World AIDS Day 2013

Reflecting a bit on the fact that today is World AIDS day. It's interesting that even though I've been "mostly out" for at least the last 10 years of my life "up north", the only people I've known to have HIV or AIDS were while I was living in my southern hometown--including two hair stylists who died from the disease.

I know many more gay men (both friends and acquaintances) now, but know of none who are HIV positive. I guess there could be many factors to why this is the case. In the late eighties/early nineties our understanding of HIV was quite different--especially in the south. Maybe the positive men I knew contracted the virus before they learned much about it. Perhaps some of my current friends and acquaintances are keeping their positive status private--we don't ask, and actually don't talk about it much. Also, my generation had practicing safe sex drilled into our heads.

Today we hear and read that infections are on the rise in our community--which is sad and somewhat bewildering. It seems to generally be attributed to the disease no longer being seen as a death sentence--but it obviously still greatly effects the rest of your life.

My wish on this World AIDS day is that the youth of our community continue to take this horrible disease very seriously and have the respect to take care of themselves.