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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1996)
just out ▼ novsmbor 1, 1906 ▼ 29 £ T’cihulcHi.i i/’Ctrc.S STONEWALL BABY H o n o lu lu : $ 2 7 9 M au i-K au ai: $ 3 4 9 Marketing & Design T esting... 1 -2 -3 * F ra n k fu rt: $ 6 2 0 Rr* S y dney: $ 1 1 9 7 R T * taxes not included RSVP C ru ises *97: M a rd i Gras-Feb. 8, from $ 1 6 9 5 S o u th A m erica-M ar. 21, from $ 1 3 9 5 N o rth e rn E urope-Jun. 22-28, from S 1 4 9 5 with All rates cruise only, ppdo. AirAax/gratuities extra. C lub RSVP-Nov. U I 8, from $695 ltimate (land only, Puerto Vallarta) T ravels 621 SW M o rris o n , S u ite 435 2 2 0 - 8 8 6 6 ( P o r t l a n d ) o r 800/446-41 17 e-m ail: u ltra v e l@ te le p o rt.c o m T rinity E piscopal C athedral Presents V espers & H ealing S ervice w ith S pecial I ntentions for those living w it h H I V /A I D S ... «ISK S p e c ia l G u est HOMILIST: CHRIS McMANUS visiting Dcncoiuite from San Francisco K M T x t yw/Re *n U T S u n d a y , N o v e m b e r (h o rs-d ’o e u v re s & bev erag es serv ed ) CORNER OF NW self. Get a test!” For both Mr. X’s sake and my own, I needed to get tested. Domesticity was delayed. I was terrified, but I knew it had to be done. Another friend, Jason, assured me that all the anxiety was perfectly normal. He recalled going in for his first test. In the clinic waiting room, just prior to the pin prick, his nerves got the better of him. He fainted, collapsing headfirst into a metal rack of health brochures. It was fortunate he waited till he was in the clinic to faint, as he required a few stitches in his noggin. Despite Jason’s assurances, I was a wreck. I remember driving to the clinic to get my results— or judgment, as I regarded it. That R.E.M. song “Man on the Moon” was on the radio. Michael Stipe was singing “See you in heaven if you make the list, yeah yeah yeah yeah.” I was employing a very literal interpretation. I cried as I drove. Lo and behold, the test was negative. So was the second one, two years later. Test No. 2 was prompted by Mr. X’s doctor’s suggestion that, as a gay man practicing unsafe sex (with me), he get a test. Mr. X was so rattled by the whole situation that I acted as his guinea pig, my blood standing in for his. This last test should’ve felt routine. It didn’t. I was still shaking. I estimated the chance of a positive test at roughly half a percent— still a chance. Had I engaged in some infidelity that I was so ashamed of that my psyche was blocking it from my conscious memory? Could Mr. X have been having an affair during the half hour a day when he’s not at work or home with me? Every fear came to the surface. These path ways for AIDS anxiety have been scarred into my brain. I was going to find out once again if they had any merit. They did not, and life is back to normal. Nevertheless, this fear will haunt me till I die. I’m grateful for it. It may give me stress that fuels my rate of hair loss, but it may have kept me alive as well. HIV may not be in my veins, but it will always be in my life and I will always be vigi lant— as should we all be. 10th, 1996 5 pm H ealing a n d V espers S ervice 6 pm R eception to fo llo w ... V/OA ABOUT H IM * ” ago start screeching, doing little dances and tug ging at my hair and ears. My fear of HIV and AIDS has followed me through my years. As surely as Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley has run around the galaxy in a trilogy of Alien films simultaneously hunting and running from her human-hosted demons, the hu man-hosted virus I fear hasn’t caught me, yet the chase never ends. Considering that Ripley is go ing to be brought back for a fourth film after being killed in the third by said demons, it’s really only fitting that I should get another wake-up call from mine. The first time I had sex with a boy, I was a high school junior. He was a sophomore. As you can guess, it wasn’t safe. During my de-flowering, I was more worried about my mother walking in than HIV. That changed after Mr. First-Time told me he’d been to the home of some older man who’d been cruising him at the local Wal-Mart. He wouldn’t tell me what he’d engaged in exactly, so I was left to fear for my life, sweating bullets at the high school blood drive. Shortly thereafter, the very popular Mr. First- Time got a girl pregnant who gave birth to a perfectly healthy Mr. First-Time Jr. My first AIDS test? Not very responsible, I grant you, but what do you expect from an awkward 16-year-old living in rural Florida—during the Reagan years— not too far from Arcadia, where the home of some HIV-positive hemophiliac children was fire- bombed? I didn’t really become a staunch safe-sex prac titioner till I was 21. Likewise, it wasn’t till this time that I was a jaded, heart-broken lush, ready to take on all comers—but not without protection. I became such a poster boy for safer sex that I could drunkenly rattle off the shortcomings of lambskin and oil-based lubricants just before say ing no and passing out. This behavior, while relatively safe, was not entirely without risk. That risk left me too fright ened to get tested. Some of my friends, both male RT* Cruise Specials— up to 50% OFF & FREE Upgrades— CALL NOW by Will O’Bryan ÊXPO&Ur RT* Tel Aviv: *8 9 5 RT* K auai— a ir, 7 n ts, c a r: fro m $665pp<l» ▼ L Paris: $ 6 2 5 fro m $ 5 3 8 PPdo and female, all freewheelin’ college students, felt the same way. But ignorance wasn’t bliss, either. We nearly gave ourselves ulcers examining every bruise- lesion, questioning every cold... I had night sweats a few times that I regarded as the nails in my coffin. Our only comfort was that our fear was collective. We dubbed ourselves STOPAA: Stu dents Overly Paranoid About AIDS. After a couple of years and a bellyful of a tedious lifestyle, I met Mr. X. Kate, a founding member of STOPAA, was rational when I was not. “How can I risk exposing him?” I asked her. “If you’re that worried about him,” she rea soned, “you should be that worried about your- RT* H o n g K ong: $ 5 8 5 RT* W aik ik i— air, 7 nts: Waiting fo r those results never gets easier: Every long-dormant fear comes raging to the surface ast month I was diagnosed as having a bout of thrush. To the best of my understanding, thrush is any fungus growing in one’s mouth. It can be a symptom of HIV. The fact that I’m a gay man sounded my doctor’s alarm, that I’m a hypochondriac sounded mine. Following two negative tests in as many years during an ongoing monogamous relationship (three years and counting...), I really didn’t have much reason to worry. Nevertheless, when someone in a doctor’s smock with a stethoscope wrapped around her neck tells me with a concerned face that a diagnosis of thrush should be followed by an AIDS test (a test for HIV antibodies to be absolutely precise), monkeys that I carried on my back long London: $52 0 rt * 19 th AVENUE & EVERETT how we lo v e C o m m u n ity Forum W ednesday Oct. 30 7:00 pm M ETRO Council C h a m b e r 3rd Floor 6 0 0 NE G ra n d P o rtlan d O re g o n to discuss the results of a 5-year survey of over 1200 gay men in Portland with Colleen Hoff Ph.D. of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies m TÎ mm Im »•» ( n u - , A I D ! r i '. f r rt For in fo r m a tio n té lé p h o n é 2 2 3 . 5 9 0 7 e x te n s io n 145 |