The Hardest Question

Answering questions about being gay and being parents is part of our everyday experience on Gay Family Values. We have been open books about nearly every part of our lives. We have covered, coming out, bullying, our pasts(pasts both separately and together), adoption, politics, parenting, relationship issues, sex...you name it and someone has asked us a question about it. And for anything we do get asked, we have done our best to answer within reasonable boundaries  Now... we are not experts in any of these topics but most of the time you don't have to be, you just have to be a good ear and a shoulder to lean for someone who may not have anyone else to talk to about the issue at hand. But needless to say, we get A LOT of questions both from gay and straight people alike.

I think it's funny that the religious right always think that gay men are all about sex 24/7. If that was true, you would think that would be a large percentage of the inquiries we receive, but it is hardly ever asked about. Not never.... but very rarely. Instead, people most often want to know about issues that relate to love and family. And among those, there is always one question for which I have the hardest time answering and...no, it is not, "what is the meaning of life?"...it us actually:

"How do I find someone to love?"

Indeed...how does someone who stumbled into it himself answer a question like that?

World AIDS Day, Truvada...And Why We Can't Ignore HIV

Today is December 1st, and that makes today World AIDS Day. On this day we take a moment to educate people on the current reality of the HIV/AIDS and to reflect on it's history and those we have lost...and those we are still losing. I sometimes can't believe it, but here we are over thirty years after I first ever heard about HIV, still fighting this disease. And...we are not only fighting the disease itself but also still battling to educate the world about who gets HIV and how. For me, coming up in the 90's, the conversation about HIV and AIDS was pretty unavoidable. It was everywhere. There were commercials aimed at teens and young adults, movies and t.v. shows with HIV/AIDS themes, and of course...the news. Now, to be honest, I am not the most media aware person...but I grew up with a crystal clear idea of what HIV/AIDS was...how it was transmitted...and how to avoid it. I understood that a condom was an important thing to have even before I had any idea what sex really was.

But here we are in a whole different millennium and still needing to have the same conversations. Many still consider HIV to be primarily a gay disease as opposed to a disease that ravages the lives of heterosexual men, women and children around the world...worst in nations that still refuse to acknowledge it's existence and who can often not afford treatment. Over time, new medications changed what a diagnosis of HIV meant such that what used to be an automatic death sentence now holds a ray of hope...if not an end to the disease.

But that thirty years has taken a toll on our perceptions of HIV/AIDS. What used to be a terrifying killer to nearly everyone has become something to be managed and in some cases ignored...for example, for World AIDS Day the online hook up sight Manhunt is sending out emails to its members promoting Truvada...a recently approved pill that can reduce the chances of being infected with HIV...as a solution when "condoms get in the way".

Really?......I was shocked when I read this and had to stop and take a deeper look at it. After thirty plus years of living with HIV as an ever present possibility...and that sex still comes with risk, I questioned how this was helping people stay healthy?....  and was it sending completely the wrong message?