There is no doubt that our culture – I’m talking gay men here -  has a bit of an obsession with buff bodies. Gyms have never been busier. Clothes are tighter. Porn (or at least gay porn) and gay magazine covers ONLY feature the perfectly muscled.

How does that leave those of us with less than perfect bodies?  Like me. Is there an impact on my psyche, my sense of well-being, even on my risk behaviour? And just how healthy is being obsessed with being healthy anyway? Is there a down-side?

In this PositiveLite.com interview, David Brennan looks at both sides of the coin and draws on his research in to body image, eating attitudes and behaviour among  queer men, particularly examining these issues for racialized queer men in Toronto.  I think you’ll enjoy what he has to say.

Video services courtesy of Guy McLoughlin.

Sometimes we worry here on PositiveLite.com that we are a bit gay-centric.  Our founder, publisher and editor are all gay men, and while we have three active women writers, we have far more male ones. But that’s not to say that, first, we don’t have a huge curiosity about women and HIV and secondly we aren’t committed to writing about women’s issues.  So when Publisher John McCullagh and myself travelled to Oshawa  recently to attend the 2012 Durham Regional HIV/AIDS Conference we decided to take the opportunity to focus on women’s issues that were a prominent part of the program.

According to OCHART – View From The Front  Lines 2011  (which takes the pulse of HIV work in Ontario each year) there were 1,018 new HIV diagnoses in 2010 in our province. Of those, more than 50% were in gay men and other men who have sex with men, 20% were in members of the African, Caribbean and Black communities, and 6% were in people who reported using injection drugs. Women account for about 1 in 5 new diagnoses although the number of new diagnoses in women has declined by over one-third since its high in 2006.

The mean age of women who are newly infected is 35, not too different from the mean age for males.

Community-based HIV/AIDS programs appear to be reaching at-risk women: agencies estimate that between 25 and 28% of clients using education, outreach and support services are heterosexual women, which reflects the epidemiology.

That's what the data says. The same report is instructive about where new infections are occurring and clearly all the action isn't in the big cities. Says OCHART  “Although Toronto still has the largest number of new diagnoses each year, that number has been dropping steadily for the past five years – while the number of new diagnoses per year has been increasing in other parts of the province. In the last year alone, there was an increase in new diagnoses in South West (10%), Central East (10%), and Ottawa and Eastern (24%). Each of those parts of the province had its largest number of diagnoses in a single year in 2010.”

So Durham is at the epicentre of this trend of increasing new infections away from the larger urban centres.  It’s regional agency, the very progressive AIDS Committee of Durham  Region, is located in downtown Oshawa, somewhat of a bedroom community to Toronto, although home to a major GM factory important to local employment.   Oshawa has a sprawling population of about 152,000; it’s about 60 kilometers east of Toronto. 

Areas such as Durham have their own contributing factors to new infection rates. The proximity of a sexual playground like Toronto is one, of course.  But so are things like the lack of a centralized LGBTQ community and related establishments, homophobia, fewer resources for the at risk and infected and the phenomenon of the married MSM (men who have sex with men.) Women are even more isolated here than they are in large urban centres, seldom considered at risk, with HIV testing not on many health care professionals' radar.

Armed with this background, publisher John McCullagh talked to Claudia Medina (whom I have known since she was a baby, LOL). Claudia is the Women's Prison Program Co-ordinator, Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Program (PASAN).  Claudia talks about the particular problems that women with HIV face who are incarcerated in the Canadian correctional system.

Mother will never understand

Why you had to leave

For the love that you need

Will never be found at home

And the answer you seek

Will never be found at home*

I am a blogger from way back with this probably annoying habit of  starting each of my blog entries with a song title which fits the topic, at least minimally.  I stress minimally. Clearly that habit hasn’t died – and clearly the connections between song title and blog subject remain tenuous at best.  Still, all for art. *Lyrics by Bronski Beat.  (And a bonus video at the end – one of the first intentionally homoerotic ones from the 80’s, I would think.)

Anyway, I digress.  A  lot. Truth is I’m not really a small town boy at all.  I come from the suburbs of London, England, but that was a long time ago.  Now I found myself, after many years in downtown Toronto, in small-town Ontario.  In my case, it’s very small town.  I live outside a little village of seven hundred people; it's called Warkworth and nobody knows where it is, unless you're familiar with the Canadian penitentiary system, for we have a medium-security institution on our outskirts. Our village is about a two-hour drive from Toronto.

We do that drive quite often.  We’ve been living in the country for fifteen years now, but would miss many of the joys of Toronto if I weren’t there every week or so. Both of us like ethnic food and theatre, even the opera – and all those are in short supply in our part of rural Ontario. So we don’t go without.

We have quite a little gay community here, mostly established people who are entirely out about their status - and nobody seems to give a hoot. The HIV thing is a little more underground – I’m the only one who’s out about that, but I respect those who don’t want to go that extra mile, even though the downside, it seems to me, at least in our community, is minimal. So I'm the token poz guy.

Stigma and homophobia are funny things. Sometimes we hear so much about how huge stigma is that it becomes self perpetuating.  Recent research on homophobia in schools in the UK implied much the same thing. It found that there was actually much less homophobia within the school population there – that kids were actually hugely tolerant of their lgbt classmates – despite being told homophobia was all around them.  In fact the homophobia that there was seemed to be a product of ante-homophobia messaging.  In other words, keep warning about the perils of homophobia and there is danger of a disincentive for kids to come out. That of course doesn’t negate the teen suicides in less tolerant countries, like the good ole USA. But the fact remains that stigma left unchallenged, or even cowed down to, or built up in to a huge social evil where it doesn't always exists, can often be a bigger bug-a-boo than it really is. The key is to exploit those pockets of tolerance that do exist - and build on them.

When I first came to live in the country, we met a local poz guy, who bravely knocked on my door to make contact. He’d heard through the grapevine that I was poz. “If you tell people your status they’ll burn your house down “ he said seriously. He remains closeted and insecure.  I don’t.  My house is fine.

The church plays a pretty large part in our community, but does not until recently intrude on sexual politics. No churchgoer myself, I make a point of being nice to them all (we have four churches in our little village.) We go to the church suppers of the three of them that have church suppers (the United, the Presybiterian and the Free Methodists,  avoiding the fourth – the Catholics, who are surprisingly nice people despite their warped views -  and besides, they don’t have church suppers.)

The local United Church, which besides having the best suppers – those church ladies can cook! – is now becoming involved in sexual politics, by moving along the path towards becoming an “affirming congregation”. This program is an opportunity for congregations to study the issues of inclusion and to publicly state that they welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. The church - or at least our church  - will tell you that the program is about welcoming diversity in all its shapes and sizes – but clearly lgbt issues are at the core.  In fact a central sticking point for hold-outs tends to be whether their church is affirming enough to allow same sex marriages within the four walls of their church, rather than, say, allow the minister to perform marriages outside its environs..

They are having some sort of workshop later this month, which includes a panel of a few local lgbters – to tell their stories or something. I’m on it. I would love to see this affirming thing happen.

 

While some of this seems a little bit archaic – there is a certain ridiculousness to pondering over whether lgbters should be accorded equal rights  - in anything – in 2012, I think this is actually progress of some significance.  Social justice comes to rural Ontario, even its more remote backwaters, slowly - but it comes.  Yay!

It’s about time.  There is a surprising amount of integration of gays and lesbians in almost every other aspect of rural life. This is a designated arts community – and gays (including me) started that. We started our village’s little retail renaissance too – we went from sleepy farm community to trendy shopping destination – and gays and lesbians are well liked here.  My partner is on local council, voted in over two straight challengers.

While this may appear nirvana to some, I don’t think the community is all that much different to anyone else’s.  The difference here is that gays and lesbians have challenged the status quo rather than just lived with it. My HIV status falls in to the same boat. The locals were challenged.  They accepted it.  Hugs were forthcoming.  No big deal.  No houses burned down.

I’m off to Jeannine’s Backtalk Café.  Its our local greasy sppon.  I go there almost every morning for a coffee, a grilled cheese sandwich (healthy eating is sooo over-rated, LOL) and chat with the locals, some of them are lgbters, some aren’t.  We talk the weather, Afghanistan, American Idol and - sometimes – social justice and sexual politics.

Rural Canada is often neglected in the march towards equality.  Even HIV services are sparce -  the lack of critical mass makes it hard for ASOs to cover anything other than their urban centres in which they are situated -  so  people are left to fend for themselves. But that doesn’t mean that progress isn’t being made. There is a certain independence forged by the ability to make a visible difference where in a  big city, those efforts would seem insignificant.  It may be an exaggeration to say that Canada is being won over one greasy spoon at a time, but at least in some locations there are quiet victories happening – affirming congregations being discussed, gay/straight alliances being formed, HIVers coming out.

Let’s face it, The Voice is no American Idol, but it’s diverting enough, and the format  -  intended to showcase the voice more than any other performance factor – is  original.  And unlike American Idol, it also hasn’t been shy to feature lgbtq contestants who aren’t shy about their sexual orientation. But there is a twist this season – there’s an openly HIV+ contestant in the line-up.

Last night saw Jamar Rogers, billed as “the comeback kid on the road to recovery”  beat out the out-of-his depth sandwich maker Jamie Lono on the Foreigner classic “I Want to Know What Love Is”.

Jamar deserved to win hands down, at least this round.  He’s a  strong singer with an endearing personality, showcased last night against a wimp.  It was a no contest, and Team Cee Lo – this show has a rather annoying format pitting one team against other  - has an ace on its side. In any event, for the HIV factor alone, all of a sudden The Voice is the show to watch.

Here is what Digital Voice had to say about Jamar Rogers - and note how his HIV+ status is front nad centre.. 

'The Voice' Jamar Rogers: 'I wanted to let people know there is hope'

The Voice contestant Jamar Rogers has said he chose to publicly discuss his HIV positive status in order to give hope to others who might be in the same situation. The recovering addict disclosed his condition before his blind audition on the second episode of The Voice last week, where he won the support of his idol Cee Lo Green with his performance of 'Seven Nation Army' by The White Stripes.

Jamar told reporters on a conference call: "I began to realize that we need to have a national conversation about this because there are a lot of young people that are dying from this that don't have to. I wanted to get the word out there that if you take your meds, take care of yourself, then this is no different than any other kind of chronic illness. It's definitely manageable. I have now been undetectable for five years. I don't even get a cold and that's just strictly by the grace of God."

"I decided to come clean because at some point you have to decide that you want to live for something greater than yourself," he said."Although I love music and music is completely my passion, and as hard as I was trying to become this superstar, I felt like I had an obligation to give back to my community and to let people know that there is hope for them and there's hope in time, and there is no pit too deep that you can't climb out of."

Recounting the events leading up to his decision to get clean, the singer said that he had been living in Atlanta and "using pretty hardcore for about five years", dropping to 125lbs and finding himself homeless. "My whole family didn't even know where I was for like two years. There were Christmases that went by and they had no clue where I was. I remember just picking up the phone and asking my mom if I could come home and she was so elated. I had basically just hit rock bottom. I had nothing. I had no job - nothing."

He said that he moved to Milwaukee where he joined a church and met future American Idol contestant Danny Gokey, who he began singing with. "The more I fell in love with music and the more I realized that I had a story to tell, it enables your sobriety and it enables your recovery," he said. "The reason I decided to talk about it on The Voice is because I had a friend that overdosed last year and he was only 25.

"I figured that this is something we need to talk about. We're so wrapped up with the Kardashians and wrapped up with nonsense when there are people that are really hurting and really struggling. I needed to let people know that drug addicts and people living with HIV are not lepers. There's more of us than you think. The more that we're open about it, the more we set a national conversation about it, I'm hoping people stop dying."

Jamar, 29, said that he received nothing but support from The Voice producers and his family when he decided to publicly discuss his health, adding: "The support has just continued. It's actually been really overwhelming."

As for his experience on The Voice and working with his idol Cee Lo (above left), he said: "Meeting him was probably one of the highlights of my life and working with him has been even better. A lot of people know him as talented and eccentric, but a lot of people don't know how wise he is and he really just spits some like real words of wisdom, like some life lessons. I always feel like I should have a notepad and a pen when I'm talking to him just because I don't want to miss anything. I want to take it all down."

The Voice airs Mondays at 8/7c on NBC.

Nineteen years.  My god!  I know this place well.  St Michael’s hospital in downtown Toronto is a bit of a labyrinth – a rather decrepit building comprised of four wings and numerous tunnels. Having visited almost every department but maternity in my time, I know this place like the back of my hand. I feel almost at home here.

This Wednesday morning I have a ten o’clock appointment, but I’m early so I sit in the fourth floor Positive Care waiting room looking around.  Beige walls, beige linoleum, purple-flowery chairs, a few bland prints on the walls.  The overall impression isn’t terrible but clearly a gay designer wasn’t involved either.  It’s hospital blah, but in fairness a cut above some other waiting rooms in the hospital,

The fifteen chairs are arranged in two lines facing each other, which gives you an unparalleled chance to stare at your fellow patients and wonder at their stories.  Only two chairs are occupied right now – one by a young and stylish Asian, obviously gay young man in sunglasses (surely no need for those here unless it’s his idea of disguise.) In the other occupied chair sits a man who I shared the elevator up with and I would have guessed was going anywhere BUT the Positive Care Clinic.  He looked too straight, too ordinary, and with too bad hair for that. But he is a patient and there he sits waiting for his HIV doctor, just like me. Score zero for my poz-dar.

No women here today but there often are.

Time was when there was a little old lady who used to hang out in the Positive Care waiting room, a candy-striper (as opposed to a candy stripper)  I think they call those volunteer auxiliary people, dispensing tea, cookies and chat. It was nice, but left me with the impression that we were deserving of sympathy, so I wasn’t unhappy to see the service go.  Plus I don’t like tea much.

Like I said, I’m early which is generally a mistake as it seems to make no difference what time you arrive, you still have to wait.  I did get a cheerful "hi, how are you?" from the cute male receptionist when I arrived, though, which is a plus.

I don’t have to wait long today.  Nurse Rachel ushers me in to the inner sanctum – she’s newish and cheerful and polite.  I’m weighed and my blood pressure is taken  - 100 over 60 she says, that’s good.  Must confess I never bothered to learn the meaning of those numbers, but if Nurse Rachel says it’s good, that’s good enough for me. She asks me only a few questions:  have you had your flu shot, how have you been since your last visit, have you  had any broken bones (whaaa?) And then she’s out of there saying that Dr F, my HIV doctor for the last nineteen years, will be with me in a minute.

And he is. He’s a short Asian man with thick glasses.   He’s a no -nonsense type, is my doctor, not great on the bedside thing, but a real wiz, as far as I’m concerned, when it comes to HIV, and that’s what matters most to me. We don’t exactly have the ideal relationship in that treatment decisions tend to be ordained rather than negotiated, but I’m OK with that.  Treatment isn’t my strong suit, so my strategy has always been to favour the knowledge that comes from his years of medical training plus hands-on experience in one of the country’s busiest HIV clinics over my thumbing through back issues  of Readers Digest So I put my trust in him.  Given that he’s kept me well for nineteen years through thick and thin, I have accumulated a lot of faith in him.

He moves right away to scrambling through my chart. He’s flipping pages like mad, transcribing numbers to my visit records.  First things first; my CD4 is 733, down from 800 last visit (no big deal)  my viral load is undetectable. I, wanting to give at least the appearance of being a good patient, take notes.

Now I am not someone who keeps spreadsheets of my numbers – that veers far to near the good patient category for me – but I do write things down.  So I have this tatty piece of paper which records the meds I’m on now (because I can never remember their names)  and my key numbers since May 2007.  Who knows where the previous sheet is now. Anyway, I dutifully write down my numbers and a few other things he is saying.  He is working on something new now, jotting down figures which he says will give me my "risk calculation".  Risk of what, I wonder, but he’s buried in his numbers for several minutes and interrupting him doesn’t seem wise.  Eventually he looks up.  “You have a moderate chance of a heart attack” he says. "What does that mean?” I say.  It means, he explains,  that based on my weight and cholesterol and smoking record (I don’t smoke) and other factors, I have a 15.6% chance of a heart attack in the next ten years.

I’m thinking “those odds aren’t bad”. Probably not bad enough to make me want to walk -  briskly – for one hour a day – that he is now suggesting I start doing.

Discussions of my mortality, out of the blue, are a new one for my clinic visits. It throws me a bit. But then we are off on meds talk.  It’s all about my favourite side effect, peripheral neuropathy and whether it's responding to treatment and does it feel touchy or stingy and whether I should be taking gabapentin AND nortriptyline for it or just gabapentin. (Clearly I lean towards the less pills rather than more, and since these both are antidepressants besides their neuropathy-busting abilities, I’m wary.  I say "I’ll see", which usually means I won’t.)

Doc’s getting more chatty by the minute though and throwing out tips as he does a quick go round of my body parts as I sit on his examining couch.  Eat more fish. Cut out fatty food.  No pastries. (No pasties? Is the man crazy?) But then he follows it up with a compliment.  “Honestly, you’re doing pretty well for your age” he says.

And then we’re done. New scripts written, appointment made for four months time, see you next time.

Overall I rate the experience quite good. It’s an instutionalized experience, it’s true, which comes from my choice of a clinic rather than attending a private practice.  But the clinic model serves me well.  This one has a multi-disciplinary team that seems to works well together. In my time, I’ve consulted with their nutritionist, their social worker, their psychiatrist, their resident  pharmacist and their clinical trials specilaist.  The nurses are great too. In a way, it's a model of how things should operate.

 Now if I could just be a model patient.

Jaw dropping. That’s the word that springs to mind at what happens on the stage of Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre when the horses come out in War Horse. It’s a story of how horses – and one horse in particular  - were used in the battlefields of World War I At first we a see an awkward young foal - Joey, but he quickly transforms before our eyes in to a full grown horse. It’s a huge coup de theatre, which drew gasps from the audience, but it’s followed by one coup after another - horses ploughing, horses galloping across the stage, horses in battle, peaking perhaps with the illusion that full grown Joey leaps right off stage and in to the audience at the end of Act One.

This is truly spectacular stagecraft,  but not of the typical Broadway show variety.  This all-Canadian version comes to Toronto from Britain’s National Theatre and New York, replete with six Tony Awards, including Best Play, so it’s a quality ride all the way. What we see is not so much razzle-dazzle as a director stretching the limits of what can be done on stage within the context of approachable and engaging drama. It’s impossible not to be dazzled.

This  history of a horse who is sold to the army and shipped to the  battlefields and carnage of World War I is strongly plotted. Arthur, Joey's young owner, enlists to find him, and he does, of course in the end (it’s no secret that all leads to this) but the journey is grim for much of its running time. So family fare this is not, at least unless the youngsters can handle scenes of death, animal cruelty and extremely tense moments. But there is a heartwarming finish which will bring tears even to the most hardened eyes and ultimately this is a joyous ride, with humanity triumphing over the evils of war. But be warned - it will move you to tears, so be prepared for an emotional journey.

I haven’t mentioned how all this magic is pulled off.  For those not familiar with the show, the horses – and there are six full size animals on stage at one point, although the attention is focussed on just one, are played by life-sized puppets, courtesy of South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company.  Joey is manipulated by three actors throughout, underneath him and at his side, who soon fade in to the background, so lifelike are Joey’s movements, mannerisms and – yes – acting ability.  For Joey, is required to act throughout and it’s a clever and cleverly executed performance indeed.  In fact it’s hard to avoid suggesting he steals the show.

Not that the human cast isn’t impressive, but honestly, all pales compared to what the horses do here.  Production values are superb too – every scene is a joy to look at.  There are set pieces here where symphonic sound and lighting and superhuman feats of puppetry create illusions that yes, make the audience gasp. It is an incredibly visual show.

It’s also an absolute must see for those who can afford the Princess of Wales’ prices (look for special offers.) Gallop over and check things out, because theatre like this comes to town very rarely indeed.

The astonishing War Horse plays at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto until June 30.  For tickets and information go here.