So gay guys go on having unprotected sex after they are diagnosed with HIV, a new descriptive study of gay poz guys at a clinic in Boston tells us. Nothing new there, although it’s sobering to be reminded that one in two of the men who know they have HIV choose to bareback with someone [...]
The other night, I was dining with someone who didn’t know their acronym from their elbow. I had to explain MSM (mice that have sex with mice; no, wait…) and had a special rant about LGBT. For the unitiated that’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. It just trips off the tongue, doesn’t it? And it [...]
Though I work in a world of addictions, I try and keep mine in the closet. But with others springing out of the closet right left and centre, I’m going to come clean. I’m addicted to rugby. Rugby is said (largely by people who see no glory in the bad haircuts and hystrionic dives of [...]
At breakfast in Bangalore this morning, I was greeted by news of Bollywood’s first on-screen gay kiss. When they’re puckerd up like this, wouldn’t you want to? But the Indian censors may not share my enthusiasm. I am Omar will be screening at the Rotterdam film festival. Check it out and see if the kiss [...]
Last week, I was trying to explain Britain’s sexual and cultural politics to a friend newly-arrived from Canada. That meant trying to explain why nice, left-wing feminists like Harriet Harman are using their political party conference speeches to send men to a website that advertises and rates sex workers. It’s like this. Ms Harman, who [...]
It’s usually safe to take time off in July to move house — in a previous existence in the newroom we used to call the European summer the “silly season”. In the weeks I’ve been painting walls, unpacking boxes and not blogging, we’ve had some HIV silliness, but some good sense too. The IAS conference [...]
The day before the UK release of Bruno, Sasha Baron Cohen’s swish along the catwalks of homophobia, the UK’s House of Lords voted to allow Brits to criticize homosexuality. Gay groups are painting this as a victory for homophobia. Christian groups say it is a victory for free speech. I say, on balance, that it [...]
There’s enough divorce in the world without forcing it on people who want to be together… “Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo. On the subject of America’s extaordinary relationship with homosexuality, I urge you to see Milk, an important film about an important era, which reminds us rather vividly that we have not [...]
New HIV-infections among gay men are rising everywhere they are measured, with the sole apparent exception of Sydney. That’s in part because Sydney has not dropped the ball (and the budget) on prevention. It hasn’t swallowed the “Treatment IS Prevention” mantra that seems to be behind the rise in many other places. If we want [...]
It’s always dangerous to mix your coms with your orgs. In China, a link from the UNAIDS site takes you to a classic sex cybersquat: it offers links to dildos, fetish and swinger sites. All because the url for the Beijing Association of STD & AIDS Prevention and Control, bjaidsass.com, has “ass” in it. (With [...]
One of the joys of 2008 was the revival of swaffelen, an old English verb that describes swinging your wabber (another fine word; penis, to the uninitiated) in the open air and bumping it against something. Such as the Taj Mahal. The Dutch voted it word of the year. I thank Maarten Kok for bringing [...]
The death rattle of the Bush administration puts it, once again, in the company of great defenders of human rights such as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. This time, it breathes its sickness on gays. The US is one of nearly 60 countries which stamped its feet in opposition to France’s declaration (made in the [...]
Tuesday evening. I spent it with baited breath sitting at the bar in Baltimore airport, surrounded by boys with buzz-cuts and camouflage who were headed for Iraq. They seemed strangely unconcerned by the drama that was unfolding in red and blue on the screens in front of us. I, for my part, nearly missed my [...]
I don’t usually mind being wrong. Really I don’t. But today it hurts. Indonesia has passed a bill that makes it illegal to bathe in rivers or wiggle your hips while dancing. The news reached me at exactly the time I was on air on one of the country highest rated TV shows, talking about [...]
A little while ago, CDC estimated how many people were newly infected with HIV in the US in 2006. They told us it was a disease of gay men and black people. Now they’ve done more detailed analysis: It’s not just a disease of gay men and black people. It’s increasingly a disease of gay [...]
Thailand has been much (and rightly) praised for its pragmatic approach to cutting HIV in its illegal but vast heterosexual sex trade. Of course when the tide of brothel-caught infections goes out, the rocks of ongoing infection in jails, among drug injectors and between men who have sex with one another are left exposed. And [...]
New York likes to think of itself as ahead of the rest of the US on many fronts. It certainly is on the HIV front. In most of the world, we’ve got precious little idea how many people get infected with HIV each year. Generally, we report HIV prevalence — the number of people who [...]
So Britain’s spy services are growing up. According to the Financial Times, the domestic spy service MI5 is looking to recruit more gay men and women to the service. MI5 has hooked up with gay rights lobby group Stonewall to try and get more gays to sign up to stick their noses into other people’s [...]
Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban leader Raul Castro, has been a crusader for the rights of gay men and women and for transgenders in Cuba. One result is that Cuban hospitals will soon begin offering sex change operations. (Perhaps Bangkok’s sex change clinics should start worrying). I am honoured that Ms. Castro has cracked open [...]
Apparently not willing or able to think for themselves, Christian fundamentalists have been programming their computers to automate their views. The result: content that they themselves would probably consider pornographic. This, for example: “Homosexual dominated the competition. He started well and pulled out to a comfortable lead by the 40-meter mark. This time, he kept [...]
