25 Years

Wow... 25 years.

25 years ago today the federal government issued a warning that 5 gay men in L.A. had died from a rare form of pneumonia.

25 years ago today the yet to be identified HIV virus first made the news.

Of course at that time no one knew the pneumonia cases were linked to a virus that would change the face of the world... only that something strange was happening to gay men all across the country.

I was 17 years old at the time. It's entirely possible that I had already contracted the virus... I tested positive a few years later, just after I had turned 21 or so. You would think that a person would remember the exact date that they received such life changing news as that but not me. I remember the day but not the date. The date wasn't (and isn't) important to me... it's not like I was going to celebrate the anniversary of what (at the time anyway) was my receipt of a death sentence. At that time massive doses of AZT was pretty much the only treatment offered and that was killing more people than the disease itself was so either way the general thinking was that anyone who got HIV would be dead within 3 - 5 years on average. So it wasn't like I was expecting to be around long enough to remember the date I tested postive anyway. When I tested positive my immune system was pretty messed up and the doctor who gave me my results at the free clinic told me it was likely I had been carrying the virus for some time judging from the condition of my immune system. I wasn't really all that surprised... I had been a pretty horny (and sexually active) teenager and had been having anonymous sexual encounters with men in public restrooms since I was 13 or 14 (hey - at least I am honest about it).

So it's entirely possible that on the day the government first reported the strange pnuemonia cases in LA the very same virus that had killed those men had already made it's way across the country and into my body and was courseing through my veins at the very moment that announcement was being made.

That's a pretty weird thought to me now.

So it's pretty clear now that by the time anyone realized something was wrong it was already too late. But at first no one really thought it was anything to worry about. There were whispers of a "gay cancer" but not many people took that seriously - I mean come on - a cancer that only targets gay people?? PLEASE! Just another government trick to keep us from doing our thing... we ain't gonna fall for that shit! Hell we had just come into our own - the gay rights movement was in full swing and we were finally free to be ourselves in the world... we were like the teenagers of life - full of energy and hope and momentum and strength and we thought we were invincible. So naturally we thought "There ain't no "gay cancer - they're just trying to scare us back into the closet" - and we were right. Partly anyway.

Of course there was and is no gay cancer and in fact no "gay disease" of any kind - no known virus gives a shit about who you are doing the nasty with all they care about is a nice warm host to live in and reproduce in. Viruses don't make judgments you see. At least we were right about that. But that is a small comfort - the prevailing belief in the gay community that this "gay disease" was a bunch of BS soon became a deadly mistake. There was no real talk about "safe sex" at that time - no one that I knew in the gay community wore condoms - after all we couldn't get pregnant and if you got the usual STD's you could just go to the clinic and get a shot and BAM you were good as new and back out on the scene screwing anything that would let you. Of course, we didn't know that we were literally fucking each other to death until it was too late. We only woke up to the reality of the situation when people around us started getting sick and dying in numbers. And of course, by then it really was too late to stop the epidemic... it was already in full swing. Despite some people's belief that it could have been stopped and its impact lessened had the GOVT and other IMPORTANT PEOPLE WE CAN BLAME listened to groups like ACT UP and other activist groups - the truth is that the schmucks were every bit as clueless about the situation as the rest of us. My belief is the virus had already gained such a strong foothold in this country that by the time these organizations started making warnings IT WAS ALREADY WAAAAAAAAAAAAY TOOOO LATE! By that point that horse had done gotten out of the barn and screwed everthing that moved and they screwed 2 friends and so on and so on...

So... 25 years later and now an estimated 65 million people worldwide are infected with HIV and over 25 million people have died from it.

All in 25 years...

Kind of sobering isn't it?