HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: HOPE

As we approach World AIDS Day, many gay men in their forties can’t believe they are still alive. They made it. They survived the collective grief of a virus halted in it’s tracks by combos. Gay Men lost their identity and faith to AIDS and didn’t know how to relate to a possible cure in the untold numbness of emotion. In May 1996 my client Paul had once again ended up in the Middlesex with an AIDS related infection four days before we were due to fly to Bodrum in Turkey and told by doctors that he was likely to die. I had worked with him preparing for death and completing his life goals. He wanted a last planned holiday so I was asked to go as his carer and agreed. For 2 years I exclusively worked with those HIV+ having a CD4 count under 50, Paul had a CD4 count of 10 for a year and now it was down to 2. I said in the hospital ” Paul, where do you want to die? Here or in Turkey? ” Turkey he said, quick as a flash. Come on then, discharge yourself, we’re off to Turkey, and so we did, hiding bottles of meds in cabin bags that needed fridge temperatures on the plane and hotel arrival. At the airport he bought GAY TIMES and intrigued to see his own doctors photo on the news page heralding some kind of combination therapy research. ” I’ll ask him about that on return if I get back in one piece” he said.

We had a drama-free health break in Bodrum, and highlighted by 3 buffed up gayers beach walking, one wearing very small speedos and a pair of new Timberlands with laces out, boot tongues up – we later learnt an american from Miami had sent them and proudly worn they were. Using beach gaydar we were spotted and they greeted us with handshakes and the words ” Hi we’re Sexy Gays “. Very scorchio Turkish Satellite TV use of english. LOL. If only UK guys were that forward. They took us sightseeing along the castle wall and what was like a gay bar with tranny drag. “Much better than a bed in the Middlesex wired up” Paul said. We returned to the UK with his 2 CD4’s intact and straight to his doc who soon guinea pigged him on combos. In November that same year I went on holiday and for the first time in 14 years no one had died when I got back. Hope had arrived. Pauls CD4 shot to over 100 on combos and lived another 3 years before the virus took his last breath in 1999.

So what happened after combos’s? Hope springs eternal. Eric Rofe, a longtime AIDS activist wrote DRY BONES BREATHE – Gay Men creating Post-AIDS Identities and Culture (published 1998) and feared a ” second wave ” of infection after combos. He wrote ” as the most intensive period of AIDS death occurred from 1989-1995 there was little room for alternative understandings of the event called AIDS. While the corpses piled up and discussions of a ” second wave ” of gay male infections became increasingly prevalent, the pep-rally campaigns launched in the mid-1980’s were amplified. We repeatedly reminded one another to “Be Here for the Cure”, “Practice Safe Sex Every Time”, and “ACT UP, Fight Back, Fight AIDS”.

Now in 2009, the hope we had then has drained away with attention fatigue, unimagined levels of recreational drug use compared to 15 years ago, facilitated by pc policies acted out by THT, GMFA & CHAPS to support the sensibilities of poz people and ignoring the needs of those remaining negative by employing conscious action EVERY time they have sex, within or outside a relationship. Young gayers were told the war is over – we have PEP. Check out Gaydar profiles and you will see that Safer Sex : Sometimes is more prevalent than ALWAYS. Do people really hope they wont get infected but BB anyway because they got away with it last time? Hoping a new relationship will work out is very different from hoping to escape infection, a new relationship you can always leave if it doesn’t work out, but HIV poz is for life, and over 30 years of immune system damage, alongside the ageing process and the effects of prescribed combos, side effects and recreational horse tranquiliser for fun does not make a good look. Wishin’ and Hopin’ is fools paradise.

Eric Roffes prophecy has come true – a second wave of infection – with a new devil may care sensibility. In the 80’s we were forced through fear to become always vigilant, it’s a pity that it’s just clothes and the eighties that have become retro fashionable – we badly need to swing away from the current ” manageable disease concept ” and return to more harder hitting messages of the Dynasty period to focus on prevention instead of BB and slings. If we don’t more gayers will be killed by their own arrows. I think of those three ” sexy gays ” in Turkey, who can’t flick through the gay press in Barcode, yawning at yet another THT Hot Sex campaign, what of them and gayers in other countries who can’t just pop into Dean Street for a 1 hour HIV test result with ease. In the early 90’s the UK was the mantle of HIV education for the developing world using our resources to bring HOPE to those affected by HIV/AIDS. When I think of Paul and all my friends & lovers who died I wonder how they would view the current climate, the apathy that medical advances has brought and why young gayers think taking pills for the rest of their lives adds up to some kind of freedom.

More Swarmite blog experience, strength and hope resides @ http://www.theswarmite.com

Related articles:

• Gmfa: “Take Responsibility for Safer Sex” (homovision.tv)
• HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: SACRIFICE (homovision.tv)
• Brit Designer Backs World Aids Day (homovision.tv)