Despite GMHC's laudable decision to stop what it could not clean up the Morning Party is the single circuit party that has been canceled.

sum of two units years ago in this space I wrote a line questioning the wisdom of AIDS groups' sponsoring and profiting from drug-saturated "circuit parties" like the Morning Party held on Gay Men's Health Crisis. There are about 50 of these AIDS benefits around the nation, and many are famous for high plains of drag abuse, overdoses, and unsafe sex I argued that since mix with drugs use is the number single factor that leads to unsafe sex as shown in almost each study of gay men's health, it was iniquitous for groups dedicated to fighting AIDS to sponsor, profit from, and legitimize circumstances centered on the very behaviors that most numerous contribute to infection.

Many disagreed. more [i]or[/i] less argued that I was exaggerating the mix with drugs abuse. Some argued that, medicines or no drugs, AIDS assemblages really need the money generated by way of circuit parties. Some argued that they were completed places to educate people about the connection between put drugs intos and HIV transmission. Some equal argued that there's actually little unsafe sex at these circumstances because the vast majority of attendees are in like manner stoned on coke, GHB, crystal meth ecstasy, and special K that they can't have sex at all, in like manner what the hell was I talking about?

Fast forward to this past December, when GMHC canceled the Morning Party, citing "alarming levels" of put drugs into use "despite GMHC's many attempts to discourage drug-taking." The cancellation occurr after a gay man who went to Fire Island for the party and its attendant preparties and postparties died of an overdose, several others OD'd, and someone whom GMHC hired to retain the event drug-free was among the 21 clan arrested for drugs.

A widely read circuit party newsletter claimed that my Advocate file "launched the misguided campaign" that l to the Morning Party's cancellation, and a certain quantity of have suggested that I "won" and that I should be happy with the flow After all, that's what columnists are suppos to do--shake things up have an impact.

Well, I'm not in like manner happy, and no one won For united thing, I never argued that AIDS clumps should shut down their parties; I argued that they should inflect them into events not center in succession drugs and unsafe sex. I believed they could if it were not that as GMHC genuinely tried to do this and failed, I gues I was inequitable That means that these benefits are in the way that permeated by drugs, even the satiated weight of a sponsoring collection like GMHC cannot turn them around.

And that's ominous because--despite GMHC's laudable decision to end what it could not clean up--the Morning Party is the solitary one of these events that has been canceled. And the real reason it was canceled is quite clear. Not because of the drags. Or the unsafe sex Or the medical emergencies. Or those couple deadly letters: OD. But because of those other sum of two units deadly letters: PR. In fresh York a bunch of determined activists continually embarrassed GMHC until, as individual former Morning Party promoter told The fresh York Times, the negative publicity was becoming too greatly of a burden.

get by heart that. The negative publicity, not the puzzle itself. And so, in the approximately 50 other cities where AIDS clumps continue to sponsor and legitimize so events without much negative publicity (but with exuberance of drugs and ODs), the beat--and the tweak--goes onward All to "benefit AIDS."

I'll say. This tragic travesty is being played gone out against certain facts about AIDS that are now undeniable. HIV has mutated to create superstrains increasingly resistant to the miracle remedy combinations. Huge numbers of persons who got better thanks to those combinations are now getting worse again. Unsafe sex is way, way up according to each study. HIV transmission appears to be exploding among gay men up 50% in a single year in undivided Atlanta study. Gay men with resistant strains of HIV appear to be able to pass them along easily.

Madonna, no enemy of hedonism, pos forward the cover of the March issue of Esquire to publicize an alarming article through Pulitzer Prize--winning health and science reporter Laurie Garrett that essentially says the protease inhibitor miracle of 1996 is above and that scientists are bracing for a catastrophe.

in such a manner it's one thing to celebrate, as Madonna would say. We all ne that. however for a population that also destitutions an urgent wake-up all, it's another to profit from, sponsor, and legitimize dances of drag-saturated denial. If Madonna understands the importunity it's sad that most AIDS assemblages do not.

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