Majestic Mutterings
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Nudist dyke colony anyone
The other day I heard some quite shocking news. (Nothing new there then, this being the wild and crazy gay world I tend to circulate around and within). So what amazed this generally unshockable old Queen? Not a beyond-belief-club-night or a nudist dyke colony in North Yorkshire or anything of that ilk. No, it was when a good and close friend blurted out that her recent love interest ‘didn’t realise that women could contract HIV or AIDS’. Blimey George, I hadn’t expected that. The girlfriend in question has always seemed a highly clued up and intelligent lesbian, savvy, knowledgeable. So how could all the medical information, the staggering death tolls of both men AND women in Africa or the plethora of ‘safe sex packs’ (I won’t mention being hit in the eye by one of those again) have passed this lady by??? If she really does believe this all I can imagine is that she never reads, watches the news, uses a computer, goes anywhere or talks to anybody. Which can’t be true as she’s from half way around the world, has a job involving many people and I’ve never seen her holding a book upside down so proving her illiteracy! Maybe it was just a strange way of ending the new-ish relationship by pleading stupidity of such a high order that my clever mate would run screaming to the hills rather than spend any more time in her company? I think it must’ve been, though it did start me thinking.
Cases of HIV rose higher in 2007 amongst gay men than at any time since the epidemic started twenty years ago. And when respected doctors such as Dr Noel Gill argue that ‘the safe sex message is not being adhered to’ it kind of points to the idea that it isn’t lack of knowledge that’s causing the increase, but that risks are being taken.
But these statistics are from a survey taken from men attending sexual health clinics, and as the Terence Higgins Trust points out this means these men fear they may have put themselves in danger, and it doesn’t reflect all gay men. Heterosexuals have accounted for the majority of new HIV cases since 2002 and the number of women with HIV has grown proportionately more than that of men. The highest majority of these cases have been transmitted through sexual activity rather than through drug injections or blood transfusions. There is a great fear that HIV may be disappearing off the radar and becoming the ‘forgotten disease’. Whether this is through ignorance or not, we shouldn’t be sitting idle!
So let’s keep its damn profile up there. We’re none of us immune, and despite wonderful medical innovations there still is no cure. Whilst it’s fabulous to take some risks – yeah, I’m going to play The Smiths next to Sugarbabes next to Beethoven next time I play at Ghetto – don’t put your beautiful health on the line.
xxxHRH
PS – Nudist-dyke-colony?????
# posted by Queen Josephine : 9:47 AM