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    #32
    mattP
    Closed Accounts Posts: 255 ✭✭mattP


    I was really annoyed this morning. I heard an ad appealing for blood donors, and in my head I got caught up with why they dont accept sexually active gay men and it really made my unwanted blood boil
    ....That's when I realised my double standards. I was angry at the seeming presumption that we all have HIV while I was having unsafe sex with a guy.
    ....so I decided I'd look into getting tested. Id bet my life Im clean but its best to do one anyway, I suppose. I was kinda worried about how to broach the topic with him as it seems like its gonna be a fairly regular thing between us. He's fine with getting tested too, so it looks like its all gonna go ahead.
    Thanks for all the advice ^.^ It eventually set in


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    #33
    nathang20
    Registered Users Posts: 78 ✭✭nathang20


    OP, I was your age when Irish blood introduced the restriction on Gay people giving blood. I was also your age when Mad Cow disease was in its prime, a restriction also by Irish blood to anybody that lived in the UK when this crisis took hold (80s/90s).

    Irish blood introduced the restriction because of increased levels of STI's, to include HIV. Men were having sex with each other and the fear I remember wasn't across the board to every gay Irish person to USE PROTECTION. Hence, Irish blood thought that it was doing a pro-active action and made these restrictions. I would loved to have given blood over the years but I have the Mad cow and gay problem behind me.

    Its 2015 and Irish blood are seeing less and less Gay people with HIV (questionable)and developing AID's, due to the fact men use protection, but for some reason the young Gay people seem to feel immune to any kind of infection. Aids, a word that struck fear in me, when I saw what it was doing to people. I was in the UK late 80's and 90's and saw the full impact of what was happening. I came back to Ireland to study and the difference between Ireland and the UK in education, was nothing short of a disaster. The gay scene was a mess during the 80's & early 90's. Too many people associated HIV and AIDS as being a typical STI, curable with antibiotics. I saw this first hand. I never want to see it again.


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