I think one can target an awareness campaign at a group without demonizing them in the process.
The LA Times this week reported that the LA Gay and Lesbian Center has instigated an advertisement which carries the message “HIV is a gay disease” and the tag line “Own it. End it.” The advertisement has appeared on roadside billboards throughout Los Angeles and in several magazines and newspapers.
Proponents of the campaign say the ads are a response to the fact that gay men still constitute the majority of HIV/AIDS cases in the US (as in most western nations) and that there has been undue focus on other minority groups in HIV/AIDS education
There are a lot of dying people iin Africa who don’t think that AIDs is a homosexual disease. (Although I sometimes wonder if female circumcision is a factor.)
HIV is a disease born out of the huge imbalance of sexual energy. This sexual energy is also what has given mankind the world that we inhabit today. The strive for sex and power are men’s tributes to Earth. Why? Because we seek to please women. HIV is a disease that was carried from apes/chimpanzees in Africa. Some horny guy who couldn’t get sex had sex with a monkey who transmitted the virus into him. From this one single guy the virus travelled around the world. This disease came from deviations of natural sex. Gays who perform unnatural sex propagated this disease because anal sex does not offer protection as a vagina does. (note, I am not placing a moral judgement, simply stating a fact). The point is that the world is suffering because the imbalance of sexual energy (supply and demand, where supply is the tip of the iceberg and demand is the whole thing) is the sole driving source of evolution. HIV is just one part of the collateral damage.
LOL, 0113… man you have a distorted view of reality, at least the reality that most people experience.
Hmmm, 0113addiv – I think it is more likely that HIV was first transmitted to a human during butchering of apes for meat and not sex. Not only is it more common to butcher an ape than bang it, it’s a lot easier to transmit HIV via direct blood-blood contact than via sex. Remember all those people who got HIV from blood product transfusions?
Vaginal sex is still plenty dangerous enough in terms of HIV transmission, so i’m not sure of the relevance of your “anal sex is unnatural” comment, even if there were not gay people at all, it is likely that HIV or somethign similar would still be a problem (as are hepatits B and C, syphilis, chlamydia etc.). As a whole, most STIs are pretty well correlated in populations based upon amount of unprotected sex and not sexual orientation.
I’m not sure what role female circumcision has, other than an indicator of female oppression and general lack of choice about contraception etc. I guess that such damage might result in increased direct blood/semen contact, but it is hard to see any other way this would increase transmission rates per se. There is, however, good evidence emerging that male circumcision is protective against HIV acquisition (this is due to the foreskin having many immune cells which actively sample antigens from the skin, these then take up HIV).
0113addiv — what a twat!
So gay people are stereotyping themselves, thats rich.
Man, you guys don’t understand evolution. Homosexuality evolved out of lack of mating partners. They solved their problem by changing their mindset! In other words, gays get off super easy. Also lesbians get what they want too: trusting partners and committment. Most men make up for their lack of mates by having come up with a genius method: masturbation. When was the last time you saw a lion masturbating? It is only in higher forms that you see masturbation as in the chimpanzee. What goes hand in hand with masturbation (really, higher sexual drive) is higher intelligence. If there is one word for God it is SEX. That is what has driven us from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago to today. Read Richard Dawkin’s “The Selfish Gene”. It will help you understand where we are coming from. Basically he says that replication (sex) is the core motivation to Life.
I’m not banging on gays. I have several gay friends that are some of the nicest people I know. But statistics are FACTS. HIV is still predominantly a gay disease IN AMERICA. This ad is not about demonizing them, it is about alerting them to a fact so that they would get tested.
Anyway, it is no longer a death sentence. People in the gay community practice barebacking where those infected with HIV have sex with others with HIV. Only the stigma is really a problem today, not the virus.
What the fuck did your mother do to you?
0113addiv: Just to pick one little objectionable bit out: Are you sure you can distinguish between “natural” sex and “unnatural” sex? And since “unnatural” carries heavy pejorative meaning, are you sure that calling something “unnatural” is not the same as “banging” on it? Maybe you were just being incautious in your use of language.
I suggest that natural-ness is a totally unhelpful dimension on which to measure human activity. Is the practice of medicine natural or unnatural? Is dying in childbirth natural or unnatural? What about warfare, drugs, religion, libraries, and suicide? If those questions get you gummed up at all, you ought to consider chucking “naturalness” entirely and address issues without it.
Your feedback on this point will be appreciated.
#1 Sex with monkeys??? Hardly… Aids was most likely transferred to humans by way of the ritualistically use of monkey blood or eating under cooked monkey flesh. A hunter might have nicked himself while skinning a monkey infected with SIV. The eating of monkey brains is also common among some African tribes. The Kuru virus is transmitted through the consumption of brains.
These are not my words, it is a paraphrase of Jonas Salk.
Either way it was the monkeys fault.
By the way, 0113, homosexuality is natural. It does regularly occur in nature. There are no known human sexual proclivities that have not been found in abundance in nature. A lion masturbate? Maybe not. Primates certainly do. Even Conan O’Brien has a masturbating bear!
As for homosexuality coming from a huge imbalance of sexual energy… sorry, dude. Homosexuality, whether nature or nurture, is believed by most experts in the field to be determined by the age of three.
So in conclusion, HIV is cause by a virus, not by some imbalance of sexual energy. The stigma is really a problem today but so is the day to day coping with both opportunistic diseases and the side effects of the drug cocktail (no pun). And as far as the objectionable advertisement, I doubt it will stop anyone foolish enough to engage in high risk actions from continuing to do so. But it did bring out conversations about prejudice and shone a spotlight on some ignorance so I can’t consider it bad thing. Still, I don’t like it.
I think 0113addiv is pulling everyone’s chain. Most everything in these posts are so goofy and unrelated to any kind of research (if there is any to back it up 0113, post it here) that it can’t be anything but a ruse to get people riled up. Imbalance of sexual energy. Brilliant!
Sexuality is determined in the womb as the fetus develops and is flushed with either estrogen or testosterone as determined by its chromosomes. Given the presence of both of these hormones in humans and the complexity of the development process, it’s perfectly rational to conclude that random variances in the balance of these hormones during development is what is the cause of homo/bi/transsexuality. This is my belief at least… that it is a born trait, but is not genetic by design.
>even if there were not gay people at all, it is likely that HIV or somethign >similar would still be a problem
Yeah, keep imagining it. The only real risks are for gays and drug users and people who have sex with them. I suppose blood transfusions could have happened, but the odds are low with today’s screenings. People who track the spread of AIDS have not found a man to woman to man to woman transmission history.
What about the epidemic of AIDs in Africa, ABCD? There is hererosexual transmission there.
#7, she didn’t love me, which is why I had to discover what real love is.
#8, bquady, when I talk about natural I am referring to the quality that is observed in Nature. Therefore, unnatural just means not that happens in Nature. I don’t mean it any prejorative sense. Words are not natural, neither are clothes, pens or dyed hair. That doesn’t make them bad. It simply means it doesn’t occure naturally. Anal sex, regardless if it is done between male-female or male-male is unnatural in that we do not see that in nature (except in chimpanzees). Anal sex is not wrong. On the contrary it is right for homosexuality because the feminine partner has no vagina. But, let’s face it, the anus was not built for procreation. Has anyone ever got pregnant through anal sex? The blood vessels in the anus are prone to rupture. The vagina walls and lips are extra sturdy. It has been shown that men who have had vaginal,unprotected sex with women with AIDS do not contract the disease. Look at porn stars. Ron Jeremy (all 9 3/4″ of him) has never contracted any disease as a professional porn star. Everyone in society is trying to sell you something. They don’t care what they tell you. They only care in selling you something. So everybody has joined HIV bandwagon. The Christian Right use it to scare young women from having pre-marital sex, gays use it to get a cure so they can continue fucking without responsiblities, and even the back of this week’s New Yorker magazine has an ad by Gap claiming:
“Do the (RED) thing: Can an individual change the world? Yes you can. ALL GAP (PRODUCT) RED clothing is designated to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.”
We live in a capitalistic society whose soul purpose is to sell us shit. No morals (faux ones, yes) except their bottom line.
#9, I don’t know why it is so hard to believe someone to have sex with a monkey. Farming people have sex with their sheep. My dad experimented when he was a young boy with a sheep. I tried to screw my cat in the bathroom once (ONCE). When those hormones go off, and as a young kid even a jar of mayonnaise wasn’t safe in my home. An African man living near the jungle may have just experimented with a chimpanzee who probably would have been very cooperating anyway. A butcher getting his blood mixed with apes? Butchers are professionals. They cut themselves like you lose your balance when your sitting. Almost never.
#11. it seems many are being protective about homosexuals. THE WORST SCENARIO HAS HAPPENED: They came out of the closet. They should have stayed in for their own survival. Homosexuality is coded in the DNA. Having stayed in the closet for thousands of years, that DNA code was able to survive because gay got married and passed on their gay genes to the next generation. By coming out of the closet and accepting them for who they are in society, they have caused their own demise! In 100 years, gays will be wiped out from the face of the planet! By their own doing! Homosexuality runs in the family. You don’t turn homosexual. You either are or you’re not. HOMOSEXUALS HAVE WRITTEN THEIR OWN DEATHS.
#12. Uncle Dave, equilibrium, Uncle Dave, EQUILIBRIUM. When there is equilibrium NOTHING MOVES. That is what happened before the Big BAng, there was equilibrium. The only way to get movement is by imbalance. Our Creator was STILL. Death is Still. Non-existence is still. The miracle of Life is MOVEMENT. In the beginning there were other forces to create movement, namely a huge explosion. But in the last few million years, sex took over in primates. Think about it. If a man was totally satisfied with all the sex he could want or imagined, what else would you want to do? (assuming all the other necessities in life have been taken care of like food, clothing, warmth and safety). This imbalance of sexual energy is what makes us move. It is our movement source. Without it, there would be no life.
I’m laughing too hard to add anything intelligent. This is the best hijacking of a topic yet.
But good entertainment.
#16 – re-9. Okay (Ovis Sapian) Sheep boy, whom do I believe, you or Jonas Salk?
Re: You and the cat? THE CAT!!!
Are you endowed with a AAA battery?
Why don’t you try it with the toaster in the bath tub. Be sure to plug in the toaster.
Re: You and the Mayo…I’ll never eat fast food again.
#16 re-12: Someone call St. Webster…we’ve found a textbook example of imbalanced. Need to take a picture of Man, Sheep, Sheepboy, Cat the Mayo Jar and don’t forget the cooperating chimpanzee. While you’re at it, call PETA.
Poor Kitty. I’m not refering to Amanda Blake who played Miss Kitty. A victim AIDS she contracted from her queer husband.
0113 Needs intervention immediatly. He’s one sick puppy.
Have you ever been to Africa? Not the cities, which aren’t all that much different than some of the rural areas. There is no Bob the Butcher in the wild who carves up your catch of the day. You do it. But most reputable scientists believe the HIV/AIDS virus came from monkey’s into humans through blood in contaminated brain material that certain tribes eat. They are pretty sure they have *ground zero* of where it all began.
Aids in Africa is almost exclusively passed through male/female hetrosexual sex. The fastest growing group in this country from 1998 until 2003 was hetrosexual teenagers getting infected. But now it’s it’s gays again as the fastest rising group.
#16, 0113: “In the beginning there were other forces to create movement, namely a huge explosion. But in the last few million years, sex took over in primates.”
Aha! I get it! One Big Bang leads to another!
I am *officially* walking away from this thread – I don’t waste breath on half the people contributing on this subject… in fact I wouldn’t p*ss on them if they were on fire 😉
I’ve asked around about AIDS in Africa, and the only response I got was that AIDS in Africa operates differently, which I’m not sure I believe. Blood screening is not as good, and there’s less research. The numbers being hyped of 1 in 4 with HIV are probably not right, but I can’t explain the differences in transmission in Africa.
I love the way the homosexuality is supposed to be “evolution in action” 0113. I have read the “Selfish Gene” BTW and one basic rule of evolution is that offspring matter and not you. Therefore it is hard to see that a lack of mating partners and therefore homosexuality would be selected given that a lack of mating partners leads to fewer offspring. Thus you ask us to believe that :
1. there has historically been a great lack of female / male mating partners (given the historically lower position of women in most societies, and generally 50/50 sex ratio in most populations, I find this hard to believe)
2. Under such unusual circumstances homosexuality was evolutionarily favourable since it resulted in more offspring for those practising it – since you have already pointed out that gay sex doesn’t lead to pregnancy, it is difficult to underatand how this happened.
How can homosexuality be evolutionarily derived when practitioners (until recently) were unable to have children together, and how would homosexuals end up having more children than non-gays via conventional heterosexual reproduction? What is the reproductive advantage?
As to heterosexual transmission – this has happened numerous times in USA and UK – search for cases where men have been prosecuted for knowingly infecting female partners through unprotected sex. Also Ab Cd, blood products are currently screened, but did not used to be – there have been numerous highly publicised lawsuits regarding haemophiliacs and others contracting HIV from blood prodcuts prior to full HIV screening.
The 1 in 4 figure is a poor reflection of overall African HIV prevelance, since infection rates vary hugely by locality and age e.g. Zimbabwe is high at around 17% prevelance (in women, aged 15-24), but Ghana is lower at only 2%. Overall the picture is one of African women of child-bearing age being the major infected group and often passing the virus to their children during childbirth or breastfeeding. It is difficult to see how these women got HIV other than through heterosexual sex.
$6, LOL, man you’re so crazy!!
“It is only in higher forms that you see masturbation as in the chimpanzee.” I think that makes dogs a really higher form of being… they’re able of licking their dicks. ROTLOL
Mighty dogs, yeah, yeah! LOLOLOL
#23, AB CD, I hope you’re still a virgin, because you’re not the least prepared for sex… at least for doing it safely. Yes, vaginal intercourse is indeed a medium for HIV to propagate, so for the love of God, when you get together with a woman, unless you’ve known her for ages, do use the rubber.
About Africa, no HIV does not operate differently there. People do. Out of ignorance, they don’t use things like condoms. Many of them might even think that HIV is only a gay thing. Actually, one of the things that annoys me the most is the Catholic’s Church stance on the condom, which usually condemns educational actions in Africa in the attempt of spreading the use of that lifesaving rubber.
#23, I am *officially* walking away from this thread – I don’t waste breath on half the people contributing on this subject… in fact I wouldn’t p*ss on them if they were on fire
Comment by Pete — 10/6/2006 @ 5:01 am
Thank you. Don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out the door. For what it’s worth? I’d throw you a brick if you were drowning, and try to hit you too.
reletive to the topic:
One measure of good advertizing is whether it causes one to remember the message. Even better if the message is passed on and causes word of mouth discussion. Regardless of your polorization on the topic of Gays – this advertizing works to create awareness of HIV – independent of the mode of contraction.
BTW
If 1/16th ( approx 6%) of the population is gay – then the odds of having at least on child to be oriented gay is 1-(225/256) or about 13%. It rises to about 18% if you have 3 children.
Would you focus this much venom on your own child?