Noli Nothis Permittere Te Terere - The Year in Review (B) The Most Responded To Post

When I started this blog (after several - ok, more than several - failed attempts at blogging) it was because I had something to say, and I figured this was a good way to say it. I never saw myself as the whole activist type - although I know others who do, considering everything I’ve been through and what I’ve done with my life … I consider myself more as a thinker, an educator, a helper, people person… I like to help fight for the cause, but more from the background - more like being the supporting actor than taking the lead role. And blogging fit right into this….

I’ve tired (from time to time) to post about things that really matter to me … maybe just to raise awareness - maybe just to talk about it in a way I don’t see too many other people talking about it …

That is, after all, the spirit of “Noli Nothis Permittere Te Terere” (Don’t let the Bastards Get You Down) … Bad things happen to everyone in this life - especially when you’re a little bit different - and, for me anyway, well … the way I see it, one has two options: Sit there and take it and let it drag you down with it, or you can do whatever you can about it and hopefully become better in the process.

My most responded to post, Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone, Unless The Bastard Is A Faggot is a perfect example of this.

One of the issues many (if not all) gays and lesbians face (at least at some point in their lives) are messages from the right-wing Christians about their belief that homosexuality is a sin, an abomination to God - and these messages can appear everywhere. For someone trying to deal with their own issues (religious issues, personal issues, or sexuality issues) these messages can be quite a downer.

The battle of basic human rights is something that the gay community has been fighting for awhile now… in their daily lives, in the courts… and the religious right is there for the fight.

The original post was a great example of this… and in some ways it was a wake-up call. One of the ways the gay community has been fighting for their human rights was using the courts to help protect their rights. A gay bar gets shut down for no reason other than it’s a gay bar, our right to freely assemble may be compromised.  A gay guy is murdered brutally just for being gay and the gay community thinks that should be a hate crime.

So, what was stopping the religious right from using those same tactics? They say it’s their constitutional right of freedom of religion to persecute homosexuals, it’s protected by the Bible and the Constitution. They say they want to continue spewing their anti-gay message, and anyone who says they shouldn’t are violating their constitutional right to free speech.

In many ways, lots of us are fighting the same battle over and over again… the one that goes “Homosexuality is bad.” “No it isn’t.” “The Bible says it is.” “My Bible doesn’t say that.” “Yes, it does. Right here.” “Nope. My Bible says Jesus was about love and tolerance, not about persecuting people.” “You’re mis-reading the bible, because it says, right here, that Homosexuality is bad.” “No it isn’t.” “The Bible says it is.” … see the pattern here.

And reading the comments to my post (17, so far, as of today) you’ll see quite a bit of that pattern. I mean, come on, people - can we get past that? It really isn’t getting us anywhere.  But, unfortunately I think it’s going to continue for eternity. Nobody’s going to win this one - unless we decide to just drop it. (But, I don’t see that one happening anytime soon.)

So, I guess the Noli Nothis Permittere Te Terere message is: just don’t let them get you down. It’s a pattern that has nothing to do with who you are, just what you are.

Noli Nothis Permittere Te Terere - The Year in Review (A) The Top 2 Posts

It’s hard to believe another year has almost gone by, and in March 2008, I’ll be celebrating the two-year anniversary of this blog. It takes a lot to make a blog successful, and - truth be told - I’m still learning a lot of what that is… But, I thought I would just take a moment to look back at the successes I’ve had in the past year.

So, what have my top stories been? Unfortunately - my number one blog post appears to have the one where I complained about seeing Britney Spears’ crotch.  It’s weird - I was just ranting and raving about something so minor and trivial in the grand scheme of things. Yet, after that post, my blog went from getting 10-20 hits per day, to getting about 200 hits per day. (It did go down a little after the whole Britney Spears Shaved Crotch thing died down - not that it’s dead yet.)

The second top post appears to be the one I did about Lance Bass coming out of the closet. Again, it was a minor post that I didn’t think was going to amount to much.  Now, granted, I’m not sure why everyone looking for Lance Bass information came to my site (unless they were looking for pictures) … but I’m not complaining. Actually - I am saying  Thank You!

The Latest HIV News…

The world of HIV research is often ignored by the mainstream media. And what does come is often confusing, and without knowing the full scope of what’s going on, that might just be for the best anyway. But, even the smallest news story has major implications.

Germen researchers recently found that there is a protein in semen that enhances the ability of HIV to spread.

This little bit of information can help explain a lot of the things we’ve known all along. With a few minor exceptions, HIV is normally spread one of two ways - sexually, or through drug use. The vast majority of which is transmitted sexually, and men who have sex with men are still one of the largest number of people testing HIV Positive.

Before now, each of these factors had their own explanations. For example, more people put themselves at risk through sexual activity than drug use. The first cases of HIV were reported in the gay community, and if you live with the delusion that men who have sex with men never have sex with women… well, let’s just say that all this sounds good in theory, but…

Yes. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I’m trying to keep it fairly simple. For example, HIV lives primarily in the blood, but that’s not to say that it isn’t found in other areas of the body either (vaginal fluids, breast milk, semen). Most HIV treatments concentrate on what’s in the blood… see, I’m afraid I am losing you already.

So, what does this mean for all of us non-scientists?

First off, I think stories like this should remind us that HIV is a sexually transmitted disease. While we’ve always known HIV can be transmitted via semen, perhaps we ought to be paying more attention to that.

Secondly, this story might help point the way to new treatments. It’s important to remember that in the grand scheme of things, HIV is fairly new to the scene, and new treatment ideas are still big news.

Up until recently, all HIV medications fit into one of only a small handful of categories. But, they all seem to work along the same lines - interrupting the way that HIV attacks the immune system by making more copies of itself in the bloodstream. The process has many steps, and each category of HIV medication we have now interrupts this process in their own way, somewhere in that process.

As I said before, the medications we have now work primarily in the bloodstream, but most (one report I recently read said approximately 80%) new cases of HIV were transmitted through (unprotected) sexual contact. So, what do you think would happen if we interrupted that process?

Yes. I know. There are a lot of “If’s”…

If there is a protein in semen that helps HIV infect new cells (which appears to be true) … if most cases of HIV are transmitted sexually (which, again, appears to be true) … then … would it be possible to think that if science could come up with a way of fighting HIV from blocking the protein found in semen from interacting with HIV, would it be safe to assume the HIV Infection rate would go way down?

Just … something to think about. Keep in mind that it takes an awful lot of time to go from scientific discovery to working everything out and coming up with a new treatment (let alone getting it approved by the FDA.)