As a writer my thought process for writing is mostly stimulated by what catches my eyes and ears and holds my attention for long enough to develop into strong feelings. Love seems to be the dominating theme in my life this year. The love for my family,I've spent every weekend in the past two months at with my father, the love for my friends, I'm hosting a dinner party where every one from Australia to Boston comes to my place for a bi-anual dinner party, and love for self, I'm drug free and committed to doing what I was born to do write.
We live in a world where I've found in my thirty-two years that love does conquer all. But this is only true when we love ourselves. I've spent years trying to love myself when for most of my life I was told I was not good enough by my parents who used God as their excuse to not give me the love I was worth. I searched for this love through sex, through work, and through very unhealthy behaviors like drugs. Today I am grateful that the God of my understanding has given me the sight to see my worth and the courage to actively show it. Not everyone is this lucky.
With the death of Michael Jackson I ask myself why is it to this day that the black community is so un-excepting of homosexuals to the point of death to the point of after death. Growing up gay in the time that Michael did with a father who beats all of those feminine qualities out of you, I can understand how you could loose your sexual identity in the harsh realities of the world you were brought up in. But when is enough enough?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Disclosure
Disclosure has become a big word in my life. As a Gay young child how could it not. At a very young age I was considered a sissy, a male with too many feminine attributes. I quickly learned how to hide my natural feminine instinctive personality traits. Some things you could just know about me by watching me for ten minutes. Not that I condone making assumptions but some times if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, girls even if he sticks it in hard he just might be a duck!
Now in my adult life this word "Disclosure" has taken on a whole new meaning. in college I worked in sex education going around to college campuses and clubs, and even bath houses spreading the word of how to use a condom and it's pros and cons. Provoking discussions about how to talk to your sex partner about Std's and HIV. I was regurgitating information that I still believe to be good information today but I was not speaking from experience. I was 20,21 years of age. I never asked a trick if he was positive before shoving my cock down his throat. I never went with a boyfriend to get tested before having a three to twenty four hour sex session. I did however use condoms never realizing that it was possible not to, until I didn't have one that is. I have only used condoms a handful of times after that.
I am confident that every sex partner that I have had sex with who is/was HIV positive let it be known most times in the first five seconds of an encounter. My job as a sex educator gave me a cloak of denial, and I'm still figuring out what that means to me so bear with me. I was an information giver, you know, these are the facts that we know help you contract the Virus like High Risk Activity!
Not using condoms and having intercourse, Having multiple sex partners, Those sex partners having HIV and not using condoms. Having seamon or bloood or Breast milk of some one else enter your body (And this is where my denial started)
" Shareef, I'm Positive!" They would say, and I'd respond,
"Well, since I'm the top, there's nothing to worry about. there's no seamon or blood or breast milk in your ass right!"
This type of dangerouse rationalization to give my self permission to recieve validation through sex (I know that's a big sentence but never the less true), led me through ten years and way over thousands of partners from Denver to New York, to London and beyond. For Ten years and multiple HIV negative test results I was free. I was able to have unprotected sex with who ever I wanted even HIV positive men and not get infected. This was great news to me.
On a trip back to the place I spent my teen years when I was in my mid twenties, I started hooking up with old friends. We'd meet for coffee or for dinner, or I'd just stop by to see how they'd grown up from teens to adults. One by one every single gay male friend that I talk to would disclose to me that they were HIV positive. They would tell me a story of drug use, (crystal -methanphetimine mostly) and unprotected sex with just about every guy that picked them up or that was in the building be it clubs, sex clubs or who ever was on the street and willing. I never put it together the drugs and the sex. I was passing the crystal meth pipe during the whole time they were telling me their stories. Some of them new that I wasn't experinced with the drug and would tell me to run as fast as I can, saying that this life of sex to drugs to HIV is not something I want or should have to deal with. This never registared to me. I didn't have to deal with what they had to deal with I was a top. I've been negative fro over 20 years after over a thousand partners there was no way I could be them.
Of course I thought about these friends constantly. It could happen to me I would think and I'm in to much pain to deal with it. So I did more drugs and i refused to get an HIV test for about two years after hearing the warnings from friends who have lived the life and were now dealing with the consequences. I the sex educater couldn't deal with the reality of sex. I was ashamed of being gay because I didn't have the acceptance of my family. I directed my anger through activism and volunteerism wanting so bad and trying so hard to give my self the love that I didn't get from my Parents. But the void was huge and Sex and drugs was what I used to fill it. HIV I decided I believed it was inevitable for me to get someday and that was that. I did however stop using drugs and having sex for two years after the tenth friends HIV disclosing story.
It would be five years, multiple negative HIV test results and two relationships before i went back to the sex and drugs void filling way of life though I did only have three regular sex partners instead of a didferent ass every three hours. One moring i recieved a call from one of these partners saying that He tested positive for syphlis and that I should be treated. So I went in and had blood drawn and was asked if I wanted to get an HIV test.
I couldn't imagine why I would need to. I mean I've fucked by now hundreds of thousands of guys since the age of 15 to my 30th year and I was done with validation through sex with multiple partners by this time. I realized that untill I actively show myelf that I love myself by ending my drug use and facing my pain, untill I am albe to give myself the authentic validation that I craved no one else could make me feel anything. Yet, i still told myself that if I wasn't positive by now there was no way I could be. I was informed that Syphilis was in blood and seamon and just like HIV is passed from person to peron this way.
"But I'm a top", I'm thinking but I let him swipe my mouth. and thirteen minutes later I was givien my positive results.
My "Denial Reflex Mode" went to high gear. It was like I didn't hear him. This wasn't happening I'm going to go to work and everything will be normal. I left the clinic and walked twenty New York blocks to work, and kept walking ten more blocks to the closest drug dealer and took a needle of crystal meth for the first time to my arm in an attempt to kill myself. Instead i was High as Fuck and the pain hell I was gone. For about six months I was part of the walking dead only coming out at night and focused on not feeling any pain and if we did we'd fuck and shoot the pain away.
Today. I am HIV positive Drug free and have only been in two sexual situations, and in both I've disclosed my status holding back tears. its been over two years since the day of my diagnosis, and very scary I might add. Scary because I was ignorant to what kind of life I had to live. My only experience with HIV was having a cousin who died with in a year of his diagnosis.
I couldn't tell my parents. I couldn't talk to them with out crying. After 30 years they were talking to me again telling me the love me no matter what and I was no longer angry at them for my life. I had failed. I had flashbacks of my Mom and Dad screaming at me when I was thirteen,
"Your going to get AIDS if your gay, is that the life you want?"
No it isn't, it never was, but what does a 13 year old do with that. i didn't even know what AIDS was exept one of those words that went with sissy and gay during playground and step father teasing sessions.
But I had HIV and I was afraid of loosing their love again.
Disclosure.
To whom is it important to me to tell that I am HIV positive?
It feels like carring not just the world but the universe on my sholders. Will anyone love me again? Should I ever have sex again? What if I get sick? What if I die?
I told my mom and she displayed even more love. I haven't told my dad yet, hoping that he'd hear it from my mom even though they haven't been married to each other since I was three. I live with the pain of his Muslim heart being torn in two. And me being cut off from his love again. I think about my distant family not letting me hold their babies or not hugging me to say hello.
Sex was off limits for months. I get horny often times jerking off ten times in one session, then not for weeks. I don't think this is healthy but this is what I've been doing when "I get that feeling" untill I learn how to say before it goes any further "I'm HIV positive" Unill I get used to it, i may never get use to it. And so I publish my soul, not knowing if it's the right thing to do or not, but knowing it's how I feel it's where I am as I type with tears flowing. And I will survive!
Peace&Love
Now in my adult life this word "Disclosure" has taken on a whole new meaning. in college I worked in sex education going around to college campuses and clubs, and even bath houses spreading the word of how to use a condom and it's pros and cons. Provoking discussions about how to talk to your sex partner about Std's and HIV. I was regurgitating information that I still believe to be good information today but I was not speaking from experience. I was 20,21 years of age. I never asked a trick if he was positive before shoving my cock down his throat. I never went with a boyfriend to get tested before having a three to twenty four hour sex session. I did however use condoms never realizing that it was possible not to, until I didn't have one that is. I have only used condoms a handful of times after that.
I am confident that every sex partner that I have had sex with who is/was HIV positive let it be known most times in the first five seconds of an encounter. My job as a sex educator gave me a cloak of denial, and I'm still figuring out what that means to me so bear with me. I was an information giver, you know, these are the facts that we know help you contract the Virus like High Risk Activity!
Not using condoms and having intercourse, Having multiple sex partners, Those sex partners having HIV and not using condoms. Having seamon or bloood or Breast milk of some one else enter your body (And this is where my denial started)
" Shareef, I'm Positive!" They would say, and I'd respond,
"Well, since I'm the top, there's nothing to worry about. there's no seamon or blood or breast milk in your ass right!"
This type of dangerouse rationalization to give my self permission to recieve validation through sex (I know that's a big sentence but never the less true), led me through ten years and way over thousands of partners from Denver to New York, to London and beyond. For Ten years and multiple HIV negative test results I was free. I was able to have unprotected sex with who ever I wanted even HIV positive men and not get infected. This was great news to me.
On a trip back to the place I spent my teen years when I was in my mid twenties, I started hooking up with old friends. We'd meet for coffee or for dinner, or I'd just stop by to see how they'd grown up from teens to adults. One by one every single gay male friend that I talk to would disclose to me that they were HIV positive. They would tell me a story of drug use, (crystal -methanphetimine mostly) and unprotected sex with just about every guy that picked them up or that was in the building be it clubs, sex clubs or who ever was on the street and willing. I never put it together the drugs and the sex. I was passing the crystal meth pipe during the whole time they were telling me their stories. Some of them new that I wasn't experinced with the drug and would tell me to run as fast as I can, saying that this life of sex to drugs to HIV is not something I want or should have to deal with. This never registared to me. I didn't have to deal with what they had to deal with I was a top. I've been negative fro over 20 years after over a thousand partners there was no way I could be them.
Of course I thought about these friends constantly. It could happen to me I would think and I'm in to much pain to deal with it. So I did more drugs and i refused to get an HIV test for about two years after hearing the warnings from friends who have lived the life and were now dealing with the consequences. I the sex educater couldn't deal with the reality of sex. I was ashamed of being gay because I didn't have the acceptance of my family. I directed my anger through activism and volunteerism wanting so bad and trying so hard to give my self the love that I didn't get from my Parents. But the void was huge and Sex and drugs was what I used to fill it. HIV I decided I believed it was inevitable for me to get someday and that was that. I did however stop using drugs and having sex for two years after the tenth friends HIV disclosing story.
It would be five years, multiple negative HIV test results and two relationships before i went back to the sex and drugs void filling way of life though I did only have three regular sex partners instead of a didferent ass every three hours. One moring i recieved a call from one of these partners saying that He tested positive for syphlis and that I should be treated. So I went in and had blood drawn and was asked if I wanted to get an HIV test.
I couldn't imagine why I would need to. I mean I've fucked by now hundreds of thousands of guys since the age of 15 to my 30th year and I was done with validation through sex with multiple partners by this time. I realized that untill I actively show myelf that I love myself by ending my drug use and facing my pain, untill I am albe to give myself the authentic validation that I craved no one else could make me feel anything. Yet, i still told myself that if I wasn't positive by now there was no way I could be. I was informed that Syphilis was in blood and seamon and just like HIV is passed from person to peron this way.
"But I'm a top", I'm thinking but I let him swipe my mouth. and thirteen minutes later I was givien my positive results.
My "Denial Reflex Mode" went to high gear. It was like I didn't hear him. This wasn't happening I'm going to go to work and everything will be normal. I left the clinic and walked twenty New York blocks to work, and kept walking ten more blocks to the closest drug dealer and took a needle of crystal meth for the first time to my arm in an attempt to kill myself. Instead i was High as Fuck and the pain hell I was gone. For about six months I was part of the walking dead only coming out at night and focused on not feeling any pain and if we did we'd fuck and shoot the pain away.
Today. I am HIV positive Drug free and have only been in two sexual situations, and in both I've disclosed my status holding back tears. its been over two years since the day of my diagnosis, and very scary I might add. Scary because I was ignorant to what kind of life I had to live. My only experience with HIV was having a cousin who died with in a year of his diagnosis.
I couldn't tell my parents. I couldn't talk to them with out crying. After 30 years they were talking to me again telling me the love me no matter what and I was no longer angry at them for my life. I had failed. I had flashbacks of my Mom and Dad screaming at me when I was thirteen,
"Your going to get AIDS if your gay, is that the life you want?"
No it isn't, it never was, but what does a 13 year old do with that. i didn't even know what AIDS was exept one of those words that went with sissy and gay during playground and step father teasing sessions.
But I had HIV and I was afraid of loosing their love again.
Disclosure.
To whom is it important to me to tell that I am HIV positive?
It feels like carring not just the world but the universe on my sholders. Will anyone love me again? Should I ever have sex again? What if I get sick? What if I die?
I told my mom and she displayed even more love. I haven't told my dad yet, hoping that he'd hear it from my mom even though they haven't been married to each other since I was three. I live with the pain of his Muslim heart being torn in two. And me being cut off from his love again. I think about my distant family not letting me hold their babies or not hugging me to say hello.
Sex was off limits for months. I get horny often times jerking off ten times in one session, then not for weeks. I don't think this is healthy but this is what I've been doing when "I get that feeling" untill I learn how to say before it goes any further "I'm HIV positive" Unill I get used to it, i may never get use to it. And so I publish my soul, not knowing if it's the right thing to do or not, but knowing it's how I feel it's where I am as I type with tears flowing. And I will survive!
Peace&Love
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