> "If you were rejected every time you disclosed your HIV
          >  status, would you?"
          >
          > HIV stigma is putting 'clean, ub2' or 'disease-free' in your
          > online cruising profile.
          >
          > HIV stigma is rejecting HIV-positive gay men when they
          > disclose their HIV status but having sex with them when
          > they don't.
          >
          > Because of HIV stigma, some gay men make silent
          > assumptions about the HIV status of their sexual partners
          > based on beliefs they hold about who has HIV or how
          > someone with HIV looks or where someone with HIV has sex.

You can talk variations on this theme till the cows come home, but at the end of the day there will be new HIV infections and some people will die from it, others will live with this expensive disease till they die of old age or complications. A very few will find, by chance, that they are immune and will go on to infect others--causing a new cycle of disease and death. Welcome to a world that doesn't care about attempts to talk it to death.

This is a real disease. It doesn't speak your language. Its looking for a place to live. It wants to take over. That place is your body. It will get to you via another body. You can't negotiate with it once it gets in you. But you can prevent that from happening. There is only one very certain way to keep that from happening.




          > This is central to the lived experience of gay men and PLHIV,
          > not

WHAT is "central" to the lived experience of gay men?


          > just "variations on a theme", and the fact that we're all going
          > to die one day doesn't make it any less important.

There is quite a big difference between dying of old age and dying from being murdered or getting very sick or dying after visiting a doctor or a hospital stay. We have very different reactions when a loved one dies from old age or dies from a doctor visit or a hospital stay.




          > Thank you for spewing the kind of hyperbole and
          > exaggeration

No matter what you say I'm doing, it won't prevent any new infections from showing up tomorrow in somebodies tests.


          > that gives HIV stigma a life among Queermen. As one who
          > has been living with the virus inside of me for over 26 years,
          > most of that time unknowing,

Which means you may have infected a number of individuals who are now either dead or sick.


          > I am floored. I am, indeed, one of the fortunate few, thanks
          > to ancestors who survived the Black Death; however, since
          > learning my status over 10 years ago and having partners
          > both poz and neg, I have not been to them a source of
          > infection.

So I take it ALL of them have been tested regularly over the years and especially after your last contact.


          > As for the specific campaign, I find attacking stigma directly
          > more problematic--not to mention "deficit-based"--than
          > promoting brotherhood.

Whether I promote brotherhood or not, somebody is going to end up infected, sick, or dead tomorrow.


          > Disease-based stigma comes in part from our quest for
          > self-preservation and is fueled by misinformation and a lack
          > of understanding.

The last 20+ years shows that people with complete understanding have infected others or themselves been infected, gotten sick, and died.


          > I am loathe to object to another man's choices taken to
          > protect his health, but I would address his ignorance of facts.

Could you be so kind as to address any ignorance of the facts on my part?




          > pls cut it with the hate. It isn't going to fly here, doll. Knock
          > it off.

Is accusing me of being hateful without any evidence of me being hateful an example of your being hateful ?

Can you tell if HIV is capable of hate or love or any other emotion?

Can you tell me if an HIVpositive person who infects another person is feeling love, hate or some other emotion when they do that?

Also, if I were to change from being a hateful person to being a loving person would that prevent any HIV deaths, illnesses or infections?




          > pls, get an IDEA. You have beaten this one in to oblivion.
          > The people most at risk are not going to wait to have sex.

"not going to wait" is also why nothing else works either.



          > "The people most at risk are not going to wait to have sex."
          >
          > AMEN! We get so caught up in academic discussions of
          > disease prevention that we forget how racing hormones
          > silence any voice of caution in our minds, then we latch onto
          > Puritan memes about delaying pleasure. The arsenal against
          > STDs, including HIV, must be well-stocked with options....
          > oh, crap, is this defecit-based thinking?...instead of limited
          > to a couple pea-shooters that will not necessarily cover all
          > cases.

I've always thought Puritan meant NO pleasure.

Doesn't delayed pleasure intensify pleasure?