AIDS article
May. 1st, 2006 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedusorI wrote an article for the Spectrum about HIV/AIDS. My original focus was its emotional effects on people, but when I started gathering quotes, I changed my mind. I let the quotes guide the article, and tried to keep myself out of it as much as possible. I would really appreciate comments on it. It's due today, but I should be able to change it until Wednesday. Please be brutal. I want this article to be good.
Everyone knows that when you get AIDS, you die. For some, the necessary facts about the disease stop there. But what many people don’t realize is that HIV/AIDS is about more than getting sick and dying. It’s about sexuality. It’s about societal prejudices and assumptions. It’s about helping others, and helping ourselves. It’s about all of us, and it touches all of us: gay and straight, young and old, black and white.
“The feature that makes it different from other sexually transmitted diseases is that it causes a very serious autoimmune deficiency that can be fatal,” says Nancy Harrington, a Penn Valley faculty member. “If there are topics any more tricky to communicate about than sex and death, I'm not immediately aware of them."
Raymond Jemison is a Penn Valley student who has been HIV-positive for about twenty-four years. “I’ve got this happy-go-lucky attitude on the outside, but I worry about it. When am I going to die?” says Jemison. “This is nothing but a time bomb. It’s just a matter of time until I start going downhill.”
Other time bombs have already exploded. “One day Dallas just disappeared, and the next thing we knew, he was dead. He was afraid of the stigma,” says Kate Sisil, recently elected president of Advocates 4 Better Government, Penn Valley’s nonpartisan political student organization. “I still think about him once in a while, and I really wish I could have been there for him.”
“I lost my ex-lover. I was with Steve for over five years,” says Penn Valley student Scott Pauley. “I personally know over forty men that have died from AIDS, and it’s been many years since I added up that number.”
“I have lost many friends to the disease,” Harrington says. “I have helped care for some at the end of their lives. It is a precious gift they gave me: to allow me to be present in those moments.”
What can people do about HIV/AIDS? Jemison says that the best thing to focus on is prevention. “You’ve got condoms,” says Jemison. “They’re giving them away now. They weren’t giving them away when I got this damn thing.”
He adds that ignorance is not an excuse for carelessness. “There are too many ways to protect yourself to say, ‘I didn’t know.’ I knew it was there, I disregarded the warnings, and I got caught.”
Harrington, who has been a sex educator since before the AIDS epidemic began, says that this attitude was common before treatment was available. “I had several gay male friends who clearly stated they did not want to be tested for HIV because there was nothing to be done about it, and they wanted to go on living without that knowledge.”
However, medication and education are now available, to some extent. Penn Valley student Ashley Clark is involved with the Good Samaritan Project, an organization which provides care for people with HIV/AIDS and raises awareness of the disease. “There needs to be more education geared toward adolescents,” says Clark. “Adolescents need to understand that HIV can be prevented through proper condom use.”
“It doesn’t discriminate,” says Jemison. “It doesn’t care who you are, what your lifestyle is. It’s there. It’s waiting.”
“What can I do?” asks Pauley. “My answer up until this point was, I can be nice. I can drop a quarter into a hat. Strangely enough, I maintained that attitude after my ex-lover died from AIDS. I applauded other people’s efforts, but made very few of my own.”
That attitude has changed since Pauley began doing community service work with Penn Valley’s Student Ambassadors. He recently collaborated with Harrington to raise over $850 for the Kansas City AIDS Walk. “When we started collecting donations, I heard a lot of people say, ‘That’s not my issue’,” says Pauley.
Sisil, also a Student Ambassador, points to the poster board she made for the AIDS Walk table: a collage made from pictures of HIV-positive people around the world. “How can you look at that and say, ‘That’s not my issue’?” she asks heatedly. “Who do you see that’s not represented there? That’s just ignorance, and in a college setting, it really scares me.”
Harrington thinks that people are too detached from the reality of AIDS to really know what it’s about. “When I have invited speakers into the classroom who are HIV-positive, students learn in a very different way what this epidemic really means,” says Harrington. “We can spout numbers and statistics and show pictures forever, but until you are face to face with a man or a woman or a child with HIV, it is not real.”
One of the reasons that so many people shy away from the entire idea of HIV/AIDS is the societal prejudice against it. Pauley relays an anecdote of walking home after a rough day and being accosted by a stranger. The man screamed at Pauley, convinced that he had the disease. “It gave me the smallest of glimpses of the stupidity of people when it comes to things they don’t understand," says Pauley. "‘Ooh, get away from me, you’ve got AIDS.’”
“It’s tied up in sexuality, and it freaks people out,” he continues. “We all know that Americans are backward about their sexuality. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Declaration of Independence that you have to walk around with a stick up your butt.”
“I think as long as discussion of any significant societal or public health problem involves a discussion of sexuality, it is difficult,” says Harrington. “So the barriers to really accepting the epidemic, and then problem-solving as to treatment options and prevention strategies, are huge. This is why I do all I can to bring open discussions of sexuality into my classes… I envision a community where we can shed the fear and shame about sexuality so that we can approach HIV/AIDS as we do any other infectious disease.”
“When it comes to an issue like AIDS, I feel that people are afraid to identify that way,” says Pauley. “I think they’re afraid of how it reflects on their way of life. I would be much more afraid of being identified with someone who won’t help another.” He reflects for a moment, and then says softly, “Taking a hand in a hand and helping out a human being. It sounds so simple. Why aren’t we doing it?”
Everyone knows that when you get AIDS, you die. For some, the necessary facts about the disease stop there. But what many people don’t realize is that HIV/AIDS is about more than getting sick and dying. It’s about sexuality. It’s about societal prejudices and assumptions. It’s about helping others, and helping ourselves. It’s about all of us, and it touches all of us: gay and straight, young and old, black and white.
“The feature that makes it different from other sexually transmitted diseases is that it causes a very serious autoimmune deficiency that can be fatal,” says Nancy Harrington, a Penn Valley faculty member. “If there are topics any more tricky to communicate about than sex and death, I'm not immediately aware of them."
Raymond Jemison is a Penn Valley student who has been HIV-positive for about twenty-four years. “I’ve got this happy-go-lucky attitude on the outside, but I worry about it. When am I going to die?” says Jemison. “This is nothing but a time bomb. It’s just a matter of time until I start going downhill.”
Other time bombs have already exploded. “One day Dallas just disappeared, and the next thing we knew, he was dead. He was afraid of the stigma,” says Kate Sisil, recently elected president of Advocates 4 Better Government, Penn Valley’s nonpartisan political student organization. “I still think about him once in a while, and I really wish I could have been there for him.”
“I lost my ex-lover. I was with Steve for over five years,” says Penn Valley student Scott Pauley. “I personally know over forty men that have died from AIDS, and it’s been many years since I added up that number.”
“I have lost many friends to the disease,” Harrington says. “I have helped care for some at the end of their lives. It is a precious gift they gave me: to allow me to be present in those moments.”
What can people do about HIV/AIDS? Jemison says that the best thing to focus on is prevention. “You’ve got condoms,” says Jemison. “They’re giving them away now. They weren’t giving them away when I got this damn thing.”
He adds that ignorance is not an excuse for carelessness. “There are too many ways to protect yourself to say, ‘I didn’t know.’ I knew it was there, I disregarded the warnings, and I got caught.”
Harrington, who has been a sex educator since before the AIDS epidemic began, says that this attitude was common before treatment was available. “I had several gay male friends who clearly stated they did not want to be tested for HIV because there was nothing to be done about it, and they wanted to go on living without that knowledge.”
However, medication and education are now available, to some extent. Penn Valley student Ashley Clark is involved with the Good Samaritan Project, an organization which provides care for people with HIV/AIDS and raises awareness of the disease. “There needs to be more education geared toward adolescents,” says Clark. “Adolescents need to understand that HIV can be prevented through proper condom use.”
“It doesn’t discriminate,” says Jemison. “It doesn’t care who you are, what your lifestyle is. It’s there. It’s waiting.”
“What can I do?” asks Pauley. “My answer up until this point was, I can be nice. I can drop a quarter into a hat. Strangely enough, I maintained that attitude after my ex-lover died from AIDS. I applauded other people’s efforts, but made very few of my own.”
That attitude has changed since Pauley began doing community service work with Penn Valley’s Student Ambassadors. He recently collaborated with Harrington to raise over $850 for the Kansas City AIDS Walk. “When we started collecting donations, I heard a lot of people say, ‘That’s not my issue’,” says Pauley.
Sisil, also a Student Ambassador, points to the poster board she made for the AIDS Walk table: a collage made from pictures of HIV-positive people around the world. “How can you look at that and say, ‘That’s not my issue’?” she asks heatedly. “Who do you see that’s not represented there? That’s just ignorance, and in a college setting, it really scares me.”
Harrington thinks that people are too detached from the reality of AIDS to really know what it’s about. “When I have invited speakers into the classroom who are HIV-positive, students learn in a very different way what this epidemic really means,” says Harrington. “We can spout numbers and statistics and show pictures forever, but until you are face to face with a man or a woman or a child with HIV, it is not real.”
One of the reasons that so many people shy away from the entire idea of HIV/AIDS is the societal prejudice against it. Pauley relays an anecdote of walking home after a rough day and being accosted by a stranger. The man screamed at Pauley, convinced that he had the disease. “It gave me the smallest of glimpses of the stupidity of people when it comes to things they don’t understand," says Pauley. "‘Ooh, get away from me, you’ve got AIDS.’”
“It’s tied up in sexuality, and it freaks people out,” he continues. “We all know that Americans are backward about their sexuality. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Declaration of Independence that you have to walk around with a stick up your butt.”
“I think as long as discussion of any significant societal or public health problem involves a discussion of sexuality, it is difficult,” says Harrington. “So the barriers to really accepting the epidemic, and then problem-solving as to treatment options and prevention strategies, are huge. This is why I do all I can to bring open discussions of sexuality into my classes… I envision a community where we can shed the fear and shame about sexuality so that we can approach HIV/AIDS as we do any other infectious disease.”
“When it comes to an issue like AIDS, I feel that people are afraid to identify that way,” says Pauley. “I think they’re afraid of how it reflects on their way of life. I would be much more afraid of being identified with someone who won’t help another.” He reflects for a moment, and then says softly, “Taking a hand in a hand and helping out a human being. It sounds so simple. Why aren’t we doing it?”
