For "Advanced AIDS Education" I assume you already know about
"safer sex". People don't really discuss HIV very much in sexual
situations and what results is generally, as far as I know, as common practice,
in my community at least, that condoms are not invoked unless intercourse
is going to be enjoyed. Whatever safe sex is in theory, this is safe sex
in practice, I think. I don't expect you to learn anything advanced by my
pointing this out. This is a review section, I guess.
I don't live in West Hollywood anymore, at least for now, but most of my
newest in progress video piece that sort of corresponds to this page is
set in West Hollywood, where, they say, 50% of the gay male population is
infected with the HIV virus. I don't have any idea where such statistics
come from. My idea about West Hollywood is that given the common practice
referred to in the review section, there is a statistical chance of becoming
infected with the virus that is evidently quite good for these so called
gay males who live in gay ghettos. If the 50% statistic is really correct
at any rate then the chances are 50/50. I portray the virus as being then
as an evil dead type sprite, using the camera as a birds-eye, swooping down
on unfortunate gay males in WEHO from atop the roof of either that huge
carpet building that asshole Mel Gibson jumped off of in one of the "Lethal
Weapon" series or else fron the roof of Mickey's/A Different Light,
etc. I think it will be a lot easier to do it there, and better--many more
victims. Easier because I won't have to get permission. I'm sure I can find
the roof if I use the entrance to "Blades" and jus' keep going
up, up. (Some sequences of this video have been shot, this part is still
at the storyboarding phase, thus the speculation about where). What I am
saying is, for gay males in these areas and perhaps elsewhere, there is
a jolly good chance of catching the virus. And then...
According to Dr. Charles Farthing of the Aids Healthcare Foundation, 50%
of the clients who are seen at AHF do not know their HIV status until an
"AIDS defining event" occurs. Oh, for example, a lone 1/4"
diameter KS lesion on the inside forearm. I know several people who never
would be tested who never had any idea that they were ill, maybe they had
suspicions, and suddenly they discovered they had..."FULL BLOWN AIDS"!!
(Maybe they were having problems though. Maybe colds took a month to get
over instead of a few days. Maybe they had molluscums or suffered "gastrointestinal
distress") Maybe the new drugs are going to entice the people who are
"reticent about testing". It certainly seems likely. I found it
totally bizarre to read in the New York Times Sunday Magazine in September
about how people who write safe sex slogans agonize over the direction of
a particular slogan. Education has to focus a lot more on what might be
done about HIV after the testing in specific terms. The simple statement
that "it's never too early" carrys almost no weight. A new wave
of AIDS education type advertising campaigns does speak of the "new
treatments". No matter what the treatments and no matter what the advertising
campaign it seems to me that at least for the time being there will continue
to be a lot of people who will refuse to take an HIV test. Once the new
treatments are really proven effective in the long term this will no longer
be the case but that time is still a few years off. What I would really
like to see is for people who don't get tested to have an opportunity instead
to have a t-cell count done, to give them an indication of whether they
might appear, by the numbers, to have anything to worry about without "dealing
with" the whole HIV test thing, To give them an indication before they
have "full blown AIDS" if they are headed in that direction. I
would like to see all the ads for confidential HIV tests also offer ads
for t-cell counts. So I've gone from the "review section immediately
to a 2nd paragraph really directed at health care professionals. Doesn't
it make sense to consider this option? It would bring about much earlier
intervention for so many of our boys and boys and girls from the other high
risk groups.