Pissed off . .
XTRA’s cover story yesterday was about criminalization, a treatment sympathetic to our cause by Sky Gilbert, which (mostly) hits all the right notes, even though he couldn’t resist criticizing at some length some of our community’s most vocal supporters. You can read the article here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/HIV_stigma_radiates_from_behind_the_bench-6193.aspx
Predictably the article has already provoked a flurry of comments on the XTRA website, including the usual fodder for campaigns like ours. “Take the disease spreaders and hang them up” is one quote. Nice!
By chance, I had planned to revisit criminalization here today anyway, given its relationship to stigma, and the fact that it doesn’t seem to want to go away. I’d already noticed that some in our community continue to debate what is a suitable response to people being pilloried for having sex without disclosure.
Is a fairly simple issue becoming overly complicated through neo-conservatism and the power of hot air? To people living with HIV, I don’t see much appetite or even need for debate. Most of us recognize criminalization for what it is - an attack, an affront and a useless, counterproductive prevention tactic, always. From too many others - and I’m not talking about the Margaret Wente’s of this world but some of our “supporters” - the view is often heard that, well, maybe we poz folks need to feel the strong arm of the law, some of the time. Because, we’re told, some of us are “irresponsible”. Some of us are “deliberately infecting others”
Even XTRA raises this spectre in a side-bar, by characterizng some of us this way, although thankfully it’s challenged by at least one reader.
I could document where and when I’ve heard this notion of “deliberate infections” countless times, and from whom, but that would win me few friends. But in every discussion I’ve witnessed where criminalization is debated, it always - always - comes up. Namely, what do we do with “these people” who intentionally infect others, the psychopaths. No matter that this phenomenon is virtually non existent, no matter that the criminal code quite handily deals with intentional harm anyway and doesn’t need laws on disclosure to do that, no matter that the debate on criminalization is not - or should not be - about “deliberate infections” at all, we go down this path ad naseum. It’s depressing.
Sometimes it becomes a stumbling block. I’m saddened that the community doesn’t seem to have a response to criminalization that’s universally accepted. Even the recent Ontario paper that recommended we re-examine the law and identify alternatives - hardly conroversial - gets bogged down in the debate about what to do about those non-existent psychopaths.
To repeat; the law deals with psycopaths already. It worries me that in discussions that should focus on the legal challenges that face normal, sexually active poz guys daily, we end up talking about psychopaths. I think that is very telling about our attitudes to poz folks generally.
It’s also telling that this debate is not usually within the poz community, or hardly involves us at times. We have few forums that would otherwise enable this, we don’t have the equivalent of NAPWA in the States, for instance. So community boards often devoid of poz folks, composed instead of well meaning folks with little knowledge of HIV, talk about us - but don’t get us. Agency staff, who are better informed but often similarly devoid of poz folks’ involvement, sometimes fall in to the same trap. So perhaps it’s the lapses in implementation of GIPA (greater involvement of people living with HIV) coming home to roost. It’s hard not to notice that decisions about our future and judgements about our conduct sometimes reflect the mainstream views of the general public, which can be less supportive than we would like - rather than being inclusive of a poz view of the world. That’s why talking about the state-sanctioned stigmatization of people like you and me ends up talking about our role as psychopaths.
So I started talking about criminalization and ending up talking about GIPA. But there is a connection, and there is definitely a connection with both to the perpetuation of HIV stigma, don’t you think?
Anyhow, I find the debate on criminalization disheartening and depressing. One organization is asking me to come and talk to their board, to present a poz guy’s view of criminalization. It’s good that they welcome the dialogue. But honestly, I’m so pissed off with the whole thing, I hardly want to go. I feel like I’m done with debating it. Some times the weight of oppression - and stigma - does that to you. And that’s not good.
Tags: Add new tag, criminalization, disclosure, HIV and the law, Sky Gilbert, stigma, XTRA
April 30, 2013 04:55 PM
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February 1, 2009 10:35 PM
Hey David. Thanks for weighing in here, and I have to say you make some good and reasonable points.
Let me say that I use the term psychopath - or perhaps I should be saying sociopath, I’m not sure - to describe a particular class of person, that rare breed, if it even exists, that INTENTIONALLY harms others by INTENTIONALLY infecting them with HIV. My position is that phenomenon is an all too common red herring in the discussions which rage about disclosure and the law, because the law already takes care of psychopathic behaviour like this. In fact this phenomenon really has nothing to do, in my view, with the issue of the criminalization of non-disclosure.
I think you’d likely agree, though, that a more relevant discussion involves the correct response to those who are unwilling or unable to disclose their status where there is a risk to their partner of becoming infected. It’s realistic to recognize that some folks, positive and negative, sometimes act recklessly and without a whole lot of concern for the health and well-being of their partner. I think sometimes that’s about character and personality traits, other times a result of the social determinants of health, sometimes about self esteem and others times, it’s about the nature of sex and how it plays out in the dark. And yes, sometimes about the kind of power imbalances you talk about too . It’s complex. But I think it’s important for us to acknowledge too, as you have done, that those behaviours occur in some poz folks. I’ve noticed that a poz-centric view focuses largely on the role of the negative person in all this, and that’s likely not as helpful as it could be, if we really, really buy in to the notion of shared responsibility.
I guess I’d argue, though, that while the underlying behaviours are indeed complex, our societal response need not be. And it certainly need not be punitive, or stigmatizing of everyone infected or, in particular, contributing to new infections.
On that latter point, we sort of agree on the ineffectiveness of criminalization as a prevention tool, although I would take a stronger position than you and state that the law is not just ineffective, it’s counterproductive. We need to acknowledge, as a key point in our ongoing advocacy that, as XTRA suggests, criminalization is making things worse. For everybody. That’s surely not the desired impact of legal sanctions of any kind, however we view the underlying behaviour.
February 1, 2009 06:09 PM
I would gently disagree with you somewhat Bob around whether the idea of criminalization is a mute subject. I feel that like everything else we’ve been discussing on this site, this issue needs more discussion. I think you’ll find that there are so many varied views on criminalization of non-disclosure during unprotected sex from not only neo-conservatives, but from many POZ allies, and from within the POZ community itself. While I become a bit wary of using the word psychopath, I think like in the greater society at large, there are in fact a number of individuals everywhere who have little concern for the health and wellbeing of either themselves or their partners. Given that reasoning, I’m sure we could say that it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that these individuals would also exist in the POZ community as well. I am in no way saying that the law as it is at the moment is the most effective tool, and may in some instances make prevention efforts more difficult, but I want to acknowledge the disheartening and depressing circumstances like the ones experienced by the women involved in this latest public trial. Sky Gilbert has somewhat missed the discussion around power imbalances that often occurs within heterosexual relationships that can put many women (and women of colour) in positions where they in fact don’t have the voice to request condom use, or ask to abstain from sex with their partners. this issue is very nuanced, and only through making this a part of the greater discussion can we come to any real solution on how to create safer communities for all of us regardless of where we fall on the sero-divide.
January 30, 2009 12:19 PM
Re Critique, I would be less harsh on the feature itself. Sky Gilbert is not a prevention expert, even though he may think he is. His approach to criminalization clearly reflects his personal biases, but is basically sound at the core. As for XTRA, I like the way they’ve given this a high profile, by making it their cover story. I like too how the cover has used the “how punishing poz people is making everything worse” tag line. That’s the good stuff.
Good point you make too about how we tend to moralize around some of the risk factors involved in transmission. Frequency of exposure is indeed one of them, but we’ve never seemed to be able to come to grips with this and discuss it in a way that’s doesn’t seem totally loaded. We should.
Moving on, and bizarro or not, I’m of the belief that wholesale disclosure of out status would reduce stigma significantly. But I’m a realist too, and recocgnize why that’s just not gonna happen.
Anyway, for me, and I think you too, the XTRA feature becomes more problematic in the sidebar material. It’s difficult to know whther that was contributed by Sky or XTRA or a combination of the two. As I indicated in my post, though, I find the reference (twice) there to “deliberate infections” very troublesome. This garbage talk is in fact at the crux of what’s wrong with much of our community’s debate on this issue, and I’m hating it.
I missed the reference to suggesting that neg guys blow the whistle on those who are “deliberately spreading HIV” - there’s that language again - and call in Public Health. Yikes! This is depressing!
January 30, 2009 11:27 AM
Xtra pushes the idea that poz people should disclose, but they articulate a lot of their HIV arguments from a seemingly HIV-negative perspective, which is why, despite the passion, they get it wrong some of the time. I am not trying to make any suggestions about the HIV status of either Gilbert or Xtra’s staff, either way that’s their own business unless they choose to disclose. But it strikes me that they miss considerations that would be obvious to people with HIV.
Most people with HIV would challenge some of the crazy ideas in that sidebar: (1) not challenging the whole concept of “deliberate” or “reckless” or “willful” infection. I could write a book about how problematic this is. (2) encouraging “do-gooders” to sic public health on these supposed deliberate infectors. (3) the controversial notion that disclosure is the answer and the bizarro fantasy that stigma would evaporate if all people with HIV were to expose themselves.
This might be true in a context like South Africa where prevalence is so high, but here where so few people in the overall population are living with HIV, this is like setting us up as sitting ducks. Beyond Church Street, this is insane as a blanket recommendation. It is a highly personal decision. What’s insidious about this is that is suggests that those who disclose are contributing to HIV prevention and those who do not are hampering it.
Now as for Sky Gilbert’s article. It’s a bit of an old-school leftist take (pointing out how the panics around HIV exploit race and gender). And this is all true, but there are so many more direct arguments that are obvious to many people with HIV. Also, the article harps a bit about challenges to “promiscuity” in a way that oversimplifies a bit. The word seems a bit triggering for Gilbert but the thing is, it is true that people who have more sex with more people, whether it’s safer sex re HIV or not, are in fact at a higher risk of getting STDs. We need to strip away any (real OR perceived) moralism on that point and just acknowledge that it is true.
I wish the people at Xtra spent some time on HIVStigma.com! They might seem a bit less disconnected.