"HIV won't kill me, your indifference will."
By @LucasFauno Photo: Marianella Pietraccone ONE - CAUSE OF DEATH I'm exhausted by society's need for me to be "the AIDS sufferer." My positive body is a calming factor for the most fascist right. They revel in a Catholic guilt they know how to impose on us. If I'm the one carrying the cross, they can walk lightly.
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By @LucasFauno Photo: Marianella Pietraccone ONE - CAUSE OF DEATH I'm exhausted by society's need for me to be "the AIDS sufferer." My positive body is a calming factor for the most fascist right. They revel in a Catholic guilt they know how to impose on us. If I'm the one carrying the cross, they can walk lightly . I'm more likely to die of sadness than of some illness related to HIV and AIDS. Don't point the finger at HIV or AIDS for your desire to see me guilty and dead so you can live another day in your holy tranquility. In high school, I passed all my HIV and AIDS papers with an A. Today I live with the virus. Could it be that sex education in this country is still hostage to a Catholic, apostolic, and unromantic state? A meat grinder that vomits out scapegoats. De-educate us and you will defeat us. Neither my mom will spoil me when she finds out I'm a condom-rider, nor will my dad love me when he finds out I'm gay. I was miseducated in the nineties. That infamous decade in which AIDS was a major topic of soap operas and movies. To the rhythm of the neoliberal march and the Cancún T-shirts, for a kid who didn't even know his own sexuality, the topic was very much "beyond General Paz": it didn't happen here. During that same era, the National AIDS Law was passed: Law 23.798, which is now old and obsolete. It demonstrates a lack of addressing human rights issues. An antiquated law that doesn't consider kids who grew up, because, of course, in that era of MTV and Ferraris, no one imagined they would. A law with as much of a rancid smell as all the deputies who recently stood up and refused to vote for the new National AIDS Law. One that considers other STIs (sexually transmitted infections), that addresses the workplace, that focuses on the fact that death from HIV and AIDS isn't always physical: we are murdered socially. But for the deputies, we are not an emergency. TWO - CULTURE OF CURE If I suffer from depression due to the side effects of my medication and therefore decide to commit suicide, from the hell I hope to go to—paradise seems very sham to me—I will hold responsible each and every one of those who remained silent on the subject of what happens when we are medicated. Do I decide? Little. I am a commodified body. Hostage to fear and corporations, certainly. But I want to live. And for that, I want my medication. The one I'm entitled to, not the one that brings them the most. And today, in the beautiful HIV and AIDS reports, no one talks about the reagent shortages. There are no official voices from the government. It's the organizations that open the dialogue, that accompany the walk of exhausted bodies that go through hospitals. The virus isn't killing me; the anxiety of walking around like a criminal is. We're supposed to get tested three or four times a year, but there are no reagents. There's silence . And for the media, the only thing that matters here is the cure. Every two months, my Facebook wall fills with friends happily waving a false flag of victory. I've shared a headline thousands of times saying it's here, that the cure comes from a bee or a radioactive citizen, and I don't know what else. Why do they care so much? For me? I don't think so. Allow me to doubt it. A cure means that if one day they have to cross the threshold of shame and stand by me, once it exists, it won't be so serious. They're celebrating their future salvation, not my health. And why do I say this? Because when there's news like the lack of medication or condom deliveries, the number of shares is infinitely lower. They don't need my life, because, of course, they still think we have "the pill" to live. What kind of life are we talking about? What quality of life? If I shit myself or get dizzy every day, if I get depressed, if I don't dare to take it in front of my boyfriend because of the stigma it entails, I don't see that on any wall. That's considered closet. Outwardly, I'm still an "AIDS carrier"… AIDS… because they keep using 90s terminology . Maybe it's less noticeable because we're experiencing a neoliberal resurgence, but what can I say? It still hurts me. THREE- RAISED VOICE And while you read this and you say, "What a resentful asshole," or "If he has it, it's because he didn't take care of himself," I share with you (not confess) that this health situation is my responsibility, it's my mistake, without a doubt. But I also invite you to reflect and rethink. There was no lack of education because I memorized everything I should have. I'm sure I lacked confidence and information. I'll leave the pleasure of pointing the finger to you; I'm not going to point the finger at the person who passed it on to me. I'm left thinking that if I hadn't thought I was an ugly, unfuckable bastard, I might have been able to talk to my partner and tell him to test us before we stopped taking care of ourselves. But of course, when, one night, a phallus chooses you as the baptismal font for its flow, you—who are gushing blood from all the assaults—won't care much about what might happen. I felt chosen, loved. The condom stayed in the drawer, along with all the classmates who called me 'little faggot,' all the boxer shorts ads that called me 'fucking skinny,' all the casual fucks who didn't even want to know my name or my horoscope. I left a lot in that drawer. Today I'm burying it all. Everything. The metaphors are there. Today I stop being just a statistic and I give a face to HIV . My pride is not a virus but the visibility that allows me to speak and frees me from death . Today I discover my pleasure in the thousand ways you suppose you forbid me. And when I say "you," may every saint take responsibility for who I speak to. And on December 2nd, don't forget that we live with the virus all year round, not just on this date. Today I invite you to dialogue, to enjoy the tongue both in the genitals and in the raised voice. In the raised hand. In the raised libido. I repulse this mamushka of closets where they pretend to hide our sexuality. Because both adolescents and older adults become infected by default of not being the center of the phallocentric male universe. Because information is scarce or, worse, silenced. Here, no one else is silenced. Our voice, our body, our tears, or our pleasure are not silenced. There are many of us who are positive voices who need to doubt and speak out, but for fear of being humiliated, we remain in the mold. And with total impunity, they will say: "AIDS killed him." No. AIDS does not force us to remain silent, nor does it deny you facts, nor does it profit from your body. That's what governments and corporations do. FOUR - NO HIV is not going to kill me, nor AIDS, your indifference is going to kill me. Well, I'm not going to allow it. Not me, nor anyone else.
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Dear Lucas… Indifference is a terrible abuse because it's abandonment. Beyond religions and religious figures, when we are abandoned and loneliness is so unbearable it terrifies us, the only one who reaches out is God. Clarification. I disbelieve in religions and religious figures, but not in God, because I've understood that for all creation—and that's what we are—there is a creator.
I am one of those "saints" who takes responsibility for whomever you're talking about, because I judge homosexuals not from their condition but from their decision, understanding that the decision makes the condition in the same way that opportunity makes a thief. You well know that as adults we are what we decide: kings or slaves, heroes or villains, gods or devils, and we have to take responsibility for those decisions, knowing that every reproach we make is an attempt to hold others responsible for our decision. This has nothing to do with the state of weakness (depression) where others take advantage to dominate us, or the state of helplessness (childhood) where others take advantage to abuse us; these are situations beyond our power to decide, but it is also quite true that "every pig has its day," and when that time comes, it will be our decision to seek justice.
I am not writing to reproach you. I will raise my flag for your cause because the state cannot abandon you, or anyone else. It is there for that, to rescue, assist, and intercede for its citizens. It must be like blood, rushing to the place of wound without waiting to be summoned. And when it doesn't come, it will be us—you, me, the infection—who will reclaim it, or risk throwing our corpses upon its sovereignty if they do not respond appropriately, without handouts, demagoguery, or self-promotion. As it should! But that's it... I will not cry for you. I don't want you to live in pain, reproaching out of indignation, dismissed by those who should and don't help you, I don't want the side effects of your medication, I WANT YOU TO HEAL!
I believe in the body's self-repair (animals and plants do it, why not humans?), in alternative options that medicine rejects, such as RPI (Induced Deep Relaxation) by neuroscientist John C. Lilly. HYDROGEN PEROXIDE by M. Cavagnaugh. WATER HEALING by Dr. Masaru Emoto harmonized with high frequency; THE electronic bactericidal square wave ZAPPER by Dr. Hulda Clark. VEGANISM, a practice that rejects the use and consumption of products and services of animal origin as a healing food behavioral reorganization. I believe in myself! I believe in God!
I DO NOT PROMISE OR SELL ANYTHING for the simple reason that I cannot generate false expectations. Many of the things I've mentioned were developed by scientists (as they identify themselves), and I base my conviction on the reports of Dr. Guylaine Lanctôt. I'm just saying that I believe in these alternatives more than anything else. As the song says... Who said all is lost? I come to offer my heart. As I said at the beginning, I maintain at the end... We are what we decide, and the decisions are ours. Best regards.