World AIDS Day
They seem pretty obvious, and I think we pay lip service to those reasons but don’t necessarily think they apply to us. In the POZ supplement, there’s also an article about sexual health in primetime TV, with a quote from a network exec who was promoting the show Melrose Place last year and said: “We feel there is a current sexual revolution going on. Kind of post-AIDS, where the boundaries are off!” The POZ article goes on the point out, of course, that the problem is we’re not living in a post-AIDS world.
I couldn’t believe that an ostensibly educated guy would make such a statement in public, but the sentiments didn’t surprise me. A few weeks ago, Regan was here when I was on the phone with my niece, Nicki, who is fifteen. She was describing all the shows about teens that she watches regularly. “They’re always having sex but it doesn’t seem like they’re using condoms,” Nicki said.
I am proud that Nicki notices the absence of condoms when she watches a scene on Gossip Girl or Secret Life. Maybe it’s because at school and at home, she’s heard a lot about HIV/AIDS. Maybe it’s because she’s met people who live with the virus - including friends of mine who are thriving in their wonderful, full, amazing lives - and Nicki knows they are not the “other.” I hope it means that when the time comes, she'll make the right decisions for herself. She also knows that HIV is 100% preventable. One hundred percent. So there’s no reason anyone else needs to be infected. It’s maddening, and devastating, that ignorance and stigma prevent us from making that a reality.
Please read the full POZ supplement, because it goes into much greater detail and provides up-to-date, life-saving information. Also please click here to watch Regan’s World AIDS Day interview, and here to watch a segment about my friend Jake Glaser on Sanjay Gupta’s show. Here's a beautiful post by Libba Bray, a YA author I both adore and admire. And here’s a brave post by another friend, the lovely Suzan Meredith.
Suzan also posted this video on her blog today, in remembrance of lives lost. It plays at the end of the movie And the Band Played On. There are faces I recognize in it -- you probably will too -- and an Elton John song playing in the background. Oh God, those lyrics. I’ve watched it before, and it still pretty much brings me to my knees.
I couldn’t believe that an ostensibly educated guy would make such a statement in public, but the sentiments didn’t surprise me. A few weeks ago, Regan was here when I was on the phone with my niece, Nicki, who is fifteen. She was describing all the shows about teens that she watches regularly. “They’re always having sex but it doesn’t seem like they’re using condoms,” Nicki said.
I am proud that Nicki notices the absence of condoms when she watches a scene on Gossip Girl or Secret Life. Maybe it’s because at school and at home, she’s heard a lot about HIV/AIDS. Maybe it’s because she’s met people who live with the virus - including friends of mine who are thriving in their wonderful, full, amazing lives - and Nicki knows they are not the “other.” I hope it means that when the time comes, she'll make the right decisions for herself. She also knows that HIV is 100% preventable. One hundred percent. So there’s no reason anyone else needs to be infected. It’s maddening, and devastating, that ignorance and stigma prevent us from making that a reality.
Please read the full POZ supplement, because it goes into much greater detail and provides up-to-date, life-saving information. Also please click here to watch Regan’s World AIDS Day interview, and here to watch a segment about my friend Jake Glaser on Sanjay Gupta’s show. Here's a beautiful post by Libba Bray, a YA author I both adore and admire. And here’s a brave post by another friend, the lovely Suzan Meredith.
Suzan also posted this video on her blog today, in remembrance of lives lost. It plays at the end of the movie And the Band Played On. There are faces I recognize in it -- you probably will too -- and an Elton John song playing in the background. Oh God, those lyrics. I’ve watched it before, and it still pretty much brings me to my knees.
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