Andrew Sullivan- Page 2

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 10:39pm

Don't worry, gymman. You'll NEVER be as pompous as Sullivan.

Posted: 7/22/05 at 11:03pm

Those were the days...

[midtowngym]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 11:15pm

Breaks my heart. That's how we should remember him, because his looks are completely gone. What a schmuck.

Updated On: 7/22/05 at 11:15 PM

Posted: 7/22/05 at 11:21pm

That's probably what he sees.

I saw a movie with Colleen Dewhurst and she had a terrific little monologue where she was in front of a vanity combing her hair and saying something like " we look in the mirror and what we see doesn't match with how we feel. I still feel young..." It was a silly TV movie but she could really act.


and of course that publicity photo of Tallulah Bankhead from Die Die My Darling which she autographed for a fan with "who dat, not me" or something to that effect.

Updated On: 7/22/05 at 11:21 PM

[JustAGuy]

Posted: 7/23/05 at 12:11am

"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.

No matter how you feel about Sullivan's political leanings...that fact is, his article was speaking to the above quote. It doesn't matter if you think he looks pathetic now...or you believe he's delusional about how he looks. What he's saying is...you can no longer depend on scare tactics to fight the spread of this disease.

When the president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation makes a statement like that, I would think that it would give one pause. Instead of attacking Sullivan for writing what I perceive to be a firmly "tounge in cheek" response to an outrageous remark by a health professional, I'm wondering why no one is taking this person to task for basically saying...come on boys we need you to die so we can, crank up the scare machine...since we can't come up with any other way to fight the spread of this disease.

How anyone thinks it's fun to have to take human growth hormones, slap on a testosterone patch, throw down 5 or 15 pills a day, have your blood checked every 3 months at a minimum, deal with prescription plans...insurance companies, worried families etc. is missing the point of his article entirely.

I would think with the sarcasm that runs rampant on this board, that picking up on Sullivan's would have been a piece of cake.

Posted: 7/23/05 at 12:29am

I agree. Irony can be a tough sell

[eslgr8]

Posted: 7/23/05 at 3:20am

Of course there was irony in Sullivan's remarks. That doesn't make them any less dangerous. In minimizing the consequences of HIV, even in these days of cocktail therapy, in ignoring the countless Americans with HIV who don't have his good luck, in encouraging the mistaken impression that HIV is now an easily manageable condition, he is directly or indirectly sending a message out to young gay men that there is no need to worry about HIV. It shocks and saddens me that Mr. Sullivan will be at least in part responsible for future infections, and indeed for the deaths that some of these infections will undoubtedly lead to.

[gymman]

Posted: 7/23/05 at 11:02am

I think that what bothered me--irony aside--is the message that younger gay men will get from this. I hear it all the time---the "so what? take a pill" mentality. Look at the ads for the cocktail drugs in the glossy mags--guys are young, beautiful, healthy. So many of us have seen the other side, and it's not pretty. Half of the ads on "Manhunt" are for BB...

I don't want to scare folks, but I don't want to continue to suggest that HIV- is nothing more than an annoying detail in life.