Watch This: The Face of HIV/AIDS, Then and Now
Photo Credits: Screengrab from Tyler Curry YouTube
Dallas-based writer and photographer Tyler Curry has a powerful and illuminating message in his video titled, “The Face of HIV/AIDS, Then and Now.” In the heartbreaking awareness video, Curry illustrated the kind of life he could have lived as an HIV positive gay man had he contracted the disease during the ’80s instead of in 2012.
Curry was born in 1983, at a time when HIV was new and was then “known as some kind of gay cancer.” He said that when he got the diagnosis, his primary concerns were “dating, premature aging, finding someone to love, and more importantly finding someone to have sex with.” But then Curry realized that those concerns were “luxuries” because we lost a generation of young and brilliant gay men to HIV and AIDS who didn’t have access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support that we have today.
He discussed how the people then knew they were infected. How the sudden appearance of reddish, purple lesions on their face, mouth, throat, feet, and legs (Kaposi’s sarcoma) became the HIV/AIDS-defining condition but nothing could be done because there wasn’t even an HIV test available yet. Curry talked about many other things and how the situation of an HIV-positive person had changed over the course of time. Watch him talk about it below.
Tyler Curry is an LGBT activist and a senior editor at HIV Equal Online. He’s also the managing editor of Plus Mag (HIV Plus), a contributor at The Advocate Magazine, and the creator of the Needle Prick Project. According to The Advocate, the Needle Prick Project is an “editorial campaign to elicit a candid and open conversation on what it means to be HIV positive today.”
For more information on The Needle Prick Project, click here, you may also follow Tyler Curry on twitter at @IAmTylerCurry.
If you or anyone you know wish to get tested, wherever you are in the world there’s an accessible testing center. Those in the United States can click Get Tested while those in Australia may click here; Canada here or if you are from New Zealand, you may book a test here; or from Europe, click here. Those from the Philippines can check here or those from Asia in general can check this link. Are you in South Africa? Then you may request for an appointment here.
Thoughts? Share it with us in the comments section below.
As I watched the footage, I remembered the news reports of a strange disease that was causing Gay Men to get sick, and die rapidly. That disease was AIDS, but before that you would be infected with HIV. What scared me most was that it was something you could get by having sex, and back then a lot of it was going on. Through time I learned how to protect myself, and I made choices that made sense to me so I was able to remain free of HIV AIDS. We have lost millions from this disease, many who were Family, close Friends, so I know first hand what we are dealing with. Today we have made strides that can protect us from the virus (PREP) and we can also help those who are going through an HIV digonosis live longer. We still have so much more to do, so take a moment to think of those who are no longer with us, and those who are living with HIV AIDS.
And just start this, To those who are in charge of posting this comment on this particular subject -don’t moderate my comment because it may not agree with your opinion or anybody else or it might offend other people
this is true fact and this is based on my personal experience
SO DO POST THIS!
I would like to say that gay man still aren’t taking the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the EARLY 80s to present day infections as serious as they SHOULD
& could be in present day 2018
From the early 80s ,there was this idea about HIV / AIDS AMD NOY KNOW WHAT IT WAS !!….but after everything that I’ve read and seen it
Now myself being newly diagnosed a few years ago People and many Gay men are being VERY Selfish —they’re being very blasé almost non-caring of their idea of having sex with whoever ,however many guys or others & as much as they want –
even when they’re positive !!!
It’s such BS! ,
Gay men need to realize there is consequences to their actions
-your idea of just having sex just to get off -getting your rocks off
-have as much sex with as many people as you want
– wherever
Or you who claim open & committed relationships yet get around
“It’s all bullshit- it’s very selfish behavior
it’s ruin peoples lives as it did with myself
It Almost took mine three years ago waking up to find I had pneumocystic pneumonia after a week of being extremely sick going from room to rim taking everything I had to do so , barely eating . Really only Sleeping and yet to wake up two days later after being, induced into a coma due to a possible stroke
because of what this disease was doing to me
I had dropped almost 70 pounds am a slight of dead and that is the reality of it and that’s only three years ago ….
People Esp Gay Men , anybody who is sexually active in this day and age
who isn’t using condoms and yes I haven’t in the past
but I will tell you this …
we are all responsible for this disease being spread like it is & has over 3 almost 4 decades
we are all responsible for preventing it if possible but yet those of us living with this disease and
By everything that means anything or all means —Don’t act like no one is responsible for its transmission or otherwise!!
YOU ARE ALL a part of this
-whether your negative or positive
Regardless of Prep- regardless of being undetectable -on meds or otherwise
You’re ruining peoples lives especially when you don’t disclose what you are engaging in
You’re ruining peoples lives
……when I got this disease
I was single … been single for ten years I wasn’t running around behaving like this
and I’m sorry if this sounds judgmental but my Hell
it is because you know what it is and know how to genuinely prevent the spread of HIV
But yet people being comfortable with their selfish behavior
Yet You may ensue onto somebody else, not just you ,
….and just to clarify….
I got mine for my kiss from an unhealed wisdom tooth extraction I wasn’t having sex at the time
for the time
I had been seeing a few somebody( s) that werent being very upfront dishonest
Was I supposed to go around and never kiss somebody
Was I not supposed to do anything because of people lying or deceiving
Or just being so g*ddamn rotten —in their pursuits getting off !
Wake up people!!!
Esp you Gay men
And those you who and yes you all who are engaging in –
—group
—sex orgies or
just f*cking around with whoever & even you all in “open & committed “ so called relationships or so called marriages and relationships in general
It’s bullshit
because you’re just being a selfish prick &
along the way you might just be infecting other people especially if you’re not aware of your status
GET IT TOGETHER PEOPLE !!!!. Despite this being harsh or judgmental ..
This is why we are where we are with this disease and other STDS/STIs …..
It is disgusting how people know spread the idea that HIV is no big deal, just a minor inconvenience, which is leading a ridiculous number of stupid young men to get infected by barebacking. It is still a mortal illness, not necessarily treatable, and treated with heavy-duty medications that have side effects, are costly, and require constant monitoring of your health. It is the height of irresponsibility to encourage infection and to get infected. No one owes you any care, and you cost those who truly need care, by diverting resources to your pathetic self. It’s time to stop fundraising for AIDS.
There are gay men living with much worse diseases who get no help or support. So shut up about AIDS already.
in 1990 i knew 3 ppl. that had Kaposi’s they had it frozen off their body an tried to cover up scares with makeup.
Oh, man, looking at these pics just brings back horrible memories; two best buds of mine that I lost to hiv/aids 88′, 91′, they both suffered, as I suffered emotionally for them. Going to their funerals, the anguish of their parents, the impact that had on me to this very day, I think of them, still, missing them and the times we had together.
I remember the guys I saw in the community, whom I knew of, that had the obvious and physical
symptoms and thought about what it must feel like for them, frightened, embarrassed. They were just so damn young to be going through this, looking far beyond their true years of age,
no body, on this earth, deserves this….
I’ve always been a very cautious person, beyond my years even then as a very young man. I’ve only had anal-sex as the btm twice in my whole life; about the time I came out; guess I’m not wired that way, it just wasn’t the bees-knees for me. Honestly, I’m not always crazy about toping anally either; has to be someone I’m in love with and in a monogamous relationship-fully trust, even then, still using a condom. Oral and frottage are more my speed, I think these practices saved me honestly.
It was just about this time a year (give or take a month) that as I was walking down Castro after a night of amazing sex in a bare room in a cupola of a painted lady with an amazing hunk from the midwest, that the first announcements of HIV were made in the press, little did I know how that headline would change my life. I have stayed HIV negative, but I have been forced to watch the death of hundreds of friends, acquaintances and patients- in a few short months a co-worker dropped to the floor of the electronics Lab, where I was a systems analyst- having to be taken by ambulance to the local hospital in Modesto CA and then air evac[d to San Fransico General only to die shortly thereafter never touched by an ungloved human hand again…He was the first victim of the “Gay Plague” I knew- in a short time there would be many many more- My first friend was lucky he went fast my later friends lived longer but were miserable, their lives taken from them a little each day, killed a little more with each pill or virus or bacterial infection– It was hideous and horrifying to watch beautiful strong handsome become walking skeletons only to find they had died because of the yard sale or finding their coat or furniture at a goodwill…It was a dark time of hopelessness, despair, pain, loss for all of us, for the community…then we saw the arrival of AZT and DDI, and shortly after that other antiretrovirals- and there was some hope- then there became life, and now we have PrEP and PEP and knowledge of transmission- what we are lacking is the motivation of the young ones to get on it and use it consistently- I have spent over 30 years as an HIV prevention specialist, advocate, navigator and caregiver, and friend- As I watched the Face of AIDS now and then- it brought back the memories, the pain, the loss, a reminder of a time no one should ever have had to experience…
Several people I knew before I came out, and the man who helped me come out, died of AIDS, and I actually spent over 10 years not having sex, partly from fear that catching it would out me and would be fatal. I remember thinking the anonymous test was a great way to stop the spread, as most guys who got it back then would hardly even masturbate with others, to prevent sharing the anguish. I remember the declining exposure rate began to skyrocket after that hateful hypocrite Jesse Helms made them eliminate anonymous testing. But I was grateful when Privacy Acts made testing popular again.
I still am amazed how many people still believe the earliest contagion theories, and how many think “undetectable” means “stealth AIDS” that can infect because the test can’t find it (they don’t realize “undetectable” is a term for negative, used by doctors scared of being sued, since nothing is absolute). I am also amazed by the number of health care professionals who don’t know that thrush, viscous irritating eye mucous, and severe short-duration symptoms like stomach flu or food poisoning, are clues a test may be needed.
All in all, progress is great, but until we ourselves get rid of ignorance, and commit to looking out for each other, we still will have people in denial, and segments of society unduly exposed to this controllable epidemic.
40 years later and people largely still treat those infected like nothing more than their disease or a fetish. I’ve found it basically impossible to connect with negative guys because they’re so painfully ignorant of everything poz guys go through. My body hates every medication I’ve tried, for years I’ve spent every day feeling like my insides are being ripped out, and this is supposed to be my great standard of living for the next 40 years? Fuck that, I’d rather take the chance on dying.