Grindr for the Healthy and Clean

Firstly, before I continue with my blog can I plug a link to the photo exhibition which I did a shoot for a few weeks ago and mentioned in my last installment:

http://standtallgetsnapped30hivpeople.tumblr.com

I hope you can make it along to the exhibition or maybe even take part somehow?

I would like to talk about the power of language. The words that we use define us as individuals. Some of us fucking swear excessively. Some of us, like,  use the same word, like,  in sentences all the time, like,  even when it like has no context, like. Some of us are very obtuse, brash and wield words like a sledgehammer, whilst others are highly diplomatic and conscientious of the impact of what they say.  Words have destroyed businesses, like Gerald Ratner of Ratners High Street Jewelers saying how the decanters they sold were so cheap because they were “crap”.  Words can highlight the sheer stupidity of supposed great men in places of immense power such as George W Bush and his fool me once shame on you fuck up speech. As a result of manipulated and inaccurate words in a scientific paper published in the Lancet in 1998, tens of millions of pounds were spent on litigation cases and thousands of children suffered needlessly from measles and mumps. Yes, words can have dire implications indeed.

The nineteenth century school playground rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” was conjured up to try and minimize the negative impact of name calling and taunting. However, Having suffered from physical, emotional and psychological traumas at various points over the 36 years I have walked the earth I have to say that it is the words, the emotional and psychological assaults and injuries that have caused the most significant scarring. If only I was a stoical as some of those Victorian children eh. The wrong words can lead to depression, self doubt, self loathing, self harm even suicide. We are all aware of Bullying and the impact it can have on individuals and in our modern era of multiple methods of communication, bullying can be inflicted as a multi faceted attack. Facebook, text messages, smartphone applications, emails and phone calls. I have to agree that the pen is very much mightier than the sword, but the keyboard is even mightier! Anyway, enough of this rant, I need to say where it is going.

Something happened to me today. Something which really gets up my nose. I logged into Grindr on my iphone while I was on my tacho Break. Grindr is one of  several social networking app’s for gay men to chat, swap photos and hook up.  The app consists of many different guys profiles which contain a “family safe” photo of choice, basic stats and a brief paragraph of their own choosing.  The app then searches for all the other guys who are logged on or have recently logged on in your vicinity and displays how far away they are from you. It is elegantly simple and effective, in theory. The interesting thing about these kinds of app is that they seem to have evolved their own social etiquettes outside the realms of normal social communication. The fact that you have literally hundreds of guys at your fingertips kind of opens up a limitless opportunity to virtually cruise for gratuitous sex.

Some guys initiate a conversation conventionally with a “hi” or a “how’s it going”. This kind of conversation has the potential to blossom into something interesting. A drawn out tennis game of small talk or become a convoluted waltz of flirtation, platitudes and direct or indirect personal questions and answers. Others start the conversation with single words such as “Hot”, “Fit” “Woof” or “Oink”. These openings are meant to pander to your narcissistic side and elicit a response of thanks and potential reciprocation. This type of direct approach indicates that the guy is less likely to be looking for a chat and more likely to be feeling horny and wanting to empty his balls. Amazing how you can read so much information from the first word of a conversation with a complete random stranger.  Some guys open a conversation by sending you a dirty pic. One of their cock, or arse or of them being fucked or sucking a cock. Personally I find this approach a bit offensive. I mean, as nice as it is to be sent a random photo out of the blue of something filthy, I actually like the art of conversation and am a lot more turned on by what is going on inside a guys head than how big his cock is.

Another opening approach the single word: “Pix?” or “Cockpic?” or “Arsepic?” I find these opening lines both unbelievably rude and seriously immature. Yes I have pics. I have loads. However, I also have manners. I also have a personality. I also have a bit more about me than just a pic of my anatomy. It is not my job to educate these lads on their social skills but sometimes I cant help myself and launch into a tirade of questioning their upbringing and dilution of the genetic pool from their geographical place of origin and if they had managed to obtain a GCSE in English. Most of the time it just goes over their head and they just come back at me with the same question but with a please on the end. “Ok I get you, cockpic please?” At which point I am usually screaming at my phone screen.

There are also the 3 most predictable questions that invariably 95% of guys will always ask:

1.     What you into?

2.     What you looking for?

3.     You Top or Bottom?

These questions are now so predictable that they have almost become a cliché!

 I dunno what I am into. It is different depending on who I am playing with. With some guys I might be into snogging, with others I may be into Piss…. How on earth am I meant to answer this question to a complete stranger? My usual answer is “everything” which throws the ball back into their court.

What am I looking for? Well I am on a gay hook up app on my phone… I can pretty much guarantee that I am looking for the same as 95% of all the other guys logged into grindr at this present moment!

Am I top or Bottom? See the answer to question 1!

Some guys are completely hypocritical. They have a blank photo or one of just their torso or a big toe or their cat or their car or of a sunset or something fluffy and yet they have written on their profile page “No facepic: No chat”. What the fuck? What is this ‘Do as I say not as I do’ bullshit?

There was a bit of an incident several months back when a buddy of mine in Canada had his Grindr profile censored because he stated his HIV status on his profile page. This caused uproar amongst many groups on the internet and created a lot of negative publicity for Grindr. Many guys were outraged. Many emailed Grindr directly, including myself and many guys simultaneously started to put their HIV status onto their profile pages. Personally I never heard anything back from Grindr but I have not heard of any other cases of grindr censoring a profile that is stating the owners status. This kind of discrimination by a large player in the gay dating business like Grindr is seriously unacceptable. Hopefully they realised that it is irresponsible of them to not allow somebody to advertise their status.  Not to mention the fact that, at least here, in the UK, HIV is covered under the disability discrimination act. Being open and honest about your status on such profiles reduces stigma and allows guys to make informed choices about the kind of sex they want to have. I think we are most definitely at a point in the HIV epidemic where we are very aware that secrecy and hiding behind fear is one of the contributing factors to the proliferation of the virus.

One of the features of Grindr is that you can block somebody if you do not like them. This means you can no longer see their profile and they can no longer see yours. This is a handy feature for if you are, for instance, being stalked or a guy doesn’t get the message that you are not interested. To block somebody because of those reasons is perfectly reasonable. However. Some guys use the block button to end a conversation if you don’t quite measure up to their expectations or are not precisely what they are looking for in a shag.

Q. Are you Top?

A. No. I’m vers m8… like to get as good as I give

BLOCK

Q. Are you hung?

A. about 7” uncut

BLOCK

Q. You looking to fuck m8?

A. Not right this minute. Maybe later…

BLOCK

I find this so unbelievably rude. I mean you wouldn’t do this in a bar or a club so what makes it acceptable in an app? However, I am guilty of doing this very thing today. But I think I was justified in my action.

The conversation went something like this:

Him: Are you Top?

Me: I’m Vers

Him: So you like fucking?

Me: I am not averse to it….

Him: Do you fuck bareback?

Me: I prefer to yes

Him: Are you clean?

Me: What do you mean?

Him: Are you healthy?

Me: Oh, Yes, I shower regularly and I go to the gym often

Him: But are you free from disease.

Me: are you?

Him: Yes. As of 2 weeks ago. I didn’t mean to offend.

Me: Yes I am poz and clean (undetectable) and healthy. And yes you have offended me.

BLOCK

I don’t think it would have served any greater purpose to have continued the conversation. Was I right to just end the conversation with a BLOCK? I was so fucking angry! I hate it when people refer to HIV positive people as unclean, unhealthy or diseased. These words are very powerful, deeply offensive and stigmatising! Yes I have a blood bourn virus but it is well managed with medication and I am physically healthier than I have been since I was in high school! Is he free from disease? Yes he may have had a recent full STI screening but is he free from cancer or heart disease or Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s? Ok, I rarely wear deodorant because I personally hate the smell and kinda like the smell of my own manly body odour. However, I shower once or twice or sometimes 3 times a day. I also douche if I think I am gonna be fucked… Cleanliness is quite high on my agenda.

We are free to choose the words that we use when we interact with others. But please be aware of the potentially negative connotations associated with certain words. Freedom of speech is something we hold in high regard. But using language responsibly takes more effort than you might think. 

My World Aids Day Speech

Hi

I’m Rich. Im 35 and have been living with HIV for 2 years now

I have really struggled with this talk.

Initially I thought I would be able to come up with something to say that showed me as a strong and hardy man. A person who had faced his demons, looked them in the eye and come out on the other side a stronger and wiser person.

Initially I felt being a positive speaker was all about putting a positive spin on being positive.

Initially, I wanted you all to like me. To see me as a beacon of hope and strength and as a person who was making a difference.

But that is not what this is about for me. This is not the reason I am being a positive speaker. I don’t want you to either like or dislike me. I just want to say what it is like, for me, to live with HIV.

I wrote a draft speech, which on the surface I was very happy with. But in reality it contained everything that I felt you guys would want to hear and nothing about how I really felt on the inside.

You see, in all honesty, I don’t think I have yet fully come to terms with being HIV positive.

In all honesty, I don’t think I have even started to come to terms with it.

In all honesty, all I have managed to do for the past 2 years is lie to myself that everything is going ok and that I have not really been affected by my status change.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not in denial

I know I have HIV. I am reminded of it every day in one way or another.

Every time I take my meds.

Every time I think about having sex with my partner, who is HIV negative.

Every time I visit my kids or speak to them on the phone.

Every time I meet  new people.

Every time I apply for a job

And

Every time I feel slightly under the weather

Having HIV is a fact that sits in the back of my mind and whispers and niggles at me continuously and it never seems to go away.

Don’t get me wrong. It is not that I don’t understand what HIV is. I grew up in the don’t die of ignorance era. I had the lectures off my mother. I saw all the news stories and have studied virus physiology in depth during my biochemistry degree. I know how it works from an intimate perspective.

Don’t get me wrong. I also know how I acquired HIV. Another fact which, up until I came to write this speech, I felt was irrelevant. I would like to say that I don’t regret my behavior which lead me to becoming positive but, in all honesty, I do!

You see, I felt so deeply unhappy with myself, in so much pain and self loathing that I went out to punish myself. I am not one of those guys who was lied to by his partner or who made a silly drunken mistake.  I am not one of those guys who played safe all his life and acquired HIV through a broken condom  or oral sex or a needle stick injury.

I took risks. Reckless, uncautious, careless and irresponsible risks.  I took these risks in full knowledge that I would probably ends up wit HIV but I was trapped in a mental state of mind that it was going to happen eventually anyway so it did not matter.

I found myself immersed a hedonistic world of endless sex and partying. I worked on the gay scene in a sauna so was constantly surrounded by sex. Most of my friends were HIV positive and preferred to have unsafe sex. So the inevitable happened. But me being me, I managed to not only get HIV. I also was diagnosed with Hep C at the same time.

So who had I got both virus’s off?

I don’t know. It could have been any of many

And actually, the only person who was really responsible for my acquisition of both these virus’s was me.

Do I regret this decision? Yes

Do I regret my behavior? Yes

Do I wish I had gone about things differently? Very much so!

But regrets are irrelevant right?

They are the signs of a weak person?

They show that you are not accepting the consequences of your actions.

Of course they do, that’s why they are regrets and anybody who says that they have no regrets is a liar. It is normal to go through the “what if” scenarios. To look at the colour of the grass on the other side of the fence. To imagine how things would have turned out if only you had made a different decision. 

The news of the double diagnosis hit me hard.

I had got what I asked for and there would be no going back.

The following 18 months of Hep c treatment. Going to the clinic every 4-6 weeks.

Dropping out of my PhD as a result.

Working as a escort to help pay my bills

The depression. The weight loss. The mood swings.

Pushing my family and friends away

A year into my diagnosis I was 50 kilos. I had lost over half my body weight. I could not eat much and had constant chronic diarrhea. I could not concentrate on much, was constantly tired and to be honest, I was about ready to give up.

In the space of a year I had gone from a first class graduate and PhD student. A lively and vibant man on track to an exciting career in academia to a weak, sick, skinny rent boy living in a squalid cold bedsit in Liverpool.

The decision to start me on meds sorted my body out.

The Man who I share my life with now sorted my mind out.

Without these two things I really believe that I would not have made it into the new year.

I am a dad

I have 3 amazing kids

They do not know I have HIV

They do not need to know as they are too young and at the moment my HIV is not making me ill and my meds give me no side effects.

They did know about my Hepatitis. But this was while I was on my treatment and underwent dramatic weight loss and mood changes.

Being a Gay dad in itself throws up its own interesting set of questions and puts you in a powerful dichotomy. You want to go off and live the care free, glossy magazine hedonistic gay lifestyle. The bars. The clubs. The holidays. The sex. The drugs. But you also have to keep a foot firmly planted on earth. To be a responsible role model for your kids. My decision to take both feet off the ground and dive into a purely gay lifestyle for a while back in 2009 was based on my own selfish need to run away from all the problems in my life. Historically I am very good at this. Running away. I recognize that now. I think deep down I can be a very selfish man.

I would have liked to have thought I was gonna be this strong man up on the stage spouting how i had overcome adversity and stigma and held my head high… but i think the reality is that I have not yet properly dealt with being positive yet. I feel strong and i come across like it isn't bothering me but deep down i know that is just a clever deception

The man I am today. The Rich you see before you is a very different person from who he was a few years ago.

On the surface I seem to be a lot more confident.

On the surface I seem to show that being HIV positive does not affect me

On the surface I appear to be an open book and that my life is on display for all to see.

However.

On the inside I am seriously messed up

On the inside I have really started to stress and worry and care what others think of me

On the inside I am very scared and insecure

I find it easier to talk about other peoples problems.

To offer strength and support to everybody else who is in a crisis

To give guidance to those who seem to have lost their way.

I find these things easier than having to sort out my own problems. That would require me to acknowledge that there is something wrong in the first place.

I feel that getting up here today and telling you all this is my first step to really coming to terms with my status. For once I have stood up and acknowledged to myself that I am not alright and that it is not all a bed of roses.

But do you know what.

It could be a lot worse.

I have a great man who loves me

I have 3 kids who love me

I have some amazing friends who love me

I have everything a man needs to help me get through any problem.

I feel that I have found a place in a community where my voice does make a difference. I am not ashamed of being positive.

My positive attitude towards HIV and the fact that I am so open about my status does seem to have resonated with many others.

The blog that I write, while it serves the purpose of providing information to others about living with HIV is also in a way quite cathartic for me.

And recently I have started to volunteer for THT.

Right now I look after myself. I eat well. I work out. I drink and smoke less. I have never looked after my body so well as I do now. Is that just my age or is it the knowledge that I have a life long chronic illness? It does seem a bit sad if it is the latter. I mean, why does it take a virus to make me look after myself better? Go figure.

I am horrified at just how ignorant many still are about HIV and how there is still such a stigma attached to something which has been around and in all our lives for 30 odd years. It is the stigma which I seem to have focused on most in the past 2 years. Probably from my own fear of being judged. The way I see it is if I can make everybody see that HIV is not something to be feared and that is it just a fact of life for us all then it will prevent me from having to go through the pain of rejection, isolation or being shunned. Fortunately I live in the UK. I don’t think my liberal attitude and open expression of my status would be looked on in the same way in many other countries across the planet.

I think I was foolish to believe that coming to terms with being positive was a quick and easy process but feel that after today I am a little bit closer.

I have recently had a phrase tattooed onto me:

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

HIV most probably isn’t going to kill me.

But is it making me stronger?

I don’t know. But there is something about the phrase that gives me hope. 

Hep C: Fears; Risks and Recriminations

I think I really need to talk a lot more on the matter of Hep C and my experiences and observations around this growing epidemic. I feel for me a massive turning point in my viewpoint on hep C was acquiring it. Up until this point I really didn't  know a lot about it at all and as a result had been polluted by the emergent swathe of misinformation, Chinese whispers and hush hush cloak and dagger conversations on the subject by buddies, guys in chat rooms and blokes on the scene. By the time I was told I was positive I was so scared, hortified and anxious about it (I was HIV negative at the time) that I genuinely thought it was the end of the world. I figured if I was going to be told i had anything it would be HIV. This was not something I had mentally prepared myself for. This was the wrong virus. How could this be happening to me?

The ironic thing is, that as a result of a particularly difficult period in my life, mixed with high levels of stress, grief and depression, I had decided to bug chase. I Needed to punish myself, and what better way? The problem was, I was stupid enough the fool myself into thinking that I was only chasing one specific bug. More fool me eh. If there was one thing I didn't want to get it was the dreaded Hep C! Nobody would touch me with a barge pole now! The (HIV) poz community I had been so desperately trying to join had suddenly become even more distant! Oh what a fool I had been!  I instantly felt like i needed to point a finger. Find another to blame, shout at somebody else to make myself feel better. I think in retrospect, this is a kind of normal reaction. Bug chasing or not.

Who had given this to me?

Who had not told me their hep C status?

Who had been the liar?

Who had duped me into playing with them whilst knowing all along that I was negative for everything?

Who the fuck was I kidding?

Nobody had given it to me. The possibility that somebody had gone put of their way to deliberately infect me existed, but, was remote at best. As fucked up as the world is I don't think it's quite that fucked up yet! The only thing most of us are guilty of is being permanently horny. Though using the word guilty in this context implies that this is a bad thing which it most certainly isn't. The fact was that the only person responsible for me getting Hep C was myself. This was a difficult conclusion the reach.

It is not (for the majority of us) until you acquire a disease however that you start to properly dig around for hard solid facts and find out a lot more about it. Just how easy it is to get. Just how hardy the virus is and how it can survive as a viable and infective agent for months outside the body and in the right conditions, like in a nice tub of crisco (Fisting lube for those of you who don't know what Crisco is) kept out in a warm playroom or even stored in a refrigerator to keep it fresh! How the straw or bullet that John, Dave and Brian have been using for the past 18 hours to get the ketamine, coke and mephedrone up their noses is probably laden not only with drug powders but also with small speckles of blood from their damaged nose lining. How Hepatitis C can appear unsymptomatic for over a decade, or that the symptoms can be so vague that you blame them on a hangover or comedown or are masked by other things such as side effects for other medications you already take. All these little facts that had managed to slip past me. The only thing to blame here then was my own ignorance. Or was it?

Being positive for Hep C grants you access to a different type of ‘Club’. However, as I was to discover, it is a very dark, underground and secretive club. One whose members habitually lie about their status. One fuelled by fear, stigma and ostracisation. Exclusion of a newer sub- group by another already ostracised and excluded group. I soon discovered with a lot more clarity that having Hep C was a little like being a Leppar within the HIV community. People stopped playing with you, stopped talking to you, stopped sending you messages online. You would get sudden waves of activity and tracks being left on your online profiles but with no cruises or subsequent contact. These behaviours left me not only paranoid but also feeling very dirty and not dirty in a good way I can tell you. However, a big upside of having Hep C for me was something pretty obvious. Acquiring this virus was something which tended to happen to the sleazier and more deviant of the fetish brotherhood. I now had access to all the filthiest fuckers on the block with no fear of getting something nasty; I already had it! Every club has its benefits so it seems! The flurry of dirty sex I had in the first 6 months of being Hep C positive was possibly the biggest learning curve about my own sexual limits I have ever experienced <GRIN GRIN GRIN>.

The problem with me is I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut! I am very open and vocal about who I am, what I have, what I have done etc etc (Though I do respect the discretion and identity of my playmates unless I have their permission to disclose who they are. Many on the scene however don’t share this moralistic viewpoint and revel in the drama of gossip and tiddle tattling about who they last fucked!). I am now very much of the opinion that the best weapon we have against ignorance and stigma is openness and communication. Being honest with myself and those around me and being able to express myself freely is something I seriously value and take a big pride in. This is what gives me confidence, helps come to terms with changes in my life and very much shapes me as an individual. This is the best weapon we have against Hep C. I feel that we still have a long way to go but I do hope that the feeling of segregation and isolation felt by many in the Hep C community can be waned away through openness and acceptance of this STD as a part of our lives as members of any community, be that HIV, fetish, gay, bisexual, sleaze, fisting, disco bunny or barebacking.  I am now Hep C negative but I still feel very much part of the Hep C community because effectively were all in this together!