Eating cheese and pastrami with lashings of piccalilli smeared over the top. The inside of my mouth is burning. My lips are burning with desire. Not really. My lips are just bored. I am waiting for the mail to arrive so I can walk to bank and get on with the day.
I just scaled Mount Runyon with Sherpa Lil Dog, we saw two gorgeous yeti and had to: Alert! Avert! Affirm! It’s simply no good for me to gaze longingly at the perfectly honed abs of my fellow Runyon climbers.
Yesterday I realized, after chatting with a friend of mine with HIV that the average drug company will make over $2, 000, 000 out of a single person with HIV during their life time. Where is the incentive for those drug companies to educate gay men about staying negative? Anyway, I am fast realizing that the sexual health education that gay men need is nothing to do with safe sex and everything to do with self-love.
The drug companies have no compassion for gay men, no desire to educate an underclass with no real rights, who are despised by most Christian bigots and have so little respect for themselves that they routinely get infected with HIV and become another $2, 000, 000 meal ticket for big pharma.
Pharmaceutical executives must be rubbing their hands in glee when another gay man converts from positive to negative.
This has to stop. We must start educating the next generation of gay men to love themselves enough to make good sexual health choices.
I got to thinking about my friend Amanda and how we recently hit a bit of a rock. I think deep down, even though she has gay men around her to dress her, she really has no respect for gay men. For many people we are clowns who have no right to complain or behave as anything other than grotesque queens. We are, to her, useless absurdities. Her notion that it is somehow ridiculous for us to have children, for us to have politics, opinions, etc. She’s not alone; I think many people are outraged by all of that and more.
Whatever I may have written about gaybies in the past I now see gay men having children as a delicious act of rebellion. It confronts homophobia head on.
2 replies on “Drug Companies Profit From Gay Self-Hate”
Duncan,
The sandwich sounds yummy. Saw a recipe for picalilli that has cabbage, green tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, onion, salt, vinegar, mustard, brown sugar, dry mustard, tumeric & celery seed in it. (And water.) Is that what yours had in it? It said that it was the English version of American sweet pickle relish. But ours isn’t hot.
Good on you for Alert, Avert, Affirm. 😉
As for big pharma, I couldn’t agree more. You have only to look at the previous orphan drug situation and all the incentives that had to be added to the drug bill to sweeten the deal for them. Plus, there’s the unethical testing that’s done in third world countries. And how it took thumb screws to make them distribute low cost HIV/AIDS prevention drugs to those countries. Which brings me to…
It takes publicity — usually bad — and a united, concerted effort by an engaged and active political &/or humanitarian movement to get a dinosaur motivated to change & consider people before profit. How can we be surprised? Look at what’s happened with the banks, mortgage lenders and securities firms. Look at the military-industrial complex that profits as young men & women, die and are maimed or have their minds destroyed.
And the only question a lot of people asked before everything imploded, we got enmeshed in 8 years of war — so far — and the banks started shutting down and there wasn’t a block without a foreclose/sale sign on a house, was how can I get on the gravy train too? And is it safe to go back to the mall? Abetted by the mindlessness of the infotainment media, who have served us up yet another person’s personal crisis — Sandra Bullock — in lieu of the info we need about our national and international crises. [I guess Tiger must be grateful that there’s another man who’s better chum for the sharks than he is. 🙁 ]
We have to come to the realization that when anyone here in this country or the world suffers that it will inevitably come full circle to bite us in the ass. If a moral/Christian or ethical/humanistic imperative doesn’t move us, then enlightened self interest, surely must. Only by standing shoulder to shoulder with the disenfranchised everywhere will we be able to move forward to a just and sustainable future.
By your continuing to write and speak out about the problems afflicting the physical and mental health of the LGBT community of which you are a part and which you love, you are lighting a torch, dude. And never forget that with enough torches and candles, you can start a fire that will burn through any lies or obstruction to truth, sanity and wellness. Don’t let those shivering in the dark and afraid of the Light grind you down. EVER! You live — more and more — in a place where the laws of the world don’t apply but where actions can effect the world. You’re living proof. You’re still with us, sometimes, despite yourself. Keep it up. And know that your honesty and courage, your walking your talk, mean more than Twitter could ever tell you. Shine — and float — on.
Blessings,
Amanda
Duncan,
Sorry about the other Amanda. I really don’t think that there are a lot of people – especially, the younger ones — who think that gays having the equal ability to have all the benefits and problems of modern middle/upper middle class life is absurd. Unfortunately, there are some people, who although educated, do not possess wisdom or understanding, despite a beautiful exterior or pleasing voice. There are people who feel entitled and live in little silk cocoons. They’re like mannequins who walk through life immune to most anything that doesn’t effect them directly. They feel their own pain but no one else’s who isn’t of their set. Others eyes are only mirrors to reflect their carefully constructed images back to themselves. Not windows to a soul. The only thing that busts them out and forces them to become butterflies is when the cocoon goes up in flames. Through addiction, disaster, whatever. Or someone who keeps setting off sparks. Like flint on stone. So, Sparky…. As Niecy would say, “Get to gettin'”.
Blessings,
Amanda