Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Nothing like taking personal responsibility

So, Andrew Sullivan says of George W Bush: "because he cannot address homophobia and cannot even say the word 'gay' in public or address this issue directly, his legacy in America is actually an increase in HIV transmission".

This is all a bit rich, isn't it, coming for a HIV positive man who, 7 years ago, was actively seeking "bareback" sex?

(Yes, I know, he claims he was only going to have unprotected sex with another HIV positive person, but even that is behaviour not entirely without sexual health consequences.)

What upsets Sullivan is that he (Bush) didn't use the word "gay" in a conversation about HIV. He then goes on about how homophobia amongst blacks being the biggest HIV problem in America.

Funny, I thought the issue was that black men do not identify readily as "gay," and wouldn't assume George was even talking about them if he used the word. How does Sullivan think using the word "gay" is going to work magic within the black community?

By the way, that story from The Nation about Sullivan's dating strategies notes that Sullivan's ad indicated he was also into "bi-scenes" (as well as orgies generally.) I will take this as adding credibility to my personal theory of why Sullivan hates Sarah Palin!

UPDATE: just stumbled across a recent, very detailed, and very explicit, article in Huffington Post which argues that "barebacking" between the HIV positive is almost certainly encouraging mutated, drug resistant strains of HIV. It is very critical of the way the gay community is, to a large extent, taking the view that HIV infection is not such a serious matter now.

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