Living with HIV can be expensive — you never know when you may need to dash to the pharmacy for some damn thing. Or renew your subscription to Vanity Fair. So I was happy to get on a list for a marketing company that would pay me to be interviewed about various subjects. 

If there’s anything I like discussing, it’s my opinion.

Recently they called and asked if I drank scotch. Of course, I responded. Love the stuff. Okay, it doesn’t precisely jive with the fact I’m a recovering addict and alcoholic, but it was the right answer. I was invited to join a focus group on one of the vilest alcoholic beverages known to man. No actual drinking would be involved. And they paid cash.

A few days later I was escorted into the focus group room with seven other men. I looked closely at the group and it dawned on me — the Wrangler jeans, the scuffed work boots, the indifference to hair products — that I was dealing with decidedly straight men who lived outside my safe haven of Atlanta. As the saying goes, the only thing wrong with Atlanta is that it’s surrounded by Georgia.

The facilitator began by asking us to describe the sensations of drinking scotch. “It’s got a smooth feel to it, yep,” one man offered. I agreed. “Smooth” would become my default answer for most of the evening. What followed was a litany of the pleasures of drinking a dozen different brands.

“That J&B has a peaty taste,” said one, to several heads nodding in agreement. “Yup,” said another, “but ‘course, your single malts usually have that. I prefer the bite of Dewars, m’self.”

What the hell were these men talking about? Was “peaty” actually a word?

“And you, Mark?” asked the facilitator. “What about the Famous Grouse?”

I couldn’t remember if Famous Grouse was a bird or a Dr. Seuss character. I was sinking fast.

“It’s smooth,” I replied a little nervously. Thankfully, a head or two nodded, and they returned to their debate over double malts and peatiosity.

The facilitator then produced magazines and asked us to cut out pictures that reminded us of scotch. Well, you can just imagine my relief. I had no idea there was a talent portion to the evening. I snatched up Rolling Stone, pulled myself away from the movie reviews, and artistically cut out pictures of pouting women and buff men. Whereas the others in the group carelessly ripped out whole pages with no sense of composition whatsoever, I requested glue and produced a dramatic collage entitled “Shake Me, Stir Me: My Scotch Experience.”

When asked at what times we enjoyed the drink, I listened to accounts of fly-fishing trips with the boys, drinking scotch fireside, and imbibing with “the little lady” after a grilled sirloin. I might as well have unearthed some lost army of terra cotta rednecks in the Georgia mountains.

Uncomfortable emotions began to stir inside me. I resented the authenticity they took for granted – and the effortless masculinity I had always viewed as a threat to my own. But truth be told, they were simply sharing stories of their friends and their wives, while I had offered nothing real about myself.

They were guilty only of being themselves, and my selfish defenses were ridiculing them for it. But I was too threatened to see it at the time. My bombast remained securely hidden.

“I enjoy it best when I lick it off my gay lover’s balls,” I wanted to say. How could I march in a gay pride parade with “No One Knows I’m HIV positive” emblazoned on my t-shirt, I begrudgingly wondered, but I couldn’t come out in a room of eight men?

“Let’s say a bottle of scotch came to life as a man,” the facilitator queried — a bit too conceptually for the room, in my opinion. “What would he be like?”

“Oh, he’d be a friendly, boisterous man!” one said. “Yeah,” said another, “with mud on his boots. A real outdoors man. Definitely not a dandy man.” It was hard to know if you were being insulted when they used good ‘ol boy euphemisms.

“Interesting,” said the facilitator. “What’s a ‘dandy man?’”

“Well,” he replied, “he definitely wouldn’t kiss boys, if ya know what I mean!” This piece of striking wit was greeted with guffaws all around. Pot bellies and hair pieces wiggled with laughter.

I now have a moral obligation to start yelling, I thought. I must climb on top of this table, begin stomping my Cole Haans, and scream “You know what I like about scotch? It keeps my AIDS in check!” I wanted to rip my shirt wide open and wiggle my nipple rings at them. If only I had a tattoo the size of a Cutty Sark bottle that read “FISTING DADDY.”

“And what would this scotch man, come to life, look like to you, Mark?” the facilitator asked. All eyes turned to me. The time was now.

“Well…” I began. “He’d be, ah… smooth.” Everyone nodded with approval.

I left after the two hour interview with sixty dollars in cash and a nagging sense of an opportunity missed.

My God, what would Larry Kramer think?

Mark

***

When I initially wrote this more than ten years ago, I was comfortable with my stereotyping of straight men — and Georgians in particular — for comic effect. There was zero self-awareness in the essay. Re-reading it this week, I realized it had a mean spiritedness that bothered me. I revised it in an attempt to reflect my own insecurities during the focus group, which clearly colored my attitude toward the other men in the room. Alas, the piece may be beyond repair.

And what an artifact this is, considering that anyone watching the redneck television vehicle Here Comes Honey Boo Boo knows that her “Uncle Poodle” (Lee Thompson) has come out publicly as a gay man. What’s more, Lee also disclosed recently he is HIV positive. You should definitely check out Sean Strub’s article about this, because Thompson claims to have pressed charges against his former partner for not disclosing his status, and that the partner is now serving a five year jail sentence. HIV criminalization meets trash TV!

This article originally appeared on Mark's own blog My Fabulous Disease which you can read here.

My fear of all things anal began when I was an early teen. My older brother David took great delight in bursting into our bathroom to startle me, especially if I was on the john. And, since I was a pubescent redhead, his sudden visits included a lot of laughing and pointing. 

I was mortified beyond belief. To this day, I must be sure no one is in the house, and then close and lock the bedroom and bathroom doors before I can properly relax. And I live alone.

But you can’t avoid everything anal if you’re growing up gay. Not if you want to do the really fun stuff.

Thus my conundrum as a youth: exploring the pleasures of my tush while fighting the terror that something stinky might be going on down there. And I suspect I am not alone in this particular anxiety.

I discovered soon enough that if someone had serious intentions in regard to my backside, I couldn’t simply rely upon a bran muffin and a Hail Mary to be properly prepared. God forbid I would, you know, not be… well, you know. This ongoing fear had a habit of wrecking the mood and the evening.

My exclamations during sex were usually panicked calls to turn the lights up, so I could carefully inspect the situation. Or a plea to stop altogether. “Okay, that’s fine, no wait!” I would cry out. “Am I okay down there? I mean, is it… okay go ahead… no hold on! Are you sure I’m…?” I was usually so involved with my protestations that I would hardly notice my date gathering his things to leave.

There are cleansing products meant to address this situation, but they require a certain comfort level with your own body and a little patience, meaning, they were incomprehensible to me. But I tried my best.

Drugstore enemas always felt too clinical, like something a nurse should be administering so you could “move your bowels,” a phrase I hope I never have to hear again, much less type.

But never fear. Leave it to gay men to popularize the “shower shot,” a long hose which screws into your shower head and ends in a narrow nozzle, just right for sliding up your bum for a thorough internal rinse.

The modulation of this instrument, however — and I cannot stress this enough — is of utmost importance. Too little water pressure and you’ve got a dribble with little cleansing effect. Too much, and you’ve just inserted a pressure washer into your ass that could peel the paint off a building.

I was first introduced to this contraption in my early twenties, when my first-time date invited me to visit the bathroom to “rinse out” while he relaxed in bed and waited. I stepped in the shower and surveyed the dangling metal hose. I turned on the water. I considered how it all might operate, and I made my best guess, standing there for God knows how long, hose inserted and whistling a happy tune.

I must say in my defense that no one had ever explained the device to me, much less how to gauge the input versus the output.

That poor, unfortunate man. He had really pretty designer sheets, covered with a gorgeous blue and white pinstripe blanket that I can still see clear as day. Such a lovely bedroom. That is, until a few passionate moments later, when all of it was soaked with a solid gallon of spoiled water that had been percolating in my poopchute, exploding from me in a streaming rush that looked like the wake of an outboard motor hurtling across Lake Erie. The word “apocalyptic” comes to mind.

Only as I matured did I realize I had options (and I will now introduce cute baseball analogies to illustrate my point). I discovered I did not, in fact, always have to play catcher, and I stepped onto the pitcher’s mound with great enthusiasm. But as much as I enjoyed the view from above, I worried still, that maybe I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain. It was only after pitching a near-perfect game one day that my partner in the dugout helped me make a simple decision.

“Mark,” he said. “Why don’t you just stick to what you do well?” And it was this generous assessment that gave me the confidence to hang up the hiney hose forever.

Yes, that’s right. I’m now a dedicated top. I’ll allow you a few moments of incredulous wonderment.

What’s even more amazing is my having a boyfriend who is not only loving and adorable, but absolutely expert at the exotic mysteries of booty sex preparation. It really is an impressive talent, if you ask me. Like walking on your hands, or spinning plates on sticks.

This is all to tell you, dear reader, that sometimes you must find solutions to your fears in order to take care of yourself. And sometimes you have to face your damn fears head-on. I was reminded of this recently when, at fifty-two years old, I had my first colonoscopy. I don’t think I have to explain my anxiety level going in to this procedure.

Everything checked out fine, thanks. I had heard the anesthesia they give you can produce some odd behavior, but other than proposing to the physician and asking the recovery nurse if they located my pet hamster, I behaved myself quite admirably.

The only side effect of my colonoscopy was a bloated feeling and a case of the gurgles. Well, and a few hours later I had the longest, most continuous release of gas I have ever experienced in all my days. I’m talking a minute plus, people.

I really wish my older brother David had been here. He loves that kind of thing.

Mark

(Artwork courtesy of Andrews’s Anus, via LifeLube.)

****

My Friends, 

If I can face my deepest fears, so can you. Did you know that studies show people living with HIV have a higher incidence of “colonic neoplasms” (the polyps they are looking for during a colonoscopy), which should be checked out for cancerous cell growth? Anyone aged 50 should get a colonoscopy, and some protocols suggest that people with HIV start this screening at age 45. Please don’t delay. Call your doctor! (At left, a picture of my happy procedure team just prior to my colonoscopy.)

And speaking of rectal douching (and why not? We really should discuss this topic more, considering it is such a common practice among gay men), I cannot say enough about LifeLube, the blog created by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago to help gay men address sexuality and their bodies. They have an entire section devoted to rectal douching (did you know there are new douches that limit the amount of healthy bacteria removed?) and another feature, Andrew’s Anus, that provides engaging answers to the questions you’re afraid to ask. The blog is no longer active – meaning, no new postings – but there is a wealth of information here and you should definitely check it out.

This article first appeared in Mark’s own blog My Fabulous Disease here.

“My most courageous self, the best man that I’ll ever be, lived more than two decades ago during the first years of a horrific plague… I miss the man I was forced to become.”

 – “Once, When We Were Heroes,” 2007

AIDS did not kill Spencer Cox in the first, bloodiest battles of the 1980’s. It spared him that.

The reprieve allowed Spencer’s brilliance as co-founder of the Treatment Action Group (TAG) to forge new FDA guidelines for drug approval and help make effective HIV medications a reality, saving an untold number of lives.

Such triumph by a man still in his twenties might have signaled even greater achievements ahead. Instead, Spencer found himself adrift in the same personal crisis as many of his contemporaries, who struggled for a meaningful existence after years of combating the most frightening public health crisis of modern times.

Gay activists like Spencer were consumed by AIDS for so many gruesome years that many of them were shocked, once the war abated, to see how little around them had changed. Climbing from the trenches, they saw a gay culture that must have seemed ludicrous, packed with the same drug addictions, sexual compulsions and soulless shenanigans that AIDS, in its singular act of goodwill, had arrested for a decade or so.

They found themselves in a world in which no one wants to see battle scars, where intimacy is manufactured on keyboards and web sites, where any sense of community had long since faded from the AIDS organizations and now only makes brief appearances in 12-step meetings, or as likely, in the fraternity of active crystal meth addicts chasing deliverance in a dangerous shell game of bliss and desolation.

The dark allure of meth, a drug so devoured and fetished by gay men today that it is now a leading indicator of new HIV infections, enticed Spencer at some point along the way. The drug is known to whisper empty promises about limitless power and sexual escape, while calming the addict’s ghosts and sorrows for miserably brief periods of time.

When Spencer Cox died on December 18, 2012, in New York City, the official cause of death was AIDS-related complications, which is understandable if post-traumatic stress, despair and drug addiction are complications related to AIDS.

Spencer believed that this connection exists. His own writings for the Medius Institute for Gay Men’s Health (an organization he co-founded after his work with TAG) focus on exactly the issues that were distressing him personally: Crystal meth abuse. Loneliness. Risk taking. Feelings of confusion after years of accomplishment and purpose.

In retrospect you can read his work and break the private code written between the lines. It spells out “HELP ME.”

Spencer’s life during this period and beyond was difficult, by many accounts. The Medius Institute failed due to a lack of funding, defeating Spencer’s effort to address mental health issues among gay men. His drug addiction spiraled and ebbed and raged again, until he finally retreated to Georgia to live with family for a few years.

When Spencer returned to New York City last September, many of his closest friends had lost track of him. There is uncertainty about his last months, and no evidence that his addiction was active, but what little medication compliance he managed had been abandoned completely, setting the stage for his final hospitalization.

Spencer Cox died without the benefit of the very drugs he had helped make available to the world. He perished from pneumonia, in an ironic clinical time warp that transported him back to 1985. It was as if, having survived the deadliest years of AIDS, having come so close to complete escape, Spencer was snatched up by the Fates in a vengeful piece of unfinished business.

AIDS has always been creative in its cruelty. And it has learned to reach through the decades with the second-hand tools of disillusionment and depression and heart-numbing traumas. Or, perhaps, using the simple weapon of crystal meth, with all of its seductions and deceits.

Yes. There are many complications related to AIDS.

To consider “survivor’s guilt” the culprit behind the death of Spencer Cox is a popular explanation but not necessarily an accurate one. That condition suggests surviving when other, presumably worthier people, did not. Sometimes guilt has nothing to do with it.

For many of our AIDS war veterans, the real challenge today is living with the horror of having survived at all.

Mark

(PHOTO CREDIT: Walter Kurtz)

This story originally appeared on Mark S. King’s own blog My Fabulous Disease here. 

This post also appears on Mark’s own blog My Fabulous Disease here.  

There is so much distance in my mother’s eyes that I fear she may never come close to me again. Circling her stare are wrinkles of pain, betrayal even, and in her hand she holds the watch.

It was December of my senior year of high school, and things had calmed down considerably after my having burst forth from the closet that Fall, wearing go-go boots to school dances and openly flaunting my twenty-something boyfriend. But these were all healthy choices, I told myself.

If there was nothing wrong with being gay, then there should be nothing defiant about letting my family know about it. And my friends. And my teachers. And people at church. Never mind that we lived in Bossier City, Louisiana. Or that it was 1977.

But there was something about that look in my mother’s eyes, in that moment. It took all my arrogance to protect myself from it, to seek refuge from the shocked stare, the battle in her face between heartbreak and fury. She was squeezing tightly to the silver watchband, and her hand shook imperceptibly.

The boyfriend had been my downfall, of course. He was both too old and too immature for me, and Mom knew it. She also knew that spending so much time with him that previous summer wasn’t usual for a 16-year-old. So when she spotted a letter I’d written to him, she figured it would tell her what she wanted to know. She opened it.

It never occurred to me to place blame for that indiscretion. I was relieved when my parents found out, actually, and once that suspense was over I could get on with the business of scandalizing my high school.

There were brief exchanges between us following my big gay reveal, tense moments crowded with frustration and unfocused love. “What’s your problem with it?” I would ask, adorned with multiple pooka shell necklaces or sporting a man-made hickey without shame, “What’s your problem with me being gay?” I possessed more self-righteousness than an HRC dinner.

She would sigh with resignation, hand leaning on the kitchen counter. “Mark, it’s just that I know this won’t be easy. It’s your whole life, and this will just make it difficult.” There were no scripture readings or ignorant signs of homophobia. Just a mother’s perfectly legitimate concern that a child’s life could be tougher.

I didn’t appreciate her enlightenment. I would reply with a teenage shrug, just before some eye rolling and a saunter out of the room that must have made her want to strangle my pretty little gay neck.

As Christmas approached that year, I made it known that there was a gift that would be just swell for a certain high school senior. Something sophisticated, to show his increased maturity.

A watch.

But then, on my birthday two days before Christmas, I walked through the front door prancing like the Queen of Sheba — meaning, more prancing than usual — and on my wrist was a glimmering gold watch, a shiny new gift from my boyfriend. It was not a quality timepiece, not that I knew it, and the gold was destined to fade faster than the relationship. But it looked quite fabulous as I strutted and posed like I had just discovered that I could vogue.

Mother didn’t betray her emotions. She waited. And two days later, wearing a robe and a gold wrist, I opened a Christmas present from Mom and Dad that had been hidden behind the tree and saved for last.

It was a Timex, and it was beautiful. Silver.

There was more than the standard holiday tension as I slipped off my gold watch to try on the Timex. True to form, Mom kept her own counsel, but something told me that I wasn’t simply being presented with an additional watch, but with a choice. And I didn’t want to make it.

All that year I had been trying on a confident young gay identity for size — and that included a boyfriend who had given me what I wanted for Christmas. I valued him and I valued his gift. But family emotions were fairly clear: his gift was a bit much. After all, Mom and Dad could have had the man arrested for taking up with their 16-year-old. Seeing him shower me with jewelry had to push the limits of their patience.

But such concerns were beyond a self centered teen like me. I was convinced that flaunting his gift was about my new-found gay pride, and about respect for my sexuality and all sorts of other lofty, misdirected ideals.

Later that day, after the mountains of wrapping paper had been cleared, Mom and I sat near the tree. “So, this is a bit strange,” she began, as casually as she could muster, “having two watches… what will you do?” She had never had to compete with another gift giver for my gratitude. Someone outside the family. And a man.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, knowing.

“Maybe you should talk to your friend, and…”

“And what, Mother?” I snapped back, propelled with a little too much righteous indignation. “Look Mom, I have an idea…” I slipped off the Timex and handed it to her. “I think you and Dad should return this. Silver isn’t really my color. You should know that.”

It is then, that moment, which continues to replay in my mental catalogue of regret. I wanted to collect the words from the air and gobble them up, but of course it was too late.

Her face was blank at first, and then a stunned, hurt expression flashed across it that was as heartbreaking to me as it was utterly foreign. She looked like she was the target of some cruel joke. And then suddenly her vulnerability was abolished for her usual calm. Her face made the whole journey in an instant.

I moved to say something more but thought better of it. Instead I reached for the watch in her hands and took it back, my face a silent promise never to give it up again. Mother withdrew without further words.

It was a milestone, a snap of the apron strings, a selfish or brave gesture of independence, depending on your point of view. I can consider whether it was an important step for a gay teen or simply the self-indulgent act of a child, but the debate doesn’t interest me. My minds eye only remembers her face.

Even now, more than thirty years later, I want to take it all back.

Mark

(This posting first apppeared on My Fabulous Disease on December 7, 2010. — Mark)

Our first meeting on-camera was six years ago. The memory of it pains me still, despite my enthusiasm for appearing on national television for any reason whatsoever. 

“And how long have you been off drugs?” he asked. The look in his eyes carried a journalist’s skepticism. The intense lights of the CNN studio seemed to brighten at the question.

“Six months,” I answered. The idea of appearing at the anchor desk with Don Lemon was losing its allure. Granted, I wanted to help promote the documentary Meth, and discuss gay men, drug abuse, and my own crystal meth addiction. But the interview had become too real, too well lit, and far too direct for me to escape the truth with my usual manipulations.

“And where are you living now?” Don asked me. I felt flush, reddened by shame and by the pitiful answer I was now obligated to give.

“I live in a halfway house with other men recovering from addiction, Don.”

My mother is watching, I thought. My friends. And people who know me who will be far too polite to ever mention they saw this.

Don Lemon’s news story was insightful and illuminated a very real health threat to gay men. And it featured an actual gay drug addict on camera. A well-spoken one, but an addict just the same.

In the six years since those uncomfortable few minutes, I published a book about living in Los Angeles during the dawn of AIDS. I embraced my HIV status by launching my blog, My Fabulous Disease. And despite relapses and lessons along the way, I have faced my addiction and loosened its grip on my life and productivity.

And so, as fate would have it, I found myself back at Don Lemon’s desk recently, live on the air, to talk about living with HIV and how I was combating stigma with weapons of joy and good humor (pictured above, with video link below).

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2012/12/02/lemon-mark-king-intv.cn

I have no explanation why I should be so lucky as to appear twice on CNN, the second serving to wash away the discomfort of the first. There’s no reason except the unimaginable grace that has carried me through the last six years.

Don’s studio is much larger now, and both his command of the newscast and his popularity have grown accordingly. During the few minutes of commercial break before our segment, he welcomed me to the desk like an old friend.

The lighting was just as intense as my first visit, revealing my bright grin, lined with age and survival and experience. I didn’t complain. I even asked if it could be brighter in the studio. “Madonna lighting, please,” I joked to the crew as I took my seat.

There was no mention of crystal meth. No doubting glances or talk of halfway houses. Instead, Don smiled as he introduced me, assuring his viewers this story about AIDS was a little bit different, and then pronounced me “a trip.” I beamed with pride, more grateful to be there, discussing this topic, than anyone watching could ever know.

I wasn’t the only one who had a newfound lightness of being. Since our first meeting, Don had published Transparent, a book about his life and career that included coming out publicly as a gay man. He’s familiar with being an “other,” and with fighting shame in order to reveal who you are. We had both found a path to freedom paved with rigorous honesty.

We talked about HIV stigma and Madonna lighting. He shared a story of seeing an AIDS patient on a New York City street years ago. I interjected my new favorite topic, the injustice of HIV criminalization. We were two very different men comfortable in our own skin, who refused to allow shame a place at the table.

At the end of our interview I began to shake his hand and something remarkable happened. Don stood and reached out for a hug. It was surprising for an anchor, maybe even awkward for a brief second, and then the sweetness of the gesture won out as we embraced.

The humanity – and perhaps even bravery – of his simple act wasn’t lost on viewers, many of whom wrote to tell me how moving it was.

But for me, it was something more. Don Lemon, who remembered our first visit and never mentioned the circumstances, who knew this interview meant growth for me, a sort of redemption perhaps, and who even knew a little about overcoming shame himself, reached out in a gesture of support.

A hug.

This article first appeared on Mark S. King’s own blog My Fabulous Disease here.