Sat marked 40 years since the same affliction was found in five gay men in LA. Two had already died. It took months before the INH and the CDC realized they had a communicable virus spreading and gave it a name. HIV-AIDS has killed almost 40 million people worldwide.
Safe Sex practices were encouraged in the early days. Masturbation, mutual masturbation brought about the jack-off clubs which still exist today.
Yes, now there are drugs which keep the virus at such low levels as to be undetectable, and the claim is that is can't be spread through sexual contact. And there are drugs called PReP drugs, like Descovy, which are supposed to keep those at high risk from even contracting it.
People ---- particularly young people ---- are not paying close enough attention. HIV-AIDS is still an STD-STI. Today, there are still more than 1.2 million people in the U.S. living with HIV-AIDS. The PReP pharmaceuticals highly recommend Safe Sex Practices: Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Frottage, and the use of condoms in addition to the drug.
15 comments:
Call me old fashioned. I still use condoms. I'm never out of them. I do know of two who relied on Prep, and it sadly was not safe proof. And I might go check out the Philly Jacks soon. The Lad and I want to go together. We had a good time there last time. Feels it's been forever ago.
I couldn't say better.
I have always been blown away by the comparison of the excess of what has been done against covid-19 and the insufficient of what has been done against AIDS. And the USA are far from being the states where this disproportion has been the greatest.
Hugs and bisous, my darlings Jean and Pat.
So true.
Many Millenials and GenZ gay men have no idea that AIDS literally wiped out a whole generation of gay men. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say and it's never truer than with AIDS.
XOXO
"the virus at such low levels as to be undetectable, and the claim is that is (it) can't be spread through sexual contact." That 'claim' is backed up by science, dear... so, rest easier. So, it's not so much a 'claim' as it is a 'fact'. Kizzes.
Fabulous post! I like the way you built it up to the perfect ending.
What good advice for always. And what a plague, AIDS, so many deaths.
Hugs and Bisous.
JO clubs already existed as a counter to the "If you don't bottom, you're not really gay." narrative of the late 70s/early 80s. There was a period when any sort of prudishness (or prudence, as the case unfortunately turned out to be) was frowned upon. There may have even been a racial element, as Mexican and American Indian/Alaska Native men are far more likely to eschew bottoming due to the cultural implications. But most likely it was yuppie gays who had gone through years of brainwashing in an attempt to stop being gay, internalizing psychoanalytic concepts about "full genital maturity" and the clitoris being "immature" and now translate that to the male body.
@Six: Early millennials generally remember AIDS. It's just if you were born in the 90s, you missed the worst of it, and you had Dubya's sex ed.
What's interesting is how the face of AIDS has changed. Gay men, heroin addicts, hookers, and people in sub-Saharan Africa have been a constant, but it's on the rise in Eastern Europe and the MENA now.
@uptonking: It becomes less likely, but the risk is never completely absent.
@ Upton - See Maddie's comment. Sadly, nothing is foolproof, and the youngsters aren't paying attention. Their attitude is, "So what if I get AIDS, I can get meds." Kisses.
@ Six - Yep. They don't know their history. That's a problem. XOXO
@ Rick - Thanks!
@ Mistress - See, now that's really sad. BTW, I hear they'll be opening back up to in-person mid-June.
That stupid fuck Ronald Regan refused to even utter the name HIV-AIDS bowing to his moral majority Christian right wing base. How many lives could have been saved if he had shown even a small iota of compassion - even as some of his old Hollywood friends were dead or dying?
Let me hope that an HIV + vaccine will be found soon!
@ Anon - I think Reagan had issues real issues... "Mommy" issues. She ran the show.
What's interesting is how people forget. After the South (where frankly it was Bob Jones-type racism that motivated them), the center of the religious right was California. And yeah, the official response was denial.
I've been saying for years that Fauci is an optimist, the idea that you can get enough people to do something. If I may speculate, he has said he has PTSD from these years. Seeing that many people die is enough to give anyone mental issues.
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