Notes from the battlefield
The comments on the XTRA website in response to their front page story on criminalization (see my last post) are all over the map, and sometimes heated. But they’re worth reading by all those interested in stigma and how it pans out - or not - in the real world.. You can find them here: http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/HIV_stigma_radiates_from_behind_the_bench-6193.aspx
Brian has commented on this too today; clearly stories like this tend to hit a lot of nerves. So pardon the duplication between our two blogs.
Anyway, here’s a selection of comments from both sides of the XTRA fence:
Male or female, gay or straight, you deserve to be sentenced for deliberately - or through deliberate negligence - giving your partner a lethal disease.
The very idea of “deliberate” infections should be challenged except in the tiniest number of sociopaths, because it doesn’t really capture what happens when two people of different status have sex.
The vast majority of HIV is spread “non-deliberately” by people who don’t know they have it.
There is a difference between criminal intent and just deplorable action. But I find it hard to sympathize with HIV-positive people who complain that being forced to disclose every time cuts down on the pool of potential sex partners. Too bad! This article talks a lot about the responsibilities of HIV-negative people and virtually ignores the responsibilities of HIV-positive people.
I am so sick of hearing this idea that (being forced to disclose every time cuts down on the pool of potential sex partners). This is not the reason people don’t disclose. The reason we don’t disclose is because you can’t control gossip and everyone around you can treat you differently when they know, from the workplace to the bar to family. It changes your life for the worse and that is not fair. A lot of negative folks say “that’s your opportunity to educate,” but that’s easy for them to say. I know many, many guys who regret how open they have been about their status. It doesn’t make stigma vanish. It makes life harder. Please believe me when I say that the risk of disclosure DOES NOT have to do with being greedy for sex.
I am ashamed that this is what the gay rights movement has degenerated to. Defending a rapist! Stop blaming the victims! It’s not their fault when someone lies to them.
HIV criminalization? That has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I completely understand that yes this man did and does have a legal obligation to inform his partners about his status. However they knowingly participated in unprotected sex, knowing with all the sexual education in the world and all the advertisements regarding sexual health, that they could have contracted the HIV virus. For them to do so was irresponsible . .”
I’m sure many people would turn down a sexual encounter if they know their potential sex partner has HIV. It should be criminalized - it most definitely is murder. I am truly disgusted that the community is willing to fight this charge.
I’m am a closet HIV-poz guy. It’s the stigma and this kind of stuff (criminalization) that keeps me from coming out. The person who infected me (whom I know) didn’t say anything to me about his status. When I found out I was poz, I didn’t go running to the police. I was an adult who made a bad choice and I accept it.
Note that the comments I’ve selected, and the balance between criminalization supporters and naysayers, pretty well reflects the balance of what’s been posted to the XTRA website. It’s about a 50-50 split, I’d say. I don’t know if that split is representative of the views of the gay community as a whole. But it strikes me, as an opponent of criminalization (was there ever any doubt?), that a lot of work needs to be done to win the day and persuade the court of public opinion if our own community is so divided on this one.
What’s your take on this?
As a footnote, I remember when this campaign first began, we talked as a group about whether the issue of criminalization was sufficiently relevant to the topic of HIV stigma to devote much attention to it here. Times change and so does our understanding. It’s become readily apparent, in fact, that there are very close links between the two topics, don’t you think? Certainly many of the XTRA commenters readily make the connection.
Tags: criminalization, disclosure, HIV and the law, stigma, XTRA
février 12, 2009 20:28
Rodger. Hmmmm. Not good at all - and not just the comentt you’ve highlighted. Clearly there’s a lot to be done to get the gay community on side, a necessary step I think to having any hope of getting the law changed.
In a sense I think we’ve been our own worst enemy on this issue, though. It seems to me too many people (on our side) have been saying saying, albeit in other contexts, “look how horrible HIV is, it’s still a fatal disease” etc, etc. - rather than acknowledging the advances that have been made. So the other side remains as hysterical as they’ve always been and equates HIV with death, exposure with murder. I think you’ve suggested that the consequences of HIV infection in 2009 have to be more realistically communicated and if so, I agree 100%, or we’ll get nowhere.
février 12, 2009 18:55
The latest comment: “These walking disease factories are knowingly and with purpose going about with hope of infecting people. It is there intent to take as many with them as they can.”
*sigh*
février 3, 2009 21:14
Hey Rodger, you are right that there is a lot not to like in the article, the sidebar (particularly the sidebar) and some of the reader comments which followed. My early take was that the article was mostly a plus - hard not to argue with the theme that criminalization is making things worse, for example. But so many details, on further examination, don’t quite strike the right note.
By far the the biggest transgression, though, is the issue of “deliberate” infections. Unfortunately that repeated characterization of virtually non-existent behaviour derails intelligent debate every time. Frankly I blame folks who are not committed enough to opposing criminalization (including some in our community) for this. And I’m so damned frustrated about that.
A lot of the rest of the opposing arguments strike me as rhetoric - HIV KILLS etc - that I haven’t even really bothered to challenge it. Maybe that’s a mistake. Interesting comments of yours, though, which suggest we should.
Anyway, let’s look on the bright side. Deconstructing this story and the reacton to it has been a fruitful learning exercise, I’d say, in how we should respond to our opponents. Perhaps we owe Sky our thanks after all.
février 3, 2009 20:23
Thanks, Bob. I appreciate that. Rereading the article and thinking again specifically about the Aziga case and how to tackle it, again I see so many missing but key points.
First is talking about the whole “HIV transmission means death/murder” mis-linkage. HIV transmission is almost always cast as reckless and intentional when that is almost never the case. Describing HIV as “fatal” is never problematized and it should be. Neg people get to be hysterical about this and calling them on this is verboten. It is based on a bit of a panic rather than the facts (just like how when people demand disclosure even before you French kiss someone, this is not based on any rational understanding of risk). Many negative people, especially some of those involved in prevention, just do not get that when you try to ask people to be rational not just about the risk of getting HIV but the risks you face once you have it, we are not just trying to downplay the seriousness of getting HIV. It should be okay to say that, for many people (especially but not limited to well-off Westerners) HIV will not kill them and they will die of something else. If you do that you are assailed, and it is seen as legitimate when people comment “HIV KILLS!! HIV KILLS!! HIV KILLS!!” This should be deconstructed and not taken seriously.
I also think it is important to problematize the easy assocation made, in the law and in so many people’s minds, between HIV exposure and HIV transmission. They are not the same, and we don’t gain anything by letting anyone exaggerate the situation, such as claiming there is a near-1:1 relationship between exposure and transmission. The science says that is not true. Does that mean we should belittle concerns about transmission risks? Absolutely not. But it does mean we should see them in appropriate context.
I also think the issue of lying about HIV status could have been complicated further, beyond just saying it is despicable. There is a lot to say about this, and I think it is a particularly tricky point for many of us, including poz guys ourselves.
Anyway, I could go on far too long about this, and now I need to go to bed! So I will stop. Bottom line, I wish Xtra displayed better thinking on these topics more frequently.
février 3, 2009 15:21
Rodger, I admire the intelligence of your response you left on the XTRA website, so much so that I’ve taken the liberty of copying it below in its entirety.
“It’s great your editors care about criminalization and taking a stand on it, though I don’t think Xtra’s position and strategy and thinking are exactly right, and I don’t think Sky Gilbert’s arguments are the most persuasive ones. To me, the comments here reflect how Xtra has missed the mark a bit. What they show is there’s a huge gulf in opinion between many negative and positive guys about all the questions surrounding sero-discordant sex, from disclosure to risk to informed consent to criminalization. The most useful way to garner widerspread anti-criminalization support is to try and bridge that gap. Both sides need to understand where the other is coming from. Poz guys have an edge there because they have been in both sets of shoes. Neg guys rarely consider the poz perspective — and a real risk is neg guys deciding for themselves what the correct take on criminalization is - whatever that take may be — without listening to poz guys (for comparison, I am white and don’t think my personal opinions about race are definitive). The Johnson Aziga case is a really tricky starting point for arguing a case against criminalization. I admire the guts of that approach, but the essay itself lacks the nuance and specific points required to successfully make that argument. Lots of obvious points (or at least ones obvious to many poz folks) are missing from the analysis.”
février 3, 2009 14:41
I started to write here about the Xtra article but ended up just posting my comment on their site instead. I think they could have done better.
février 3, 2009 13:45
Thanks Brian for making that poiint. Perhaps the Aziga case isn’t the best one to base arguments around criminalization, as it is indeed extreme. It’s also one where Public Health interventions (a key component of what we often argue as the alternative to prosecution) were pursued quite vigoroouly, but didn’t work. And it involves a murder charge, but I can’t see at all where intent to end anyone’s life has even remotely been established.
So it’s such an odd case that it’s hardly a good one to argue about. Having said that, I’d still contend that criminalization doesnt cut it here. There are other remedies for reckless behaviour, however extreme that recklessness is, that do less to harm our society.
It’s unfortunate, this. We need a case which is a little bit closer to home for gay guys to perhaps better understand the issues, and come to more sympathetic conclusions. Like this one: http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=1&STORY_ID=4239&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=9
février 3, 2009 13:27
Thanks Elliott. My feelings exacty.
Where should we be focussing our advocacy efforts? Perhaps trying to get the gay community as a whole on side, as they are most impacted by HIV, but often quite sympathetic to criminalization. It seems to me to be hugely difficult to try and influencee public opinion and even the courts wihout what are usually thought of as our “allies” in the gay community being on-side, don’t you think?
février 3, 2009 09:27
I usually loath to look at comments left on the subject, but did because of the work we are doing here. I think people see such an extreme case that was in the press, and then try to translate that behavior to such of simply whether or not to disclose prior to engaging low risk behaviour. There is never be consensus on this issue. The one person says he’s disgusted that the community would go to bat for this guy. I don’t see anyone going to bat for anyone, Sky is simply writing his own analysis of broader issues of criminalization.
It’s like politicians twisting reality to suit their needs. I don’t think you’d find anyone in the community who’d be in support of what this guy did. And yet,,,,
février 3, 2009 09:26
Dear Bob,
I hope this note finds you well.
What I find particularly bothersome is that these comments are coming from within our own community. A self-righteous fag is a dangerous thing. In any event it highlights the massive amount of work that is left to be done. How can we expect any real change if we have such a powerful divide without our own community? Where should we really be focusing our efforts?
Cheers,
E