Bloodbath A-go-go
The Puget Sound Blood Center has been leaving messages on my home phone all week. It seems that I've been a lax donor and they need my mean reds post-haste. Fine. Fancy. There's no time for altruism like the present, right?
The problem, of course, is this: The last time I visited the P.S. Bloodsuckers, I was about three-years-deep into a mostly-monogamous relationship with a woman. As we all know, a lot has happened between now and then. Even if I hadn't developed the habit of getting either tattooed or pierced about every twelve months -- which is the purest of pure coincidences, I swear -- my post-divorce activities wouldn't get me past that idiotic screening inquiry. See, the FDA classifies me as an individual who has a higher risk for acquiring AIDS because I've had male partners who've had sex with other males.
Do I need to explain why this is fucking discriminatory? I know my goddamned status. I know my former partner's goddamned status. Yeah, I know about the negative-testing interval, too, but come on. Why should the gender of my former partners' partner have anything to do with my being a blood donor or not? And, please, don't sing me that song about men-who-have-sex-with-men being at a higher risk for the disease because you know damned well that they ain't the only ones.
This leaves me with something of a dilemma. Should I lie about my sexual history so I can donate blood? Or should I go through the song-and-dance, answer truthfully, and attempt to engage the interviewer so I can complain about their bullshit exclusionary policies?
What would you do?
The problem, of course, is this: The last time I visited the P.S. Bloodsuckers, I was about three-years-deep into a mostly-monogamous relationship with a woman. As we all know, a lot has happened between now and then. Even if I hadn't developed the habit of getting either tattooed or pierced about every twelve months -- which is the purest of pure coincidences, I swear -- my post-divorce activities wouldn't get me past that idiotic screening inquiry. See, the FDA classifies me as an individual who has a higher risk for acquiring AIDS because I've had male partners who've had sex with other males.
Do I need to explain why this is fucking discriminatory? I know my goddamned status. I know my former partner's goddamned status. Yeah, I know about the negative-testing interval, too, but come on. Why should the gender of my former partners' partner have anything to do with my being a blood donor or not? And, please, don't sing me that song about men-who-have-sex-with-men being at a higher risk for the disease because you know damned well that they ain't the only ones.
This leaves me with something of a dilemma. Should I lie about my sexual history so I can donate blood? Or should I go through the song-and-dance, answer truthfully, and attempt to engage the interviewer so I can complain about their bullshit exclusionary policies?
What would you do?