Andrew Sullivan

[gymman]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 5:51pm

I find this very unsettling:
Not Dead Yet
An Apology


"People are in such denial about how serious HIV is. Unfortunately, the best prevention is seeing people die." - Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
I¹m sorry. It has taken me a long time to say this, but it's time: I'm sorry.

It's been almost 12 years since I became infected with HIV, and I haven¹t died yet. I haven't even had the decency to get sick. I am a walking, talking advertisement for why HIV seems not such a big deal to the younger generation ‹ and indeed, many in my own age bracket. I know this is a terrible thing, and I promise in the future to do better. As gay activist Michelangelo Signorile recently told The New York Times, "If everyone in your group is beautiful, taking steroids, barebacking, and HIV-positive, having the virus doesn¹t seem like such a bad thing."

I'm sorry. At the tender age of 41 ‹ a year longer than I once thought I would live ‹ I have never felt better. HIV transformed my life, made me a better and braver writer, prompted me to write the first big book pushing marriage rights, got me to take better care of my health, improved my sex life, and deepened my spirituality.

I'm sorry. I¹ll try to do better.

Yes, I take testosterone and human growth hormone, and I now weigh 190 pounds. I discovered a couple of abs in my midsection the other day. I'll try to disguise them. Do they sell burkas online? I've even enjoyed sex more since I became positive ‹ more depth, more intimacy, more appreciation of life itself. Sorry.

I look physically and mentally healthier than ever. Sorry again. I know that by just going daily to the gym, walking on the beach, or dancing at the occasional circuit party, I am the cause of more people getting infected with HIV. I have helped persuade them by my very existence that HIV isn't such a curse, that it can be survived, that it can be treated effectively, that you can live well and long with HIV if you look after yourself and stay alert and informed. I'm sorry. I'm almost as bad as those damn drug ads showing people with HIV triumphing over adversity.

In the future I'll try to look sicker. Or I'll stay home more. Promise. I'll try to get depressed. I won't work out. I'll stay off TV. I will never tell anyone that treatments are far less onerous than they used to be (and I went through medication hell for several years in the 1990s). I'll even repeat the lie that HIV transmission rates are exploding because of people like me, even though the latest solid data show HIV rates to be stabilizing or even declining in many cities. (A decline in infection rates in New York City last year! Sorry again. I shouldn't have told you that. It will make you less scared.)

If all else fails, I'll tell people I may have gotten "super-AIDS," an old, extremely rare, now debunked viral strain that is being successfully treated in one gay man in New York City. Promise.

I'd even be prepared to stop taking my meds if that would help. The trouble is, like many other people with HIV, I did that three years ago. My CD4 count remained virtually unchanged, and only recently have I had to go back on meds. Five pills once a day. No side effects to speak of. I know that others go through far worse, and I don't mean to minimize their trials. But the bottom line is that HIV is fast becoming another diabetes.

You can see the symptoms. Far fewer gay men are dying of AIDS anymore. Sometimes local gay papers have no AIDS obits for weeks on end. C'mon, pozzies. You can do better than that!

Do you have no sense of social responsibility? Young negative men need to see more of us keeling over in the streets, or they won¹t be scared enough to avoid a disease that may, in the very distant future, kill them off. You know, like any number of other diseases might. They may even stop believing that this is a huge, escalating crisis, threatening to wipe out homosexual life on this planet.

What are those happy HIV-positive men thinking of? Die, damn it.

Of course, we could always be thrilled that so many people are living longer and better lives with HIV. We could celebrate our reclaiming of sexuality after years of terror. We could even try new strategies for risk reduction among gay men ‹ strategies that emphasize positive ways to care for our health rather than negative ways to scare the bejeezus out of everyone. But then we'd have no more people to scapegoat and blame, would we?

July 5, 2005, The Advocate.
copyright © 2000, 2005 Andrew Sullivan

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 6:29pm

Is Ol' Milky Loads back to barebacking? Or has he ever stopped?

[gymman]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 6:33pm

yeah--and the "praises" he sings here of being HIV+ strike an awfully odd note. People are still dying; people do not all respond as well as he has. HIV is NOT a minor inconvenience.

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 6:36pm

Nor is in an inexpensive one. How nice for him that he can afford the latest cocktail medicines. Just as easy as popping an asprin, I see.

He's such a hateful, arrogant, self-centered fool.

Updated On: 7/21/05 at 06:36 PM

[gymman]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 6:40pm

Great point, master. And how do the uninsured get these meds? Sometimes the govt pays, but there have been cut backs. And the poor 20 year old bastards who are mislead by Sullivan and his ilk, with the "HIV is no big deal" nonsense--what about them? I live in Fort Lauderdale, and the HIV+ rate among younger gays and minorities is clibing once again here, precisely because of attitudes like Sullivan's.

And he's a right-wing bastard, besides.

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:01pm

totally not the point but ...He's not all that!

[midtowngym]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:09pm

Jesus Christ, Andrew Sullivan is DELUSIONAL about his appearance. My jaw dropped at how awful he looked last summer in Provincetown. Where he was once crush-worthy, he's now oddly muscle-disproportioned in his stomach, arms and neck. Clearly a man who's been on HIV medications for a long time (and i've seen enough of this to know, unfortunately.) I was shocked, and later depressed beyond words.
I have no idea why he'd write such a crazy article. He clearly sees his former self when looking in the mirror.

Updated On: 7/21/05 at 11:09 PM

[Justice]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:13pm

Well, damn..thanks Andrew...Why don't we ALL go out and get HIV now?

What he fails to realize is that everyone who has it reacts differently to the disease...some people can live for years without taking meds, and some people can die prematurely from taking meds...

Updated On: 7/21/05 at 11:13 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:17pm

Michelangelo Signorile, Andrew's old nemesis, wrote a stinging rebuttal to this column. See the link below.
Dear Bareback Andy

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:26pm

Can I be your apprentice for six months?

[JustAGuy]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:29pm

I may be totally misreading this article. But I believe what Mr. Sullivan is saying is that scare tactics can no longer work to deter the spread of HIV. There was a time, when walking the streets of the W. Village was like walking through an AIDS ward at a hospital...you could easily spot who was positive, who was using makeup to cover their Karposi leisons...who was suffering from HIV related wasting. Times have changed and so has the look of the postive man.

I don't believe he is in anyway saying it's great to be HIV positive, instead what I think he's trying to say is...you can't depend upon positve men to die...in order to bring the message home that HIV can happen to you.

"People are in such denial about how serious HIV is. Unfortunately, the best prevention is seeing people die." - Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

That's the quote he's referencing in his article. Basically he's saying...that HIV positive men should not have to apologize for living longer. And that it's up to the powers that be in the HIV/AIDS organizations to come up with a better approach to AIDS prevention than pointing to the sick and the dead.

That's my take on the article.

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:32pm

I can see how you read that but I think if that was Mr. Sullivan's intent he did not make it clear enough. Irony is tough to do well.

[midtowngym]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:35pm

Additionally, i've casually known Michelangelo Signorile for 15 years and saw him last week. He's still HOT! God bless his safe-sex ass.

Updated On: 7/21/05 at 11:35 PM

[JustAGuy]

Posted: 7/21/05 at 11:51pm

So...is everyone of the opinion that all the HIV positive men should stop their meds, become ill and die...to show the negative men what they have to look forward to if they're not careful?

Or, should they live their lives as best they can, try to stay healthy and not feel like they need to apologize because they aren't dying fast enough, to satisfy the leaders of the HIV/AIDS organizations who can't come up with a more compelling
strategy to stop the spread of HIV...than..."Look that could happen to you".

I hope the answer is no.

Posted: 7/22/05 at 12:04am

No.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 4:59pm

The unbridled narcissism that permeates his ruminations really offends. Must we hear about his abs? And I'm sorry, but really, who can forget the political context for anything he writes? I'll never forget him suddenly figuring out, publically: "No, George W. Bush is a divider" on the page page of Time magazine, after denouncing gays everywhere who denounced Bush. Everyone wanted to clong him and say, "uh, yeah, Andrew--we were saying that a year ago when you were trying to get photo ops with Karen Hughes.

He's so smug, he seems to want somebody to shoot Gap ads with him, as the poster boy for being hip, rich, Republican and positive-but-having-the-time-of-his-life. As Master says, he always speaks as if everyone has his resources at their fingertips.

Updated On: 7/22/05 at 04:59 PM

[lildogs]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 5:09pm

I'm with you, JustAGuy--And I thought I'd NEVER defend Sullivan, but the tone of his article brings to mind Swift's "A Modest Proposal"--I think he is using sarcasm and "humour" (note pretentious British spelling)to make his points--HIV is not an automatic death sentence, HIV does not have a "look", and fear and ignorance will not help stop the spread of this disease...I'm afraid people see Sullivan's name attached, call him out for the traitorous jackass he USUALLY is, and rant and rave on the man. On this point and only this point, i think he has a point.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 5:09pm

The highlight of the rebuttal by Signorelli:

"...You’re glamorizing illness, for your own selfish reasons, for your own ego. And I think you know that because, oddly, you have not linked to the Advocate column on your web site, where all of the legions of your right-wing, Republican conservative fans can see your recklessness and irresponsibility, and be appalled. It’s funny because you link to everything you write, making sure your fans can get every bit of Andrew Sullivan. But this column, directed squarely at the gay audience in the Advocate – and particularly at all those horrible negative people – seems to have gotten overlooked. Why Andrew? Hey, if you are really so secure and proud of your HIV infection, you might even link to this open letter of mine too, so your conservative Republican fans could see how supposedly ridiculous I’m being. But I bet you won’t..."

[gymman]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 5:23pm

I wish that there were not an HIV look, but there is: fat deposits in the neck/abdomen area, extreme muscularity with low body fat, facial wasting...these are all common as the disease progresses. No one wants Sullivan to die, or fall ill. But his solipsitic narcissism is dangerous in this context.

[lildogs]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 7:08pm

that is true to an extent, gymman, but hardly the rule.

[gymman]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 8:03pm

But, by omission, Sullivan denies that these exist.
Everything is fine, according to him.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 9:55pm

"Solipsistic narcissism"...

Gymmman wins. (Even with a typo.)

[gymman]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 10:02pm

Thanks, Pal
I am one lousy typist, especially now that I am working on my laptop for the summer.

[midtowngym]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 10:15pm

isn't solipsistic narcissism redundant? I don't mean to take anything away, cause there are enough grade level posts on here, but...

[gymman]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 10:19pm

yeah, it is
i know better
i was just being pompous
i apologize