Are Hiv+ Gay Men really ill?
I know it sounds contentious, but honestly, do we look ill? sound ill? act ill?
Well, no. Or at least no-one sees us when we are. And when asked, we will sometimes acknowledge the fact but will almost always deny the results of being ill.
Its hardly surprising.
Chronically ill people can choose to accept or deny their chronic illness.
Even though for a short while being 'Poz' may have had its heyday as 'trendy', being chronically ill does not fit into the traditional lifestyle of a Gay Man.
Denial is in fact the only way out for many Hiv+ Gay Men.
Not denial of being hiv+, nor of the disease itself, but of being 'ill' because of it.
As a sub-sub-sub-culture, we have developed this extraordinary schizophrenic atitude towards our own 'Poz'ness'.
On the one hand we are chronically ill and in need of a constant supply of high end highly toxic expensive designer drugs to keep us alive, and on the other hand its 'life as usual'.
Not withstanding the Dutch tendency to minimise emotion, I find it incredible how our mind's self-defense mechanism kicks in when confronted with something of the magnitude of 'life threatening disease'.
What does the mind use to avoid overload, you've guessed it, denial.
Its amazing to me how the media manages to present us as victim and perpetrator. What's even more amazing is the Aids machine in the Netherlands that manages to do exactly the same. But with one exception, the emphasis of the 'Prevention lobby' is on perpetrator and not victim.
We, as Hiv+ Gay men need to see ourselves as neither.
We are not, always, sometimes, never have been patients, clients, victims, perps, murderers, crazies, junkies, drug abusers, sex addicts, pathetic, needy, healthy, hypochondriacs ....
We need to create our own image.
We need to stop the denial.
