Is Homophobia suddenly acceptable?
Colour me confused. I was under the impression that any suggestion of AIDS being ‘the gay plague’ was the ultimate example of homophobia? Didn’t David Cameron and Nick Clegg both demand that the ‘horrific slur’ that was the ban on gay men donating blood, ‘in case’ they had AIDS, be removed?
Anybody who lived through the 80s will remember the ‘tombstone ads’ commissioned by Norman Fowler and Willie Whitelaw:
“There were people in government and also people in the media who said, ‘Why are you spending all this time concerned about gay people and drug addicts?’,” Fowler recalls. “But that was a minority view.”
The message of both was simple, but apocalyptic – a deadly disease was a threat to everyone, not just the “small groups” who had largely been affected by it so far.
So millions were spent educating the ‘bigoted minority’, such as the then-Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, James Anderton, who referred to victims ‘swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making’. Anyone holding such views was beyond the pale…
Then 18 months ago, the Department of Health’s funding for HIV Prevention England, the national HIV prevention programme in England, was cut in half. Now there was only a budget of £1.2million for 2015-16. The National AIDS Trust (NAT) was quick to point out that:
‘there is a total of around 1.2 million men who have sex with men and black African adults living in England. A budget of £1.2 million means that the national programme only has £1 to spend a year for each person in its target audience.’
Not one penny piece left over for the women who were not, apparently, in the ‘target audience’.
Last week, NAT took the NHS to court and won a declaration from the High Court that NHS England can pay for “game-changer” drugs that prevent people being infected with HIV by their partners.
Even the Guardian, which in 2010 was sternly lecturing us that ‘HIV is NOT a gay disease‘, now cheerfully comments on the court case by saying:
It comes after the results of a trial, published in February 2015, suggested that rates of HIV infection could be slashed by treating gay men with the anti-viral drug when they are healthy.
Not a woman in sight…
What, I ask, about the women who are married to the men who haven’t yet made sufficient progress in their career to risk admitting to being gay? What about drug addicts. What about the sex workers who have no way of knowing what other predilections their client may have? What about the many bisexual men? Does ‘split condom syndrome’ only afflict those who admit to being gay?
Why is it suddenly publicly acceptable to treat HIV and AIDS as though it were a homosexual disease, generating column inches as to whether it is right that the NHS should provide for preventative prophylaxis medication for ‘lifestyle choices’.
The NHS already provide prophylaxis medication – I take one myself. Letrozole. Designed for women who no longer had any sign of a particular breast cancer to ensure that it destroyed the conditions in which it could return and thrive again. I have a different cancer, ovarian rather than breast, and still very much in evidence; however there was a vague similarity between the two cancers, enough to make it worth my while taking the drug, and it has indeed reduced an aggressive cancer to one that is ‘staggering and stumbling through a vat of treacle – with a monumental hangover’.
If wanting to stay alive isn’t a ‘lifestyle choice’ then I don’t know what is.
Are not Statins a lifestyle choice? Nobody forced you to binge on greasy fry ups, or family sized trays of ready-made Lasagne. Now your blood vessels are bulging at the seams, groaning with the strain of it all; you don’t like Tofu, think that salad is for ponces – so down to the Doctor for your statins to prevent a heart attack. We don’t get column inches telling us that 15 premature babies will have to be tossed onto a hillside to die in order to fund your ‘lifestyle drug’.
Isn’t HRT a prophylaxis against Osteoporosis? Around one million British women take HRT.
Contraception is free on the NHS, including the ‘morning after’ pill. You don’t have to put your money in those machines in every toilet and purchase a condom. You can buy yourself one more double Sambuca, throw caution to the winds, and the NHS will pick up the bill in the morning. There are no announcements from the NHS that cataract operations for the elderly will be suspended unless they are actually walking into lampposts.
NHS England made it clear that the fight to get PrEP – pre exposure prophylaxis – to everyone at risk is far from over. Not only will it appeal against the judgment, but it will weigh up the cost of PrEp – which could be £10m – £20m a year – against other calls on NHS funding for specialised services.
When did it become socially acceptable for the NHS to be homophobic? Why?
- Bandini
August 7, 2016 at 12:45 pm -
‘Tis the Big Brother Biggins Blames Bis Backlash!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3727336/I-m-sorry-m-sad-Christopher-Biggins-cuts-forlorn-figure-s-removed-Big-Brother-house-blaming-spread-HIV-bisexuals.html - David
August 7, 2016 at 12:45 pm -
That is a mute, academic point, but there is no suggestion that these drugs would only be available to, ‘men’, who could prove they were, bona fide homosexuals? It is easier to win a court case if you can prove ‘prejudice’. It is probably the fact that gay men are seen the ones most at risk from AID’s, (not true as we know), which is why the drug was not approved in the first place?
But the bottom line with all prevention is that treatment, drugs, therapy, tests, time off work, etc, ‘which is available’, is far more expensive in the long term. As you know I have little faith in mainstream medicine, and only use alternative medicine myself. But I support the right of others, who do believe in,’ mainstream medicine’.
- Bandini
August 7, 2016 at 12:50 pm -
Where’s the moot button?
- David
August 7, 2016 at 12:52 pm -
My predictive text is useless.
- Bandini
August 7, 2016 at 12:55 pm -
Then turn it odd!
- Mudplugger
August 7, 2016 at 6:01 pm -
Brilliant.
- Mudplugger
- Bandini
- David
- Bandini
- Pericles Xanthippou
August 7, 2016 at 1:23 pm -
I have no real interest in the subject matter — other than an economic one relating the cost of the drug to the presumed benefit of not having to treat those with H.I.V. or AIDS (quite a difficult model to create, I’m sure). Generally I’m much in favour of preventive medicine: it works and is usually cost-effective.
My concern is with the supposed word ‘homophobia’.
Ignoring for a minute whether the suffix ‘-phobia’ (fear, e.g. agoraphobia) or the prefix mis- (dislike, e.g. misandry) be appropriate — most of these social things called ‘-phobia’ are grounded in some degree of dislike — ‘homophobia’ and its derivatives are wrong as a linguistic concept. ‘Homo-’ followed by anything means that thing in relation to what is the same, e.g. homogeneous: of the same type (race or family perhaps, reflecting the original Greek).
It follows that homophobia is fear of what is the same, a possible but unlikely sentiment, although it might be said to apply to misanthropy. The appropriate word is surely heterophobia: fear of what is different. I suppose the problem* for to-day’s lazy writers (and speakers), who feel bound to express everything (even names) by a single word and are not prepared to use even a simple phrase such as ‘hatred of homosexuals’, is that heterophobia on its own would be inadequate to the meaning and need further definition.
* What the effete have come to call an ‘issue’: Jesu Christe!
ΠΞ
- gareth
August 7, 2016 at 10:51 pm -
It’s just a made up word to signal that whoever it is applied to is a “bad-thinking-scum-non-person”. Same with Islamaphobia.
Contrast with Agoraphobia, Arachnophobia, Claustrophobia, etc. where the sufferer is the innocent victim, to be helped and supported.
The wilful perpetrators of the “bad-thinking-scum-non-person” phobias on the other hand quite rightly deserve to be pointed at, shouted at and given the good kicking that they so richly deserve- Ho Hum
August 8, 2016 at 1:31 am -
I have an issue here, in that I find it hard to determine, when it comes to any possible consideration of modern day trollophobia, which of you will be most likely to get your knickers in a twist, and which will have their panties in a bunch
But I can console myself with the thought that the answer to both conundrums is, predictively, Daffyd Duck
- Ho Hum
- gareth
- Mark Parry
August 7, 2016 at 1:25 pm -
Thank you for this. I think Owen Jones made a similar point a week or two back. I remember the onset of HIV Aids well and the awful attitudes of Republicans in the USA, which were especially obnoxious. Golly but we have moved on from Thatcher in this respect…or have we?
- JohnM
August 7, 2016 at 1:53 pm -
Of course, the “problem” is expense. A 30-day course of Truvada costs the NHS around £300 (a generic version costs about £30….but cannot be dispensed within the NHS because of licensing)
Many antiC drugs have comparable costs. Many antiC drugs have astronomical price tags attached!
Since the med is a phopylactic preventative there is a good argument for its use. Because it is expensive, there is a good argument for saying keep your legs together (depending upon which newspaper you read). And, since nobody seems to have mentioned this: many married men also have same-sex partners outside of their M/F marriage…
However, as nobody says ever: sex and sense always go together. - Pericles Xanthippou
August 7, 2016 at 1:54 pm -
Another unrelated linguistic problem is the term by which the drug seems widely known: ‘PEP’. Apparently this stands for ‘pre-exposure prophylaxis’.
Readers will, I’m sure, immediately recognize that as tautological. It also, assuming it catch on in the wider community, renders the normal use of ‘PEP’ incomprehensible: post-exposure prophylaxis.
(In case you were wondering, the ‘post’ here means after exposure — perhaps obvious — whereas the ‘pro(s)-’ means before the development of the ailment, e.g. after being bitten by a bat in the infectious stage but before the onset, in the human, of rabies.)
ΠΞ
- Ho Hum
August 8, 2016 at 1:43 am -
But ‘Things go better with PepsiCola, things go better with PEP’ has some sort of familiarly friendly ring to it, doesn’t it? But I’m confusing that, completely wrongly, with something else, amn’t I? Surely I must be….
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=NYSE%3APEP&oq=NYSE%3APEP&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58j69i61.2334j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
- Ho Hum
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 7, 2016 at 2:56 pm -
You can buy yourself one more double Sambuca, throw caution to the winds, and the NHS will pick up the bill in the morning.
..and Red Tops will pay you for bravely coming foward to regal us with your story of being date raped- always assuming the CPS don’t want to try and get ‘justice’ for you. - Michael Massey
August 7, 2016 at 6:05 pm -
Off topic of this piece – of which points well made by the landlady, and also struck me.
I tend to look at less and less of the wretched Grauniad nowadays but made mistake of commenting on piece “If child abuse were a disease, we’d see urgent action. Our culture must change” by Sue Berelowitz ” former deputy children’s commissioner for England” [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/07/child-sexual-abuse-inquiry-lowell-goddard-victims]
My comment: “What is the definition of “child abuse” used in the numbers sprayed around in this piece?
Without definitions numbers are pretty meaningless. Do they for example include abuse by one 15 year old of another?” was deleted, as was my follow-up:
“How is the following:
What is the definition of “child abuse” used in the numbers sprayed around in this piece?
Without definitions numbers are pretty meaningless. Do they for example include abuse by one 15 year old of another?
in breach of the community guidelines?
I would have expected that question to have been asked by editors/sub-editiors before the piece was considered for publication.
It is what used to be known as journalism – check your sources.
Bewildering.”
I am cussed enough that I will be in touch with them to ask for an explanation.
- Ho Hum
August 8, 2016 at 1:46 am -
You’d better not go anywhere near the Huffpost! Having moderation crowd sourced to its readers is even worse!
- Ho Hum
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 7, 2016 at 6:42 pm -
Is it just me or does the phrase ‘lifestyle choice’ sound like it was thought up in the Third Reich? Lebensartentscheidung or Lebensstilentscheidung both sound like they should have a ‘Volks’ infront of them. Google was no help; does anyone know came up with it ?
I can quite imagine Hitler screaming : “diese entartete Lebensartentcheidungen auf Kosten des Deutschen Volkes!” (“These perverse Life Style Choices paid for by the German People”).
- Pericles Xanthippou
August 7, 2016 at 8:45 pm -
Mein lieber Gestopfter,
My understanding — based on my interpretation of the Nazi attitude toward homosexuals — is that they regarded homosexuality not so much as a ‘lifestyle choice’ as an aberration of either mental or genetic origin and effectively without the control of the subject.
I was astonished a few years ago to read something written by a religious convict — whose connexion to me is her devotion to the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned raccoons — to the effect that homosexuality can be ‘treated’.
I have no idea whether in fact it can (although my understanding is that it cannot); what struck me, however, was that this lady, a Canadian, was extremely liberal (in the perverse American sense of the word): not some-one I’d have expected to pronounce on the subject in such a censorious tone! (The person to whom her remarks were addressed is as queer as a three-dollar bill and unfortunately — owing to a tendency to lose his temper rather easily — languishes in an American gaol serving a six-year sentence for battery!)
Mit freundichen Grüßen,
ΠΞ
- Pericles Xanthippou
- DICK R
August 7, 2016 at 7:46 pm -
Why should the taxpayer be responsible for subsidising sodomy ,personally I care not a dam how many of these perverts contract HIV.
Let ’em rot in their own filth- windsock
August 7, 2016 at 8:32 pm -
Thanks, sweetie.
- windsock
- tdf
August 7, 2016 at 7:54 pm -
^ I thought Ian Paisley was dead?
- Binao
August 7, 2016 at 7:58 pm -
Put aside for a moment he drugs issue, as a dyed in the wool, what’s the word for wanting sex with any available attractive older female regardless of the capacity to do it male in his seventies? (i.e, sad old b*****d), I suspect a lot of people have limited known exposure to homosexual men. Out of total disinterest, I do similarly confess zero knowledge of lesbian women.
My late wife’s elder brother is gay. Through meeting him and his long term partner, many of his friends too years ago, I became familiar with a lot of very ordinary gay people. I don’t recall any Round the Horne stereotypes, though there does seem to be an Elaine Page & Sondheim obsession. All good company, though I don’t understand the obsession.
At a party I recall the comment ‘do you realise you’re the only straight at this table, perhaps in the whole room?’ caused me no discomfort.
Just a thought.- The Blocked Dwarf
August 7, 2016 at 8:18 pm -
I don’t recall any Round the Horne stereotypes
I’d love to meet someone from 1960’s Soho who still spoke Polari, the linguistics of it are fascinating…yes colour me a sad ol ‘omi’.I used to make a habit of drinking in gay bars, if I didn’t fancy ending the night in some strange girl’s bed or in A&E (the only two ways to end a wet inner city Saturday night) or both. In Gay Pubs you stood a chance of some intelligent conversation and not worrying if you really had enough knives with you.
- windsock
August 7, 2016 at 9:01 pm -
There was, if I remember correctly, an online Polari dictionary being compiled, to make sure it wasn’t lost to posterity. I remember being taught it as a young chicken in the 70s by older hawks. Happy days!
- Peb
August 7, 2016 at 10:18 pm -
Not so much a dictionary, more a users guide to polari
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 8, 2016 at 12:23 pm -
Thanks for that Peb, very interesting.
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Peb
- Pericles Xanthippou
August 7, 2016 at 9:07 pm -
That’s a really interesting thought. Over the years I’ve encountered many homosexuals — of both sexes — that I’ve found delightful company, whether in a bar, encountered as strangers or at private dinners as friends or friends of friends.
The stereotypical ‘backs to the wall’ image is simply ridiculous. Except at school — well, what do you expect of a high-quality boys’ school? — I’ve never been propositioned by another bloke. (Well, if we exclude that strange fellow in Greenwich Village in 1976 but … that for another time.)
The fact is that those I’ve known to be homosexual have been amongst the most affable and delightful friends.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
ΠΞ
- windsock
- The Blocked Dwarf
- tdf
August 7, 2016 at 8:19 pm - windsock
August 7, 2016 at 8:59 pm -
My twopennyworth, not that it’s worth any more than anyone else’s…
I am gay. I have AIDS. I have lived with HIV for 28 years. Effective medication only became available about 20 years ago. I have nearly been dead three times. I have been on a series of regimes – side effects are appalling; peripheral neuropathy, kidney stones, diarrhoea, lipodystrophy..etc. As the side effects become intolerable, you switch to new regimes, which are always more expensive than the last, but then the medications are new and the doctors don’t know how to safely migrate you from one to another, so you end up developing resistance to one class…blah, blah., blah. It gets complicated and boring. No one should have to live with that now, if it can be avoided.
BUT!
You can’t pop PrEP for one night before a gang bang. It’s a course of treatment that you have to take every day to maintain protection. Miss it a few times if you’re drunk or drugged off your tits and you’ll develop resistance and leave yourself open to HIV infection. If you use it instead of a condom, you also lay yourself open to Heps A,B, and C. And syphilis and gonnorhoea and chlamydia and herpes and HPV.
I have had men offer to have condomless sex with me. I have told them to bugger off. If they are willing to do it with me, they have probably done it with others. I don’t want any more infections, thanks.
The answer is education, to teach men that this is not a magic bullet, not the answer to a would-be-harlot’s prayers,.
I talked to my consultant about this and he talked about the trials that showed PrEP was effective. The people they want to aim this at are either sex workers, or those in relationships where the couple are sero-discordant – one positive, one negative, to reduce the transmission possibilities during repeated sexual encounters.
Sex workers would include women (as do black Africans, Anna). This is just the media whipping up a new gay storm after the marriage “controversy” – after all, we’re all meant to be aiming to be monogamous adoptive parents, aren’t we? That was one reason why I was wary of this gay marriage mallarkey. Thank you, but no thanks – i don’t want to be part of the Borg either.
Another thing is that medications issued through sexual health clinics are free… but if it is being used for PrEP, why not through Boots so people pay prescription charges? Also PEP (post exposure phrophylaxis) still exists for those who have an irregular act of condomless sex.
So, any other gay men reading: think about your options. I can honestly say HIV is best avoiding, but that doesn’t mean you should not be promiscuous, if that’s what you want Just protect yourself in every way available to you. To the straight people reading, please accept there are promiscuous straight people too, whose risks may be smaller as far as HIV is concerned because the pool of infections in the “herd” is smaller – but you run other risks too.
We are all the people we are – lifestyle “choices” in this context are bollocks – we all seek love, fulfillment and affection wherever we can find it. No one is better than anyone else in that respect.
- Mudplugger
August 7, 2016 at 9:50 pm -
Well said. It needs some ‘in the loop’ experience to clarify what this is all about.
My main argument with the NHS is that they must be consistent in their operating principles. If they are going to provide the optimum medical services for people who are suffering from conditions resulting from their chosen ways of life (which the NHS should be doing), then they must provide that same level of service for all, including smokers, amateur athletes, rugby players, anorexics, obese etc.
If the scourge of HIV can be avoided and its spread limited by the targeted use of a drug, then that deserves full consideration by NICE – the quoted price of £400 a month is misleading, that’s the private acquisition price: if I was negotiating this one for the NHS, they’d end up paying less than 10% of that rate, which changes the in-house cost-benefit spreadsheet hugely.I’m not gay but I have gay friends and I would regard it as irresponsible if the NHS, for which they and I all pay, sought to discriminate against them and allow their lives to be at a risk which could so easily be avoided. And I’ll admit to a history of straight promiscuity in earlier years, when I very often played fast and loose with the full range of inherent risks – I was lucky, but it could so easily have been different.
Gay or straight, we should all be on the same side, arguing for discrimination-free treatment for all conditions to the maximum level the NHS can afford. Then it’s only the ‘affording’ bit we need to debate, not the principles.- JohnM
August 9, 2016 at 9:28 am -
The quoted price is 30 tabs = £355.
That is the price from the NHs drug prices.
No discount available.
The same drug is available from overseas makers at £30/30 tabs. No doubt when the med is available out of licence the price will drop dramatically, unless we join TTIP, in which case we will get ours arses sued-off. The NHS cannot dispense drugs made illegally.
And while we’re commenting upon sex-meds….viagra costs the NHS £20 per 4 tabs. The same med as a generic costs £1.10 per 4 tabs. But should we be paying for other peoples heterosexual lifestyle !!
There are an average of 3800 prescriptions for viagra/tadalafil dispensed every day (note that pharmacists will dispense a generic drug, if available, unless the trade name is prescribed.- windsock
August 9, 2016 at 9:43 am -
“should we be paying for other peoples heterosexual lifestyle “… Gay people take medications for erectile dysfunction too… Age and other medical conditions take their toll on all of us, straight or gay.
Bye the bye, you will often fund purveyors of illegal party drugs also sell Viagra, because those party drugs make partying harder (or should I say, softer?)
- JohnM
August 9, 2016 at 6:12 pm -
They never sell viagra. As a brand-name drug it is too expensive. They sell sildenafil citrate, or tadalafil. Cheaper. Purchasable at £0.55p/tablet over the Internet. Doctors tend to give prescriptions only to people fit enough to give them to, but unfit enough to have a problem. Heavy club drinkers tend to not fit either category. As a recreational drug, it is number one.
In any case, Truvada is not generally available yet. Given that all local commissioning groups have financial problems, as have hospital trusts, it may be that with the massive alterations the NHS is undergoing en-route to an insurance-based healthcare operation, it may never be available without payment.
Recently I was given a choice. I had to have a 14-day IV antiB course of treatment. My choices were simple: doctors 3xday for two weeks, or DIY at home. After suitable education, I was in receipt of an NHS meds fridge and 42 pre-filled antiB hypodermics, 42 pre-filled saline hypodermics and 42 pre-filled syringes to stop blood clotting in the pre-inserted cannula. All good fun, and saved the NHS a fortune.
- JohnM
- windsock
- JohnM
- Ho Hum
August 8, 2016 at 1:54 am -
I can’t subscribe to everything you have said, but in practical terms, that’s about the most sensible comment I’ve seen on this subject, as it applies to both gay and heterosexual behaviours.
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 8, 2016 at 12:49 pm -
If you use it instead of a condom, you also lay yourself open to Heps A,B, and C. And syphilis and gonnorhoea and chlamydia and herpes and HPV.
I have had men offer to have condomless sex with me. I have told them to bugger off.
Windsock, Master Of The Double Entendrette- that’s your actual French that is.
- Mudplugger
- Pericles Xanthippou
August 7, 2016 at 9:28 pm -
“If you use it instead of a condom, you also lay yourself open to [hepatitis] A, B and C. And syphilis and gonorrhea and chlamydia and herpes and HPV.” — windsock
Isn’t it amazing how, owing to the diversity — and commitment to community — of those that rest their arms on the bar of the Raccoon Arms, one learns so much?
“[W]e all seek love, fulfilment and affection wherever we can find it.”— windsock
May I just say — hoping to speak for the whole community sitting at this bar (or, in my case, lounging by the open fire) — that I hope the diversity of our community never decline; that those not ‘of the mainstream’ never feel forced to leave. All are, I believe, welcome; the views of all accepted as honest contributions to generous discourse.
ΠΞ
- Chromatistes
August 7, 2016 at 10:21 pm -
Does this mean that I can call Peter Mandelson a narcissistic wooftah?
- Mudplugger
August 7, 2016 at 10:28 pm -
Only if you’re committed to telling the truth.
- windsock
August 7, 2016 at 10:31 pm -
You’re being kind… I call Mandy much worse.
- Ho Hum
August 8, 2016 at 1:58 am -
To have to ask that, you must come from Hartlepool.
- Chromatistes
August 8, 2016 at 6:01 pm -
Over 300 miles between my humble abode in Flatland and the Monkeyhangers.
- Mudplugger
August 8, 2016 at 8:38 pm -
Two hundred years on and there’s still no ‘forgive and forget’.
I wouldn’t care but the monkey was a guilty as sin – only less so than the Right Honourable Member for that place a decade or so ago.
- Mudplugger
- Chromatistes
- Mudplugger
- English Pensioner
August 8, 2016 at 11:12 am -
When I had to have various jabs and pills before going abroad to certain countries, I had to pay for these myself. The NHS view was that they didn’t provide drugs for something that could be avoided by not going to the places concerned.
Surely the situation with PrEP is similar; you don’t need to do what might give you AIDS.
In either case, if you take no precautions and become ill, the NHS will then treat you, rather illogical however you view the situation.- David
August 8, 2016 at 11:33 am -
Sex is a basic instinct, that is difficult to avoid. Going abroad, playing Rugby/Sports, Rock Climbing, Pot Holing, Boxing, Swimming, Driving, Running, Drug Taking, drinking Alcohol , Eating unhealthy foods etc are not basic instincts, could therefore be avoided, and do cause injuries. But are none the less treated, free of charge, on the NHS.
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 8, 2016 at 12:35 pm -
Drug Taking, drinking Alcohol
Yeeees…but isn’t the very definition of ‘addiction’ that the addict has no choice? Or as i put it when confronted with some vile AntiSmoker:
“you can’t describe smoking as an addiction and then in the very next virginal breath complain about the cost to YOUR NHS -Gawd Bless ‘er- of my ‘life style’ choices“
- The Blocked Dwarf
- David
- Jeremy Poynton
August 8, 2016 at 2:40 pm -
“Last week, NAT took the NHS to court and won a declaration from the High Court that NHS England can pay for “game-changer” drugs that prevent people being infected with HIV by their partners.”
Condoms anyone? Rather, it seems. once more responsible people have to stump up for irresponsible people, who, whilst able to afford the promiscuous drug-taking that accompanies such sex, cannot afford condoms.
No wonder the NHS is collapsing, as more and more of its budget is dedicated to dealing with people who won’t look after themselves.
If they won’t, why should I?
- David
August 8, 2016 at 2:57 pm -
Injuries caused by irresponsible people wearing flip-flops are costing the NHS an astonishing £40million every year. Shoes anyone ?
I think your argument is spurious and possibly homophobic? http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/flip-flop-injuries-cost-nhs-40million-238619- Bandini
August 8, 2016 at 3:18 pm -
“Hedonism is a rejoicing in life whereas debauchery suggests you’ve gone down the wrong passage – and I never think any passage is the wrong passage.” – Molly Parkin
- Ho Hum
August 8, 2016 at 3:48 pm -
I have never tried flip flopping, but I’m not too surprised that it might result in people injuring themselves, even if they were wearing condoms at the time.
And, as I doubt that PEP, by the nature of its deployment, will reduce flip flop injuries in any way, it isn’t impossible to see why some people might think that some others want jam at both ends of their stick, both dollops paid for by someone else
Just saying, like…
- Bandini
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 8, 2016 at 4:11 pm -
Condoms anyone?
I refer you to my learned friend’s, Windsock Q…no C, earlier explanation .You surmise wrongly.
- David
- windsock
August 9, 2016 at 8:45 am -
Another point of view (but the comments are far more interesting – this is still not a settled issue, even within the gay community):
- leady
August 9, 2016 at 1:50 pm -
I’m more of a everyone should ideally pay for their own crap type of person. I’m open to cost benefit arguments based on the current reality of the system, but anything like this that appears likely to actually increase costs and primary and secondary infection rates seems like a failure.
Generally wherever healthcare which needs to run like insurance starts to look like a defined benefit scheme, you’re going to hit funding issues.
- Alexander Baron
August 9, 2016 at 5:11 pm -
Homophobia, so-called, has nothing to do with this. As like me you grew up in 60s and indeed have a few years on me, you know what ordinary people thought of homosexuals then. Almost overnight a sexual perversion was transformed into something “gay”, then when AIDS broke amongst American homosexuals, we saw a massive cover-up, something they nearly managed to pull off. If though you read medical texts – books by Springer-Verlag for example – you will realise there is nothing contentious about the idea that if you play in a sewer you will contract horrible diseases.
If it were only homosexuals, the problem wouldn’t be so bad, but we have bisexual men and drug addicts of both sexes spreading AIDS, so yes we should be concerned. If you don’t consider it “misandric” to claim men are largely responsible for rape, you should not consider it “homophobic” to speak the truth on this issue either.
- JohnM
August 9, 2016 at 8:06 pm -
HIV has been infecting humans since around 1920. In Africa. The disease is considered to have originated as a cross-over infection from monkeys who had the simian version of HIV ( SIV) (yes, I know there are several subtypes).
Quite frankly, given the disease is “loose” in the hetero community, the attitude of many to PReP is a great cause of concern. Given that bisexual males have sex with females as well, it surely helps that any way to prevent infection is considered.
The figures from the states are somewhat alarming. New infections are at a ratio of 3:1 homosexual:heterosexual. Since the primary point of infection with females is unprotected sex with infected males…
The alternative to pre, and post exposure treatments being given is no treatment until infection is confirmed. Since it can take an average of 5 years before symptoms appear, the number of infection will rapidly spiral upwards. At the moment the US CDC estimates some 136,000 people are unknowingly infected by HIV in the USA.
It won’t take much before the “it’s their fault let them die” attitude towards gay people will also be directed towards other groups of people needing expensive treatment…..- The Blocked Dwarf
August 9, 2016 at 9:08 pm -
It won’t take much before the “it’s their fault let them die” attitude towards gay people will also be directed towards other groups of people needing expensive treatment….
No ‘will’ about it, it already is, directed against Smokers, drinkers, drug addicts, the Overweight, the Elderly…
- The Blocked Dwarf
- windsock
August 10, 2016 at 7:50 am -
Well, for a pure example of what we are today calling “homophobia”, that’s not bad. Your attitudes of the 60s were a cultural phenomenon. Times move on and so does vulture, even if certain people get left behind.
“if you play in a sewer you will contract horrible diseases”… are you saying sub-Saharan Africa is a sewer? You seem to forget that in that area of the world, HIV is a largely a heterosexual problem. Do you not think routes of transmission exist between white people who fancy black people – or are they playing in a sewer too?
- windsock
August 10, 2016 at 7:52 am -
Whoops “…so does Culture”
- The Blocked Dwarf
August 10, 2016 at 9:49 am -
“if you play in a sewer you will contract horrible diseases”
Strange how the Homophobes always seem soooOOo hung up on the anal sex thing…unhealthily so it seems to my mind.
- Bandini
August 10, 2016 at 11:39 am -
There are plenty of people who contract horrible diseases without going anywhere near a sewer, of course – there’s a little lass lives down my street who looks to have been battling one such for years (eye patch goes on/comes off, hair grows back then its back to the bandana). The language is all very fire & brimstone, a God punishing those who stray from the path of moral rectitude (but who lets himself off for cruely inflicting misery on the innocent – see above).
How about ‘play with fire and you’ll get burned’ instead, as the danger inherrent in casual encounters with strangers while being off your noggin must surely be a part of the ‘thrill’ behind such behaviour; I can see why some might feel ‘they asked for it’ when it has consequences. But it seems to go deeper than the ‘they were asking for trouble’ directed towards the ill-prepared hikers freezing to death atop of Ben Nevis or whatever, more of a hand-rubbing glee at another’s predicament. It is possible to think that someone behaved like an idiot without taking pleasure in their downfall.
- Bandini
August 10, 2016 at 3:44 pm -
Strange how the Heterophobes always seem soooOOo hung up on… well, just about anything going:
“His words were immediately picked up on social media and scrutinised.
Some condemned the seemingly hetereonormative assumption behind the comment.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bbc-homophobic-paul-hand-complaints-olympics-commentator-reporter-rio-games-a7182781.html- tdf
August 10, 2016 at 8:20 pm -
The tennis world’s answer to Alan Partridge?
- Bandini
August 10, 2016 at 9:54 pm -
Pretty much – the ‘before he met Dale Winton’ version at least!
(It seems that the journo misspelt ‘heteronormative’ – a word I didn’t know even existed – which might say something.)- tdf
August 10, 2016 at 10:08 pm -
^ There is actually an episode where he (Partridge) interviews a lesbian couple on Knowing Me and starts off trying to be polite but of course soon descends into car-crash territory.
- tdf
- Bandini
- tdf
- Bandini
- The Blocked Dwarf
- windsock
- JohnM
- john malpas
August 10, 2016 at 2:21 am -
Dare I point out that most ( quite a few, lots, some) people display homophobia to a degree by marrying a heterosexual.
Honest. Bigoted but there it is.
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