Stop Calling Me Dirty and Disease-Ridden!

Dear HIV-Negative Men:

Stop calling me dirty and disease-ridden! Every single time you call yourself “clean” and “disease-free,” you call me, a person living with HIV/AIDS, “dirty” and “disease-ridden.” Yes, that's right. I admit it. It hurts my feelings every single time I encounter the words “clean” and “disease-free” in reference to health, and I am not alone. Using phrases like “clean” and “disease-free” while looking for love and sex only tells the world you're misinformed about safer sex and thoughtless in choosing your words. I understand wanting to avoid viruses, but unfortunately, the disease many so-called “clean” and “disease-free” men suffer from is ignorance and a lack of compassion.

THE FACTS:

The medical terms are HIV-negative and HIV-positive.

If you're practicing SAFE SEX, it doesn't matter if your sex partner is HIV-negative or HIV-positive.

If you're practicing UNSAFE SEX with anyone, regardless of HIV status, you're practicing discrimination and not taking responsibility for your own health.

If you're using terms like “clean,” “disease-free,” “DDF,” “bug-free,” “no bugs,” and the like, you're using words that have different meanings to different people. Using those different words with different meanings while negotiating sex could lead to you yourself becoming the opposite of “clean” and “disease-free.”

Wise up. Think. Does using those harmful words represent you at your best?

American All or All-American?

Dear America:

What does it mean to be all-American? Why is it that, for the first 232 years of the country's existence, America's citizens have used phrases like “all-American” and “Boy (or Girl) Next Door” to refer to a wholesome beautiful white person who is, dare one say, a wholesome beautiful representation of “that new world united by states in America?”

We're not talking about honors in sports or academics, or the nationality of one's parentals. This is about those of us who are born, live and most likely, will die in the USA, regardless of all else. Are some of us more American than others? If a beautiful white person is all-American, what does that make this American and the rest of us citizens who aren't beautiful white people (besides not all-American)?

Makes this American wanna change all Americans perspective concerning all-Americans, starting now.

• Randy Boyd's four novels have garnered five Lambda Literary Award nominations and all feature main characters who are black, gay, HIV+ and all American.

Political Survivor: Obama or McCain?

Now that the presidential primaries are over and America has agreed on the results, here's a sneak peak at the political tribal council taking place inside my brain:

For the last eight years, you've been stranded on an island called Bushland, a wilderness full of chaos and disorder threatening to extinguish your flame. Your very survival is at stake. You and the others must escape Bushland or perish ...

You made it through the primary challenge, where everyone voted for the best person to captain the boat taking you and the others to safety. Not everyone got a vote, as it turned out, but those whose votes counted settled on two finalist, both men. Personally, you figured the woman candidate to be the best choice, but she's not an option anymore. To get outta Bushland, you must choose between Captain Obama or Captain McCain, and your survival depends on it.

Captain Obama is a relative newcomer to your brain, but at least he's black like you, so if there's more stormy weather and things get divided up along racial lines, as usual in a crisis, at least Captain Obama and you will be in the same boat ...

But looks can be deceiving, so you need to consider more than just race in the race for survival. You need to ask yourself: which one of these two men has my best interests at heart (my best interests being my own personal welfare and survival). Figure that out, then choose your leader ...

But the tribal council keeps getting interrupted by all the bursts of rhetoric by each candidate about his particular vision, claiming this and that about the world beyond Bushland. The island residents are abuzz with still more rhetoric, claiming this and that about the candidates. As Long John Silver of Treasure Island used to say, Belay that! Look at your own survival, decide for yourself who cares the most about you.

Answer: neither one.

Neither Captains Obama nor McCain has your best interests at heart (nor did Captain Clinton, for that matter). None of these would-be leaders sees you as their equal, equally deserving of the same resources, laws and customs of the land. For you, the Rorschach test for full acceptance of Who I Am is the granting of same-sex marriage privileges—not the civic-minded crumbs leftover from the wedding feast. You want in at the main table. Not a separate but equal so-called equivalent. And not one of the candidates has said: the love you create is just as valuable as the love I create, and I thereby pronounce to you and yours: I support same-sex marriage and will do my absolute best as captain of your ship of dreams to make your dreams come true.

Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama support your deepest dreams. Instead, they cling to ideas created hundreds of years ago by ancient peoples with the kinds of agendas many pundits would now call ... Bushland-like. The oppression. The suppression. The duplicity. The altering of rules to suit the coffers. Those long-dead captains of industrious sex lives—the same men who insisted the world is flat and once sanctioned (for their own profit) prostitution and holy men marrying—these ancient folk are the ones inspiring Obama and McCain's thoughts about you. Beware and be very aware. Beware even more of the one known as McCain. You get the feeling a black homosexual living with AIDS who dreams of equality is expendable in the old man's eyes. You're not expendable to Captain Obama. The one known as Barack has some of your interests at heart, just not the deepest dreams of your heart. The ultimate truth remains: both men see your kind of love (and happiness) as worth less than theirs.

Still, you gotta get yo' ass outta Bush country, and they promise your vote is gonna count, so pick a captain and his crew and hope this brave new world is a less hostile place than the last eight years ...

Footnote: The tribal council done spoken: No way is this brain letting the black ass attached to it sit behind yet another old-ass, white-faced ancient.

Dear NFL Players: Tear Down This Wall

A reminder to the returning gladiators and aspiring gladiators of pro football as the NFL season grinds into gear during these hot summer months:

You've already shared the locker room with men who have had sex with other men. This much is true. Whether you know about it or not, whether they tell you about it or not, whether or not you accept it, whether or not it's you personally, you have already stripped naked, stood naked, scratched naked and showered naked in front of men who have sex with men. Unless one is completely delusional about the modern world in which we live, as evidenced by all that modern man has witnessed through the media's eyes, every NFL player knows that any man on the street could be a man who has sex with men. That includes football players.

Gay guys. Bi guys. Horny one-night guys. Doesn't matter. You've already survived being in the locker room with someone who has practiced homosexuality. You've already lined up on the line of scrimmage with a man who's in love with another man. You've already tackled or been tackled by a man who thinks of himself as gay. You've played football your entire adult life with men who have sex with men.

The idea of not being able to acknowledge or talk about this truth is wrong, counterproductive and speaks of archaic times when gays hid in the shadows of life and didn't dream of equality. Those days are long gone, as are the days of an athlete pretending not to care about his looks or hair care products.

You've already survived being around gays and made it to the 21st century. But if you can't lighten up and let homosexuals be themselves in pro sports, your offspring's offspring will see you as some sort of dinosaur relic from a time gone by. You want your subsequent seedlings laughing at the odd beliefs you and your kind once held?

Let men who have sex with men, for whatever reason, play football and be open about it. Isn't it about time?

• Randy Boyd is a five-time Lambda Literary Award Finalist and author of Walt Loves the Bearcat, the sports novel that dares to dream of the first out superstar athlete. Walt Loves the Bearcat was a 2006 Lambda Literary Award Finalist under the category Best Romance.
  

The “Out” Pro Athlete Dream

The newest generation of voting-age Americans are the first Americans to be introduced to homosexuality through modern wonders such as the Internet, Ellen DeGeneres, Will and Grace, openly gay kids, openly bisexual kids, openly experimental kids, kids of the same sex kissing on MTV, and the countless queer eyes on television who turn wardrobes and living spaces into fabulous expressions.

Not-so-coincidentally, the newest generation of voting-age Americans are the first to see same-sex marriage as “no big deal,” as shown in poll after poll.

Can openly gay professional jocks be far behind? Not if one believes in the dreams of my fourth novel, Walt Loves the Bearcat, which features the first superstar athlete to “come out” while still in the prime of his football career. The ride for the quarterback and his cheerleader boyfriend is chaotic and bumpy (watch out for Evil Announcer Guy!), but our two heroes remain steadfast in their quest: the right to be happy and in love, just like every other pro jock in the sports world. It's a dream whose time is coming. Just ask the young Americans inheriting our country.

Dear Whoopi and the View: What Am I, Dirty?

For ten years, this male homo sapien has steered clear of The View the way any male homo in the TV jungle might. Then Barbara and her bitches made such a big Whoopi about Ms. Goldberg coming to the show, I tuned in just to see how one of my favorite entertainers was going to fare in the co-host merry-go-round. Guess what? All these months later, I'm a frequent viewer of The View and very grateful for the coffee talk and for the bonding conversations my mom and I have reViewing the show over the telephone.

But I'm especially grateful for today's episode of The View which featured a subject dear to my heart as well as my bloodstream: HIV/AIDS.

I found out I had acquired the virus the same night Rock Hudson made his AIDS announcement to the world in 1985. I was 23 and a month out of college. I have now been living with HIV over twice as long as The View has been on the air, 23 years and counting. So you can imagine the Joy (pun intended) of living long enough to witness HIV test kits being offered up as a giveaway on a popular morning talk show. If someone had told me in the 80s and 90s, “hang on, brother man, someday an audience will applaud receiving an HIV test kit rather than the latest electronic gadget,” that would have made me think that person was literally crazy, but it would have also made me laugh, and given me hope.

That's what The View does each morning, gives me hope ... hope that humans can be humane to one another despite their diverse beliefs in the causes they're willing to live and die for. So thanks, Whoopi and The View, for helping to expand my personal views of my fellow Americans, and for expanding my fellow Americans' view of HIV/AIDS ... but I gotta bone to pick with Ms. Whoopi.

Ms. Whoopi, you broke my heart and hurt my feelings when you used one of the words that breaks many a heart like mine. The Hot Topic occurred during the New Jersey Governer Caught in Prostitute Sting scandal. The discussion had to do with prostitutes, and in referring to the sexual health of the women, you said something like, “as long as they're clean.”

Cue the dagger to the heart of a person with HIV/AIDS. Why?

In this new century, people have survived the initial AIDS panic and created a whole new lexicon to convey one's sexual health, a lexicon filled with words like “clean,” “disease-free,” “DDF,” (drug and disease free), and phrases like bug-free, no bugs, super clean, extremely clean, etc., often followed by the suffix that gets right to the point: UB2. On the information superhighway, one can run into these words and phrases as often as you run into stoplights on the bustling city streets.

Only this stoplight hurts, and here's why: The accepted medical and scientific terms are HIV-negative and HIV-positive.

Terms like “clean” and “disease-free” reek of judgment and a lack of compassion. If someone who's HIV-negative is clean and disease-free, is someone who's HIV-positive dirty and disease-ridden? In addition, “clean” and “disease-free” are terms that mean different things to different people. On top of all the challenges the world faces in educating itself about safer sex, people using ambiguous terms like clean only complicate the effort. Case and point: look at online personals: countless Americans of all sexual persuasions are “hooking up” and having unprotected sex with other Americans because both parties have a brief discussion about sexual health wherein both parties simply say, “I'm clean.” Talk about a problem! Does clean mean showered, a neat freak, trimmed in all the right places, douched in all the right places, not a dirty person, clean and sober, and so on. Good topic for Family Feud: what do people mean when they say clean?

In addition to living the “clean life,” many of these same Americans have unprotected sex with other “clean livers,” falsely believing this is the way to remain bug-free. Unfortunately, the disease many of these people suffer from is ignorance, ignorance of the fact that the best way to avoid getting HIV and STDs is to have safe sex with everyone, regardless of HIV status, and that having sex any other way puts you at risk.

But the world's sexual health aside, from the view of a black homo who's been living with HIV/AIDS more than half his life, hearing those terms hurts. It hurts my feelings. It hurts. And I know I'm not alone. All may not agree, but to many of us dealing with HIV/AIDS, those words are a dagger.

Don't believe me? Ask other people living with HIV/AIDS.

Odds are, a smart, intelligent person like Whoopi Goldberg wasn't aware of the shift in meaning of the aforementioned words. Odds are, if Whoopi ever gets wind of the shift or this letter, she'll understand my point of view. And whether she agrees or not, I believe Whoopi Goldberg would respond in kind. She and the women of The View continue to teach me: there are good people in the world capable of communicating and caring about one another across the political and cultural divides.

U go, bitches!

Half a Life with AIDS

What a game so far! This black gay HIV positive author has met challenge after challenge to survive and thrive in the game of life, despite having the AIDS virus for 23 years. For a quick recap, let's cut to our Halftime Show, sponsored by the good folks at Poz Magazine ... Click here for Halftime Show by Randy Boyd, as featured in Poz Magazine, April 2008