finding a seat at the table, not on the fence
We can all suffer from the “Other Amnesia”. It keeps us from seeing things from an-other context. As negative guys we can sometimes forget a hugely important fact: HIV positive men were once HIV negative too. Same dreams, hopes and intentions. In some instances, positive guys can suffer from this amnesia also, forgetting just how much anxiety the impermanence of an HIV negative status can build-up in neg men.
Stigma, has done a thorough job of convincing both it’s victims and it’s perpetrators that somehow there is a difference between us beyond our HIV status’.
It falsely tells HIV negative men, that we’re different, better, more moral, clean, less slutty. We choose to believe it because it makes it easier to rationalize that HIV infections only happen to “those people” and not to us. As neg gay men post-AIDS we live in fear. Fear drives the way we engage or disengage POZ men in our community. Ultimately, this fear and the stigma it creates can only be deconstructed and dissected with open dialogue. That’s what this site is all about. Building community through hearing each other out. Correcting the myths, and not pointing fingers. It only makes sense that both HIV negative and positive men are at the table for this dialogue.
I don’t claim to understand the nuances of this issue as intimately as those of you who live with HIV and its stigma, however I am interested in getting engaged.
In this discussion there aren’t “bad people” and “good people”; there’s only those who don’t get it and aren’t interested, and those who don’t get it and are willing to learn. HIV status doesn’t determine which side of that fence you fall on.
Tags: fear, HIV-negative, status, stigma
novembre 16, 2008 14:54
David,
Thanks for your reply to this question.
I have a deep respect for this community and I feel that we as a gay community have allot to lean form them.
I have herd the true Voices of this community and when they are listened too, they have much to offer in the way of perspective that is quite valued in my opinion.
The impact of being being able to live without HIV stigma for me, would mean that we could focus on some very difficult issues.
I could not imagine what coming to a new country so I could access medications, escape political discord, and throw in having to leave your kids only to meet, being a visible minority, the Canadian Immigration process, side-effects of medications, no money, no job, no voice, no privileges, no community, no friends or family and HIV Stigma.
WOW!
…and I thought getting off drugs was hard.
novembre 16, 2008 05:45
Hey Coach Be. I think the effects of HIV stigma on women of colour is likely quite difficult. The voices of HIV positive women are often silenced due to sexism, homophobic assumptions about HIV, and of course the added impact of racism for HIV positive women of colour. Interestingly enough there are a number of PHA Black women and women of colour right here in Toronto who are doing a great deal of work around the issue of stigma surronding HIV. So as always, let’s look at the ways marginalized communities resist and are resilient.
novembre 15, 2008 06:46
David,
As a Man of Color and a Man that is not living with HIV. I am wondering if you could comment on the impact of stigma on the Women of Color.
I am curious to hear your perspective on how it would impact your community to have a unified gay community.
novembre 1, 2008 21:37
Rodger
I hear you. As a facilitator on this site, I sometimes try to gauge opinion out there, and in doing so, its easy to slip in to generalizations which don’t fit everybody . Sorry about that.
It’s a good question though, about how we arrive at differences in outlook like the one you mention. Not sure I know about the answer.
novembre 1, 2008 14:43
“When it comes to sex, though, its hard to ignore the big HIV elephant in the room.”
Here’s the thing, Bob. I don’t really see it as the elephant in the room at all when it comes to sex, though you and Tim have both used that expression now. I don’t mean to disrespect either of your views though just to say my experience is very different. When I was neg, I never asked a person’s status ever in a sexual context, never in 20 years, and I genuinely didn’t feel that I wanted or needed to know, or that it was contributing to any kind of damaging silence to take that approach. And now being poz I still basically look at it the same way, and I feel very ethically settled about this. So I wonder what kinds of things can lead to these kinds of differences in outlook.
octobre 31, 2008 07:15
As per the last posting I listed on here, I decided to do a little testing of the premise of stigma surround HIV/AIDS myself with dear friends of mine (who shall remain nameless). Need-less to say we were discussing this new campaign and the simple yet profound premise behind it all. It turns out that the underlining theme from the conversions had was that the reason why they are not so into discussing the whole notion of HIV and the stigma associated with it is the fact that they either;
1. think that is it is merely a matter of time before they themselves become positive,
2. that they would rather not think about it at all (and I surmise that this reaction is linked to the first observation) and
3. they themselves have seen this disease infects many of their close friends, and the question they have is “when will it be me?” or “which of my friends will be next?” and “How would people react if it becomes me?”
I soon realise or rather re-enforce the theory I had that HIV itself is a all encompassing disease that does not only stigmatize those who are positive but also those around them that are not, simply because it gives those that are negative a glimpse into their own possible future. This is very hard for them to accept or even want to deal with so it is projected outwards as hatred of those that are positive. In reality ( at least this is my view) it is their way of dealing with the indirect impacts of having a friend (s) that are positive and feeling rather helpless knowing that there is absolutely nothing that they can do to help that person in the sense of making it go away.
This hypothesis of mine was done on my friends that are gay males. Moreover, from what I know about the male psyche is that they are constructed to be fixers of things and if they cannot fix something, they try to avoid it at all cost. Unfortunately, the result in this case is the idea of stigma. Not saying that this is right or wrong but it does provide some insight as to why there are those that would try as much as possible to avoid those within our communities that are HIV positive simply because they see a glimpse of what they do not want to become i.e. “the other”, “different”.
I have, in the past, been guilty of having strong feelings about not associating with people that I know were HIV+. This admittedly was based on ignorance on my part. But then I found out that two of my dearest friends were themselves positive and I finally realised that the time and energy spent discounting people based solely on their status was not beneficial to me at all. I then began to read about the disease and understand it and to be honest I have come to the conclusion that HIV does not change the person but rather it is the reaction of those around that person that changes the person.
But as I mentioned elsewhere( see Vijay’s page) on this site, education does play an important factor in removing that stigma issue. It is important that campaigns such as these are out there. I personally think this was a good start but to deal with HIV/AIDS stigma, it may be beneficial to take a page from the anti-smoking campaigns and make it more in your face and force people to deal with the uncomfortable issues around this disease. Otherwise, it will never end and the cycle will continue.
octobre 29, 2008 12:38
What an excellent post. Thank you.
octobre 29, 2008 05:28
David. Interesting questions.
I’m positive and of course once I was negative. I got the diagnosis from my doctor in September, 1993 late one Friday afternoon. I was kind of stunned, and I don’t remember much about that conversation, except that my doctor was kind of embarassed about it all, and that I somehow had to go home and tell my lover. But I do remember riding home on the streetcar that day and looking around at everyone on that streetcar and thinking “I’m no longer the same as you. We’re different” Just a gut feeling really, without perhaps being able to articulate what that diffrence was at the time, apart from sero-status. Later it became more clear. I had mortality issues, I had health issues, I had work issues, I had guilt issues, I had secrecy issues - a whole lot of issues which somehow seemed related to HIV that no one else on that streetcar had to cope with. Or so I thought.
It’s tempting to focus on our commonalities, and that often serves us well in real life. When it comes to sex, though, its hard to ignore the big HIV elephant in th room. Its probably a big elephant for both poz and neg guys, but I think its a different elephant. And I do think we approach it quite diffrnetly.
You’d think we would remember what it’s like to be a neg guy. Personally, I’m fuzzy on that. Sero-conversion is such a mindfuck, or it was then, we immediatly put on a new hat, and start thinking differently about ourself So that now I have to try and assume what neg guys think about sex, or look up the research, without actually remembering very well. I think that a poitive/negative dilaogue sort of bridges that gap. Potentially it’s one of the main strengths of this site.