World Aids Day

There’s slow blogging, and there’s slow blogging – and I seem to be indulging in both. Not on purpose, mind. I’m too serious for the light and frothy, and can’t post thoughts without considering them first; and too stressed and overworked to post often. I mean, two and a half months since the last one! Ridiculous.

But this is World Aids Day, and even the most desultory bisexual blogger can’t let that pass without posting something.

I have been thinking a lot about the recent (to me) past over the past few weeks, as I have been unpacking and repacking the things that came from the loft in my old house and putting them in the loft in the new one.

In the late 80s and early 90s I was quite involved in the London queer scene (although its effect on my sexual and romantic life was negligible, as I was mainly attracted to Cuban New Yorkers at that time). It was a mixed gender place, this queer scene, with lots of lesbians having sex with gay men - flamboyant, energetic, challenging, experimental. We talked about safer sex a lot, and how to make it more exciting, but there was never a thought that it wasn’t an essential part of being a politically, sexually conscious person. That was still fashionable in those days.

So I’ve been looking at stacks of old magazines – Square Peg, Shebang, Quim – that came out of the arty gay scene in London at that time. Square Peg was mixed men and women, and arts-based with beautiful paper and production values. Shebang was a fun lesbian mag; Quim was an arty-lesbian sex mag. This seemed very daring at the time, but only lasted a couple of issues.

But the daring came from desperation about the queer future: the homophobia, the prejudice, the turning back to conventional morality because of Aids which affected women as well as men - although obviously men were the ones whose lives were at risk. The early 90s, when Quim was published, was also the aftermath of the lesbian sex wars, where what it meant to be a lesbian (not, definitely not, bisexual) was discussed endlessly and viciously. It was part of the end of "sisterhood" I think, but a mixed queer political scene - Act-Up, for instance - did thrive for a few years in the UK, and may still be going in the US. Then, of course, there was also the bi community which - from my perspective anyway - was going pretty well at that time.

Remembering People with Aids
Everyone who knew any queer people at that time was affected by Aids - and it baffles and infuriates me when I meet individuals today (either heterosexuals of any age who have lived sheltered lives, or young LBT people) who claim it has nothing to do with them. The first person I knew who died of Aids was in 1987 – but after that, circles of acquaintances went down like ninepins. I was lucky not to lose anyone really close but I still remember all those young men I went clubbing with in the early 80s who were dead 10 years later. It makes me absolutely fucking sick to think about it.

Of course, it’s different now – at least in countries where AZT is readily available. There’s a really nice picture gallery on the Guardian site, looking at various people around the world dealing with HIV/Aids in some way.

But it still gives me a chill when I see people all over the world who are still dying of this disease. Or when I read about young men in the UK who are having sex with each other completely unprotected, thinking that HIV is no big deal because they can take a pill. Think about it buster, taking a pill for your whole life, risking heart disease, tumours, a whole range of things neither you or I know about yet... The latest person I know (in Britain) to be diagnosed with HIV was in 2007, so this is by no means an old story.

In 2008, the necessity for this message hasn't changed a bit.

25 years too many

I was in lying on the grass in Central Park, New York, this day 25 years ago, recently graduated and weeping with excitement at being in what seemed to me the most incredible, amazing place in the world while the fireworks accompanying the 1812 Overture banged and flashed overhead to celebrate Independence Day.

Back across the Atlantic, a man died in London. At the time, no one knew what was wrong with Terrence Higgins, nor its future significance. That didn't last long.

There's an article from the head of the Terrence Higgins Trust in the Guardian today, together with some audio from Terrence Higgins' partner, Rupert Whitaker.

So - 25 years of appalling pain, horror, sadness, and death, yet many people still behave like it has nothing to do with them.

Still not putting it on
According to a study reported on Aidsmap, about men on the gay scene in three British cities - London, Manchester and Brighton - 22% of HIV-negative men reported unprotected anal sex with a man who was either HIV-positive or of unknown HIV status in the last year.

Oh dear. No, worse than that. Why are you risking your health/life in this way?
No doubt many of these men have sex with women too - whatever they call themselves. Now, I know that - according to other studies - bi men seem actually less likely to have very risky sex. Of course, no one knows for certain - as the whole thing's shrouded in secrecy - but anecdotal and, to a certain extent, other evidence indicates that bi men are less likely to have anal intercourse with other men than are men who are entirely gay. Still, I don't want anyone to die of this horrible disease; I don't rate bi men more highly than gay men, for instance, or even men operating under the delusion that they are entirely heterosexual and just having sex with another man because... well, why not? I don't want any of them to get it.

And according to another study, men in the US who have sex with men - gay, bi, whatever, make up over two-thirds of US syphilis cases. Incidences of heterosexually-transmitted syphilis have reduced but this is more than made up for by the increase in it between men. Not only does contracting syphilis show that you are having unsafe sex (although it is very much easier to get syphilis than HIV through oral sex) but it also makes contracting HIV more likely.


You know what to do
This makes my blood run cold. I know I've said it before, but really, some things can't be repeated too often.
Please - do I have to hang on to your ankle like a heavy weight and stop you going off for unprotected sex. Use a fucking condom.
You might have not seen people around you dying of Aids, but I have and it's HORRIBLE. Worse than horrible. Please, no roulette games. Unlike a lottery win, it really can happen to you. And even though treatment is so very much better these days, the health implications are still enormous.
A bi male friend of mine, who spent the 70s and 80s in San Francisco, and who - due to a mixture of luck, monogamy and unrelated ill-health - managed not to contract HIV, told me how he met one of his peer group on the street there recently. They were both very shocked as each had assumed that the other had died. And how sad and sick-making that this was a reasonable assumption.

No more AIDS, no time soon

World Aids day is today - yes, information about it is everywhere, but fighting HIV/Aids never stops being important.
Despite the availability of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), HIV is not something that has gone away. Indeed, it seems that the HIV rate among British men who have sex with men is going up. And, just because people can take ARVs, that doesn't make having HIV a walk in the park. Positive people are living much longer and healthier lives (well, they are in the UK anyway) but there are still effects. People do die.
Still, though, still, too many just aren't doing the sensible thing and using condoms. If you want to know what I think of that, look here.
According to UNAIDS, in 2006 there are 39.5 million people worldwide living with HIV. That's 2.6 million more than in 2004.
This year is the 25th anniversary of the first reported Aids cases. How much longer till it stops?

Monday supplement

Drat, I've missed Sunday this week. Nevertheless, there's been a world of bisexuality out there this week, ladies and gentlemen, and here are some bi morsels for your delectation.

Torchwood
Well, I've seen the Doctor Who spin-off this week, and it's kind of fun. All right, it's like Doctor Who without The Doctor, and with lashings of sex and swearing, but I still like it. Bi-factor: pretty high. Episode two featured an alien disguised as a sex-hungry young woman who needed the energy she got from sex with men to survive. They, on the other hand, ended up as a pile of dust. One of the female scientists couldn't keep her hands off her either, much to everyone's surprise as she has a boyfriend. Captain Jack quote: "oh, you humans and your self-imposed categories." Indeed.

Another Tory MP leaves wife shock
Yes, Greg Barker, apparently shadow environment minister, has left his wife of 14 years to be with another man.
So, what's the story? Was he always gay and just hiding his feelings - as did so many tories of yore? Did his feelings change? Did he just fall in love with this particular man? Or did he always have bi feelings he hadn't acted on? Who knows. But here's a good post about it.

Not practising safer-sex yet?
According to Aidsmap, gay and bisexual men with HIV "serosort" themselves, ie if they are negative, having unprotected anal sex with other men they believe to be negative, and if they are positive, doing it with other positive men. Researchers say that, because of this, men who are having condomless sex are not necessarily risking infection, or transmitting infection.
Well that's good. Any strategy that genuinely cuts HIV tranmission is good. But.
Men who thought they were negative weren't necessarily. It is also possible for people with one strain of HIV to contract another strain through sex with another positive person, with all the obvious risks to health. There's also
this. Drug-resistant gonorrhoea in the UK. Yum. Isn't a little bit of rubber a better option?

Further adventures in MySpace
Still not entirely sure that I am making the most of My Space. However, I have "met" Maria Angeline who coordinates the Carnival of Bent Attractions - a gathering of some of the web's most interesting queer posts. And she's nominated one of mine for the next edition. Ooh good!
If you've seen a post anywhere in the last month - on your own site or anywhere else - that is LGBT related, get cracking and nominate it. Deadline 00.00am Wednesday, New York time.

Time to be a rubber fetishist

So, the UK's sexual health is getting worse. According to figures released yesterday, syphilis is on the increase 10 years after it was almost eradicated, with a 23% increase in 2004-2005, 39% 2003-2004. This is the storywww.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1812907,00.html>.
That's just an extension of a problem that has existed since the mid 90s. Between 1996 and 2002, according to the same body (The Health Protection Agency) syphilis rates in British men went up by 960% and in the West Midlands by 4,800%. God knows what they were doing in Brum.
It's mostly those old baddies "gay and bisexual men" who are contracting syphilis and, apparently, 60% of all new diagnoses of syphilis were in men who are HIV positive. This isn’t in the Guardian story, but is reported here www.aidsalliance.org/sw5207.asp?page=1>.
Now the girls are getting in on the act. The increase of syphilis in women last year was 2.5 times that of men and many of these women are "suspected of 'swinging'"! Or maybe not, but the HPA says they are mature women, not prostitutes, who are part of "particular social circles". Statistics - oh, you look it up! - show that young women are having more sexual partners so it's not a huge leap to imagine that mature women might well be at it too.
So what lies behind this increase in syphilis? Of course, this is a complex issue, one with many causes and effects. The restriction in the hours of many clap clinics, for one. And the fact that, unlike queer people of my generation, young gay/bi men haven't seen their peers die, horribly, in their thousands. Or, indeed, been to parts of the developing world where people are doing that right now. Syphilis and HIV differ in many ways, of course, but they are both spread by unsafe sex. And that's what more and more people in Britain are practising now.

You know what to do
Of course, there's a simple solution. Every time you have penis-penetrating-anything sex, especially with someone who isn't your regular partner, use a condom. Use a condom and, again... use a condom. And given that syphilis can be acquired by oral sex. Well, you do the math. OK, so sometimes people carried away by the moment and forget or stop caring. If you are infected by someone who swears they are true to you and always have been, then that is a horrific breach of trust. And asking all people, even monogamous ones, to use condoms all the time is unrealistic and not something that the NHS seems to be doing.
But if you horny people who have sex with multiple partners actually used condoms regularly when you shagged, instead of thinking that infection wouldn't happen to you, or condoms take away the sensation, or that you choose your partners carefully and never go with anyone who "looks gay" - all of which have actually been said to me by people, male and female, with straight faces (pun intended) - then rates of sexually transmitted infections would go right down. And you wouldn't even have to give up your fun.


The L Word
On a lighter note, the third season of The L Word is starting soon in the UK... Living TV, July 19th, 10pm. A little bird - actually, a medium-sized one - told me she has seen most of it at London's lesbian club Southtopia and this time the storylines are pretty heart-rending. I wonder if Season One's bisexuals (or at any rate, their bisexuality) will stage a come-back?