Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Living with HIV
Our guest speaker on Monday, Bob Skinner, gave amazing insight on what it would be like to be living with AIDS. Bob Skinner's experience is much like others in the sense that I'm sure everyone who is told they are infected with AIDS is extremely shocked. However, Bob's experience is different from others in the sense that he found out ten years later which meant he completely missed the HIV stage and jumped right into full blown AIDS. Bob's experience is somewhat different as well in the sense that he was having sex with literally thousands of random men throughout that ten years of unknowing. Bob pointed out that the main route for HIV is unfortunately gay sex which rarely consists of using a condom. This is the most unsafe way to have sex and for that reason is the main cause of HIV transmission. Another large factor for Bob Skinner was living in a rural region. This caused him to be much more promiscuous than he would if he had lived somewhere else. Overall, i learned that living with AIDS is possible yet very tough. It is a drastic life change that will affect everyone differently. If you are going to have sex, have safe sex.
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I was under the impression that Bob lived in a large metropolitan area, that was why he had the experiences with thousands of men. A rural situation would not provide the chance to be so promiscuous. Either way, I believe it was wrong of Bob to tell us that if we need a scapegoat for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S we can blame the gay community. It is not right for one homosexual man to speak for all of the gay men and women in the LGBT community across the country. I know people in the LGBT community and thus am offended that Bob said such a thing. Lisa has told us in class that in fact heterosexual transmission is the most common way of transmission now, not gay sex so Bob is wrong in educating us, the class, that the main route for HIV transmission is gay sex.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that he was definitely the same as many others in that he was a gay man that was having a lot of unprotected sex. I think that you meant that he had a lot because he lived in an urban area with a lot of other gay men around. This was a very dangerous behavior that he was participating in. I think that it is true that it had to be a shock to him that he had AIDS but not knowing until 10 years after I thought was a bit irresponsible. I guess it is different in the environment we live in now. But I feel like if I was involved in the kind of high risk behavior that he was for as often as he was, I definitely would have been getting checked often to check and make sure that I didn't have HIV/AIDS. The fact that it went on for that long I think was kind of sad for the partners that he infected but I don't know the environment or situation he was in so I can't say that people got tested often although I do feel he should have gotten tested earlier.
ReplyDeleteI also was not expecting to learn about the Tuskegee Study or the Tearoom Trade Study. I was expecting to learn about AIDS and STDs and it's affect on the body. I wasn’t expecting to learn about ethics in testing for treatments either. This class was interesting, but also devastating to hear what people had to go through in order for us to have the information we have today and what people still go through living with AIDS in other countries. I’d have to agree with putting condoms on bananas for practice would be a good addition! It’s so cliché, but it would be a good story for everyone to have.
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