Awareness of an Important and unDeniable Situation

"It all began with a hunch. 'My body’s telling me something.' I thought. Then the news, there’s a rapid increase of HIV infection in the recent months, it is alarming. What’s more alarming is the fact that 90% of the new monthly casualties are men who have sex with men. Oh God, that’s something – [I] am a closeted gay guy and I’m guilty of being terribly promiscuous, I like trudging on dangerous waters... 'There are 90 million Filipinos out there, HIV is affecting 0.01% of the population, it’s even less than 10,000. There’s a  chance of me getting infected with this virus.' I thought. That’s what I thought..."

--  Boy Positibo, 6 October 2011

This morning, I had spent a considerable amount of time tweeting about World AIDS Day and asking people to help trend #StopHIVPhilippines. While I personally am not infected with the virus, nor know anyone personally who is infected with it, I don't see anything wrong in helping spread awareness in anyway that I can.

I discovered Boy Positibo and his blog in my Twitter news feed this morning when some well-known public figures, whose tweets I had subscribed to, RT'ed his requests of help in spreading the word. It was admirable how he would painstakingly tweet each person without the 100% guarantee of it being noticed.

"I went out of the testing center stupefied. 'Oh God, what am I gonna do now?' I was withering as I walked out of the streets heading Tomas Morato, all the memories of unprotected sex, regrets, worries, fears and all sorts of emotions poured in. I went to the nearby chapel and just burst my heart out, I wasn’t praying, I was crying. Crying coz I can’t blame the Lord or anyone for this, I know I am responsible for having the virus in the first place coz I have been warned to protect myself, to use condoms and stuff but still, I was SO stubborn not to do so. I chose to engage and risk myself unprotected. Now I’m just reaping what I sow and I have no one to blame but myself coz of my stubbornness." 

--  Boy Positibo, 6 October 2011

And so here I am, doing my part and helping in the way I know how. I know that there will be people who might find it weird that I am writing about HIV/AIDS awareness. Hell, they might even suspect that I have AIDS, if they're THAT narrow-minded.

But never mind them. What is important is to help spread the word.

I do this not just for HIV/AIDS awareness. I do this to help raise awareness and advocate SAFE SEX. This goes out to my home country of the Philippines most especially.

Let us not kid ourselves. Sex happens. Marital and pre-marital. Young and old. Hetero and homo. 

It happens. A lot.

And so do unplanned pregnancies. STDs. AIDS. 

They happen. A lot.

In this world where abstinence has somehow become an increasingly challenging thing to do, we should not let our pride get in the way of seeing the possibilities and the realities. We are not invincible. It could happen to anyone. Better to be safe than sorry.

And if you happen to know someone who are in this situation, remember that they do not deserve our ridicule, nor our pity, nor our judgement. They only deserve our understanding, our support, our love and our respect.

And to think that sometimes, they're the ones who provide us the inspiration instead of the other way around.

"Let’s all be responsible guys. Don’t follow my example, I’m an embodiment of stubbornness and laxity. The HIV pandemic is real people so please always protect yourselves. May the Lord be with us in this fight. Thy will be done. Cheers to life!"

--  Boy Positibo, 6 October 2011