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Jeton Ademaj wrote: attempting sleight-of-rhetorical hand is disastrous...you lose credibility...AND your diminished credibility reflects on all HIV+ people when you present yourself as a leader of HIV+ opinion. I am sorry, but most fair-minded individuals would stick to the fact that one person's opinion is just that - one person's opinion. Mr. King does not represent, nor is a leader of HIV+ opinion. He is one person who has courageously decided to talk about his experiences and his life, period. There are many others who express their opinions here on this website. Are they all leaders in HIV+ opinion? No, they are just people talking, and writing about something they feel strongly about.
Hello, I remember all to well the losses of the 80's and remember when I was stationed in San Francisco 1990-1993 the great headline in the BayAreaReporter NO OBITS! That was a great turning point. I am still in my own personal battle and work in a prison infirmary and see numerous cases of individuals incarcerated for "intentionally exposing others to a deadly disease". Um, excuse me, but someone giving someone else meth or exposing them to Hep C is far worse in the long run, but where is the prosecution in these cases? Having been in the military stationed on both coasts, and having been back in the Midwest the past 16 years, I still see an incredible amount of ignorance and wrongful prosecution.
Mark, I have lived with AIDS for 30 years. I am under Google -JoeMonroeArt , there is my tenacious story of an artist living with AIDS, coming back over and over again . I do not believe people who are infected and have sex should not be jailed. I do believe there are those who have no malicious agenda being infected , yet having sex. I, though, got caught in a nasty web that one attractive, sexually man's admitted testament that since he got AIDS, he was damned well going to take down everyone he could with him. I have been blessed to live this long , if that is a blessing , I am still deciding. AIDS means nothing anymore and people like myself, who were stalled by AIDS and want our careers back are screwed, who cares, it's all about Africa, I just feel those that went through all the trials, near death more than a couple times, should be helped, for because of us, men newly diagnosed only have to take one pill now. But I digress . I watched as this man left a trail of dead bodies as he lived and watched these men die with satisfaction . A few of those dying men tracked me down as this man's ex- lover. They kept asking me " Why?"All I could tell them is I wished I could have warned them. This man has been dead a decade now. Thank God. He was a suicide bomber. There should be a moral outrage toward men that do this with purpose , watching his dirty work, like a serial killer. This man told me after he said" let's exchange fluids" that since he had AIDS, I did too and he would take down as many men as he could with him. I couldn't speak. I moved, I could not watch. Then he followed me and began infecting men in my city. If there was a way of documenting any man's death agenda, something should be done. What.... Is the question.
Mark S King writes: "[A] Blaming someone for our own risk behaviors seemed ludicrous. It still does." ... "[B] Look closely at the stories and you will find that 'not disclosing is usually equated with 'intentionally infecting.' [C] It's as if sex of any kind on the part of someone with HIV is malicious. [D] One side effect of HIV infection, it would seem, is a pathological bloodlust." ...and in the above we have the core failing of HIV Destigmatization, which has only 20-25 years of *intensifying criminalization* to show for itself. A + B are rhetorical sleights of hand, willfully and carefully omitting the issues of recklessness and intent that are inherent in disclosure of HIV-status. this might work great on some Debate Team...but when it comes to destigmatizing one of the most feared and stigmatized ultra-deadly infectious diseases in human history, attempting sleight-of-rhetorical hand is disastrous...you lose credibility that you will have a very hard time getting back, AND your diminished credibility reflects on all HIV+ people when you present yourself as a leader of HIV+ opinion. NO ONE GETS TO BYPASS THE AMYGDALA...this is the primitive part of the human brain that regulates Fight or Flight reflexes. when a broad population has extensive fears about a minority with a NON-benign or malefic characteristic, attempting to BS one's way around those fears ONLY CONFIRMS THEM MORE FIRMLY. basically the amygdala screams "Intruder Alert! someone is trying to play on my sympathy and sell me Death!" Thus, A + B = C + D i know you're not gonna wake up to this from my saying so Mark...my only hope is that somewhere in your and others' weird belief that these talking points will be helpful, you end up storing these truths i note here... ...so that when your Debate Team tactics crash and burn horribly on the national and international political stage, you might at least be able to pivot or adjust better. However, i have no intention of sitting back and letting this maladroit strategy with 25 years of failure speak for me or the HIV+ people i know.
Jeton Ademaj
Lance Desker, i will amend my comments thusly: i recall no claim from Mark S King calling himself a leader of HIV+ opinion, however he has most definitely been presented as such in numerous venues...including POZ.com. furthermore i know personally that he speaks for a great many, who have directly told me so. when it comes to HIV Criminalization, he is not "one more person with an opinion"...nor is Sean Strub. i don't know what sites you read or what venues you hang out in, so i can't discern whether your assertion about what "fair-minded people would say" is made from ignorance or willful sophistry. what i can definitely say with confidence is that when (not if) some enemy of gay rights or the rights of HIV+ ppl (or most likely an enemy of both) decides to use Mark S King's opinions against him or us, that enemy will have no difficulty portraying Mark S King as a "leader of HIV+ opinion". that's actually a well-deserved compliment to Mark S. King, but his analysis on this issue is incorrect anyway...as is your own. At least your analysis won't make HIV Quarantine a 21st Century political football. King's very easily could.
April 23, 2014