In April 2012 I wrote a piece for PositiveLite.com entitled “My Barebacking Journey”. In it I talked about how I had made the decisions not to use condoms since my college days and how this had ultimately led to my testing HIV positive in September 2011. 

A year later, I thought I’d take the opportunity to sit down and put my thoughts over how things have gone over the last 12 months.  Some things have changed dramatically, others haven’t changed at all.  I guess in some respects life is just carrying on just the same as it always has. 

Since I wrote here last, I have come out as an HIV-positive person to nearly everyone I know. Only my parents and immediate work colleagues are in the dark. I managed the “coming out” process carefully; telling a few people, gauging their response, and then telling a couple more, until the deed was done. Surprisingly, for a city of its small size, the public reaction to my condition has been overwhelmingly supportive. Not one person has reacted negatively to it, and the gossip has largely been low key. People whenever I see them, ask me how I am doing, and it has really shown me that the people I call friends really are friends, and I am honoured to have them in my life. 

In November 2012, after my viral load reached a peak of 1.7 million, and my CD4 flicked a margin above the 350 threshold, I took a week off work to start my HAART medication. I was prescribed Truvada and Sustiva, with a view once the viral load was fully suppressed to move on to Atripla.  In order to get a week off work in order to manage any side effects at such short notice, I decided to inform work. After careful consideration of the pros and cons of taking such a step, I decided that it was the right thing to do. I didn’t actually have to say it as it turned out – my manager asked me for a private word and turns out he had guessed it. I suppose a sexually active gay man, talking about having a medical condition which requires a lifetime of medication, kind of drops the hint – and he had put two and two together.  

The reaction I got from him has been fine. No issues whatsoever, and as a result of him being informed of my condition, he has allowed me time off at short notice to attend the clinic for blood tests and regular check ups – something that would have been hard for me to do had he not been aware of the situation. What is more, he has kept it to himself, and not blabbed it to all my work colleagues, so there are no issues there either. 

The question I get asked most now I have started the medication, is how is it going? What about side effects? 

Well the first couple of weeks were a mixture of horror and bizarre experiences.  I wanted to experiment with the drugs – to see how they would impact on my normal life. So I ate my usual meals, drank a few beers before taking them and all that jazz. The first time I took them with beer was like nothing on this earth. I had a couple of pints then popped my pills. Within half an hour, I had gone from merry to totally blotto. I said goodbye to my friends, and staggered home. What normally takes me 20 minutes, took me one hour to walk. I fell through my door, passed out on the sofa with the room spinning! It was as though I’d had twenty pints, not two. A very peculiar experience, it made for a cheap night though! 

Over time I got fed up with not being able to enjoy a couple of quiet beers after a 14 hour shift at work, and it came to a head just before our works Christmas dinner. I spoke to my consultant, and he informed me that I didn’t have to take them at exactly the same time each night; if I wanted to take them immediately before I went to bed, within a four or five window period each night, that would work just as well. So this is what I did, and continue to do. 

I lead life just as I always have done; the only difference is that before I go to bed, I chomp down on my HIV medication. Sure, sometimes if I’ve eaten late at night, the medication triggers some strange vivid dreams, but truth be told, I quite like them! They’re not scary, and on the whole, are very enjoyable experiences. 

More importantly, the medication is working. Within 5 months of starting my treatment, my viral load has gone from through the roof, to undetectable and my CD4 is on the rebound.  I feel more energetic that I have at any point since my diagnosis back in September 2011, and I know that provided I keep taking them, and they keep working, then there is nothing to worry about.  HIV isn’t a death sentence any more, it is a life long chronic, but manageable condition.  I think this is the most important message that we need to get out there people who are recently diagnosed, or whom are living with the virus, but not on treatment.  Especially with the continued debate over treatment as prevention – something that I am a strong advocate for.  

However life on HIV treatment isn’t all smooth. Over the months, I have noticed an alarming development. It would appear that I am losing my libido. I have a far lower interest in sex now, than I did before I started HIV treatment. It’s not that I have HIV, as even after my diagnosis I was still an exceptionally horny guy. I still get my moments, but when I look back to how I used to be, the libido has certainly waned since starting HIV treatment. This isn’t a universal issue though; friends of mine on treatment have found their libido actually increased.  It’s clearly something that I need to continue to work through with my medical team. 

So what else has the last year brought? I found myself in a relationship, something that hadn’t happened in a very long time. It was nice; we met in a bar, and things quickly moved onto more, it was during a night out together that I realised I had the dreaded disclosure to do. I plucked up the courage, and told him that I had something to tell him. As with all my friends, his reaction was great. He said that he knew the risks, he knew other people in the city who were HIV positive, and it didn’t faze him. Sadly it wasn’t to last, only a fortnight ago we broke up after three months together. He said that it wasn’t anything to do with the HIV, but as these things go, it always leaves that lingering thought in your mind. Still, such is life, we live and learn and move on. 

Over the course of the year since I last wrote for PositiveLite.com, there have been moments where I wished to the high heavens that I didn’t have this condition; I would be lying if I said otherwise. On balance however, I think that it has made me a stronger person for it. It has given me a greater appreciation of my health; I take a more active role in keeping myself healthy, I’ve cut out the junk food and eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. I drink less alcohol and more water.  As I am an out and proud HIV positive person, I also tackle stigma head on when I hear people talking rubbish in the circles that I socialise in. I strongly believe that it is only by being out and open about our statuses, can we eventually reduce stigma of the condition. If we sweep it under the carpet, or are ashamed of it, then stigma is allowed to grow and rear its ugly head. 

That’s about it really; my thoughts of living with HIV are as they have always been. It’s something that I live with, not suffer from. My journey over the last year, of coming out as an HIV-positive person has led me to meet many other people I already knew who are also in the same position, and I take strength from them, and hopefully them from me. 

You can follow Josh on twitter at @JoshLandalexxx. 

Terrence Higgins Trust, generally considered the UK's leading HIV and AIDS organization, and the largest in Europe, is promoting treatment as prevention, including for gay men, on its new “It Starts With Me” campaign.

"England", it says, “can halt HIV within a generation”.  The campaign is the largest scale by THT to date, running until Spring 2015. Read their press release here. 

Cary James, Head of Health Improvement Programmes at Terrence Higgins Trust says “While a cure or vaccine for HIV remains stubbornly out of reach, what many gay men don’t realise is that medical advances mean it is now within our community’s grasp to stop the virus in its tracks. By getting as many people with HIV as possible tested and on effective treatment, we should see new infection rates fall rapidly

Says the campaign website “We are at the start of a new era in stopping the spread of HIV. We know that the combination of regular testing, HIV treatment and condom use is the key to success.

You can be part of something that changes HIV history. You are the key to stopping HIV in your own life and in the community.”

This kind of strategy marks a transition from what was commonly called poz prevention  - a concept that essentially suggested that HIVers maintaining good sexual and emotional health were better placed to make sound decisions and in doing so, help reduce new infections – to a more direct approach which stresses the benefits of treating HIV to both improve health and reduce viral load, and thus make transmission much less likely.

The campaign makes no specific mention of when to start treatment, although treatment as prevention advocates routinely suggest the earlier the better, not only as a prevention technique, but primarily because the weight of evidence now suggests it produces better health outcomes for the HIVer.

Current UK guidelines recommend treatment for all individuals with CD4 counts below 350, but if a patient with a CD4 cell count above 350 wishes to start treatment, this decision should be respected and treatment be started.

On the issue of infectivity, gay mens' sexual health sites, in the absence of hard data relating to MSM, are currently all over the map. THT says what most experts believe, that “Someone on treatment has an extremely low risk of passing on HIV if their viral load has been undetectable for six month and they are free from sexually transmitted infections. Unlike other sites, there is thankfully no talk here about that perennial red herring, virus in the semen, which tends to be found only in “trivial” amounts according to leading researcher Myron Cohen.

Using the slogan “We Can Stop HIV” the THT campaign is also interesting for drawing on issues of community solidarity and GIPA. Not that this hasn’t been employed before, but more traditional poz prevention campaigns like HIV Stops With Me worried some critics with the perception that they sent mixed messages about personal and shared responsibility. The THT campaign seems to avoid that trap.

One "off" note: the THT website includes the “official” recommendation that all gay and bisexual men test at least once a year. It's arguable that for sexually active men with multiple partners that isn’t nearly enough. Vancouver’s Health Initiative for Men (HIM) for instance says “guys who are more at risk should test every three months.”  We concur with the latter recommendations.

In Canada, only B.C. has adopted treatment as prevention strategies  in the form of test and treat and is enjoying some success in reducing new infections as are other jurisdictions such as New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The issue of the efficacy of TasP for MSM is a controversial area, though, as it has been difficult to reduce incidence in that population.  Dr Julio Montaner, the leading proponent of TasP maintains the issue is not whether TasP works in MSM but how much.

The “Breast is best” mantra has become the chant pregnant women and new mothers hear, and it’s no surprise- breast milk is amazing stuff. Breastfeeding helps build a child’s immune system, develop healthy gut flora, and prevent allergies, obesity, asthma and SIDS.  It also boosts a baby’s brain power. But as we learn more about how breastfeeding contributes to infant and child development, women who can’t or are advised not to breastfeed for medical reasons can be profoundly affected. A couple of pieces I read last week brought the issue up again.   

HIV and Breastfeeding - No

HIV is present in breast milk, so women with HIV who live in areas where clean water supplies are available are advised to formula feed to avoid transmission risk. This can be complicated for women with pressure from surrounding friends, family, or social norms that they will breastfeed. This tension was presented in a study of women of African descent living in the UK. It was shared recently at the British HIV Association conference.

Twenty-three women with HIV (pregnant or new moms) took part in a study to discuss their feelings about breastfeeding. Having been raised with the expectations that mothers breastfeed, they felt that breastfeeding was “an essential aspect of being a woman and a mother.” Roger Pebody’s coverage of the study also noted that these feelings were echoed by women in a Canadian study last year.

For women who haven’t disclosed to people in her circles, fear of discrimination and judgment loom large. The pressure to breastfeed could feel enormous. Women in this situation reported they often isolated themselves and their babies.

HIV and Breastfeeding - Yes

Pebody’s piece also reported on confusing health education women receive. Breast IS best for women with HIV when there are no dependable clean water supplies. In these situations, the risk of water-borne illness to babies outweighs the risk of HIV transmission from breast milk, and positive moms are advised to breastfeed exclusively.  There should be no use of formula at all (using both breast milk and formula is called mixed feeding). On top of putting an infant at risk for water-borne infections, formula can cause inflammation in an infant’s gut, which can open the way for HIV infection.

Refer here. 

Another piece breastfeeding women need to know about is weaning. It looks like transmission risk is more about how a woman weans than when. A study of 958 women showed that levels of HIV in their breast milk increased when they weaned abruptly when their babies were four months. In women who continued to breastfeed, those who did so exclusively had lower levels of HIV in their milk than the women who didn’t exclusively breast feed. This research indicates the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding past four months of age, and reinforces the importance of good health support and education for women.

Refer also here. 

This article first appeared on the website of Positive Women’s Network here. 

Every now and then I catch myself speaking or laughing and I will hear my father’s voice. And as much as I hate it, I can’t deny that I am my father’s son. From the shape of my eyes and nose to the bad varicose veins on my legs….I was definitely made of his genes. And for the past few years I have been thinking about him. Wondering where he is and what he has been doing.

Because my father is 17 years older than me, he would be of the generation that would find computers and facebook a little intimidating. Hell…I can remember when I first started working with them back in the 80’s at The Tampa Tribune. Those black screens with the space-aged green fonts seemed like something out of a movie (“War Games” to be exact). So, he would probably have shied away from ever actually using a computer to find his son. And most likely he didn’t want to find me at all.

You see, my father was a longshoreman. He wasn’t a big man. He was actually kind of thin and spry. Don’t get me wrong…he was strong, but not that big in stature. The last time I saw him was Thanksgiving of 1991 at his mother’s house. By this time in my life, I had already come out to everyone in my family. I was living a gay lifestyle and working in gay bars. My father had even come to pick me up a couple times when I was stranded after a drag show at Rene’s (the popular black gay bar in Tampa). So, it was no big deal that I was in drag or had a boyfriend. He had even gone to school with a well known drag queen in town named Zara. But what happened at that Thanksgiving dinner would change our relationship forever.

My earliest memory of my father was my fifth birthday. My grandmother, Carrie, had told me that he had called and said he was going to come see me for my birthday. I remember taking a bath that afternoon. I never wanted to take a bath back then, but I wanted to look good for my father. I put on my Sunday best. I would run and go peek out the front window every time I heard a car go by. This went on for hours. I remember my grandmother making me come and eat a late lunch because he still had not arrived. Then it was getting later in the day. I had tried watching “Underdog” and a couple of other cartoons to keep myself busy until he arrived.

Finally it was after 5 PM and I decided to go wait on the porch. I remember rocking in the chair. It was really warm out and the gnats were swamping the yard. I sat there and waited all day until the sun went down. My father never showed up. This would become a long series of disappointments my father would supply throughout my life.

A few years earlier before that dinner, I was living with my gay cousin Michael and a friend, Godfrey (who went by the drag name Apollonia). Michael (who was also a drag performer named “Michelle Holiday”) had lost his job and was pretending to go to work everyday. Apollonia survived off her drag shows and her boyfriend. I was working as a DJ and drag performer. I happened to call Michael at his job at McDonald’s because my uncle Herb need him to come pick him up and was informed he no longer worked there and would I ask him to return the uniform. After confronting Michael, I told him and Godfrey that I was moving out. We were going to lose the apartment if we didn’t have the rent. Michael was unable to get another job immediately so I moved in with my friend Christie Matthews. Apparently, Michael and Godfrey went to my father and Uncle Herb and told them that I had moved out and left them with the rent.  My father and Herb gave them the rest of the rent and I guess my father started harboring ill will towards me.

Fast forward to 1991 and my father shows up to Thanksgiving dinner at his mother’s house with his current girlfriend. Grandma Sally always had a big meal at the holidays. Even my adopted gay brother Anthony Evans was invited. Now, my dad showing up with his girlfriend doesn’t sound like a problem, but his ex-wife, Teresa and the kids were there. I noticed that he had been drinking before he got there. He was very abrupt with me when he arrived. But like most dysfunctional family dinners, the main event was saved while we were eating.  My father proceeded to tell me that I had ruined his name (since I am a junior), I needed to go out and get a real job and stop hanging around all those faggots before I caught something.

Ironically, the year before I had received my diagnosis of being HIV+. I had no intention of sharing that fact with anyone in my family. I already felt like an outsider since I left home at 16. At the time when my father verbally attacked me at the dinner table, it seemed to have come out of nowhere. I was told later that he was still mad at me for moving out on Michael and Godfrey and felt that I was irresponsible. But this was laughable, coming from a man who didn’t have a permanent residence himself.  I sat and listened for about ten minutes and then I went off.

“You gotta lotta nerve! You ain’t got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of!” I said.

He gave the same look he did when he punched me in 1980 when I stopped him from beating on Teresa in their kitchen. I remember sitting on the floor after the hit and singing “We Shall Overcome” and him cursing at me. So, I guess he was about to hit me again, but my grandmother wasn’t having it. She threw him out of her house on that Thanksgiving. And that would be the last time I saw my father.

When I describe my parents, I always say that they seemed like my older brother and sister who were always in trouble. Mainly because I was raised my mother’s mother until she died in 1982. It’s funny how life can be like a stacked set of dominoes. You do one thing and it changes so many others’ lives.

My mother was the only girl out of three children. So, my grandmother kept her under lock and key. She was very strict with her and wanted her to go to school to become a teacher. But it was the 60’s and my mother had other plans. She wanted to see Jimi Hendrix live. She wanted to be a part of the Psychedelic Movement. So she got pregnant on purpose and my father was the poor victim. He really loved her and she ran off with a boyfriend shortly after having me. He didn’t know anything about raising a child. So, he took me to the one place he knew I would be safe and loved….my mother’s mother.

Unfortunately for him and all the rest of the women he came in contact with from then on, he would never truly fall in love again. He would become an abusive and womanizing man that had kids all over town.

So, on April 22^nd, 2013 I opened up my facebook account and found a message from a girl named Lakiria. It read: “Miss Teresa misses you and loves you. Please call her.” At first I was going to ignore it, but then I noticed the number had an 813 area code. That’s Tampa. So, I called it.

The joy in Teresa’s voice was so wonderful to hear. Apparently she and my brothers had been searching for me for a while. My step brother, Adrian and his girlfriend, Lakiria came across my facebook profile and decided to write me. I cannot tell you the emotions that overcame me when I started talking with Theresa, my brother Adrian, my brother Anton, my brother Anthony and my Uncle Rudolph.  They were all so glad to finally reconnect with me. It had been 21 years since I had spoken to or seen any of them.

But it was a bittersweet opening conversation with Teresa. You see, my father had died in 2006. So, I finally had my answer. The man that I had despised for all these year was gone. But of course a part of me wishes that I had worked things out or at least got to tell him that I am married now. I believe I have found my purpose in life. I have a family of friends who love me and believe in me. I have a life that I am proud of. But this conversation was reaffirming to hear.  My real family still loves me and they are proud of me. Teresa even told me that she has been walking around the house singing “Bitch You Look Fierce”. Her and Lakira are now the biggest Jade Elektra fans.

My father’s death left so many questions. I wonder if he ever got to see any of my accomplishments. Did he ever hear any of my records? Did he ever see me in a movie or on television? Did he ever know that I really understood him and why he did the things that he did? Would he have embraced me if I had told him that I was HIV+? 

Well, a part of me thinks he would have. Teresa told me that he died of AIDS.

A part of me was shocked, but not surprised. For as many women he had slept with it wasn’t surprising at all. But my Uncle Rudolph shed some more light on something else I had no idea about. My father, like my mother had started doing heavy drugs and was shooting up. And at his funeral, the family discovered that he had three daughters that we knew nothing about. And since he got around - a lot - there’s no telling how many more are out there.

To put the kids in order of age…..it would be me, Von, Jerome, Anton, Anthony. These are the brothers I knew about. We didn’t have the same mothers, but there was no denying that were Alfonso King’s children. Out of protest of not having a father around when I was growing up, I changed the spelling of my name in grade school. Then it became my professional name when I started acting and modeling.

I guess the thing that I regret the most with both my parents is that I never got to tell them that I forgave them. They were two young 17 year olds who were making the best decisions that they could at the time. They had no idea that what they did that day I was conceived would change the rest of so many lives in the aftermath. And although many have said they were horrible parents, they taught me a very valuable lesson……how not to live. I just never got the chance to tell them that I loved them regardless of the mistakes.

“Some people are going to think, ‘Oh god, why did he not take steps to prevent HIV? Why did he act recklessly, and who the hell does he think he is, I saw people die from AIDS!’” A friend and colleague whose candor is always helpful said this to me over lunch recently, and his words have stuck with me over the past day

Most interestingly, I’ve noticed that those most receptive to my messages are under 30, those 30-50 are generally receptive but ask more poignant questions, and those over 50 are oftentimes, not always but often, openly hostile to my writing on bareback sex and HIV. In the next few months, I’m going to be speaking at several sexual health seminars and symposiums, and I’ve been assessing my own writing and essays on sex, barebacking, HIV, and personal responsibility, and I’ve reached the same conclusion that I originally had when I began writing on HIV and sex; that is, we are inadvertently sustaining HIV infections and continuing this epidemic because we are unable to confront our past honestly and without emotion.

I was born in 1984. Personally, I have no firsthand recollection of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Ryan White, Arthur Ashe, the AIDS quilt’s beginnings, Rock Hudson, C. Everett Coop, or the obscene neglect the United States government took in relation to HIV/AIDS throughout the entire 1980s.  Rather, all of my knowledge of these things, people, and movements comes from oral histories from LGBT elders that are my friends, exhibits at places like the William Way LGBT Community Center’s stellar John J. Wilcox, Jr., Archival space, named after a man I am heartened to have called a friend, and from textbooks and documentaries. In addition, when I began to go through puberty and learn about the physical and sexual changes taking place in my body, it was the late 1990s, Bill Clinton was president, HIV/AIDS organizations and infrastructure had been in place for over a decade, and my teachers, parents, and mentors knew how HIV was transmitted, how HIV was not transmitted, and HIV’s timeline of progression in the human body.

When I was growing up, there was no plague where funerals were being attended every week. There were no candlelight vigils, there were no large scale protests interfering with traditional institutions of power and policy in the United States; rather, there was knowledge, there were early concepts of treatment that are still being used today, and there was a local, state, and federal government trying its best, guided and sometimes provoked by activists and advocacy organizations, to respond most effectively to HIV/AIDS.

Instead of learning about HIV through my own experiences or through seeing friends or loved ones suffer or die too early, I learned about HIV as an abstract concept far removed from my own life. Of course, this abstract viral boogeyman was as frightening as it was imaginary; after all, when our own innate fears are coupled with histories, real or not, of our elders and teachers, we manifest these fears in irrational terror and paradoxical behavior, like posting links on Facebook to condom campaign websites but barebacking someone we met on Adam4Adam because he said he was “clean.”

For years, I was terrified of this virus because it had seemingly no effect on me or my own circle of friends and family; rather, it was something that we knew existed, we knew how to prevent, and we knew how it attacked the human body, but this knowledge was predicated on the idea that I was born, luckily, at a time where I did not become a man or a sexual being until long after the early days of the virus spreading rapidly through the gay community. Of course, the only reason HIV/AIDS took off throughout the gay community is because gay men engage in anal sex which allows for easy access for the blood barrier to be crossed between sexual partners because of, often entirely unnoticeable, usually microscopic abrasions and tears around the skin on the penis or inside the anus.

Contrary to the belief of some misguided idiots who think HIV/AIDS was god’s divine judgment toward those of us who like to kiss men, HIV only seemingly “picked” the gay community because of this fact; if straight women were clamoring to engage in anal sex like gay men typically do, they would have been the ones who bore the brunt of HIV/AIDS. Instead, because gay men are the ones who engage in this, admittedly fun, activity, we were the ones who suffered the most during the early days of HIV/AIDS. And, to this day, the LGBT community overall, including transwomen and gay men, are dramatically disproportionately affected by HIV because of this fact.

So, like the Holocaust, the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are a mere idea my generation and the generations after mine have to learn about from our elder peers, from our teachers, or from our books. We have no concept of the human tragedy endured by millions; we have no firsthand account of what things were like. And, this is why our experience as HIV+ people born post-AIDS outbreak is entirely different than that of those who lived during this time as sexual adults. Now, this is not to say that either experience is better or worse; rather, our experiences are equally as valuable and equally deserving of a seat at the table when it comes to outreach, prevention, and care.

Notwithstanding, if we are to successfully combat the tide of rising HIV infections brought on by what older folks like to call “recklessness” but what I like to call “natural human behavior,” we must be willing to honestly look at ourselves and admit that nobody has a monopoly on HIV/AIDS, and the fact that someone lived through something does not automatically give them deference on opinions just as the fact that I am HIV+ most definitely does not give me absolute authority on all things related to HIV. Rather, on the logical and science-based merits should we approach HIV/AIDS today without the baggage and trauma, both experiential on part of our elders and vicarious on part of my generation.

This is the current approach of the more misguided folks in our LGBT elder generation, generally, in relation to HIV: tossing out HIV stigmatic slurs like calling me, literally, a “murderer;” browbeating young men who bareback as “reckless;” advocating condom use over everything else; making people who bareback feel bad about themselves; shrilly obsessing over death when telling 20 year olds about the 1980s instead of honestly admitting that you were at the DCA club also getting topped on the truck bed at the bar; claiming falsely that dental dams are used widely to prevent hepatitis and so should condoms for anal sex; ignoring the fact that part of sexual liberation means engaging in natural human sexual activity like bareback sex; and, ignoring all scientific literature that refutes every single backward notion born out of 1990 and early treatment that effectively was more toxic than HIV itself.

If this approach worked, then we would not be seeing a steady rise in HIV infections.

 So, let’s stop damaging the lives and futures of young people today by taking a step back and stop forcing other people to obsess over our own memories, effectively refusing to allow these men and women to experience life on their own without the specter of a de facto Holocaust; the time of this period is over. We have antiretroviral treatment with no side effects that literally both gives us life expectancy into our 70s while simulanteously preventing us from being able to transmit HIV whatsoever (when we adhere to this medication); we are not dying, we are living. And, we are not frightened anymore because now that some of us have seen HIV for what it is. In particular, we know that HIV is a virus that will kill us if left untreated but that it is also a virus that is, today, incredibly manageable with the right governmental approach toward treatment availability like exists here in Philadelphia.

Human tragedy should never be swept under the rug or forgotten. And, we should strenuously remind folks that these things went on, that good men and women died needlessly and far too soon. But, we should not predicate our public health efforts and prevention efforts on the idea that we should force people to remember our dead friends or a tragic decade that future generations had nothing to do with. After all, if this fear-based approach was effective, nobody would get HIV anymore.

The fact that I’m writing this and HIV+ refutes that hypothesis.

This article originally appeared on Josh’s own blog here.

On May 5th, we will be celebrating six months of the POZ-TO Monthly Dance Parties. We are proud to say that each month has been getting better and better.

It is so great to see everyone enjoying themselves and socializing. This is exactly what I was going for - a safe space where the HIV+ community can come and just let their hair down. No worries about having to disclose, because the conversation has already been started. And although we open the doors for the POZ Community, we also welcome anyone and everyone who wants to support the organizations we choose to raise money for. 

For the past six months we have raised money for ACT & PWA, but starting in June we have decided that the main organization we are going to be helping is PWA. Mainly because I believe that their services are really hands on and food is important. And with their new garden programs, they are going to need all the help they can get. And POZ-TO is proud to throw our support behind them.

But we will still occasionally invite in other AIDS organizations to help them as well. We are all in this fight together. It is going to take all of us to help in educating and preventing the spread of the virus.

We will also be celebrating a my good friend, Richard Kikot's Birthday. So, I'm sure it's gonna be a fun night. Hope to see you there on Sunday (May 5th).

And to show my appreciation for all of those who have come out to support the event, here is a special megamix I have put together. It's just a taste of all the great music I spin for our party. Give it a listen….you never know what you might hear.