Massively Important Health Care Rally November 17 - Chicago

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Oooh La La French Condom Ad

Thanks to peripheries for putting this on the LifeLube radar.

Black, gay ... and invisible (in Britain)

via guardian.co.uk, by Topher Campbell

 Black people need to stop treating homosexuality as if it's a white man's disease. We need to embrace the vibrant presence of gays and lesbians in our community and stop siding with bigots and racists.

Over the past few weeks the homophobic murder of Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square and the assault on PC James Parkes in Liverpool have shocked the gay community. Every anti-gay opinion adds strength to their attackers and supports other gay bashers.

Whenever the subject of homosexuality is raised in the black community there is hysteria and denial. We who are black and lesbian or gay are considered at best a joke and at worst just plain wrong, weird or dirty. Many think we are somehow infected with a western decadent ifestyle and are undermining our race.

Read the rest.

AMA opposes 'don't ask, don't tell;' says gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities

A law which makes people lie to their physicians is a bad law.

via San Francisco Examiner, by Lindsey Tanner

The American Medical Association on Tuesday voted to oppose the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, and declared that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities.

The nation's largest doctors' group stopped short of saying it would seek to overturn marriage bans, but its new stance angered conservative activists and provides a fresh boost to lobbying efforts by gay-rights advocates.

"It's highly significant that the AMA as one of this country's leading professional associations has taken a position on both of these issues," said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a Washington-based advocacy group.

The health disparities measure "in the long run, will certainly help efforts to win marriage equality," Carey said.

Read the rest.

Woof Wednesday

What Are Your Top Ten Issues To Watch in 2010? SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

via NASTAD

Each year, NASTAD (the National Association of State and Territorial AIDS Directors) tries to inspire and spur action by talking about what it sees as the overarching issues likely to impact HIV, STD and viral hepatitis prevention programs in the coming year. 

Moving forward, this snapshot will be a major complement and source of comparison to what is actually taking place around the country and in Washington.  For example, there’s little doubt that health reform, should it be signed into law, will have a major impact on how all prevention and care and treatment takes place in this country in the future.  But what will impact be?  It is also likely that many readers would come up with other key trends or issues that are likely to impact the way we do business in 2010.  Before we try and guess, we’d like to hear from you!

Please leave a comment to let us know what you think are the top HIV, STD and viral hepatitis issues to watch in 2010.

Sexy Soccer Studs

Anybody else stoked for the 2010 World Cup??

Living Longer, But Aging Faster - Yeah, AIDS is "manageable"

via NPR

The introduction of protease inhibitors and drug cocktails in the 1990s meant that AIDS patients could live longer than ever thought.

Before 1996, when new drugs were rolled out, life expectancy was 18 months post-diagnosis. Now, AIDS patients regularly live decades with the disease. But as these patients live longer, unanticipated side effects — caused by the disease itself, medications to treat it or both — introduce a new set of maladies.

David France, a contributing editor at New York Magazine, was motivated to write a story on AIDS-related aging after noticing that a number of his friends with the disease were having what he describes as cognitive issues.

"[They were] forgetting things, forgetting appointments, forgetting whole conversations," France told NPR's Steve Inskeep.

Researchers are finding that patients who live longer with AIDS also begin to suffer from osteoporosis, various forms of cancer, kidney disease and cardiovascular disease.

Read the rest (and listen to the audio.)

Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?

“It was terrible!” said Ms. Sturgis, an honors student, band president and soccer goalie, who has been openly gay since 10th grade. “If you put a boy in a drape, that’s me! I have big shoulders and ooh, it didn’t look like me! I said, ‘I can’t do this!’ So my mom said, ‘Try on the tux.’ And that looked normal.”

via New York Times, by Jan Hoffman

By now, most high school dress codes have just about done away with the guesswork.

Girls: no midriff-baring blouses, stiletto heels, miniskirts.

Boys: no sagging pants, muscle shirts.

But do the math.

“Rules” + “teenager” = “challenges.”

If the skirt is an acceptable length, can a boy wear it?

Can a girl attend her prom in a tuxedo?

In recent years, a growing number of teenagers have been dressing to articulate — or confound — gender identity and sexual orientation. Certainly they have been confounding school officials, whose responses have ranged from indifference to applause to bans.

Last week, a cross-dressing Houston senior was sent home because his wig violated the school’s dress code rule that a boy’s hair may not be “longer than the bottom of a regular shirt collar.” In October, officials at a high school in Cobb County, Ga., sent home a boy who favored wigs, makeup and skinny jeans. In August, a Mississippi student’s senior portrait was barred from her yearbook because she had posed in a tuxedo.

Other schools are more accepting of unconventional gender expression. In September, a freshman girl at Rincon High School in Tucson who identifies as male was nominated for homecoming prince. Last May, a gay male student at a Los Angeles high school was crowned prom queen.

Dress code conflicts often reflect a generational divide, with students coming of age in a culture that is more accepting of ambiguity and difference than that of the adults who make the rules.

“This generation is really challenging the gender norms we grew up with,” said Diane Ehrensaft, an Oakland psychologist who writes about gender. “A lot of youths say they won’t be bound by boys having to wear this or girls wearing that. For them, gender is a creative playing field.” Adults, she added, “become the gender police through dress codes.”

Dress is always code, particularly for teenagers eager to telegraph evolving identities. Each year, schools hope to quell disruption by prohibiting the latest styles that signify a gang affiliation, a sexual act or drug use.
But when officials want to discipline a student whose wardrobe expresses sexual orientation or gender variance, they must consider antidiscrimination policies, mental health factors, community standards and classroom distractions.

And safety is a critical concern. In February 2008, Lawrence King, an eighth-grader from Oxnard, Calif., who occasionally wore high-heeled boots and makeup, was shot to death in class by another student.

Read the rest.

FOCUS GROUP - Attitudes Towards Couples-Based HIV Testing

Attitudes Towards Couples-Based HIV Testing among 

Gay and Bisexual Men

 
To sign-up, please call 773.388.8892

On the Biomedical Question - Are We Set for PrEP?

Read more »

Charles Stephens wonders what oral prevention and rectal microbicides might mean for prevention and pleasure, risk and taboo.

Condom-centric HIV prevention created the “cum pig.” No one back then in the 80s, could have known that, but here we are. 

There has been a considerable amount of discussion, debate, and exploration around the scientific and ethical implications of biomedical HIV prevention. This I believe has been useful. However, moving forward, it’s imperative that we consider the implications such advances might have for our community and sexual practices for gay men.

So far, especially as it relates to PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, or oral prevention), I’ve mostly heard things like “it will just mean more gay men will have sex without condoms.” And usually, I’m the one in the room that says, “maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

These discussions are important, even if they are limited and frustrating, because we have to think ahead. We have to imagine how these shifts in prevention technologies and strategies today, will influence our sexual practices, inform our identities, and shape our communities tomorrow.

Essentially, we have to question what these advances will mean for the future of gay men. How rectal microbicides, for example, might influence how we as gay men experience anal sex. How we think about anal sex. And how the potential meanings we attach to both anal sex and our anuses will evolve, along with our sexual landscapes and fantasies. The strategies we develop around prevention, can’t only be for the present, but also for the future.

Read more »

Peter, I feel depressed and can’t seem to shake the sense of “who cares anyway?” Any advice?

[Peter Pointers is here 4 YOU, as a service to LifeLube readers - whatever question you may have regarding sexual health, physical health, mental/emotional and spiritual health - ask him. He will find the answers you are looking 4. from a team of experts Below is a recent Q&A you may be interested to read.]

Question: There have been some challenges in my life lately, and I have been feeling really down. Even since some of them have been resolved, I still feel depressed and can’t seem to shake the sense of “who cares anyway?” Any advice? I saw a therapist a long time ago – in college – around coming out issues, but didn’t find it all that helpful.

Answer: First of all, thank you for reaching out and sending me an e-mail. I am sorry to hear you’re not feeling so great these days, but I think it’s a very good thing you are willing to share this with someone else.

Importantly, if you are experiencing a desire to hurt yourself or someone else, or feel like you are overwhelmed with these emotions or do not have hope, please call one of the many wonderful resources available to people in a time of need or crisis:

LGBT Crisis Hotline (24 hours)
773.871.CARE
773.871.2273

Hopeline (24 hours)
1-800-SUICIDE
1-800-784-2433

Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-TALK
1-800-273-8255

Even though I don’t have all the information about what you are going through, it sounds like your life is being effected heavily by the way you are feeling.  Reaching out to someone for information and support is a very important step to helping yourself cope with what you are going through. 

However, I would strongly suggest that you seek out someone that you can speak with personally and with greater detail about what is going on and how it is impacting you. Talking with someone about what you’re going through can be really comforting, and they hopefully can help you get back to feeling good.  I’d like to go ahead and give you some referrals of places and people with whom you can talk.  Talking with a professional is important to tap into the guidance and expertise that they have.

In Chicago, one good place to start is the Howard Brown Health Center, which provides mental health services specifically tailored for the LGBT community, with counseling and psychotherapy available in the Behavioral Health Services department.
         4525 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL, 60613
         773- 388-1600

Another place is the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s community center dedicated to the LGBT community.  They offer a variety of mental health services, including counseling, which are available on a sliding scale basis and a number of insurance plans are accepted as well.
        3656 N. Halsted, Chicago, IL, 60613
        773.472.6643

Also, Psychology Today has a searching tool where you can locate therapists near you.  This site allows you to read the therapists profiles, which will tell you about their perspectives, specializations, and service fees:      

I hope you can find one of these referrals to be of use to you.  Again I think that a first good step is to give it another try and speak with someone.  Please feel free to contact me with any other questions, or to let me know how things are going for you.


Be Well,
Peter
Peter Pointers on LifeLube, E-mail Peter
Friend Peter on Facebook

High prevalence of anal chlamydia in Swiss HIV-positive gay men

via Aidsmap, by Michael Carter

A large proportion of HIV-positive gay men in Switzerland have anorectal infection with chlamydia, investigators report in the November 15th edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The researchers suggest that undiagnosed anal chlamydia infections could be contributing to the continued spread of HIV amongst gay men in Switzerland.

Gay and other men who have sex with men remain the group most affected by HIV in many industrialised countries, including Switzerland. Sexually transmitted infections also disproportionately affect gay men. If left untreated these infections, including chlamydia, can significantly increase the risk of acquiring HIV. As reported on aidsmap.com UK investigators found that many chlamydia infections in gay men were in the rectum, and that HIV-positive gay men were disproportionately affected by rectal chlamydia

Investigators from the Swiss HIV cohort therefore postulated that anorectal chlaymdia infection could be contributing to the ongoing HIV epidemic amongst gay men in the country.

They therefore screened 147 HIV-positive men who reported unprotected receptive anal sex in the previous two years for the infection. The aims of their study were to determine the prevalence and symptoms of anorectal chlamydia, and to see if they could identify any risk factors associated with the infection.

Read the rest.

Feel the Love... Sister Glo channels William Sloane Coffin

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.

~William Sloane Coffin

Sister Glo shares her glittery gems of love with LifeLube each Friday.

Friday is for Faeries