As seen in other posts, it will come to no surprise that this is my last post on the stigma campaign.

It truly has been a privilege to have been able to be part of a campaign that is has been, in my view, ground breaking.

The one thing that shocked me was that we really did not get a lot of rude, mean-spirited comments that are typically seen online at Xtra, Gay Guide Toronto message board, gay.com where in the guise of anonymity let their mouths fly.

I believe that was due to the tremendous effort of using multi-media, including video, to personalize our experiences as gay men live with, and without HIV. My hunch is the more you see of a real person, the less inclined one is to be a complete hag online. I may be wrong, but the difference was significant.

One of the little tad-bits that I hadn’t thought of was the repetition of poz guys mentioning people gossiping and not wanting to disclose as a result. Myself I don’t like being someone counselor over the matter as well, and being responsible to make sure guys aren’t putting themselves at risk by offering up their asses bare without question, thus putting me in the role of the villain if I weren’t going to say anything.

Obviously as well, we need to find a way to engage negative guys in these discussions. We’ll have no idea of what the sero-status of visitors to the site then out of the negatives, how many of them are already sensitive to the issues. Other gay men have felt by putting sero with stigma or HIV with stigma is creating a semantic link thus producing more stigma.

Personally, I can see that the double associated can do that; it needs to be put out there. I’m a bit more of an your face guy and make the audience to feel a little uncomfortable for those who need to be.

The campaign has been a great way to pull out some of these themes and will prove to be very beneficial when looking at future endeavors.

There are a few agencies I’d like to shout out as to making this a great campaign. The Ontario AIDS Network for housing the employee overseeing the project. The Gay Men’s Sexual Alliance for their co-operation and long hard work in pulling all of this together.

Top Drawer Creative headed up the website and did a great job not only with design, but also the all video and editing for your profiles, the games and other interactive features of the site.

Most of all, I have to say a big thank you to those who came back repeatedly and contributed to the issues on hand. Their contributions were essential in making this a success. And on yet again a personal note, kept my moral up to write something more on a subject that can be intense with submersed in it.

My hope is that those who came by have found ways to articulate their experiences, and perhaps learning something along the way. My one true hope always is that at least one people will walk away seeing others who have been successfully open in their lives to open up just a little bit more, even if that is a friend or two.

As those who have followed me, I’ve always been a more in your face kind of guy. Something a bit strange for a really shy guy.

On my blog, Acid Reflux Reality Show, we can continue from here you anyone wants to join me. I’ve taken a page from here and I’ve added multi-media to my site. I completely redid it and bought a video camera so I could post clips to go along with writing posts.

If you don’t make it there, and get FAB magazine in Toronto, check me out there. I’m not in every issue, but pretty close.

It’s been a hectic last couple of weeks. I was overly preoccupied by a week where things going wrong, and costing me a lot of money overtook my attention. In addition, I headed out to New York last weekend on a pilgrimage to see my comedic hero, Kathy Griffin.

It will come to no surprise for anyone who’s been following me in this campaign, but when it’s all said and done, laughter is my best friend. I love to laugh. I love to find the humour, especially at comedy that pushes boundaries. If someone can make me laugh, I’m in love.

And for two and half hours with front row seats, I was indeed in love. We live with so much heaviness in our lives. There is no doubt this is what got me through the days when there were no effective treatments.

Our friends and lovers were dying as if we were in the midst of a war. It was the one thing that bonded me to my grandmother, her having survived the WWII, and me, in the losing people around me.

I was an ill equipped twenty-two year old who barely knew what it was like to be an adult let alone face what felt like all encompassing death. Even my doctor killed herself while on duty at the St. Boniface Hospital a few months after my test.

So here we are today, it makes me wonder what it will be like in another twenty years.

Will the gay community have come together, or completely split apart? What will have happened to this criminalization trend? Will HIV negative guys ever figure out they play a role in this apart from sero-sorting, and that their behaviour also contributes to raising infection rates? What will the treatments look like? Maybe it will be simply getting a shot once a year, a vaccine?

What do you think?

Just for fun, why don’t we engage in a little exercise.

Let’s make a top-ten list of all the stupid things that have happened to us as a result of HIV, if could be telling someone you’re positive and he suddenly gets the urge to head out and buy a pack of smokes never to return again, to whatever.

Hmmm, what can I say on this subject?

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It always pains me to look at comments left on Xtra, or any other gay venue when it comes to issues regarding HIV and disclosure.

Sky Gilbert ran a piece regarding a case where a positive fellow infected 13 women here in Ontario. Always, when I am on this subject, I have to run the disclaimer that I would never support this behaviour. This is wilful and intentional harm to the women he exposed.

The article spoke to some of the implications of this court case and the grey area of sex, disclose, and what is and isn’t illegal.

Really, to only reason why I went through the comments was to find something for a post here. Otherwise I dare not go near.

To my surprise the majority of comments were ones that seemed more or less enlightened. On fellow who was closeted about his status wrote, and I was glad he did.

Once again, I got on my soapbox and started writing away to leave a comment. Near the end, I said to myself, “Ah screw it.”

However, I did copy this comment to leave here, and I’d like to get other people’s thoughts on it. I thought this fellow responded very well.

“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!” — I am so sick of hearing this idea that I *have* to say something. 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. Calling BS, Toronto ON