WNS

For the first time this winter, the snow seemed whiter than it really was; it was no longer the annoying white stuff on the ground that represented very cold days ahead, it was no longer the icy and slippery roads that made it tricky to move around. It was the white snow that you could roll in two hands and play snow fights with, the slippery paths became skating alleys and as our shoes and feet got lost in the many, many inches of snow, we laughed and shook our selves off, very oblivious to the cold and to the fact that our feet would be soaked all through once we got indoors and the snow started to melt. For us, it was play time and our laughter bounced off huge brick walls of empty buildings that were once giant warehouses, we sang in tuneless tones, and danced in the middle of the roads as cars swerved by, hooting in annoyance, gazing and scolding; young men and women these days have no respect, look at them, they are probably drunk college kids skipping class this first week of school. There was no other explanation, in the eyes of the watchful, for our errant behavior; it was just bizarre to watch.

We did not even look back at the dark, square building that we were leaving behind. It just stood there, solitary and miserable like we had found it, stood there frowning at us and wondering why we were acting like circus monkeys high on acid. We left behind us, the building with its haunting, dark presence, the rooms with their nearly blinding light, the posters with their imposing judgment, and the books with their varying degrees of terrifying dispositions. We did not even look back, did not even stop to think about the other people that had been to the very same building, did not stop to think about the other people that were yet to pay the very same visit we had just partaken; we did not stop to look back and wonder how things would have been had we left the building in different circumstances, different results, different scenes, different answers, unanswered prayers. All we cared about was that we were young, we were free, we were reckless and we had the rest of our lives to be even more reckless. We had learnt nothing.

It is not every day that your best friend comes into the room and suggests that you both go for an HIV test. We live in a world where people are completely afraid of mentioning anything to do with HIV, AIDS, and STDs. These are taboos and make for uncomfortable conversations, not exactly the type of thing you would bring up during dinner, cocktails or parties. It is not something people want to talk about unless they absolutely must. And even then, it is all hushed tones and quiet corners, the secrecy that shrouds it is so robust and unnecessary. Could the reason people hold off talking about HIV be because it is a sexually transmitted disease? Could the reason people despise STDs be because they involve the act of sex, of copulating, two bodies coming together as one to engage in only the most natural form of loving expression? Where did this stigma come from, who gave it birth, who gave it word and who oils its wheels and fuels its magnificence? Why all the stigma?

A movie is rated according to the amount of swearing involved, on how loud the gun fire is, but most of all, the sexual content of any movie will determine whether it is fit for the human eye. The magazines in the shops depicting naked ladies and half-dressed men are slowly gently pushed to the side of the display rack and you would have to be extremely bold to walk up to the whole lot and, in full view of the people in the shop or in full view of your family, pick out the one with the most nakedness on the front. Kissing scenes in movies embarrass us; love making scenes make us gag and when we watch movies with our parents. Sexual Education is a controversy topic and many parents are not sure they want their children to know about the ins and outs of their bedroom. We live in a world where sex is placed on two extreme scales; on one side of the scale, it is revered and worshiped, obsessed about and abused at the same time. On the other side of the scale, we despise sex, refusing to talk about it and shame on he who so dares to come out and boldly express his views on the wonders of love making. A girl who freely expresses herself sexually with as many boys as she chooses, is labeled a “loose one” and the sons are urged by their mothers to stay away from her, songs with sexual content are frowned upon by the “proper and educated public,” it is much easier to go into a store to buy a pack of gum than it is to buy a pack of condoms, when my girl friends ask me how many men I have slept with, I am very eager to down play the number to single figures. Is it just me who sees the insanity of all of this? I fail to understand it, not sure if this is the way that things have always been, have we always had this insanely bizarre attitude towards this amazing thing.
I think that maybe our fate was sealed when Eve ate the forbidden fruit and proceeded to seduce Adam into sharing the unfortunate downfall with him. I think that maybe our fate was sealed when God cast the two love-birds out of Eden and the world went on to mistakenly interpret the forbidden fruit as to mean something sexual, hence God looks down on sex, hence man woman and sex are wrong, hence thou must never have sex, or if you must, thou must forever live in regret and denial.
Our mistaken belief is so ingrained in us that we do not even notice there is something so wrong in what we practice. There is a little puritan in all of us, a little prudence just waiting to storm into our bedrooms at night when the nights are turned down low and the fire in our loins is burning bright. We forever suppress that which we were born to do naturally, and in that suppression comes an extreme abuse of the very thing we are trying to purge, in that suppression we give birth to sexual lunacy which we interpret as a disease of the very act of sex, not realizing that it is a result of many years of oppressing and denying nature its true call. We have been taught from a very early age that there is this great big thing which people dare not speak of in open places, and it is called sex. You do not see people walking down the street wearing shirts announcing the magic of love, the greatness of love making, the magic of sex. And if you do see someone walking down the street with those words, I can bet you that your first reaction will be an instant embarrassment, as though it was you wearing the words and the whole world was looking and judging you, I bet you that you would be mortified to walk beside such a person, that you immediately walked on the other side of the road and tried to avoid eye contact, pretended you had not seen them, not noticed them, pretended the shirt and its elegant words did not exist. We give sex, and anything related to it, such a negative connotation that I believe has led to the mass conscience creation of a killer like AIDS, a disease transmitted through many ways, mainly through sexual intercourse with another person. I believe that this pathetic illness is our own mass conscious creation because of the way we treat the act not as love making in a clear pure sense, but as sex, a sin, a derogation, a dirty act of pure evil. When did such an act of innocence and love and pleasure turn into a thing to be avoided, to abstain from, to fear from and run away from. When did this God-given gift to man become so tainted in our minds as to re-create itself into an issue of the greatest controversy. The church warns against enjoying sex at all; it is for procreation and procreation alone. I could not disagree more with the church; but what do I know, I am merely 27 and still learning from the world. I am so tempted to blame the church for misinterpreting such a wonderful act and turning it into such an uncomfortable thing and ruining only the next best thing in life. I am so tempted to storm at the church and rave and rage at it for turning every other enjoyable thing in life into plain boring matters of urgency, turning everything into mere roles, duties and stealing the fun out of life. But there are many people, things and institutions to blame, all the blame surely cannot lie with one group of old aging theologians who think they know what is best for you and me.

It is not every day that your best friend comes into your room and asks that you go with him for an HIV test. Strange as the request seemed, nerve racked as we both were, we thought that this would be a great way to start off the New Year. We were even able to get another one of our friends to come with us, and the three best friends that we were, the three best friends that we will forever be, set off for testing. We had no idea what the repercussions would be, there was always a great chance that one of us, two of us or even all three of us would turn out to be HIV positive. Were we scared? Of course we were scared. But with assurances to be there for each other and promises to be truthful and keep things secret and among ourselves, we forgot our fear for a time. We had all been reckless at some point of another. As you lie on your back and the throngs of so-called love engulf you, with a lover at your top, when the passions of madness electrify your core-being as your ears and neck are caressed in the gentlest of ways, you do not stop to ask the beautiful lover whether he is fully healthy, you do not stop to ask him when his last HIV test was and whether it was negative, you rarely pause to reach into the bathroom and grab some bit of plastic protection. When this thing takes over, all you really care about is becoming one with the person as he thrusts his humanness into you again and again. We had been reckless at one point or another, and it was only natural and brave that we allow ourselves to get tested.

I think that many people will look at what we did and call us brave, responsible young men and women. Some will say we posses loose morals and ought to go to church confession, stay away from the sex…blah, blah, blah. We, on, the other hand were every eager to pat ourselves on the back in congratulations on negative HIV tests results. We had been given a second chance to life and nothing was going to ruin it.

But I will hold off on congratulating us too much. We are not brave; we are not great young men and women. I think that we are a naïve bunch, extremely stupid, purely careless and downright ignorant. What would have happened had the tests turned out different, had it turned out that one of us, any one of us or all of us were HIV positive? What would we have done? We went in for the tests together, as a tri, a trio, a unity, a Holy Trinity. The personal questions and the counseling that we received prior to the tests consisted of very personal questions and open prying; it left no stone unturned. Each of us took turns at the little round table in the musty room, spilling our secrets and telling things that none of us knew about each other. He had met up with girls that he had met on the internet, total strangers, and he had had sex with them. She had been with three guys on the same day; at different times of course, or was it all at the same time. Yes, she had been with three different guys all at the same time, in one very risky orgy of sorts. I on the other hand had been drunk countless number of times and some of the men’s faces I do not even remember; some of the men’s faces I do not ever recall seeing. The secrets just kept pouring out while we each undressed our very beings and allowed ourselves to lie exposed to the scrutiny and judgment of each other. Now there was nothing we did not now know about each other’s sexual exploits, each of us was very capable of blackmailing the other. But the naivety goes on; even after the tests were taken, we made the decision to receive our results together in the same room, nothing to hide, we were all for solidarity, the bond was unbreakable. As I said, we were very lucky that we came out with a second chance to life; but what if that had not been the case. Would we have bowed down and sworn to help the sick person with the positive test results, would we have been able to keep each other’s secrets to ourselves? It is very easy to answer “yes” to these questions and that is exactly what we did when we sat there; stupidly swearing oaths of undying friendship. However, I feel that these promises of friendship and loyalty would not have lived up to their eager utterances and desperate pronunciations. If it had turned out that one of us was ill, there would have been two of us judging the other as less lucky than us. A million and one apologies would have flowed, unnecessary “sorry” and “everything is going to be ok,” the annoying pity and reckless thoughts of death, dying and the nether world would have swallowed up the very air that we were breathing. And then the post-judgments that proceed these kind of situations; we would have reviewed his or her sex encounters and found them unbefitting and purely immoral; even though we too had been part of the same immorality. There would have been a rash to advise the ill person about what to do, where to go, who to see, who to talk to. In one moment we would have turned into Gods and Angels caring for the lost sheep and leading it back home, in one moment we would have turned into monsters, advising other fellow students about not sitting with the “sick-person,” not sharing a cup with them, not accepting to room with them, and desisting from hugging them, holding them, loving them: everything would change, things would not be the same.

We were stupid, we were naïve, but we were lucky everything turned out the way that it did. What would have happened had things turned out differently? As we skipped through the ice, dancing and shouting, as we dodged cars swerving by us, carelessly playing in the middle of the slippery icy roads, we did not stop to think for one minute about the other side of the coin. We are young and we are foolish, we do not care about the other visitors to this same AIDS testing center, other visitors like us, students like us, beautiful and handsome people like us, people who come out of these very same doors with very different results. They go in not knowing, they come out knowing that their days are numbered, their life is never ever going to be what it once was. We were so selfish to ignore everything else and everybody else aside from us, life was good to us, we were gods and goddesses, Adonises and Venuses: nothing could touch us now.

But there is a thing called a Window Period. This means that you have to get tested within three months and not less, after your last sexual encounter. When we were asked by the counselor when it was that we had last had sex and whether we fell within the safe-to-test Window Period, each of us was ready to provide a fittingly perfect answer; we wanted to get tested that day and we were not willing to be honest about our dates because that would only mean coming back after a couple of weeks and taking the test. It would mean that we would not be able to get tested that day since the test would not be so accurate. But we did not think of this; or we did think of this but shoved it to the back of our minds as soon as it surfaced. Our foolish young minds were eager, too eager, the eagerness of youth that most times leads to misery and heartache. We wanted tests, we wanted them then, we were unwilling to wait. Yes, the tests were all clear; but we had been dishonest. Yes, the tests were clear; but was there a chance that they had been taken too early and that there indeed was something lurking in the dark red abyss of our bodies, something that just couldn’t be detected yet. We were happy with things as they were, we wanted nothing more.

We made preparations to throw a party that night. All of the promises that we had made about abstinence and keeping things safe, about following rules and doing things right, all of these things we left in the little musty room with the round table. We were going to celebrate with alcohol, music and dancing. He was going to call up his booty call, she was going to head for her man-of-the week, I was going to find “the ex-boyfriend,” and we were going to have one heck of a party.
The tests only checked for HIV, they did not check for other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The tests were the really basic tests that you can now buy off the internet for very little money, they were 99.9% safe and there is always that 1%. But of course our young blood coursing with excitement and new life appreciation was not thinking about any of these things as our loins suddenly flared to life and could not wait to be set free. The test only checked for HIV, there were a million and one other infections that we could have asked to be tested for, but we did not care, we were HIV negative and that is all that mattered. How naïve and, oh, how stupid!

It seemed like a very noble and daring decision to go and get tested for HIV, it was very wise, and responsible, neat and admirable. But for now I will hold off on congratulating us, for now I will sit here and ponder on the things that we have been too stupid and naïve to think about. For now I will analyze how admirable and wise our actions have been indeed!! Do not hand me the star of honor, rather, join me in sending up a prayer to the people and the folks who walk into that building on 81st Mead St, join me in sending up a prayer to those who come out of those doors with eyes down cast and hearts as heavy as steel, join me in sending up a prayer to those who have passed on to the next world from this pathetic illness or AIDS, join me in sending up a prayer to those yet to visit the little musty room with the round table, join me in sending up a prayer to the workers who walk the halls of 81st Mead St, join me and maybe together we can make a difference in this world. Let us redefine sex as an act of love making and a thing to be enjoyed and revered, let us change people’s thoughts about HIV and develop a strong love for those afflicted with the disease, let us broaden our horizons and break out from our shallow wells, let us love and let love fill us. Join me today and let us be the change we want to see in the world.