doesn’t mean run to the hills (nor does it mean run to the hills if you find they AREN’T disease free) it means take precautions. It also means that we should not tolerate those who resist wearing protection

If we’re willing, prepared and just plain SENSIBLE enough to approach our sex lives with this degree of intelligent caution then whether someone is HIV+ or not or whether they have disclosed or not becomes a moot point – and then maybe we can avoid the idea of criminal charges for GBH or manslaughter or murder for HIV+ people who had sex with someone else. But, with all this, I think we also have to see the shades of grey that are all over this, before we reach to our libraries and start throwing those books.

It appears there has been survey regarding sexual habits.
One of the things it has found is that a greater number of straight women who have anal sex bareback than gay men – i.e. most women who have anal sex do not have their partner wear a condom during. Further, it showed that the women who didn’t use condoms were also not getting any kind of regular STD check. Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that young women are less likely to use condoms than older women.

Now, there are many things wrong and many things unsaid about this survey, aside from the problems of self-reporting. There’s the problem that many people in a monogamous relationship won’t feel the need to use condoms – gay, bi and straight – and that’s understandable. There’s the problem that its highlighting anal sex when it is hardly the only sex act that can spread STDs in general and HIV in particular.

However, there is one thing that screams out to me from this survey that makes me furious and has made me rage before – again it is an indication that AIDS = gay disease is still believed, at least on some level, at least to some degree.

Frankly I don’t know whether to be angry about that or deeply sad. Probably both.

I have said before that AIDS is one of the greatest failures of mankind. AIDS is a tribute to mankind’s ignorance, mankind’s prejudice and mankind’s indifference to the vulnerable. AIDS is a pandemic that could easily have been reduced to a fraction of its current levels if the ignorance surrounding it hadn’t been encouraged, if the victims of the disease hadn’t been met with such indifference by the powers that be because it was only some irrelevant minorities who were dying. If the various religious and right wing groups with their toxic agendas hadn’t hijacked the whole damn thing to push forward their anti-sex, anti-contraception, anti-gays spiel.

And the sad thing is that this ignorance is not only continuing, but seems to be growing. People still believe the foolishness that AIDS is a gay disease. In fact, even MORE people believe that now than believed it in 2000. People still believe they are safe because they are not gay. (And it’s ironic that a study highlighting this partially perpetuates that by focusing on anal sex). Even now whenever a survey comes out that says, for example, that infection rates among black women are soaring, they go looking for black men on the down-low. Because there simply HAS TO BE A GAY MAN INVOLVED! Has to has to has to has to. It is a rule.

This needs to be ultimately, unequivocally clear here. It is possible to be straight and catch HIV. It is possible to catch HIV from straight sex. It is possible to catch HIV from vaginal sex. It is even possible to catch HIV from oral sex. It is possible to catch HIV without a single gay man being involved in the process anywhere. Being straight does not make you safe, being straight does not mean you can’t catch it. Only having sex with straight people who themselves only have sex with straight people does not make you immune.

And above all, for gays, bis and straights alike – the condom bloody WORKS people.

This ignorance is literally killing people.