COMMENT: HIV – 20 YEARS ON

As I come into the year of the 20th anniversary of my HIV positive diagnosis the gap between two observations before me is so vast I am moved to make what I am seeing public, in the hope of sparking more conversation about a subject that is a huge factor in every gay man’s life.

Every gay man has to consider HIV, has to manage the struggle between the desires for freely expressed physical sexual sensations, with the knowledge that unprotected sex can expose us to a virus for which there is no cure. For some there is an attitude of ‘get poz and get it over’, leading perhaps to a sexual liberation, to uninhibited free expression of lustful passions.

Other diseases, or overwhelming addictions to the chemicals that help us explore deepfeeling utterlyslutterly places within, often force men to slow down eventually. But many big city gay men are living life at such a pace that we take little time to reflect, slow down, and for example, think about how incredible it is that we have this global gay scene today where we can make friends, take lovers, party and play freely. We have embraced this gay existence as if it was our birthright, hardly considering that our kind have lived in secret, in shame, lived with persecution, been burnt and stoned – for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There must be some collective unconscious wounding going on here, leading perhaps to the self-destructive behaviours that blight the paradise of global gaytopia, and to the exaggerated emphasis in our gay scenes on sexuality over community, political or alternative expression of who we are.

It seems to me the craving for extreme sexually charged altered states of consciousness is due to our intense longing to really deeply feel and enjoy life. But so soon into the story of our sexual and political emancipation came an enormous shadow – HIV was for 15 years a diagnosis of premature and painful death. Nowadays it is still a lifelong condition that leads to mental and physical crises, and the need to adhere to sometimes challenging medication regimes. But HIV is the ultimate disease – it strikes at the very immune system itself, leads to failure in all parts of the body and mind. That ought to be enough to make us think, lead us to ask some deeper questions about our reality, and then maybe HIV could become a doorway into realisation of who we are and an invitation to explore the mystery of life and death

I am moved to declare that when I came to approach HIV in this way it gave me the gift of life. To raise funds for HIV projects we Walk for Life, we Dance for Life – HIV showed me that I had to wake up to the wonder that is life, look beyond the dream that western society is sold on, find myself, my passions, my creativity. To Live for Life. And I know that in the 90s there were a lot of men going through this awakening, this realisation that a life lived in the shallow end of sensation and soul is a life already half dead.

I was a young gay man excited to be out of the clutches of parents and education, racing to find pleasure and love in a big city. I just accepted life as it seemed to be. I dismissed religion and accepted a fairly bleak scientific worldview, avoided existential crisis as much as I could by not thinking about existence. But this changed when I was told in 1990 that I would die in seven years. The doctor seemed so certain, seven was the number. I accepted what he said and learnt to live with the thought echoing around my mind.

I still continued to avoid deeper thoughts about life and its impending conclusion for a few more years. When the symptoms of AIDS started to come along – KS, facial warts, digestive issues, depression. I began to feel anger, which became I guess the motivating fire that led to me open my mind to research for myself what is the nature of being human, when life is so short and easily cut off – what the hell are we all here for?

There was no shortage of research material. As much as modern society keeps this issue on the sidelines, and those who feel they have answers jealously guard their space and so often insist on their truth being the only truth, even to the extent of attacking those who believe different things… the question of who are we and what are we here for has been probably the main question of human history. Every culture asks it, great art and music is inspired by it, as are incredible acts of compassion and charity. I had refused to tackle spiritual questions since my early teenage years, but it was not lost on me that I had always been driven by a longing for love, to love and be loved, to share that feeling with friends and partners, plus to enjoy that love expressed through beautiful and wild sexuality. When I discovered that the one defining unifying aspects of faith, found in every description of the divine around the world is LOVE, I recognised that I HAD to drop all my mental phobias around spirituality and start some deeper thought.

Twenty years on I am utterly grateful for this turn around in my life. The expansion and joy it has brought is way beyond verbal description, it can only be felt. My life is filled with people I cherish and who cherish me. I constantly meet new people who are discovering layers to life, dimensions of love, who feel called to celebrate life rather than destroy it, who desire connection and communion of spirit rather than the old story of competition and division.

I meet these people anywhere – at parties, on the street, online. I meet them in numbers at events such as radical faerie gatherings, Edward Carpenter Community events, queer pagan camps, gaylovespirit retreats, and there we take the time to slow down, talk to each other, LISTEN to each other, be sensual and intimate, discover from each other and learn. Usually the amazing discoveries we make creates an urgent need to celebrate.

But here comes my second observation…….

In the 90s many many men went through powerful transformations and transfigurations. A culture of opening to our internal truth and power existed for some. At HIV centres there were healing circles where we discovered that thought directs energy and learnt to think for health, to channel vibrations of light for healing and balance. There were poetic and artistic outpourings chronicling the emotional queer story that we were all part of. This culture of self discovery has just about vanished from queer life. Freed of the imminent threat of major illness and death gays have largely gone back to intense hedonistic embrace of our freedom to exist. By the age of 25 many gay men have experienced intensities of life that many of their older brothers did not, or are also chasing after now, they have questions, we all do, that are difficult to find ways to talk about in a very secular age. And should they become positive, they will probably not be encouraged to find within themselves deeper power and truth – which in the time when so many were dying was all we could do. Newly diagnosed are encouraged to live healthy (which they probably wont), take the tablets (which perhaps not EVERYONE needs to do) and continue to BE GOOD CITIZENS, working and contributing taxes etc.

HIV became for me a symbol – a push to recognise that HEALING IS VITAL. This is the human condition. We accumulate wounds during life (are maybe born with them already in place), and we die. Yet we are all pretty much driven to enjoy life – to love, to play, to celebrate – this is our nature. The wounds and fear of death prevent us from fully feeling and appreciating the love, the play, the celebration. Maybe we use drugs to cut through our wounded places and open us to ecstatic experience – all too often the comedown brings the wounds come back online. Though I would never dismiss the power of ecstatic heights to transform every aspect of our lives and heal some of the deepest darkest places. This may happen by chance, embraced consciously, ecstasy (the state of being) may turn out to be one of the most powerful healing practices available to human beings.

I was brought up in an educational and social environment where it was the accepted, normal and cool thing to dismiss religion and all things spiritual. I believe for the young since my youth this tendency has only increased. To break through this mindset and humble myself enough to ask questions of the universe and accept my ignorance on the subject was a second coming out. What I notice is, although I meet others all the time who are embracing the same journey, our collective gay life can get lost in the shallow end of existence. But swimming into the depths is even more fun. We are a people, a part of humanity, largely driven by joyful and creative lusts, but for all sorts of easily understood reasons one part of us is largely undeveloped – our spirits. Our potential in life as soul healers, peacemakers, radical thinkers and artists is still largely hidden in shadows of shame. Although there are many of us who are entertainers, or who work in healing and caring professions, and although we are famed for our ability to party, we also live with too much shallowness, drug and alcohol damage, and mental and physical disease in our urban communities. But on the outskirts of gay life, often in forests, on mountains or seashores, in castles, mansions or campsites – a few are meeting and taking our ability to connect and feel further. Taking the time to go beyond appearances, to hear new ideas, to discover the magic of life lived in an atmosphere of deeper community and respect. Most of us live in the cities and we return to our homes charged with energy from being connected to nature and to the loving hearts of other queers.

I have been positive twenty years. That is half of the 40 years that we have been free legally in certain parts of the world to explore and express who we are, and how we love. We could benefit from acknowledging that the tale of gay life is at a very early stage, and nothing should be taken for granted. There have been flourishes of gay liberty at previous points in history, they have never lasted long, we have been persecuted back underground. Our current freedoms should not be taken for granted, and of course those freedoms are not enjoyed by our kind the world over. And as a collective living openly in ways we choose, unlike at any other time in human history, we may have hardly begun to delve collectively into the magical, mysterious depths of our being, power and love.

Martin Lovestar is leading a World AIDS Day talking circle to talk about the impact HIV has had on the gay community. Details:

Related articles:

• Gmfa: “Take Responsibility for Safer Sex” (homovision.tv)