WRAP IT UP FOR WORLD AIDS DAY

I don’t usually write about my job, but yesterday I was surprised to realize that today happened to be World AIDS Day, something I never would have forgotten the last couple years.Before I started a new position six weeks ago, I worked for a publishing house where I represented a handful of authors for speaking engagements. My biggest client in my two-year tenure there was a young woman named Marvelyn Brown. You may have seen her on ‘Oprah,’ ‘Tyra,’ BET, CNN, in a PSA on MTV, or as one of the “Divas on the Rise,” which aired during ‘VH1’s Divas Live,’ but if you don’t know anything about her, please let me introduce. Marvelyn is a beautiful 25 year-old African American woman who contracted HIV from her boyfriend at age 19.

He was her first love and she thought he’d do nothing to harm her, which is why when they consummated their relationship without any protection, she didn’t object. Since learning that she was positive she never remained quiet about her situation, as may have been dictated by her Southern and religious community. Instead she started her own consulting company, wrote her memoir ‘The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive,’ and has spoken all over the nation and the world to young people, educating them about the importance of safe sex.

When I came out to my family, they didn’t have to figure out how to love me, but I can’t even remember how many times my mother asked me, “You’re being safe, right?” Her generation had been raised to associate homosexuality with HIV/AIDS, and it seemed normal for her to be concerned that I may have a heightened risk of being exposed to the virus. Though I tried to tell her that I wasn’t stupid, that my generation knew about the dangers and consequences, I couldn’t help but feel afraid myself.

It wasn’t that I had been engaging in unsafe sex, or that I thought that I someday might, but I didn’t know enough about its transmittal to really be sure. We all know that any sexual contact can lead to infection, given certain conditions, but it’s true that some are more risky than others. That never mattered to me though, since every time my college offered free testing, I was there, sweating out my 20 minutes until the nurse gave me the all clear and my heart rate returned to normal. Though I didn’t think that anything I’d been doing was ranked among the risky behaviors, better safe than sorry seemed like an applicable policy to follow.


Now that I’m an adult, living on my own, with no Health Center on site to remind about semi-annual check-ups, I’ve found myself slacking on this necessary and routine check-up. The lapses in judgment are farther and farther apart, and as far as risky goes it seems like my love life has become increasingly safe for network television, but that is still no excuse for me or any of us to become blasé about testing.

As gay men we live with the stigma that our community is plagued by promiscuity that leads to incurable disease. But that stigma comes with responsibility. We are responsible to take the necessary precautions to preserve our health and the health of our friends and lovers. We are charged with not only changing the perception of the world at large, but with fighting for funding, and policy changes that will ensure our loved ones already afflicted will receive the care they deserve and that one day HIV can RIP.

What scares me the most is thinking about what I would do if I ever found I was positive. Would I have the strength and courage to use my life to educate others like Marvelyn, or would I even be able to tell my family? I can’t say for sure. It’s sad to think about all the wonderful men and women we’ll never get to meet who’ve already passed on, but today we celebrate the hope that it will someday be a thing of the past. So take responsibility, get tested, and practice safe sex. If we’re going to makeover the world we all have to stick around long enough to see it happen.

B.B. Nichols lives and works in New York. He has been writing Everybody Does It since 2005.

Appeared originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 12/1/09

LIKE TRYIN’ TO CATCH A FALLIN’ STAR: FACEBOOK & THE LEONID METEOR SHOWER

I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that every time Facebook updates its home page it significantly affects my life.Like all updates and improvements I recognize their intent is to better serve their users and highlighting the statuses and posts of the friends you communicate with most frequently as your primary News Feed, seems to make sense on the surface level. But it also introduces a whole host of other problems. Not only is the sad and surprising realization of whom my Facebook world has been narrowed down to troublesome, as well as the relatively limited flow of information, but also the knowledge that any of my late-night errant updates will now suffer the sober scrutiny of my ‘closest’ friends the following day.

I had finally gotten used to a constantly updated stream of posts and status updates; I had mastered the art of ‘hiding’ former flames, and Farmville fanatics from insulting my perusal of what constitutes my gathering of news. Not to mention that the alternative option of a live news feed seems altogether unwieldy. Now we are asked to sift through our friends’ event acceptance and friend confirmations in addition to the photos, messages, and posts we may actually care about? Nevertheless, positive things can be taken from every ‘improvement.’ If it hadn’t been for the new live feed, I may have never been made aware of the Leonid Meteor Shower.

I know you’re with me on this. More than two million people have been invited to view it, so I imagine that it’s made its way across your feed at least once or twice. Since reading is apparently a challenge for me, a writer and publishing professional, the first few times I ignored the ‘-er’ and assumed it was some kind of show for a band or artist. The first few friends Facebook told me were attending were all from the DC area, so I assumed it was something to be ignored. But over the course of a week it seemed to be showing up more and more, and now New York friends were attending as well. So I shook off my adult onset dyslexia, and actually clicked on the event link and learned about this amazing occurrence.

Growing up, I was fascinated by the idea that Halley’s comet only came around maybe once in our lifetime. It’s fabled that Mark Twain was born the same month the comet passed in 1835 and died the same month it passed 75 years later. The Leonids pass by more frequently, about every 33 years, but that still offers a few precious chances to see them. To think that I would have been wholly unaware of their existence if it hadn’t been for Facebook is also kind of sad, but luckily the relentless news feed wouldn’t let me ignore it forever.

No matter how many updates they make to the News Feed it will always be an instrument of torture in some ways. There will still be boys I want to block or hide, exes I wish had become grossly obese if they insist on being happy in new relationships, and crushes who’s cuteness will continue to flatten my spirit. But like this event, whose popularity among my friends demanded my attention, Facebook will also remind of us opportunities we may have initially missed to live or love.

Early this morning was the peak time to view the stream of meteors, but if you missed it, it is expected to continue tonight. I would think that most of you reading this will still be around when they come back in a few decades, but when you only have one night to get the best view, who’s to say what may be occupying your time. So stay up late, or set an early alarm. Like me, you may be standing on your roof alone, but millions will be doing the same around the world, and one of those may just be standing with you the next time the Leonids pass us by.

B.B. Nichols lives and works in New York. He has been writing Everybody Does It since 2005.

Appeared originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 11/17/09