i was perusing hiv sites last nite and i came across yet another city's site that has borrowed some of the incredible work from the seattle king county health department. their ground-breaking harm reduction focused advocacy has been echoed from coast to coast and i find myself with my jaw dropped. as i perused this document on a san diego site, this song also played in the background and the idea of "i've got love on my mind" paired with information for hiv poz gay men using crystal with sex was just too parallelled to ignore.
"Lose your mind and come to your senses." -Fritz Perl
so many men i know have both of these items in their stories. is there a connection? if so, how deeply does it run? in many, perhaps the big question is which came first, the hiv or the meth? are men medicating their feelings around hiv? are they medicating their feelings about themselves with sex and using meth to get that sex? are they medicating with meth and sex? is the sex satisfying when on meth?
only the headlines have receded, but certainly the questions remain. i know very many men in recovery who state the problem is all their disease of addiction/alcoholism. but i wonder if the solution is that simple. are the men who stopped using without the hiv-sex-self esteem issues solved? if you take away the meth are the problems gone too? the gay boiz are still smokin tina and gettin online for pnp. it's fascinating to discern the reasoning. but i'll betcha if ya check the numbers, the greatest percentage of those engaging in pnp with viagra and group sex are those of poz guys. are they mind-erasing the reality of their activities? would they be as callous about barebacking if they didn't have the mind eraser? if meth wasn't blocking their conscience from their sexual activity, would they still be dallying in multiple partners and popping viagra like vitamins in order to go for days?
these are all activities that i have actively engaged in. i guess i am sharing my own experience and questioning a trend. it's no wonder it's found a home underground. and what are we as a culture of gay men doing to work with this? here's what they are doing in seattle...
i know of 7 people in their 40's who have died this year of complications from AIDS. but beneath that facade was the darker truth of meth and the destruction of their immune systems from heavy usage. their drug use and their sex had gone underground. now they have too.
jim pickett of life lube has requested that this be put out for gay men to give input. rectal microbicides offer a completely new direction for hiv prevention, making anal sex without condoms a taboo no longer. this is an idea that gay men are thirsty for. just look at the incredibly high syphillis rates. take the time to fill it out. they don't want to make a product that guys won't use. shout about this one from the rooftops boys.
PLEASE remember to point people to our LUBE SURVEY on www.IRMWG.org. It is CLOSING the end of JULY so time is of the essence. We have well over 5000 responses, let's break 6000 in the next couple of weeks! We can do that by sending notes to all of our contacts, posting items online, and doing the all-around U- RAH-RAH for the LUBE SURVEY.
