June 5th marks the day when we first started to recognize that a global HIV pandemic was underway. The CDC had put out a report about a strange pneumonia (PCP) being found in young previously healthy gay men in West Hollywood. The same day, a doctor in New York City reported to the CDC about young gay men who had contracted Karposi's Sarcoma. The LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the AP picked it up and ran it that day. Information moved very, very slowly in those days but the whispers started and the word started to get around the something really fucked was happening.
The pandemic ripped through an entire generation of gay men, and so many of them were the gay men who caused the transforming changes that happened in the 70's after Stonewall. AIDS is a disease of young people and always has been. There was a distinct pattern for gay men: arrive on the scene at 20, dead by 30. I always thought I was on the trailing edge, but I was completely wrong. I was right in the middle of it. It had been circulating for many years by 1981, most likely in the mid 70's.
On a personal level, I was still working at a country club and in school. I had a torrid affair with one of my co-workers and easily the most electric encounter I've ever had. I have always been extremely fearful of what happened to Rick as he was a dancer and the arts were devastated by AIDS. Another affair with a high school mate, Kenny, I know for sure died. I almost certainly had sex with a huge number of people who had it. It's only the miracle of dumb luck that I didn't get it.
The damage didn't stop with the initial wave of people who died which was horrific but also emotionally scarred the generations that followed. They were scared to death of sex and never knew what joyful carefree sex was like. That continues to this day, even when the likelihood of bad outcomes is in the, now, distant past.
We can finally end this. If you are sexually active, get tested. If you are poz, they will put you on meds and you will become U=U and the safest person anybody can have sex with. If you are neg, get on PrEP and you will not only be immune to HIV, but part of the generation that finally puts an end to this horror. Take PrEP and have fun again. It's really that simple.
Special shout out to @NathanielHall who is doing god's work trying to end the stigma of HIV, and to my beautiful husband @AricOlnes who cheated death against all odds.
fds
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