Discourses in Disgust

Following on from my previous post about Treasure Island Media's forthcoming film, Slammed, readers may find this post (warning: NSFW) by Director Liam Cole of particular interest.  He challenges the comments made on The Sword blog (quoted in my last post):

'His post contains an image from the SLAMMED trailer, showing a muscular man holding a hypodermic. He must have gone through frame-by-frame to get this. It’s on-screen for less than one-thirtieth of a second and is barely perceptible at normal speed. Probably I should be angry that he’s making un-substantiated accusations about the guys in SLAMMED, but they’re big lads and not easily offended. Personally, I’m just stoked that someone is intrigued enough by my trailer to forensically dissect it. Maybe because I’m a fan of The Conversation and Blow Up (look them up, youngsters).'

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice.  It's certainly the case that the Cole narrative - in response to online speculation - clearly positions the film within the TIM canon and adds important context which was lacking in initial reports.  The only thing left is to watch the film and make our own minds up.   It's released September 5th.

UPDATE - TIM have also now published a response to my original blog post.  The response was emailed to me late last night (BST) and can be read here (warning - the images around the post are NSFW).

Gonorrhoea and the Coming Legal Battle

The announcement today by the UK Health Protection Agency that we may be heading to a point when gonorrhoea is incurable unless new treatments can be found. For now, they say, doctors must stop using the usual treatment cefixime and instead use two more powerful antibiotics.

So, from a health perspective that's bad. But as we saw last week in Middlesbrough, the transmission of HIV continues to result in criminalisation and imprisonment.   If other STIs cease to be treatable, it would be a logical (if mistaken) extension of the law to criminalise these patterns of behaviour.

It also adds weight to HIV campaigners who have been critical of the growing acceptability of bareback sex - which takes place in a narrative of few deaths.  Ahh they say, just wait until the magical HIV drugs stop working, then you'll regret it.  As yet another drug becomes useless, and the possibility of an STI once more becoming incurable, the prospect of death once more walking the corridors of bathhouses, saunas, sex clubs and the haunts of millions of human beings who choose to fuck raw seems more plausible.  The greatest tool that safe sex campaigners have is when we start dying.  It's a terrifying possibility but I'm not yet convinced that the behaviour of those who choose and celebrate bareback will change their behaviour.  They are not crazy or especially kinky, they are rationale human beings making an informed decision.  Today is another bit of information to add to the scales of decision making but the scales are along way from tipping the other way.

Read the full story here.

Living with HIV

Treasure Island Media pornographer Liam Cole has written an excellent piece on his blog under the heading 'setting the record straight'. Cole's comments address some common misconceptions about HIV and answers some of the concerns raised by those who continue to criticise and misunderstand the practice of barebacking. It's well worth a read on his blog. However, some of you may well be delicate blooms and don't want to go to a blog with sexual imagery all around so I've reproduced the post in full below (hope you don't mind Liam!) but as I say, you can check out the blog here.

Setting the record straight

The last post received this anonymous comment:

"HIV and Dying of AIDS is not intensly pleasurable or beautiful. You got insurance? your going to need it...don't forget lots of diareah and wasting away to disfigurement...but go ahead and have this "beautiful" sexual experience. Hey Try some heroin while your at it."

There's a confusion here between description and advice. Speaking honestly about a pleasurable activity is not the same as recommending it. It's up to us to make informed choices of our own.

To answer the points about HIV and AIDs:

"Wasting away to disfigurement" presumably refers to lipodystrophy: body-fat changes including fat-loss from the face and buttocks. This isn't a symptom of HIV or AIDs. It's a side-effect of drugs used to treat the virus (AZT and d4T). Fortunately, newer HIV drugs have been developed without this side-effect (efavirenz, tenofovir, abacovir, etc). For this reason AZT and d4T are no longer recommended to people starting HIV treatment.

Diarrhea is a possible side-effect of some HIV drugs, but it doesn't effect everyone and often only occurs during the first few weeks or months of treatment. Diarrhea caused by HIV drugs can be treated with ordinary tablets (loperimide, Imodium) available at pharmacies.

The aim of current HIV treatment is to reduce the viral load to "undetectable" and prevent AIDs for life. That's becoming possible because of continuing progress in HIV drug development (which we should be celebrating as a fucking triumph of human ingenuity).

Increasingly, the problem is not whether these drugs work, but whether they are available and affordable to all people with HIV, from San Francisco to Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the politics of healthcare, and it requires all of us (poz or neg) to be clear-headed, informed and engaged. So, the commenter is right to bring up insurance, but wrong to cloud the topic with stigma and fear-mongering.

Inside a Vagina with Gaspar Noé

Rather engaging interview with the filmmaker, Gaspar Noé in the Guardian today. He discusses his latest film Enter the Void which apparently does include at one point a shot from inside a vagina of someone having sex. He goes on to discuss the distinction/blurring of pornography and film. The film also seems to play around with the taboo of incest. I've posted the trailer below (not suitable for epileptics) and the whole piece can be read here.

DIVA Drugs Survey

The lesbian magazine, Diva is currently undertaking a survey of drug use amongst lesbians. It's the first ever study to consider 'chicks on speed' or 'lesbians on ecstasy' (as the magazine terms it) but it's actually some important work. The stuff around guys on Crystal Meth has been well documented both in academic scholarship and popular culture - through magazines and TV shows yet our images of LGBT drug use revolve around the image of you young slim gay guy. Lesbians have really been absent from this picture of criminality and so this survey should produce some interesting results. The survey can be completed at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=sF84g1soKIRPJxRmC17TpQ_3d_3d