Vikram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: In your view, has the Net created or decreased the sense of community in India's gay scene? Vikram ================ The Net is like a powerful weapon or tool. 1 can use it for creating a community (i believe GB came into existence that way and it sure as hell has made 1 helluva + difference to gay life in bbay) But as with everything there may be other uses made quite well turning a net into a mass pimpng site. onE has to only go to sites of adultfriends,etc to c it to believe how ppl do use net. but even if it is used for getting sex ,remember sex can only b when ppl meet and the more they meet , more they will know and have a sense of oneness. There will b some who will jerk off and think no more of the other guy ,but many will develop some bonds and a community will surely emerge very fast outta even sex related contacts made over web Zeus from andrewsullivan.com: EMAIL OF THE DAY I: "I read your blog about the meth crisis among gay men. I am a psychiatrist in Atlanta and have a significant gay male population. Of all the mental health disorders I treat - including the most severe forms of psychosis and other affective disorders - meth dependence scares me the most. When I am approached for help by these poor souls, my heart sinks. There is the traditional psychosocial treatment (i.e., 12-step recovery programs), which is great, but I cannot conceive of a more addicting and destructive substance to curse mankind, so I worry that this is not enough. What's more, there is very little press about meth, in the straight or gay media, which leaves the susceptible with the tragic impression that this isn't such a big deal. Yet, the horror stories I have heard - mind you, I am a psychiatrist and I thought I had heard it all - make my knees shake with utter terror. The progress the gay community has made with HIV awareness, research and policy is miraculous. But I agree with you: it is all for naught unless we smother this monster to its evil core. That meth is a vector for HIV is a sad reality; I fear that its potential for total descruction makes it worse than any threat HIV/AIDS has ever presented. We need to see it for what it is: mean, nasty, dirty death." ------------------------------- EMAIL OF THE DAY II: "I am 34, and just old enough to remember the period when people were dropping like flies. I would venture to guess that today at least half of the new infections are directly caused by meth use, and even more by secondary infections via other people who've been infected by them. I think that if you removed meth from the equation, the momentum of the epidemic would drop off dramatically. Unfortunately, there is not much of a commitment within the community to stopping the crystal epidemic. I think "harm reduction" has caused more damage than most people realize. My best friend is one of the casualties. He was once very talented and fun to be with, but has descended so far into psychosis that he is barely recognizable. I expect he will be dead within a year, in some ways, he already is. "I think what's needed is a healthy dose of peer pressure, positive and negative, among young people. Forget the people who've already gotten into meth, they are beyond reason until they decide to get clean. I am more concerned with the younger guys who've heard so many scare stories they don't believe how evil meth really is. Peer pressure worked in the early 90s. I felt there was tremendous pressure to remain safe, but without a lot of moralizing. Whatever was going on it worked, and it kept infection rates here very low for well over a decade, until the Internet caught on in the late 90s. Nancy Reagan did have a point, you can't get addicted to something you've never used. People forget that. "I am convinced that the Internet changed the nature of drug addiction in large cities. Speed has been a problem here for decades. What the Internet did was enable people to create a subculture that changed the way people used drugs. Instead of getting high to go dance, they'd get high and look for tricks online. While I've always been critical of excessive drug use, at least way back in the 1990s people would generally use them for social/entertainment purposes, which did a lot to limit the damage they caused. If you were single, you generally had to leave your house to get laid, and you generally had to be somewhat presentable. The Internet upset that balance, and turned drug use into a more private activity." Yes, the Internet undoubtedly played a critical part in the new meth subculture. It is also killing gay nightlife. So many gay men are at home, cracked out online that the bars and clubs are empty. Socialization has begun to disappear. Even if HIV were not here, this would be a curse. But the combination of meth and HIV is literally deadly. ------------------------------- METH AND iPODS: Here's an email that made me think: "Your latest two pieces of writing have the same underlying foundation: isolation in our current society. "It is not chance happening that the crystal meth crisis in the gay community has occurred. The generations that became afraid to have sex during the 1980's and 90's have found consolation behind a computer screen. The computer offers a safe place to connect for instant porn, in-and-out sex (yes, just like a fast food fix), and if the drugs make us feel that much better about the whole process, then what the hell. The problem lies in the isolation that accompanies online sex, dating, and life nowadays. The drugs comfort that need, and increase the isolation. Not to mention how quickly crystal becomes physically addictive... "So what's next? Peer pressure like in the 1980's does not have the same effect because we are so much more socially isolated than we were twenty years ago. I know I am, my Mom is, my friends are; aren't you? Since our society is being eaten away by isolationism, how do we get people back from behind their iPods into society? How do we get the boys back into the bars? In a country where we do not have strong social traditions, where do you go to reintroduce cultural socialization. In Italy, they walk in the evenings; In Germany, they gather at beergardens; In France, cafes. Yesterday, I went to my local coffee house in the bohemian section of Boston, Jamaica Plain, and like you, found myself alone amongst a flock of wired people. "I don't know about you, but I am getting pretty lonely. I trashed my last MP3 player, and after reading your article, have been rethinking giving into the mass media iPOD craze. Must we rip these people (including the tweekers of the gay community) from behind the computer screen to experience life and share the world?" He's onto something. ------------------ from Salon.com AIDS scare is overblown Medical experts say the "super strain" of HIV found in a New York man is probably not so super after all. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Katharine Mieszkowski Feb. 17, 2005 | An AIDS case in New York has touched off a pandemic of fear that there's a "super strain" of HIV on the loose, resistant to conventional therapies, that quickly morphs into AIDS. The virus, discovered in a 40-something gay man, a crystal meth user -- his name was not released -- proved resistant to 19 out of 20 antiviral drugs, and progressed from HIV to AIDS within a few months. News of the case broke Friday and by Saturday New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was calling on citizens to take precautions to avoid infection. "I think some people thought, 'Well, it's probably not going to happen to me,'" he told reporters. "'And if it does, there are drugs that can stop it, or control it, or let me continue to lead a life.' And that's not true with this new strain." San Diego public health officials are trying to contact another HIV- positive man whose virus is said to have a similar molecular makeup. And Massachusetts public health officials also report that they've seen cases that have been similarly resistant to therapy. The case of the "super bug" or super strain of HIV has elicited dire echoes of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. But doctors and public- health advocates caution that it's too early to tell if this is anything new. Julio Montaner, chairman of AIDS research at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, told the Chicago Tribune that in 2001 he'd identified two patients who had been infected with a strain of HIV that was resistant to nearly every available drug and that spread to AIDS within months. However, the patients turned out to isolated cases and not a public health threat. Doctors agree, though, that the current scare underscores one important thing -- how the use of crystal meth spurs unsafe sex and the potential spread of AIDS. "We are encouraging people to not respond in an overblown fashion," says Demetri Moshoyannis, executive director of Being Alive, an organization for people with HIV and AIDS in Los Angeles. "We have no idea right now how this is linked to any kind of broader transmission at all. We've heard about isolated cases before, so I would encourage people not to freak out." Dr. Jay Levy, one of the first physicians to identify the HIV virus in 1980s, and now director of the Laboratory for Tumor and AIDS Virus Research at the University of California at San Francisco, says it's a misnomer to label the New York case a new strain. "Everybody's virus is somewhat different," he says. Nor is it unheard of for a virus to be resistant to drug treatment. "A virus that's resistant to all three classes of antiretroviral drugs is not new. It's rare but it has been reported over the last three years." What's more, Levy notes, the drug resistance of the newly discovered virus may also not be significant because the results were measured in a lab and not in the patient himself. The patient could be treated with "salvage therapy," he says, where doctors mix a combination of drugs in the body until they achieve the right effect. Levy, though, was unequivocal about the effects of crystal meth. "If you're a regular user, these drugs have a detrimental effect on the immune system," he says. Levy's colleague, Dr. Fredrick Hecht, an AIDS researcher at UCSF, doubts that meth use accounts for the rapid development of AIDS in the New York patient. "I don't think it's good for you physiologically but there's not really good evidence that rapid progression would be linked with methamphetamine," says Hecht. "I could give you multiple examples of patients who look like they're doing beautifully, who are using crystal daily. It's difficult to subscribe the rapid progression of the virus to methamphetamine." However, using crystal meth does raise the odds of HIV transmission in other ways, says Perry N. Halkitis, co-director of the Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University. Being high on the drug can create "hyper-sexual behavior," increasing the odds of engaging in risky sexual practices. "It disinhibits people psychologically," says Halkitis. "It makes them feel on top of the world, powerful, invincible, and, as a result, really sexually aroused." Halkitis says that it's been shown that crystal meth users who are HIV-positive, and taking drugs to fight the virus, are likely to skip doses, giving the virus a chance to mutate. Even HIV-positive crystal- meth users who consistently take their prescribed medications often have more of the virus in their body than other patients. ""The use of meth is associated with increased viral replication in the brain, so they have more virus in their body potentially," says Halkitis. "More virus in blood and body means more likelihood of transmission." Finally, Halkitis points out, there's the health hazards of the "booty bump," slang for getting high on meth through the rectum. "Gay men have been known to insert meth anally," says Halkitis. "If you mix it with water and put it up your rectum, it's called a booty bump. It's caustic to the lining of the rectum. As a result, if you're having unsafe penetration, and your rectum is irritated, you've increased the probability of having something transmitted to you." While doctors feel that they still don't have enough information -- or cases -- to assess the true implications of the New York case, it's still significant. "This is an important example that bad things can happen," says Hecht. "You can get viruses that are drug resistant and progress rapidly. But I haven't seen anything that convinces me that this is a new virus. Whether he progressed rapidly was due to the virus he was infected with, or due to his own immune system, we're not going to be able to tell from one case." Levy says the New York case is an important jolt to pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers locked in one area of study. "This should be a wakeup call that we can't put all our energy and attention into drugs that are targeted at certain proteins of the virus," he says. "We've got to look at the other part of the equation, which is the host. Let's try to boost the immune system." - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon Technology. ------------------------------- What ever happened to safe sex? Spurred by fears of a deadly new strain of HIV, the gay community is searching its soul over its dangerous new complacency about AIDS. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Alysia Abbott Feb. 25, 2005 | A week after the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced the discovery of a deadly new strain of HIV -- a discovery later questioned by AIDS researchers -- the initial alarm heard around New York City has died down. It has been replaced by an intense public debate among activists and health officials, as well as serious soul searching among New York City's gay community. Interviews with 15 gay men this week found that while these New Yorkers were worried about being exposed to the potential new strain, they were more concerned with the decline of safe sex and AIDS awareness in their community, especially among those most at risk. For those old enough to remember the early days of the AIDS crisis in 1981-84, last week's headlines prompted a feeling of déjà vu. "There's a sense of, Goddamn it, why are people still doing this?" says Dan Cherubin, a 39-year-old librarian who works for a Dutch Agricultural Bank. "Seeing the news," he says by telephone, "made me think of Patient Zero in 'And the Band Played On,'" the first case of the "gay cancer" chronicled in Randy Shilts' landmark history of the AIDS crisis. Cherubin has lived in New York all his life and remembers those days well. One difference between then and now, he says, is that in the early days of the epidemic the safe-sex message was ubiquitous. "I remember going to bars and seeing big bowls of condoms everywhere," he recalls. "At Gay Pride parades they'd just throw those things at you. You don't see that anymore." Younger gay men, Cherubin says, have become complacent. He recently watched HBO's production of "Angels in America" with some friends who are in their early 20s. "They were shocked by the lesions, at the sense of being ill. They'd never seen what AIDS even looks like." And that, he says, scares him. "This is going to lead to someone not thinking about it." "It's hard for my generation to put a face to the disease," says Matt Grieves, a 24-year-old medical student with brown hair and piercing blue eyes, sitting in Café Big Cup in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. "How can you be afraid of hell if you've never seen Satan?" Some say this complacency has spread with the cure. Since the development in the mid-90s of the retroviral drugs -- taken as a combination of pills commonly known as a "cocktail" -- AIDS has indeed become more manageable. And while patients have different reactions to the medications, most can keep up with their normal activities. AIDS experts and public health officials have long maintained that since the introduction of cocktails people don't see AIDS as the threat it once was and as a result have been less vigilant about practicing safe sex. According to Sean Stroob, who founded Poz magazine in 1994 -- its mission was to "give back the possibility of survival to those living HIV" -- this learned complacency is "a problem with any kind of treatment. The more readily treatable [a disease is] perceived to be and the less invasive the treatment, the less fear. There's no question that fear motivates people's behavior." "I was one of those people that had been lulled into the belief that AIDS was a manageable disease, not a death sentence," says Reggie Grayson, a 39-year-old co-owner of a New York design firm. But not anymore. The new strain, Grayson says, was a wakeup call. "I wasn't even aware I'd come to think of AIDS that way." Grayson, who uses Web sites like Craig's List to meet men, has in the past week scrutinized online dating profiles much more carefully. "People have to write, 'Safe sex only.' It can't be vague in any way." Likewise, when Carlos Ojeda, a 30-year-old agent at a modeling agency, first started dating as a teenager, he never asked potential partners about their status. "You figured people would have the common decency to tell you." But this, he discovered, is not always the case. "I'd met this guy through a friend. We hit it off and started seeing each other. I was waiting for the right time to be intimate. He was just as patient, which was odd. The day finally came. He told me after the fact that he was HIV positive. Luckily we'd had safe sex." It took John, an editorial director with a retail fashion house, who didn't want to use his full name, years before he got into the habit of practicing safe sex. Having been a 21-year-old house boy (providing light cleaning and sexual favors) on Fire Island in 1979, he remembers a lot of fun before AIDS came into the picture. But even after losing a friend very quickly to AIDS in 1981, he still took risks. Then in 1988 John's brother got sick with AIDS and in the mid- '90s was "snatched from the jaws of death" by a progressive doctor who got him onto the cocktails. "At this point we were all practicing safe sex." But something interesting happened in recent years. John, who today works as an editorial director for a retail fashion house, says he's witnessed a rebirth of sex parties "not seen since the '70s." And in the late '90s he started bare-backing (having anal sex without condoms). "Of course it was stupid," he admits, "but when I did it I thought, This is really hot and maybe it's not so scary. I'm having sex with someone who looks really healthy." At the time he was taking meth and using the Internet to organize parties. "That was a compartmentalized part of my life." Many of the men interviewed by Salon said that the use of methamphetamines often impaired their decision making and said that fears about the new strain would make them think twice before using again. Alternatively known as crystal meth, speed and tina, methamphetamines have surged in popularity in the last few years. Health officials say that in addition to lowering inhibitions and increasing incidents of risky behavior, the continued use of meth breaks down the body's resistance. "Meth takes over your body, and you become a sex-hungry monster," says Ojeda, who used meth recreationally for four years. "You'll have sex with anybody and anything. When you're that high you don't care." Ojeda quit using the drug five years ago, and is now so careful he's almost paranoid. "I won't go down on anyone anymore," he says. "I won't even kiss someone if their mouth looks weird." Meth first gained popularity on the West Coast in the late 1990s -- in cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- where it fueled all-night dance parties in clubs in much the way Ecstasy and cocaine did in the past. But in recent years the drug has taken hold on the East Coast, where it plays an integral role in many anonymous sexual encounters, especially those arranged online. On sites like Craig's List, AOL, Manhunt.net and Gay.com, men can anonymously seek out one-on-one or group sex and can specify whether they want to PNP - - party and play (do drugs and have sex) -- or not. A typically pithy posting on Craig's List reads: "must travel, groups a plus. looking to pnp. pics for pics." Brian McConnell, a 34-year-old software developer, blames the combination of meth and the Internet for the possible emergence of a new super-virulent strain of AIDS. McConnell spends half the year in New York and the other half in San Francisco, and observes dating habits on both coasts. "I wasn't surprised," he says of the news that a new strain had come to town. "Before the Web, [speed] was used in a social context. People had to leave the house to get laid and had to be presentable in public to do so. The Internet changed all that, and now speed is a very anti-social drug, with most users spending their time trolling the Web for sex and more drugs." McConnell says that while news of a super-virus might prompt some people to change their habits, the people who pose the greatest danger to others are the least likely to change. "Everybody I know from my peer group is negative except for the people that got into crystal. All but one of them are positive." McConnell not only refuses to use meth himself, he won't hook up with anyone who does. "Once you know what to look for -- fidgeting, rapid speech, grinding teeth -- you can spot it a mile away." He laments that his new rule "eliminates a large percentage of the dating pool," but he'd rather stay healthy. Asked whether he thinks crystal meth plays a part in the rise in infection, Stroob says, "It is a factor," but adds, "It's not as big as a factor as our failure to give appropriate information to people." According to Stroob and many others working in the field, the greater challenge to curbing HIV infection today is the conservative political environment, which pushes abstinence-only education, content restrictions on prevention materials, and funding cutbacks. George Ayala, director of the Institute for Gay Men's Health at Gay Men's Health Crisis, argues that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't address the needs of the groups most at risk for infection. "You are asked to choose from a list of 16 prepackaged interventions. Of those maybe four address gay men," he says, referring to the template workshops and training sessions funded by the CDC. "And if you're of color only one addresses gay men." Carlos Nietos, a 40-year-old doctor with a heavy-set build and closely cropped brown hair, sitting in Café Big Cup, said when he first heard about the super-bug through a friend, his initial reaction was, Oh no, are we back to those days? When he was a medical student in the mid-'90s, treating young people with AIDS was "soul- wrenching," he says. But where AIDS patients used to be the center of his life, he now goes days without thinking about AIDS as a killer. "You feel better being a peacetime doctor than a wartime doctor." Nietos thinks that even if news of a drug-resistant, fast-acting virus does succeed in making people more cautious, "there's something else operating that makes certain people seek out and enjoy taking risks. I don't understand it." Christopher Carrington, a professor of sociology and human sexuality studies at San Francisco State University, is trying to understand it. Carrington, who's working on a book called "Circuit Boys," a book about sex parties, is finding that many gay men engage in what he calls "negotiated safety." If a man's considering having unprotected sex and is choosing between someone he knows nothing about and someone he knows is HIV positive but who has a low-viral count, he'll go with the man with the low viral-count. 'They're taking risks, but they're calculated risks," Carrington says. "Sex is a very important benefit. That becomes part of the calculation." Asked whether he thinks news of the super-virus will change people's behavior, Carrington answers, "It might change. But it might not be positive change. When these kinds of announcements occur and there's no real epidemic that follows, people begin to doubt the messages that are coming out. That's what's dangerous." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/WfTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Group Site: http://www.gaybombay.info ========================== NEW CLASSIFIEDS SECTION SEEKING FRIENDS? VISIT www.gaybombay.info click on classified section and type your message in the post section once the link opens This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address. 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