“I would see doctors and other [AIDS] health-care providers who I knew at some gay event like the Black Party. They’d all be higher than God. There was part of me that in one respect was almost envious. How can they do drugs and still have a successful practice? And then, of course, they didn’t. It eventually caught up."

~ David France [New York Magazine]

Denial is the classic symptom of crystal meth abuse, and denial river flows freely and deeply within bureaucratised, PC AIDS organisations and practices. Certainly, at least where some AID$ Inc. nay-sayers are concerned, it is not unreasonable to suggest that part of their reluctance to paint HIV or "Tina" as the bright red demons they really are stems from their own, in Russell Westacott's words (see previous page), "realistic experiences". Because with each sexualised/ fetishised/eroticised/romanticised HIV campaign and how-to-use-meth-properly handbook that emerges, those funded to educate on such major health risks reveal themselves to be HIV and meth's most aggressive apologists, defenders and cheerleaders...

"Many heads of AIDS groups and activists have tumbled into [crystal] addiction, disillusionment, career crisis, or worse. After years of vigilance, many have recently contracted HIV. Having worked in HIV seems to be a risk for recent HIV infection."

~ Spencer Cox [Medius Institute]

Habitual abusers of drugs and practisers of unsafe sex

often occupy key roles in gay men's health agencies, wherein denial, the desire to protect self-interests and stubborn refusal to face up to the consequences of their often publicly flaunted, reckless behaviours can impact on their ability to make the right decisions and fulfil their assigned public health roles, potentially creating lethal conflicts of interests. The ravaged, gaunt campaign officer of one leading UK AIDS charity - who has always said no to meth campaigns - was a regular visitor during 2005 to the north London home of the main supplier of crystal into the gay community, where drug-fueled orgies often took place, while a leading New York AIDS pioneer turned meth addict contracted HIV, lost his homes and accumulated ten criminal charges and felonies stemming from allegations that he saw patients while his license was suspended for practicing while high; individuals eminently qualified and equipped - certainly more so than the communities they symptomatically fail - to make informed choices  about safe sex and hard drug use...

In the UK alone, HIV charity representatives have fought in the High Court to defend the right of gay men to continue using immunosuppressive poppers, despite  conclusive evidence existing to show that inhaling amyl-nitrate can facilitate HIV transmission; have vigorously rallied against legislation to hold those who recklessly and intentionally transmit HIV to others accountable for their actions; and, most recently, have given their Play Zone seal of approval to underground sex venues that comply with an unenforceable "code of good practise", each time banging the drum of political correctness.

Far from acting to benefit those whose health they are funded to safeguard, UK HIV charities have consistently overstepped the mark in systematically undermining gay men's health, with key decision makers acting either to a hidden agenda or in their own, often sordid, self-interests.

"Poppers [are highly immunosuppressive and carcinogenic and] were proven years ago to be a major facilitator in HIV transmissions, and in 1996 I took my evidence to court in an effort to get them banned from retail outlets. I had not reckoned for the sheer force of vitriol from the HIV agencies who defended the right of gay men (i.e. themselves) to continue using poppers. In protecting their own sordid interests, HIV sector staff and execs have consistently rode roughshod over the health needs of those they are mandated to serve."

~ Cass Mann [Positively Healthy]

"The primary cause of Kaposi's Sarcoma in gay men could be their use of poppers."

~ Dr. Robert Gallo [Co-discoverer of HIV]

In April 2007, the UK's Terrence Higgins Trust devoted scarce HIV prevention funds to launching Hard Cell, a web site that describes - in the kind of graphic, in-your-face detail it refuses to lavish on its HIV campaigns - risky and extreme behaviours associated with "hard-core" sex, like bondage ("Mummification immobilises someone by wrapping them tightly from head to toe, often with only breathing holes left uncovered... The kick comes from feeling helpless and struggling against restraints or making someone helpless and watching them struggle"); scat  ("Like contact with the intimate body fluids of cum, spit or piss, sex involving shit can be a sign of intense closeness as someone is offering something that's come from deep inside them"); and felching ("A strong, 'piggy' erotic charge comes from breaking the taboos around cleanliness and health that come with taking into your mouth something that's been up another man's arse"); "underground" activities commonly practised among a small number of socially withdrawn, emotionally conflicted or psychologically unbalanced individuals deep in battle with internal demons that compulsively draw them to extreme and often sadistic "pleasures" at drug-fueled sex parties and THT Play Zone-stamped sex-on-premises venues, including a number of AID$ Inc. UK's own oft-sighted staffmembers and volunteers.

Of barebacking, Hard Cell enticingly enthuses: "Years of being expected to use condoms has made not using them a taboo for some of us. Breaking taboos can have a strong erotic charge..." Not the kind of terminology you would reasonably expect a sexual health charity to be using, especially when it refuses to speak out against porn labels that exploit barebacking for a fast buck. THT argues that Hard Cell is designed to educate "curious" gay men about the pleasures and the dangers of hard sex and hard drug use. Yet the risks are thrown in seemingly as an afterthought, requiring a blink-and-you-miss-it click-through button. The onus, clearly, is on the glorification and legitimisation of what most normal gay men consider to be depraved, even deviant behaviours.

Underground sex is extreme, often sadistic and occasionally violent. It exists on the dark, sleazy fringes of the gay "scene" and as such is covertly practised by a minority of thrill-seeking, usually older men in search of the next, invariably drug-fueled sexual "high". THT's high-profile, taxpayer-funded launch of Hard Cell, however, brings such disturbing, pathogen-facilitating sex acts above ground and into the mainstream for the first time; its coverage in scene mags like Boyz and QX serving as an invitation and virtual recruitment campaign for their mostly under-25 readerships.

How can those responsible for approving such inappropriate "vanity" projects – at least in the context of HIV prevention - be seen to lead gay men's health and be passionate about, and have empathy for, others' wellbeing when they are acting only in their own, sleazy self-interests?

Facing up to the unthinkable - that such double standards at the core of many gay men's sexual health agencies are contributing to a culture steeped in deceit and neglect, thereby fuelling the spread of the pathogens and correlated factors they are meant be fighting - means casting aside the pious cloak of false concern that they invariably assume, and seeing through the veil of illusion that protects and enriches them at our expense. It also means looking frankly at our own helplessness, gullibility and willingness to unhesitatingly accept any form of hypocrisy without question. Where the message that is being subliminally transmitted is to carry on barebacking regardless, to use meth and other disinhibiting substances with abandon, and to indiscriminately transmit variant strains of HIV to others.

"If the owners of unsafe sex clubs are like tobacco farmers, the policy wonks at GMHC and the libetarians of ACT UP are like tobacco company spokesmen - all AIDS doublespeak and no common sense."

~ Gabriel Rotello [Author, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men]

Nevertheless, it is encouraging that, after years of inaction, the likes of, say, New York's LGBT Centre is finally emphasising, with its Silence=Meth campaign, "that no one can afford to be silent about crystal and its connection to HIV risk today". It would just be a lot more credible if such organisations apologised for their own silence and complicity in the rampant spread of meth among New York's MSM population from 2000, just as they should start taking some responsibility for today's appalling HIV infection rates.

"Almost four out of every five gay and bisexual men surveyed said they desire more educational campaigns about the risk of crystal meth."

~ Ryan Lee [Southern Voice, Atlanta]

A community that's nurtured and empowered to respect itself, instead of instinctively losing itself in soul-destroying drugs and sexual risk-taking, is achievable with the correct guidance, health education and preventive information, however much AID$ Inc. may try to persuade us otherwise via its tiresome PC spin and doublespeak. But an empowered, self-respecting community is also a healthy, vibrant one not in need of its services. And therein lies the conundrum that exposes the inertia, inefficiency and ineptitude that festers at the core of AID$ Inc. today: once compassion-led organisations that metamorphosed into a profitable, multi-million dollar industry which grows fatter and greedier feeding off the ever-deteriorating health of those it set out to save.