Outlier: My Unusual Journey With HIV

Outlier: My Unusual Journey With HIV http://www.thebody.com/content/art54740.html A blog by fogcityjohn at TheBody.com. http://www.thebody.com/images/blog/fogcityjohn_biobox.gif fogcityjohn http://www.thebody.com/content/art54740.html 115 140 Implausible Deniability: Sex and Self-Deception Among HIV-Negative Men http://www.thebody.com/content/67902/implausible-deniability-sex-and-self-deception-amo.html In my last post, I wrote about an experience I'd had some time back. To recap briefly, a guy I'd met at the gym asked me out for a drink one evening, and after we'd spent some time sipping beers at a local bar, it became clear he wanted to get physical. So I did what I always do and disclosed my serostatus. He panicked, and I ended up going home confused and frustrated. While such experiences have been rare for me in San Francisco, just last night I had another one. It's led me to ponder the issue of how HIV-negative gay men think about sex and HIV.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/67902/implausible-deniability-sex-and-self-deception-amo.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:06:00 GMT Dis Honesty http://www.thebody.com/content/64647/dis-honesty.html I had an experience a while back that I wanted to share because it involves a question with which all us poz folks must wrestle -- disclosure. Specifically, I want to discuss the most common and vexing disclosure problem I've confronted as a poz gay man -- revealing my HIV status to potential sexual and/or romantic partners.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/64647/dis-honesty.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Thu, 3 Nov 2011 16:03:00 GMT A Question of Priorities http://www.thebody.com/content/62555/a-question-of-priorities.html Since June is the month in which we celebrate Pride, I thought it might be appropriate for me to address a question to my fellow members of the LGBT community, and in particular to my gay brothers. I want to talk about an issue our community used to think was really important, but which seems to have fallen off the radar screen recently. That issue is HIV.

HIV/AIDS used to be an existential threat to our community, and we treated it as such. Nowadays, medical science has made HIV a chronic illness, at least for those of us lucky enough to have access to very expensive antiretroviral therapy. Nevertheless, HIV remains a tremendous health problem, and it's still rampant among gay men. Yet our community seems to have decided to direct its attention elsewhere, and I'm trying to figure out why.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/62555/a-question-of-priorities.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:15:00 GMT With Friends Like These: Dr. Monica Sweeney's Gift to the Religious Right http://www.thebody.com/content/art61637.html People who know me well know that when I argue, I like to win. If I make a prediction about something, I usually like it when events later prove me right. Usually. Sometimes, though, I'd really much prefer to be proved wrong. This is one of those times.

My last post here concerned a controversial public service announcement (PSA) put out by the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) entitled "It's Never Just HIV." After the PSA was broadcast, GLAAD and GMHC condemned it as "sensationalistic and stigmatizing." They objected because the PSA "portray[s] gay and bisexual men as dispensing diseases," and thus "promotes stigma and stereotype," the perpetuation of which would only "harm gay and bisexual men." And GLAAD and GMHC were hardly alone in their criticism.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art61637.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:11:00 GMT Stigma as Prevention: The Homophobia Behind a PSA http://www.thebody.com/content/art60281.html If you follow the news about HIV at all, you've already heard about a controversial public service announcement (PSA) from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH). Entitled "It's Never Just HIV," the PSA warns gay men that getting HIV will make them more susceptible to other diseases and conditions, like osteoporosis, dementia, and anal cancer.

To me, the PSA looks a lot like a trailer for a low-budget horror movie. It features a scary voice-over, lots of frightened-looking young men, and most strikingly, a hideously diseased ass. Yep. That's right. The DHMH apparently thinks that the way to get its HIV prevention message across is to show revolting images of an anus covered with lesions.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art60281.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Thu, 27 Jan 2011 07:36:00 GMT Breaking the Silence? http://www.thebody.com/content/art59695.html The end of 2010 brings with it the first anniversary of my stint as a blogger for TheBody.com. When I started blogging, I honestly had no idea what I was getting into. I'd never done this before, and I had only a vague idea of what I might write about.

As a lawyer, I found that one of the most daunting aspects of this whole project was that I had no assigned topic. In my professional life, whatever case I'm involved in dictates what I write. I don't get to choose the subject; it's chosen for me. What's more, my goal in legal writing is obvious -- I have to persuade my audience that I'm right. I'm an advocate with a case to win, and winning is the goal.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art59695.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Thu, 2 Dec 2010 19:31:00 GMT Making Darkness Visible: Seeing the Relationship of Laws, Homophobia, and Suicide http://www.thebody.com/content/art59436.html I hadn't intended to write about the topic of suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. The recent, horrific rash of suicides among young people bullied and harassed because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation has already received abundant attention, all of it well deserved. But as a lawyer, I'm disappointed that there's an aspect of this issue that hasn't been much discussed. To me, an important but unmentioned factor in this is the relationship between homophobic laws and the psychological health of LGBTs. So after a little background, let me see if I can shed some light on what I believe that relationship to be.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art59436.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Mon, 15 Nov 2010 01:25:00 GMT Living Memory http://www.thebody.com/content/art58123.html I recently marked an anniversary. Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind you celebrate. No, it was instead a profoundly sorrowful occasion, the second anniversary of the death of one of the dearest friends I've ever had -- my friend R.

R didn't die from HIV. It was cancer that killed him, a disease that in another time carried almost as much stigma as HIV does today. Although R was HIV-negative, the virus shaped much of the last three decades of his life. To understand why, you need to know a little bit about his personal history.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art58123.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:26:00 GMT Mask, or, Losing Face http://www.thebody.com/content/art57489.html You almost certainly wouldn't notice it if you saw me, but I wear a mask. It's not the kind you buy at the novelty store for Halloween, though. My mask is actually extremely unobtrusive. In fact, that's its intended purpose, to keep me from standing out.

You see, not long after my diagnosis, I developed lipoatrophy, a condition in which one's subcutaneous fat -- the fat beneath the skin -- wastes away. For months I watched, horrified, as my face changed before my eyes. It became more drawn as my cheeks slowly melted away. My lips grew thinner, and the corners of my mouth began to turn downward. The layer of fat underneath the skin was vanishing, and with it the face that my mind had come to identify as me.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art57489.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:49:00 GMT "You Can't Handle the Truth!": Gay Men and HIV Education http://www.thebody.com/content/art57136.html In 1994, psychologist Walt Odets published a scathing critique of what was then called "AIDS education." Writing in the now-defunct AIDS & Public Policy Journal, Odets examined the approaches used to educate gay men about HIV, and to put it mildly, he found them wanting. While working on my last post (Raw Emotion), I reread his article, entitled AIDS Education and Harm Reduction for Gay Men: Psychological Approaches for the 21st Century, and I was stunned to discover that almost all of what Odets criticized 16 years ago could still be said of much HIV prevention and safer sex education today. Sadly, 10 years into the 21st century, Odets's jeremiad remains both accurate and relevant.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art57136.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:43:00 GMT Marching Toward the Meaning of Pride http://www.thebody.com/content/art57072.html When people ask me whether I'm "proud" to be gay, the question always makes me a little uncomfortable. Part of my discomfort probably comes from having been raised Roman Catholic, so when someone says the word "pride," the first thing that pops into my mind is an image of one of the stony-faced nuns from my Catholic grammar school, delivering stern warnings about giving in to "the sin of pride." Thus, at an early age, I was taught that pride was a bad thing.

And religious indoctrination aside, I'm really not sure I can be proud of being gay. After all, my being gay isn't some kind of personal accomplishment. I was born this way, so being proud of my sexual orientation would be a bit like being proud of the fact that I have brown hair. Can I really be proud of a personal characteristic, something that I had absolutely no role in bringing about?

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art57072.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:50:00 GMT Raw Emotion: Thoughts on Why Gay Men Bareback http://www.thebody.com/content/art56400.html "The lonely I ecstatically dissolving into the we ... It's the common denominator of every form of bliss -- romantic, sexual, political, religious, mystical. Everyone wants and welcomes this blissful merger."

Irvin D. Yalom, Love's Executioner

Can we talk about "barebacking"? You know, unprotected anal sex between men. Sex without a condom. "Raw" sex. Or, if you prefer the almost comically clinical language of early safer sex education, sex during which "bodily fluids" may be "exchanged."

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art56400.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:53:00 GMT A Hundred Indecisions: A Tale of Starting Meds http://www.thebody.com/content/art55880.html I tend to be somewhat indecisive by nature. When making any kind of important decision, I try my best to gather all of the relevant facts so that the final decision I make will be a well-informed one. I seek to exhaust all avenues of inquiry that may bear on the decision before I make it. As you can imagine, this often leads to a long, drawn-out process in which I will go back and forth several times before making up my mind and settling on what I should do.

My professional training probably hasn't helped in this regard. As a lawyer, I can usually see -- and argue -- all sides of an issue. In my work life, this isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's a necessary skill. I have to be able to see not only the strengths of my own case but also the strengths of my opponent's. To fully understand and present my side, I must be able to place myself in the adverse party's position and argue his.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art55880.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:58:00 GMT The End of Sex http://www.thebody.com/content/art55516.html "end: noun ... 2 a: cessation of a course of action, pursuit, or activity ... 4 b: the object by virtue of or for the sake of which an event takes place ..." -- Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary

Somehow, about three years ago, my sex life pretty much came to an end. Not by choice, exactly. It wasn't anything I'd planned. In fact, at the time, I didn't even realize it had happened. It wasn't as if I woke up one day and said, "I'm not going to have sex anymore." While in retrospect the end was abrupt, it did not seem so then. After all, you don't know it's your last time until much later, when you can look back and say, "Yeah, that was it. That was the last time I had sex."

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art55516.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:52:00 GMT Soloist http://www.thebody.com/content/art55347.html I've spent most of my adult life alone. Not literally alone, of course, but single, unattached, unpartnered, unmarried, or whatever you want to call someone who lacks a significant romantic relationship. I'm now a 49-year-old, HIV-positive, gay man with lipodystrophy. Having reached this point, I often wonder what, if any, prospect I have for finding love.

I can't blame HIV for this situation. Singlehood was a feature of my life long before my diagnosis, and I'm sure there's any number of explanations I could offer for it. For starters, there's my lifelong struggle with clinical depression, a disease that saps one's energy and increases social isolation. There's also my rather introverted personality, which makes it hard to meet guys and often leaves me reluctant to place myself in the kinds of social situations where I might meet a potential mate.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art55347.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 3 Feb 2010 19:35:00 GMT Control Queen http://www.thebody.com/content/art55165.html If you've read the title of this blog, you might wonder why I picked a term like "outlier" to describe myself. If you've read one of my prior posts ("Lipo: A Trophy?"), you know that I'm an unusual guy in that I suffer from lipoatrophy despite never having been on antiretrovirals. Obviously, my having lipo kind of upends the conventional medical wisdom that lipoatrophy is a side-effect of antiretroviral therapy. So that part of my HIV experience clearly places me outside of the norm.

In this post, I wanted to talk a little bit about another unusual aspect of my personal HIV experience -- my apparent ability to control the virus naturally. Last time I mentioned how my doctor couldn't believe that someone with such good numbers could have lipo. This time, I'll focus on the numbers themselves and what they might mean for me and for HIV research.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art55165.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:04:00 GMT Good Grief, or, What I Wanted to Tell Bonnie http://www.thebody.com/content/art55044.html I wanted to write a bit about the conversation in which Bonnie, editorial director of TheBody.com, invited me to become a blogger, because our talk is still very much on my mind for reasons having nothing to do with blogging. Oddly enough, a passing comment by Bonnie provoked in me a meditation on how our culture expects us to handle grief. I'll get to all that in a moment. First, a little background about the conversation itself.

During the HIV controller symposium we had here in San Francisco this past October, my friend Loreen Willenberg told me that TheBody.com wanted to interview some of the controllers who attended the event. (I actually think Loreen may have suggested that I be among the interviewees.) So the day after the symposium, Bonnie interviewed me, Loreen, and another woman by phone. Not long after that, Bonnie contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested in becoming a blogger for this site. She informed me she'd be out here in San Francisco at a conference, and she suggested we meet up and talk about blogging. I readily agreed.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art55044.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 6 Jan 2010 21:14:00 GMT Lipo: A Trophy? http://www.thebody.com/content/art54885.html This post describes my personal odyssey with the condition known as lipoatrophy. I warn you that the post is long, and I apologize for that. But since my experience is rare, I thought it best to lay it all out in detail. I also think that my story holds a lesson for all medical professionals who deal with HIV, and I'll get to that at the end. I'd also be very interested in hearing from anyone out there who's had a similar experience. Having gotten those preliminary recitals out of the way, here goes:

In 2004, at one of my first appointments after being diagnosed with HIV, I remember telling my doctor that I wanted to make sure my parents didn't find out I was positive. I expressed my fear that taking antiretrovirals would cause me to develop lipodystrophy and give me the gaunt, wasted visage that a friend of mine calls "AIDS face." My doctor told me that my concern was overblown. It was true, he said, that some of the older medications caused lipo, particularly the ones he called the "D drugs." I didn't need to worry myself unduly, though, because he told me that physicians now know which medications tended to cause the condition, and there were now treatment options that would let me avoid those. So I breathed a little easier.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art54885.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:41:00 GMT New Kid on the Blog http://www.thebody.com/content/art54739.html Since I'm new here, and this is my first post, I guess I should introduce myself. To that end, let's get some of the basics out of the way right up front. My name's John. I'm 49 years old. I'm a lawyer by profession. I now live in beautiful San Francisco, California, after spending a long time on the east coast. I was diagnosed in 2004, so I've been positive for something like five years.

One thing I should explain at the outset is why I'm writing under a screen name. Mostly it's because I'm not out to my family about my status. See, my parents already lost one of their children, and even though you and I know HIV isn't going to kill me, I don't think that's how they'd see things if they found out. You could say I'm trying to spare their feelings. Or maybe I'm sparing mine, but that's a topic for another day.

]]> http://www.thebody.com/content/art54739.html fogcityjohn@sbcglobal.net (fogcityjohn) Wed, 9 Dec 2009 16:03:56 GMT