They used to sing ” Nobody loves a Fairy when she’s Forty ” back in the days of homo criminalisation but now the internet is awash with Daddies, Bears and Spanking GrandDads – thankfully nobody needs to look like Cher anymore to still be in the game. Can you imagine being rejected by a 22 year old because your not fat enough and TOO YOUNG when you’re past 50. It happens – trust me. A report came out this week about the upward trend of older users of recreational drugs suggesting on evidence that people over fifty just ain’t gonna give it up for health concerns or abstain which is why the government stance on harm reduction is the fashion. We also know that many gayers well over 40 sit at home on Gaydar or escort sites with tina or the like for companion. One wonders when Addison Lee will get a STONEWALL Award for services to the community, but the majority of older gayers just wanna have fun or the fun to continue sanely.

Setting expectations too high is societies curse, which is why government and partners fail us and media is flooded at this time of year with detox trivia, diet plans and resolutions. Don’t encourage them, be stylish – wait till February or when you feel you want to, rather than need to just because it’s New Year. January is the time for looking back, not unplanned impulsive action. Take note of Dickens little orphan boy Pip in Great Expectations, “take nothing on it’s looks; take everything on evidence : there’s no better rule”.

It’s a pity that gayers take many things on it’s looks – first glance, an image, a dealer or dress code often without resort to reality, living in a dream like space. It’s easy to be optimistic in a club then discover 6 weeks later knee deep in “a relationship” that he’s psychotic, a compulsive liar or an addict. It pays to do detail sooner. Although the Pythons insisted that we look on the bright side of life, optimism is another word for DENIAL so best if you face facts quickly, take everything on evidence and move on. Though it must be noted that denial is an unconscious defence mechanism necessary for survival, which is why it’s so rampant.

None of us can survive our lives without a certain amount of denial to keep us in balance, but with denial in regards to addiction, the denial is taken to extreme and since gayers have a habit of breaking conventional bounderies, we are more prone to addiction, because we often have no boundary of when to stop. We don’t want the party to end, the unconscious spending to end, the cruising to end and the chems to end but if we don’t take stock, look back over the year, the end will come sooner than expected.

Why do people deny they need help? There are many reasons for denial in addiction. One reason is that generally people do not like to feel helpless and out of control and ironically, to observers, this is exactly what addicts are feeling. Bob Mandel of the Loving Relationship Training said ” the only guru you need are the results in your life “, but any addict or compulsive user often refuses to face facts, relying instead on the expectation that it will all end with a wave of a magic wand. It won’t. The addict will blame everything and everyone except their own substance abuse for their problems. Another reason is that the addict may be using drugs or alcohol to cover up numb or unpleasant feelings and by stripping away the denial, the unpleasant feelings will come to the surface, one of the reason why chems are the lifeboat of the scene.

The last two weeks for gayers will have sorted the men from the boys, top this with office parties and extra socialising in December it’s no wonder we crave a detox, a rest or show the white flag for the New Year. It’s expected now that we slow down and the majority will, but many will be living with a nightmare partner, flatmate or family member with the party still in full swing. If you are – seek help. You may not help the addict but you can stop yourself getting drawn into manipulated guilts, codependency and the false expectation they will wake up and come out of their coma of justification.

While not all substance abusers have suffered past traumas in their lives, an inordinate amount have, child, sexual & physical abuse is common in the addicted population. For gayers add secrets, withheld emotions, homophobia and shame to the mix. But, no matter what the cause is of the denial, the important part is that the addict ( or anyone close to the addictive person ) confront the defense mechanism head on. This may be by what some addicts describe as “hitting bottom” or can come from confrontation with family, friends or through the court systems like possession or drunk driving.

Many times an addict will lose a job, friends or family relationships because of the addiction but still find enablers to supply. Denial in addiction is not a linear course, either. The addict may be in denial at some times, and facing reality at others, so addiction in denial may be fluid especially in the beginning stages of looking at themselves or in recovery. Even for those who are far along the recovery path, falling off the wagon and denial can strike at any time and will need to be overcome once again to get back on track. Perhaps Linkin Park talked about confronting denial best in their song “Breaking the Habit” when they said, “I’ll paint it on the walls, ’cause I’m the one at fault” in acknowledgement that a habit is indeed a personal disease for which one needs to take responsibility in order to break free.

More people consider REHAB in January than at any other time of year but the real test of whether you are in an addictive compulsive spiral is to stop and see how far you get without your poison be it alcohol, chems, escorts, food, internet or procrastination. Expect nothing and allow yourself to feel anything, even a feeling of surrender and freedom. Bare in mind that there are more compulsive dependents than addicts, but addiction will always grab you by the balls when it goes unobserved – ask a crack head or meth abuser. Best if you observe now, take stock, tell the truth to someone and seek help in the areas that control you. It’s not about stopping the party it’s about knowing when to leave. Look at your life, check the evidence, own it and then decide what needs changing. Don’t expect someone else to do it for you.

More support services can be found at http://www.theswarmite.com/urban-addictions
Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous have regular LGBT meetings in London – check Google for more information.

Don’t upset the horses. This brings us neatly to heroin chic and horse tranquilliser, contenders for regular off yer face activities. HEROIN for GAYERS? surely not, that’s so skag estate 1986, so dilly boy in the ’70s, well it’s all fashion retro now, visit any Narcotics Anonymous meeting in London or ANTIDOTE , the Soho LGBT substance misuse support service and you will find gay smack heads, recovering K-holers and the like. In the rush to find something higher and higher the old standby of dutch courage – BOOZE – is forgotten in the stampede.

Just because I don’t drink anymore doesn’t mean I am anti booze like a member of The Temperance Society, the problem as I found out, is not the booze or substance but the vessel it goes in and my vessel was as flooded as the Lake District . I remember someone saying “I drank to drown my problems then my problems learnt to swim”. Right. I needed help but couldn’t reach for the phone. Gayers who are alcoholics are in the minority compared to a majority who say they ” drink too much “. There is a difference, a fine line, and no one can tell you where it is, but if alcohol is costing you more than money then it makes sense to booze check.

Using December as a month to start is unrealistic as excuses abound, justifications made and duty calls. You may as well do yourself a service and get pissed till you’re ready to surrender the game and see what’s it’s like WITHOUT BOOZE in the New Year. Using alcohol to function as a remedy for social phobia is easy compared to tapping yer fingers in a dry period to prove you can live without it. People have such misconceptions of alcohol abuse, binge drinkers are the worst when it comes to porkies, lying to yourself that you don’t need it, “I’m not a daily drinker etc” is futile excuse compared to the things you do to prove the point. Just like some Class A Muscle Mary’s who don’t flinch at the dealers running costs or escorts bill of fare, who binge weekends and drink wheat grass juice in the week for detox, using gym workouts to prove they are on top to stay in the game of approval seeking. Excess can become normalised, losing the plot along the way with a chem-ed up body clock. Our bodies used to tell us when to stop, now the ego says stopping means missing out, then we moan that rejection is our own worst fear and reject the consequences of using. I have done it myself.

Office parties, group meet-ups, Shoreditch House invites, marathon clubbing weekends and being sick on the tube is all part of the vehicle called Xmas, but I have not yet scored 100 points this season witnessing sick on both inside double tube doors. The Great Escape. They never made it. No one is suggesting you adhere to the healthy units limit ( unless you’re driving ) the Government lays out, that’s gone at Happy Hour in Barcode, but it’s wise to EAT before you lash out in Soho and beyond. Have a great time and have a drink on me. You’re paying.

But some people are dreading the party season, let’s concentrate on two types. The first are the ones socially phobic, permanently shy and awkward in company and the second type could be connected to the first but is likely to worry someone just the same – the partner, boyfriend or best m8. For this group someone who changes personality or becomes abusive when drunk is nerve racking. Their Xmas is buggered before they start pulling crackers. Some are dreading going home for Xmas to face the drunken Mum or abusive Father or even worse – a drug free Christmas. Coming from a family damaged by alcohol breeds codependency and excuses, it also breeds silence when it comes to explaining London life in Vauxhall. Yes Xmas is difficult but good preparation ahead of the game can avoid worst fears. Christmas IS the most codependent time of the year and next week as the Virgin Timetable draws closer I shall focus on the coda pitfalls of going home. If you partner someone with a drinking problem, share what’s going on with friends, don’t enable the drinker and stop nagging. Make sure you have a Xmas too and avoid babysitting, heavy drinkers are amazingly resilient.

After New Year some of you may want to dry out a bit or consider purposeful using of alcohol and chems. Many support services are free and remember that paid for therapy costs no more than what you spend willy-nilly on booze and other distractions. If you have a drug or Alcohol issue maybe these guys can help in Soho : http://www.thehungerford.org/antidote.asp or check-in to The SwarmiteREHAB Booze Check Page : http://tinyurl.com/mckg6b for a New Year lifestyle makeover.

In the current PC climate of rising HIV infections, when health charities place the sensibilties of poz people above prevention, many say we need to go back to basics. When this gay plague started I was there, being tested at The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead in 1981. Doctors had flown from America because a mysterious virus had turned up in major American cities in gay men who were also chronic Hepatitis B Virus. I had recently been told that I had Cirrhosis of the Liver caused by the hep virus living in my body undetected for a decade. I was a Hep B super-carrier with an immune system unable to create the antibodies to fight the virus. I stopped drinking alcohol, dealing with my addiction to booze and drugs but my liver got worse and I continued to self-infect myself with Hepatitis B until 1996 when I cleared the virus through yogic breathwork and thousands spent on therapy, retreats and alternative approaches.

I was one of ten on the first human interferon drug trial in 1982 – there was, and there still is no cure, and I received no further medication except to manage liver failure. Everyone died on the trial except me. All gay men under the guidance of The Royal Free and St Mary’s in Paddington were tested by American doctors, hair, blood, saliva and semen, to see if we had the mysterious virus called GRID.

Gay Related Immune Deficiency.

In 1984 French & American Researchers came up with the same conclusion and called it the HIV Virus. I did not have the HIV virus and remain negative today – having survived one virus, why create another? Reading through the following quotes you will notice that nothing much has changed in 25 years. The only unspoken thread is that millions and millions of ££££’s are thrown at the AIDS Industry for 80,000 people in the UK when hardly anything is available from the Government for the University of Southhampton’s figure of 450,000 people in the UK living & dying with Hep C.

Poz gay guys who prefer to BB run a risk of becoming infected with Hep C as well as other STD’s, and the figures for gay men are rising.
Health Agencies insist ” HIV is a manageable disease with a few pills each day “. It isn’t. This is as much a scandal as those 450,000 Hep C carriers in the UK and 326,000 infected with Hep B in the UK who are left to wander in the wilderness without a day to rattle tins or gain support services. Worldwide more than 350 million people have chronic or lifelong Hepatitis B infections.

Centers For Disease Control, Atlanta, USA. 1984
“Four days later, researchers from the Pasteur Institute provided Don Francis with convincing proof that their virus, LAV, caused AIDS. In October, Francis had sent the French Scientists 30 blood samples, including 10 from the San Francisco Hepatitis B cohort of gay men who had developed AIDS, 10 from gay men with lymphadenopathy, and 10 from heterosexuals not at risk for AIDS. The samples were sent blind, marked only with code numbers. The French researchers reported to Don Francis their results : positive LAV antibody tests in 20 of the samples and negative tests in 10. Francis quickly paged through his notes to compare the code numbers. The French had accurately sorted the blood of AIDS and lymphadenopathy patients from the blood of uninfected people. Francis was elated. With the cause of AIDS found, scientists could now get on with the business of controlling the spread of the epidemic and finding a vaccine.” – AND THE BAND PLAYED ON / Randy Shilts

New York 1989
“First, I’d always been a little crazy, not clinically, just over-intense, compulsive, prone to a variety of erotic addictions and narcissistic mood swings – euphoria to despair in 3 seconds flat. Second, the backdrop of my breakdown – New York in the Eighties – was insane in itself. Third and most important, I was plugged into the epicenter of that insanity, working for Andy Warhol. the grand vizier of meaninglessness, and the most famous artist in the world. In the three years since I started working there, Andy had come to symbolize everything that was wrong with the world : hype and cleverness without soul, a Technicolor surface without depth, a glittering facade fashioned from fame, name and money; an inverted place where everything and everyone is reduced to an object and put on sale, where everyone has his fifteen minutes, where the serious is boring, the fluffy fabulous and behind this great mask of glamour and image, an abyss. It wasn’t always like this. For a long time, this world thrilled me. With every hoop my bosses held up, I jumped higher. New York was the big game and I adored it. I scheduled an appointment for the HIV test on March 30 1989. I was casual about it with friends, who warned me of my usual bravado” – SEX, DEATH, ENLIGHTENMENT / Mark Matousek

New York City 1994
“Even during the most repressive years of the AIDS crisis, a vibrant sexual playground survived in secret. The streets grew cold and scant, the neighbourhood bars thinned out, but if you knew the right someone you got taken to a place behind locked doors. Most gay men knew the right someone. The generation of gay men who have come of age in the era of AIDS are as fervent in desire as their disappearing Stonewall predecessors. In New York the night before the June 1994 Gay Pride Parade celebrating 25 years of gay liberation, the lineup of clean-cut, all -American men for a popular sex club stretched five blocks down the West Side Highway. The truth is that gay men like to have communal sex – or, as it’s called in the vulgate, orgies. Communal sex is to gay men what golf is to, well, other kinds of men: they find beauty and bonding in it. It defines the individual as part of a collective. By definition – because that is how history and social forces have conspired – “gay” is the construction of identity through sexual relations. The origin of the modern gay community arose in the simple act of two men picking each other up” – THE CRISIS OF DESIRE : AIDS AND THE FATE OF GAY BROTHERHOOD / Robin Hardy

London does not have anywhere to remember those brave souls who were struck down with AIDS. We are told that no-one dies of AIDS anymore, cancer, as example, has always reassured the family on a death certificate. If no shame exists around HIV/AIDS why not proudly proclaim on the Death Certificate: Cause of Death: Aids Related Infection.

Londoners have never dealt with the critical mass of collective grief over Aids, we have nowhere to ponder on the friends we lost, a space to leave notes, flowers and acknowledgement. Gary Henshaw of KU Bar and myself have started a Facebook group today to correct this error, aiming to create such a space for WORLD PRIDE LONDON 2012. Please join our group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=180686542643&ref=nf

The New York Times today reports on the death of a 26 year old gay guy in Istanbul, the victim of what sociologists say is the first gay honour killing in Turkey.

According to prosecutors Ahmet Yildiz, an openly gay man, was shot five times as he left his apartment. His killer allegedly his father, who travelled 600 miles from his hometown to Istanbul. Yildiz’s body remains unclaimed by his family.

Yildiz was the only son of a deeply religious Kurdish family. His father wanted him to see a doctor and an iman in order to cure him of his homosexuality.

Gay rights groups argue that there is an increasingly open homophobia in Turkey. The military, which is the guardian of Turkey’s secular state, regards homosexuality as a disorder.

Last year, a local Istanbul court ruled in favor of disbanding the offices of Lambda, the country’s leading gay rights group, after a complaint that it offended public morality, although the decision was later overturned.

Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/world/europe/26turkey.html

Kamalesh Sharma
Commonwealth Secretary-General
Marlborough House, Pall Mall,
London SW1Y 5HX
020 7747 6500
secretary-general@commonwealth.int

19 November 2009

Your Excellency,

I am writing to inquire what the Commonwealth is doing to defend the human rights of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Commonwealth citizens who are sufffering great persecution on account of their sexuality and gender variance and identity.

Sadly, I can find no evidence that senior Commonwealth leaders are doing anything significant or public, despite the fact that many Commonwealth member states are actively persecuting their LGBT citizens with oppressive, discriminatory laws, which result in grave human rights violations, including arrest, torture, rape, imprisonment and extra-judicial murder.

This homophobic and transphobic persecution is in breach of international human rights law.

As Comonwealth Secretary-General, you are entrusted to defend and promote the Commonwealth’s humanitarian values.

What action do you propose to take at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago from 27 to 29 November, to address the issue of homophobic and transphobic persecution by Commonwealth member states?

I appeal to you to take a stand for justice and equality – to show true leadership and make your mark for human rights.

During your keynote speech, and in other CHOGM forums, I respectfully request you to:

1. Make it clear that the Commonwealth’s commitment to human rights includes respect for the human rights of LGBT people, and that persecution on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity violates the Commonwealth principles of equality and non-discrimination and violates the principles of universal human rights, as enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. Call on Commonwealth member states to end the criminalisation of homosexuality, protect LGBT people against discrimination, harassment and violence, and recognise and consult with LGBT welfare and human rights organisations.

3. In particular, I request you to lobby the government of Uganda to withdraw the new Anti-Homosexuality Bill and cease its attacks on the human rights of LGBT Ugandans.

I regret that I need to make these requests. I realise that you have not been long in your post. But I hope that having had these issues drawn to your attention you will rise to the challenge and pursue them.

Some of the key principles of the Commonwealth are equality, non-discrimination, opportunity for all, liberty of the individual and human dignity.

http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/191086/191247/the_commonwealth/

http://www.thecommonwealth.org/files/36123/FileName/harare.pdf

In the case of LGBT people, these principles are routinely violated by nearly all Commonwealth countries. They are violated with impunity and without rebuke by the leaders of the Commonwealth.

I am surprised that the Commonwealth’s most senior figures, such as yourself, are not, as far as I know, doing anything serious to dissuade the many member states which continue to outlaw consenting adult same-sex relations, which take no action against homophobic and transphobic violence, which deny gay and bisexual men safer sex education and HIV advice, and which fail to give LGBT people protection against discrimination in jobs, housing, education, health care and provision of good and services.

It is extremely disappointing that the Commonwealth leadership appears to not regard LGBT rights as human rights and that it has neglected to protect LGBT citizens in the Commonwealth family of nations. This inaction is de facto collusion with victimisation.

Around 80 countries worldwide continue to outlaw homosexuality, with penalties ranging from one year’s jail to life imprisonment – and even execution. More than half of these countries are former British colonies. Most are members of the Commonwealth.

Of the 53 Commonwealth member states, over 40 still criminalise same-sex relations, mostly under anti-gay laws that were originally imposed by the British government in the nineteenth century, during the period of colonial rule.

These homophobic colonialist laws, which were retained after independence, are wrecking the lives of LGBT people throughout the Commonwealth. They criminalise otherwise law-abiding citizens and contribute to a hostile social atmosphere which demonises LGBT people as unnatural, abnormal and criminal.

This renders LGBT people liable to blackmail, imprisonment, mob violence, rejection by their families, excommunication from their faith, eviction from their homes, dismissal from their jobs and this makes them high risk for depression, mental illness and suicide. Such rampant bigotry and ill-treatment of other human beings is a stain on the Commonwealth.

One of the worst current examples of a homophobic Commonwealth country is Uganda.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, currently under consideration by the Ugandan parliament, proposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality…(and) serial offenders,” including same-sex acts by people with HIV.

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/697859

http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/09/Nov/Bill-No-18-Anti-Homosexuality-Bill-2009_Uganda.pdf

It imposes a sentence of life imprisonment for merely touching a person with the intent to have homosexual relations. Membership of gay organisations and funding for them, advocacy of gay human rights and the provision of condoms or safer sex advice to gay people will result in up to seven years jail for “promoting” homosexuality. Failing to report violators to the police within 24 hours will incur three years behind bars. Astonishingly, the new legislation will also apply to Ugandans who commit these ‘crimes’ while living abroad, in countries where such behaviour is not a criminal offence.

See this appeal against the bill by Human Rights Watch and other human rights defenders:

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/10/15/uganda-anti-homosexuality-bill-threatens-liberties-and-human-rights-defenders

See this briefing by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission:

http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/globalactionalerts/989.html

The Ugandan bill violates the equality and non-discrimination provisions of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Uganda is a signatory. These breaches of international humanitarian commitments set a dangerous precedent which undermines the right to privacy and to individual liberty and thereby sets a dangerous legal precedent which threatens the human rights of all Ugandans.

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists and the World AIDS Campaign.

This legislation is, however, merely the latest in a series of state-sponsored persecutions of LGBT Ugandans, often at the behest of Christian leaders who are aided and funded by right-wing evangelical churches in the US.

Typical is what happened to gay rights advocate Kizza Musinguzi. He was jailed in 2004 and subjected to four months of forced labour, water torture, beatings and rape.

Any Ugandan who speaks out against anti-gay violence faces dire consequences. A heterosexual former Anglican bishop of the West Buganda diocese, Christopher Senyonjo, was denied the right to preach and denied his pension by the Church of Uganda after he defended the human rights of LGBT people.

In recent years, the Ugandan government has passed a law banning same-sex civil marriage, fined Radio Simba for broadcasting a discussion of LGBT issues, and expelled a UN AIDS agency director for meeting with LGBT campaigners.

Similar homophobic persecution is happening in other Commonwealth nations, including Nigeria and in The Gambia, where President Yahya Jammeh has called for sexual cleansing. He has promised “stricter laws than Iran” on homosexuality, and has begun his witchunt by ordering gay people to leave the country and threatening to “cut off the head” of any homosexual who remains. It is truly shocking that the Commonwealth leadership has not condemned such murderous threats.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7416536.stm

While I realise that you are very busy, I would be most grateful if you could respond to my appeal for your intervention before the commencement of CHOGM.

Wishing you a successful CHOGM.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Tatchell

At Saturday’s protest against Sharia Law, Peter Tatchell urged members of the UK gay community to stand shoulder to shoulder with Muslim people around the world who are resisting Sharia law.

Talking to HOMOVISION, he said: “In so many countries, like Uganda, Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Iran, LGBT people are victims of Sharia law which stipulate that LGBT people can be put to death. We’re not talking about punishment about a few lashes or even a few years imprisonment, we’re talking about execution.

“We need to acknowledge that there are many LGBT Muslim people in Britain who live in fear because of religious pressure – pressure to hide their sexuality, pressure to deny their sexuality, and pressure to give up there sexuality. They also fear that if they are discovered they will be rejected by their families and thrown out of their homes; they fear that they will be violently attacked by members of their own family; and even in extreme circumstances, the possibilities of honour killings.

“These are shocking, shocking, shocking threats that hang over the lives of LGBT Muslims in Britain,” he adds.

Tatchell also expressed disappointment at the number of LGBT people attending the protest: “Sharia law is a particularly oppressive form of legislation that has a very very detrimental effect upon the lives of our people worldwide. And to me, human rights for LGBT people are not just about LGBT people here in Britain, but indeed all LGBT people everywhere on this planet.”

Watch the interview here:

Everyone has had the odd lost night once in a while. The type when you find yourself stumbling on to the first tube in the morning or, heaven forbid, precariously negotiating your way through the rush hour commuters. There can be something refreshingly beautiful about the experience. At their best these nights can represent a moment of epiphany.

Gay men have a perhaps not underserved reputation for hedonism. After decades of closeted persecution, the 1970s became our moment of unadulterated freedom. Shame was no longer our default mechanism, but a wasted emotion. The lost nights all merged into one in a gloriously wild celebration of sexuality. We created new ways of exploring our bodies and minds and fathomed out a defiantly different, uncompromising lifestyle – the polar opposite of the society that had condemned us for so long.

The spell was broken with AIDS. A decimated community rebuilt itself from ground zero. Men who until then could have been accused of being shallow and living only for selfish pleasure came together to form a supportive family. There were no other choices – kinship was the only key to their survival.

In an age where we have perhaps lost that need for such an obvious political struggle we have also lost that need to care, communicate and support one another. I say we have lost the need for an obvious political struggle, yet conversely it is blatantly obvious to me what we need to struggle to achieve.

The drug abuse, the unsafe sex, the rise in HIV rates and the crushing loneliness I see on London’s gay scene are perfectly obvious – frighteningly so. Do we really have to wait for yet more new HIV infections to emerge before something is done? How many more GHB overdoses do we need to hear about? Is the elimination of all of this not reason enough to fight?

Just as it was in our darkest hour in the 1980s, communication is the key to addressing these issues. People need to come together and discuss how they feel. People’s behaviour needs to be challenged – the low self esteem that leads to this behaviour must be confronted. Opportunities and forums for this in today’s gay community are few and far in between.

There is something disarmingly faceless about gay London now. The need to conform to a macho stereotype is almost stifling. Difference is often ostracised, or even worse simply ignored. Talking is not fashionable. Look at the profiles on gay ‘dating’ websites with their ubiquitous body shots. Where are the faces?

The figures who dominate these sites are, not infrequently, the ‘Vauxhall Tribe.’ They will spend all week in the gym before hitting the same weekend clubs. Even if they didn’t take so many drugs that they could not remember the weekend’s shenanigans it would make no difference, simply because there is nothing different or worthwhile to remember anyway. It’s a learned pattern of behaviour based on purely visuals – the way they flex their muscles to catch the strobes, that over practised pose in the sauna every Sunday morning.

These lost nights represent nothing new or beautiful. Meaningful interaction and conversation is often non-existent. Yet slouched against the walls of the club or sauna, the unspoken cry for attention often betrays a crushing loneliness and desperation at the inability to find the right words to express numbed feelings.

Sex and drugs have always played a part in our culture and always will. In the past, however, we used them to explore exciting, fresh dimensions of our collective psyche. There was a bold sense of being in control. We used the self discovery they offered to show the straight world that we were as good as them and ten times more innovative – and most importantly, we did this as a more unified body. That pioneering spirit has gone. What’s left is a deadened march of purposeless zombies, as stale and bleak as any Tuesday comedown.

Feelings are not particularly fashionable in modern gay life. They are not commercial. They do not sell magazine copy like the Aussie Bum and Abercrombie and Fitch models. These are the people that we are told to emulate – it is these lives that the ‘Vauxhall Tribe’ strive to adopt with the ruthless gym and drug toil. In their minds the more they stick up their noses and swallow the closer they are to this Peter Pan fairy tale version of gay life.

The images that we are taught to consume as gay men help precipitate the feelings of loneliness, isolation and the subsequent playing out of self-destructive behaviour that is swamping and threatening to obliterate today’s gay scene.

Talking is the only way that an individual can build sustainable, meaningful relationships. It is the only way that we can analyse, deconstruct and make sense of our actions. It is the only way that we can create intimacy and grasp some semblance of solace. The further we move away from the ability to hold a conversation into the impersonality of the merely visual, the further we stray from reality. Everyone needs the escapism of the odd lost night, but when it becomes our only way of interacting, we surrender to an anaesthetized universe that is ultimately as dark and companionless as the depths of any railway arch.

Alex Hopkins is a writer and journalist. His blog can be found at http://alexhopkins.wordpress.com/

Researchers at London’s Birkbeck College and Massachusett’s Clark University  have suggested that same-sex couples make good parents because the fact that the children cannot be conceived accidentally.

Professor Stephen Scott, director of research at the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners has said that lesbians are better at raising children than traditional male and female parents. His research shows that children from lesbian couples do better in life than the offspring of heterosexual couples.

His statement also draws backing from research that suggests children with two female parents are more aspirational than those with opposite-sex parents.