Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Gay Men Must Stop HIV Spread

The battle to control HIV rages on.

A British gay men's health group, GMFA is encouraging all gay men, whatever their HIV status, to take responsibility for preventing the transmission of HIV.

From a survey GMFA conducted, it concluded that many gay men expected other gay men to take different levels of responsibility depending on their HIV status or whether they were top or bottom in sex. To me, that means that the top man is responsible for making sure safer sex is engaged.

So it's a blame game, gay men expect HIV positive sexual partners to reveal their status before intercourse. Also HIV positive men feel that it is up to their partners to take care of their hown health and assume that anyone willing to have sex without a condom is also HIV positive. We all know where "assume" gets us, but never assume, just put on the condom.

One in four gay men, according to the study, who had not been diagnosed HIV postive had been receptive in unprotected sex with somone whose status they did not kno or who they knew to be HIV positive. In this case, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" doesn't work. So ask and tell, every time you hook up for m2m sex.

So their campaign focuses on the presumption that it doesn't matter what your HIV status is, it's up to every guy to take responsibility for the sex they have and to stop the spread of HIV.
Period. This is something I have advocated for years.

This positive campaign focuses on teaching HIV positive gay men to protect themselves from more deadly strains of HIV. This is a valiant effort which I applaud.

To learn more, log on to http://www.metromate.org.uk/responsibility

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