A WELCOME SIGN OF PARTIAL RESPONSIBILITY:

A Community Manifesto: A New Response to HIV and STDs (MSM HIV/STD Prevention Task Force)

In the face of alarming increases in HIV and STD infection rates among Gay, Bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, we--the MSM HIV/STD Prevention Task Force--issue this Manifesto calling for desperately needed community norms and actions.

Gay, Bisexual, and other men who have sex with men must act against the behaviors and attitudes responsible for the increased spread of these diseases. Today, one in seven Gay, Bisexual, and other men who have sex with men are infected with HIV. Among Gay men in King County, syphilis rates are 100 times higher than in the general heterosexual population, and are estimated to be 1000 times higher among HIV positive Gay men than among the general heterosexual population. These rates show we have stopped doing the things that protect us and our sex partners from needless infection.

Every Gay, Bisexual, or other man who has sex with men is responsible for the health and well-being of the community. Our sexual relationships should be passionate, healthy, consensual, honest, and respectful. We are accountable for our behavior-to ourselves, our sex partners, and our community:

-Knowingly transmitting HIV is avoidable; its transmission is unacceptable.

-Disclosing HIV/STD status does not negate the necessity to practice safe sex.

-Bare-backing is unacceptable high-risk behavior except in committed monogamous relationships between partners of the same HIV status.

-Transmitting HIV knowingly is an act of violence.

It comes twenty years late, but hopefully not too late.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 6, 2003 12:04 PM