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Pen Points
Letters to Gay Today |
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Fuzzy Thinking about Barebacking
It would seem that Tony Valenzuela (Viewpoint, March 15-- "Bareback Sex & HIV: A Young Man's Choice") and much of his generation have not heard of the all-too-truthful dictum: that to ignore one's history is to repeat the mistakes of the past. But there is even more to answer for in his flimsy arguments than just historical perspective. He also has a rather fuzzy reasoning process with regard to his own health/spiritual/intellectual status.
As an HIV-positive man of 57, I can assure all of your readers that had my own particular-peer group so blatantly ignored our past (both recent and ancient) we would not have made the strides and breakthroughs that so many of us now enjoy and consider essential to our out-and-proud well-being.
His argument falls apart, however, when he states that since he became consciously aware that he was HIV positive, it has been "the hardest four years of my life." How do you reconcile "edifying" with this absurd statement? Another absurd statement: "I entered gay activism in college in 1990 in the midst of a tidal wave of gay male deaths. I was distanced from witnessing the suffering first-hand because my friends were not the people who were sick." I am reminded that ordinary Aryan German citizens stated that they did not know about the Holocaust going on around them because it did not affect them directly. Pure horse manure. Light-bulb time, Tony: your peers had not had time at ages 18,19,and 20 for the virus to fully manifest in their bodies! I think it is the callousness with which Mr. Valenzuela dismisses his whole generation that most disturbs me: refusing to take responsibility for their own health issues. In the second paragraph of his discourse, he states "For me to live truthfully through this era has meant to examine my personal contradictions, make concessions to life's injustices, and reluctantly accept the imperfect nature of human beings." The latter part of this statement seems an unfortunate cop-out. My generation would have rephrased Valenzuela to read that we 'reluctantly accept the imperfect nature of condoms' but that that wouldn't stop us from making the best of an imperfect device. Mr. Valenzuela says, in essence "Kiddo, I'm passing the buck." and this is where history comes into play. He and many others need to be reminded that it was the first group of AIDS-battered gay men that took their health into their own hands and in the process transformed the history of healthcare forever. Sincerely, W. L. Bivins Animals: Getting in on the Fun
Where in hell does the instinctive leg-humping behavior so common in male dogs cross over to a female? Is she a FTM transsexual? Is she a bitch trapped in a male dog's body, looking for a doggy strap-on? Is she an effeminate male that just didn't develop the right weenie? You be the judge. It still makes me laugh every time. Baze TV's Dawson's Creek: What a Hottie!
Makes me wish I had a younger brother, I'd have shown him what was what if he'd called me gay --unlike my limited range of responses and reactions when my younger sister started on the 'boy fucker' routine when we got a feudin' T.D. |
The Dawson's Creek cast 
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