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AIDS prevention message lags three decades behind techonology, scientific breakthroughs

AIDS prevention message lags three decades behind techonology, scientific breakthroughs

AIDS. It’s a four-letter word that packs a wallop. Hell, it’s not even a word. It’s an acronym. A series of letters that stands for something else: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. And for the last three decades, those four letters strung together have wreaked more havoc on the gay community than any word, thought, or action.

 

Since 1981 an estimated 33.3 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus that causes AIDS. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus has taken a hold of the gay men’s community. No other population has been as publicly linked to the virus except maybe Africa. Despite scientific breakthroughs in treatment and a keen awareness of how HIV spreads, the gay community still accounts for more than half of all known people living with the virus in the United States.

 

But why?

 

The message has been simple and clear for nearly 30 years. It hasn’t changed: wear a condom every time you have sex.
But therein lies the problem, some experts say.

 

It’s a condom, stupid


A static, one-size fits all directive to the vastly diverse and ever-changing population of gay men and men who have sex with men has not, and will not work. “Using a condom is an unnatural act,” said gay men’s group Manifesto founder Christopher Arlen.

 

Arlen, who was 18 and living in San Francisco in 1982, has been working in HIV/AIDS prevention and health care his entire adult life.
While the modern-day condom has been around – by some accounts – since the 1920s it was rare for gay men pre-HIV to even consider wearing one. Who were they going to get pregnant?

 

So gay men – well throughout the early years of the AIDS epidemic – continued to have condom-less sex. None of the earliest tips on how to avoid the virus included condoms. Instead, health experts working to curb the infection rate suggested gay men limit their sexual partners to fewer than 1,000 and make sure their asses were cleaned.

 

Oddly enough, Arlen claims, cumming inside a sexual partner was rare in the ’70s and ’80s.

 

“The classic gay porn all included the cumshot,” Arlen said. “Cum on my chest, my back.”
It wasn’t until condom use became the standard how-to that finishing inside someone became fetishized, Arlen said.
And now barebacking – a term that didn’t exist until after the AIDS epidemic and is almost exclusively a term used within the gay community – has become so popular, the most viewed porn on any website is usually condom-less.

 

Communication 101

 

So, the message of using a condom every time has worked against us. To a degree, yes. The message has failed to reach a diverse population and ever changing population.

 

The gay community is a microcosm of the heterosexual community. We span every economic class, race and age group.

 

“We know that communication is dynamic and always changing,” communication professor at Metro State Danielle De La Mare said. “If your message isn’t reflecting that, your message isn’t reaching your audience.”

 

In the last few years those working to prevent the disease have finally caught on – sort of. Regular testing has become the predominant theme. However, those billboards and viral videos have often been targeted to heterosexuals.

 

And now, more than ever, in an age when anonymous sex is one message away via mobile apps, the message of prevention must be just as quick.

 

“We’re a time oriented society,” De La Mare said. “We move as quickly as possible. We don’t want any obstacles in our way of what we want. And ‘wearing a condom every time,’ that can be an obstacle.”

 

Moreover, with advent of Craigslist and mobile apps like Grindr and Scruff, prevention specialists have a new beast to tackle, how to remind men using these services that they aren’t just a click away from sex, but away from the possibility of contracting HIV.

 

De La Mare suggests those working in prevention need to find common ground with the community.

 

“It’s communication 101.”

 

And at least one local official believes the biggest issue at hand is that people don’t believe the risk of contracting HIV still exists.

 

“The myths, the misinformation, the lack of targeted messaging are some of the biggest detriments of our efforts,” said HIV section chief at the Colorado Department for Public Health and Environment Ralph Welmoth.

 

HIV/AIDS in Colorado today

 

There is no doubt the AIDS epidemic has slowed down in recent memory. The spread of HIV has curbed and people are living longer due to breakthroughs in medical treatment. Within the last year, two new studies have shown that  people living with HIV who begin taking medication earlier are less likely to infect someone else.

 

Colorado specifically is an odd ball, experts say. It is one of the few states in the nation that has seen neither a dramatic increase – see Washington D.C., California, Georgia – or a dramatic decrease. The rates of infection have remained the same for the last five years. On average, 430 new cases of HIV are diagnosed each year.

 

Whether this is good news or bad news depends who’s looking at the data, Welmoth said.

 

Welmoth has been in the HIV/AIDS field since 1987.

 

One flaw in the HIV infections research is trying to quanitify how many people are actually tested. A number nearly impossible to track.

 

Chasing a cure, re-thinking prevention

 

“A vaccine would be best,” Welmoth said.

 

And while no one can deny that, Arlen believes a holistic approach should be taken in the meantime.

 

The fact of the matter is, Arlen said, gay men face so many deeper issues than just worrying about HIV. In fact, it’s those issues that may lead so many to contract the disease.

 

It’s a lack of owning one’s life and experiences that leads to carelessness, Arlen said. Something he hopes to change through his work at Manifesto.

 

“I like to call it moving the peas off the plate to get to the steak,” Arlen said.

 

The steak, you ask? Self-image and understanding, moving beyond the stigma from the general populace and rising above the infighting of the gay community.  We need a little bit of TLC.

 

One of the hardest struggles within the gay community during the last 30 years has been the battle over  how we show support of our brothers living with HIV/AIDS and yet, at the same time discourage others from becoming infected, Arlen points out.

 

The word itself, infected, creates a stigma.

 

It’s a riddle no one has been able to solve.

 

“At some point we’re going to have tell people, it’s better to not have HIV,” Arlen said. “I think men living with HIV/AIDS would say so.”
Arlen is HIV-negative.

 

Welmoth added men who have sex with men need the proper tools – information – and space to work out the idea of prevention. The government also needs to do a better job of targeting prevention messaging and he believes they’re on the right track with a new website, mylifecolorado.com.

 

“It’s a website targeting young people (gay and straight), sharing a sexual health message,” he said.

 

Welmoth is also excited that for the first time a sitting president has appointed someone at the cabinet level to come up with a national HIV/AIDS strategy.

 

But there is a wait-and-see hold on how health care reform will impact treatment opportunities for individuals.

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