Is “HIV” a dangerous infection you shouldn’t get “complacent” about, or a matter of simply “living with HIV”? How does the medical paradigm reinforce the meanings and stories we give “HIV” — or anything else we call a disease? HEAL-San Diego founder and Zenger’s Newsmagazine publisher Mark Gabrish Conlan takes on the paradoxes of “AIDS” propaganda, giving his unique perspective as a queer community activist since the early 1980s.
“One reason that the myth has survived as long as it has is that it works both for the queer community and for individual gay men to say, Well, it’s not my fault, it’s a virus. . . . And at the same time, it allows the radical right to say, There’s this horrible virus that threatens all of humanity, and it started in the gay community, and it’s their irresponsible sexuality that has spread it. So . . . the myth really serves both sides.”
Although the print edition of Zenger’s no longer appears, its online edition, www.zengersmag.blogspot.com, is, as we say, “alive and well” under Mark’s continuing leadership. He also contributes to the East County Magazine Web site at www.eastcountymagazine.org.