POZ Community Forums

Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: Mrmojorisin on October 17, 2012, 09:45:45 pm

Title: Just Imagine
Post by: Mrmojorisin on October 17, 2012, 09:45:45 pm
Can you imagine how insane the "Am I Infected" forum would have been had it been around in the late 80's?
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: ds4146 on October 17, 2012, 10:11:39 pm
Can you imagine how many people it might have saved?

I just remember checking in here some years ago and being so happy that I wasn't alone. I knew I wasn't, but I didn't if you get my meaning. There are still days like that but fewer and further apart.
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: zach on October 17, 2012, 11:00:29 pm
has anyone ever come to the am i board, and actually turned out to be positive? to me it just seems filled with obvious trolls.
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: wolfter on October 17, 2012, 11:03:58 pm
Can you imagine how insane the "Am I Infected" forum would have been had it been around in the late 80's?

I am not sure of goal of starting such a thread that'll cause a lot of people to relive that period.  Or perhaps I'm over sensitive which I know I tend to do?  I'll check after others have spoken to know if I should shut up and back out....lol
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: wolfter on October 17, 2012, 11:06:33 pm
has anyone ever come to the am i board, and actually turned out to be positive? to me it just seems filled with obvious trolls.

I'm pretty sure they have, just can't think of too many right now.
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: Mrmojorisin on October 18, 2012, 12:29:29 am
I am not sure of goal of starting such a thread that'll cause a lot of people to relive that period.  Or perhaps I'm over sensitive which I know I tend to do?  I'll check after others have spoken to know if I should shut up and back out....lol

 I apologize. It did not cross my mind that this might cause some to relive a painful period...I had just read someone who was concerned about becoming positive from masturbation and thought about how far out the questions would have been in the early days..I had just finished watching "We were here"  and the Ryan White story that discussed the paranoia that was prevalent back then...
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: tednlou2 on October 18, 2012, 12:48:56 am
I think most of the questions we read in that forum come from people who have issues with sexuality.  Of course there are many sincere questions.  However, when they keep returning about this and that sexual experience, then something is going on with them. 

I suppose if the internets existed back in the 80's, we would have seen tons of questions about hugging someone or sitting next to someone on a plane.  For those who ask whether they could infect themselves, I guess they would have been around then.   

I wonder if we would have seen less heterosexual sex questions back then, since most still believed this was an exclusive gay virus. 

Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: Joe K on October 18, 2012, 12:52:59 am
I apologize. It did not cross my mind that this might cause some to relive a painful period...I had just read someone who was concerned about becoming positive from masturbation and thought about how far out the questions would have been in the early days..I had just finished watching "We were here"  and the Ryan White story that discussed the paranoia that was prevalent back then...

The questions today are almost benign when compared to the early years.  We didn't know exactly how it was transmitted, so folks thought that even sharing a utensil would give you teh AIDS.  Sadly, back then, you could be fired, put out of your home and many other things, simply because you were poz.

I don't think the thread is out of line at all.  At some point we have all made whatever peace we can, with our past and there is nothing wrong with remembering the past in a thoughtful way.

Joe
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: jkinatl2 on October 18, 2012, 02:36:13 am
has anyone ever come to the am i board, and actually turned out to be positive? to me it just seems filled with obvious trolls.

A handfull in the ten years I have been working that forum. All people who have had high risk incidents, usually multiples. ANal and vaginal sex without condoms. Never, of course, an oral sex, query.

Also, oddly, not the pussy beer guy.
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: Dr.Strangelove on October 18, 2012, 05:15:50 am
The pussy beer guy???  ;D

I guess I haven't been on these forums long enough to know who that is. Can you enlighten me?


As for the OP question, I think the biggest difference between back then and now is that 30 years ago there must have been a lot more uncertainty about how transmission takes place and what the actual risks are.
Today we have a ton of data about those but still, there are plenty of people who are paranoid about catching HIV by getting a manicure. I really admire the patience of you guys (especially Ann) who have to deal with this every day.
I've often wondered where this paranoia comes from. I mean we know very well how HIV is transmitted and how it is not and yet, people ignore all science and are just scared like hell. Sure, it's a potentially fatal disease (but so are many others) and sure, for some people guilt may play a role, too, in the whole process (cheating on the wife, having sex with a prostitute kind of situation). But there must be something more, no? Why do people treat this disease so very different from any other condition?
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: Dr.Strangelove on October 18, 2012, 05:21:26 am
Ahh right

Pussy Beer (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pussy%20beer)

As a non native English speaker I was not aware of that term. For some reason we didn't learn that in English class at school...

There forums are highly educational!
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: mecch on October 18, 2012, 06:08:17 am
Can you imagine how insane the "Am I Infected" forum would have been had it been around in the late 80's?

I don't see how it would have been much different then, from now.  Except of course less was known about risks, and the virus, and HIV was fatal. 

But a lot of the people who go to Am I Infected now have the same ignorance and still carry a lot of fear and dread and shame.   Plus all the obsessives, that would always be the same. 

I dont read the forum but sometimes I get a kick out of the wild thread titles.  Often quite poetic.
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: Ann on October 18, 2012, 07:49:25 am
Ahh right

Pussy Beer (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pussy%20beer)

As a non native English speaker I was not aware of that term. For some reason we didn't learn that in English class at school...

There forums are highly educational!

That's not what Jonathan meant by pussy beer.

It was a guy who was scared he'd be infected because while at a strip joint, his friend fingered one of the strippers and then put his finger in the guy's beer. He asked if he could be infected by this "pussy beer", as he called it.

I can only recall about four or five - six at a stretch - who ended up positive over the situation they were worried about, and that's after answering questions in that forum for over ten years. And as Jonathan mentioned, all of them had high risks, most of them being the receptive partner in anal intercourse. I don't recall a single woman who went on to test positive after posting in that forum.

A lot of the fears are guilt and/or shame based. A lot of them are worried after being with a sex worker, all the while never worrying about barebacking with people they date. A fair amount of them are suffering from varying degrees of OCD or other mental health issues. Some are hypochondriacs. A few are genuine trolls who just want to cause controversy.
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: wolfter on October 18, 2012, 11:20:36 am
At some point we have all made whatever peace we can, with our past and there is nothing wrong with remembering the past in a thoughtful way.

Joe

Perhaps others are a lot stronger than I am, but I've never completed internal peace with that period.  I agree about remembering the past in a thoughtful way, I initially thought this thread could lead to some demeaning comments and I see that hasn't happened.

A lot of questions in those days would have been out of fear and ignorance but I see most of them are now out of stupidity.  I guess I am fortunate that my family didn't treat my like a leper and learned everything they could and supported me.  When I watch the movie "An Early Frost", that mother reminds me so much of my own mother.  My family was just accepting that my "room mate" was probably more than that when I admitted to the hospital. 

Even as a Priest was giving me last rites (I only learned later what he was doing), my mother convinced me to fight to live.  Even though I'm pretty sure my family wasn't shouting it from the roof tops, I remember the horror of what other positive folks were enduring around the country.  I lived in a state of terror that we'd be fire bombed, vandalized or attacked. 

So I don't apologize for my initial thoughts on this thread, but I now recognize it wasn't from a nefarious place.   ;)
Title: Re: Just Imagine
Post by: Miss Philicia on October 18, 2012, 11:34:19 am
I'm 47, and I didn't have sexual contact with another male until I was 19, Spring of '84. I'm fairly certain that by that year most were aware that this was spread by unprotected anal sex, not kissing or some other odd manner. I just don't recall sitting around with gay friends in college asking weird questions, but maybe my memory is foggy. I do know I held off having anal sex until '88, even with a condom.