Petrelis Files

SF Homo HIV Hell Has Frozen Over

If there was one thing you could always count from AIDS Inc in San Francisco, it was that it would be a cold day in hell before I was invited to be on a panel at community forum on anything to do with HIV prevention or the clutter of social marketing campaigns assaulting homosexuals.

Well, hell has frozen over and I'm sharpening my ice skates. There will be an "Edge Talk" sponsored by member organizations of AIDS Inc on Thursday starting 6:30 PM at the community center on Market Street, and I'm on the panel.

As one can well imagine, after years of calling for dismantling offensive and incompetent HIV prevention agencies and DPH programs, firing epidemiologists caught manipulating stats, forcing the CDC to audit wasteful community-based groups, and offering much criticism, sometimes loudly, at public meetings for the gay community, I'm not the first, or twelfth, on anyone's list in this town when deciding on official speakers at forums.

The topic is social marketing and good gay health, and sure, it's shocking this leading critic of HIV prevention mafiosi has been invited to speak and be a panel member, the main perpetrator of stigmatizing and ineffectual social ad campaigns, Less Pappas of Better World Advertising agency, is not on the panel.

I hope the discussion, free of Pappas' self-serving domination of earlier forums where he refused to entertain notions that the criticism against his agency's work must be confronted and changed, is a discussion challenging the fundamental theory that social marketing is a necessary component to healthy gay wellness.

The moderator of Thursday's meeting is Michael Scarce, who used to work at the Stop AIDS Project. He's penned an op-ed about gay health in the current Bay Area Reporter. His column is well worth reading in full, and I say that even though I strongly disagree with his contention that nonprofits and local health departments are worthy partners in creating gay health policies free of hysteria, provocation and stigmatizing messages. I view those agencies more as part of the problem than any solution and think the best thing AIDS Inc could do is give us a break from their propaganda.

Here's some of Scarce's BAR piece:

This is why several organizations and community members are collaborating to produce "EdgeTalk: Queer Men's Wellness" – a series of monthly community forums on "edgy" topics related to the health of gay, bi, and trans men. I know what you're thinking: "Yawn – another workshop, another panel discussion – Zzzzzzz ..." But the EdgeTalk series, like our health movement, involves more than just a laundry list of current issues or one-shot events. These forums offer an opportunity to meet others who want to transform gay men's health by taking control of our own wellness, on our own terms.

It has become clear that a gay men's health movement can only emerge from the ground up. Government health agencies and community organizations can play a role as partners, but they cannot single-handedly accomplish what we need: a radical and sustainable shift in how we approach gay men's health. The gay men's health movement will not manifest without a visible and public expression of need from a critical mass of community members.

One clear hurdle is to go beyond addressing gay men's health primarily through a lens of HIV prevention. This approach is inherently limited and problematic: it draws on a disease model driven by crisis and fear, and it foregrounds individual deficits by blaming and shaming rather than affirming collective assets such as our resilience and innovation. The prioritizing of HIV above all other health concerns for our entire community, often in contradiction to how we live and love, itself poses a unique threat to our health.

Click here for more info on the town hall meeting on July 17. And I hope to see you there and hear your opinion on gay social marketing targeting our eyeballs.