Gareth Thomas

"Does everything have to be about everything?" is a line I heard thrown out in exhausted frustration once by someone who was working really hard on what he and I believed to be an important issue. But people kept hammering him with "But why are you not working on _this_ other issue is it not important???"

There are many complex angles to every complex issue. Many subsections that deserve time and focus in and of their own right. And it is a _good thing_ when a person decides to focus their energy on one of them.

It sounds like this guy has decided to focus on A) The Stigma of HIV and the out dated notions people have from the 80s about what it means to live with HIV today.

This is a good thing - so I am not sure anything is to be gained by pointing out _another different_ subsection of the topic that he has not focused on. There are other people who focus on those. He is focusing on this. Not focusing on every aspect of an issue does not de-legitimize or in any way take away from focusing on parts of the whole.

There are many people already "extolling the virtues" of safe sex practices. That is their chosen wheel house. This is his chosen wheel house. There is no requirement whatsoever for them to cross over if they choose not to.

That said though the article says "Thomas firmly believes using his platform to start conversations about HIV" and since you bring up the topic of HIV and it's relation to safe sex - he has achieved exactly that. You see - a person does not have to touch on every aspect of an issue if his agenda is to stimulate conversations on that issue. You just did it for him.

So you answer your own question of " So Mr Thomas, why not start your debate by " - by proving he does not have to. His platforming the topic in the first place in his own chosen way means _people exactly like you_ will do it for him.

partyguinness wrote: »

"I am gay and HIV+- use your imagination as to how I caught it as I wish to focus on a different aspects of the HIV narrative"- is that helpful?

Again - you are focusing on what he is not saying rather than what he is saying and evaluating if it is "helpful" or not. The only way I can respond to that is to simply re-type the entire post I just typed. Because the reply is literally the same.

To evaluate if his message is helpful or not - I would focus on the message he _is_ spreading and what the content of that message is.

Is it helpful to destigmatize many aspects of living with HIV? Yes. Yes it is.

Is it helpful to take outdated ideas of what the public think live with HIV is and update them? Yes. Yes it is.

If it helpful to construct fantasies about bathhouses and "chemsex" and "random strangers" and serial nymhomania? No. Not so much. Some people with HIV - straight people and homosexuals - contracted it from a single sexual encounter. A 30 year old virgin can court a partner of any gender for months before having sex and contract it. So why the automatic need to jump to sordid backstreet promiscuity?

Further discussing how _he_ contracted it misses the point. His message is about _all_ people who live with HIV. Who contracted it in any of the ways it is possible to do so. So focusing on how one single individual contracted it - rather on his more global message about how everyone lives with it - seems superfluous in the extreme.

partyguinness wrote: »

I think how he (or anyone) catches HIV is more than just a mere subsection.

You can think it - but thinking it does not make it true. His message seems to be focused primarily on what it is like to live with HIV. As such how he contracted it is not just a mere subsection - I would argue it is not _even_ a subsection. In the same way that if you start a cooking show focusing solely on cakes - you are generally not required to discuss how flour is made.

So if he was spreading a different message where how he contracted it had more relevant I _still_ would have posted the first post above. But since his message seems to be about what it is like to live with HIV - it is even less relevant still.

None of that message or narrative requires discussion of how it was contracted.

partyguinness wrote: »

He even said it himself- he had no idea about HIV up to a few years ago until he caught it which is quite astonishing.

Depends what you think he means - or what he actually means. If he means he had literally no idea to the point of knowing it even existed then that is somewhat surprising yes. Not astonishing. Just surprising.

But he did not say this. He said he knew nothing "about" it and I am not as surprised by that. As I take him to mean that he shared the same ignorance's about it that he has now committed himself to dispelling in others.

For example I was just writing on another thread about Tourettes Syndrome today. Nearly all of what I have learned about it came in the last 3 years and mostly from two youtube channels before I started reading science papers on the matter. I knew "nothing about" it before that really.

And by that I do not mean _literally_ nothing about it. I knew some things. Mostly what comedy sketches or Entertainment Media highlighted about it. But I had an astounding number of points of ignorance about it. "I know nothing about that" is a common and convenient turn of phrase. It is not a phrase to be taken 100% literal. But I would say that three years ago I knew nothing about Tourettes in the same way I read him to mean he knew nothing about HIV.

partyguinness wrote: »

I don't think it would take too much for him to focus on removing stigmas while at the same time mentioning the importance of safe sexual practices

He certainly could. I am not saying otherwise. What I am saying is that him choosing _not_ to does not take away from anything he _does_ say. Again "Does everything have to be everything" is the phrase that comes to my mind. There are any number of things he _could_ say. But it is up to each individual voice to decide what aspects of the message are dear to them - and spread that message.

If everyone just lined up to say what they could say, then everyone would just end up saying the same message pretty much. And what use is that to anyone? Anyone who came out to discuss HIV would just repeat the same bullet points as the last guy/gal? Why?

What complex issues require is multiple voices saying individual things in individual ways. Each one focusing on the aspects of that issue that are meaningful or important to them. And united together those voices make a holistic useful overall movement. We do not need clones touting a party line and making sure to hit all the same "key points" as each other each time. You might as well just walk into the local police station, sing a bar of Alices Restaurant, and walk out (old musical reference there, sorry).

But somehow it seems to me often this is what people want. There seems to be an unspoken thought in the minds of some minority that goes something like "If you want to lend you voice to issue X then you must cover points X1 X2 and X3 or something is off and we will call you on it".

partyguinness wrote: »

Which is exactly my point.

Well - no. Your "point" is that you feel it should be - or should have been - mentioned and discussed. A point you have not yet backed up in any way. Nor have you rebutted the reasons I have offered as to why the opposite is true. I discussed several reasons why mentioning it is not required. I discussed several reasons why mentioning it would be a bad thing. You replied to _none_ of those. Just skipped over and ignored it.

I will add _another_ reason not to mention it to the list of things you have already dodged. Brevity. We live in the age of twitter and short attention spans. When getting a message out there it behooves one therefore to be concise and to the point. Adding a whole dialog to his message about how he contracted it therefore is not only superfluous for the reasons I discussed already - but would in fact elongate a message that could otherwise be short and to the (his) point.

partyguinness wrote: »

then that would be clearly mentioned in every article.

As I said in the post you are replying to "A fantasy supported by nothing but another fantasy imagining what you think he would say had he contracted it another way"

Your only evidence for something you have no evidence for - is to imagine another scenario you have no evidence for - and declare what you imagine _would_ be done/said in that scenario.

So you are evidencing one fantasy by reference to another. Nothing more.

partyguinness wrote: »

'we' are entitled to ask questions.

Of course you are. But you should do so while realizing you are not entitled to get answers. You do not deserve them. You do not require them. You have no basis to demand them or expect them.

So by all means ask! No one suggested you shouldn't. I know I haven't.

partyguinness wrote: »

It makes you uncomfortable

Does it? Seem you know me better than I know myself then because I was not aware of feeling any such discomfort. Or is this another fantasy? I have not once said any such thing makes me uncomfortable. And I have not once said discussing any aspect of it makes me feel uncomfortable. You are simply making this stuff up now.

partyguinness wrote: »

Fine and the rest of us should just put 'two and two' together

Also not what I said either. I am not saying people need to "put two and two together". What I am saying is that it is not necessary to do so at all because _nothing_ about the message the guy is putting out requires it. Not one aspect of the message he offered - or the goal he claims to be striving for - requires any background on how the disease was contracted. At all.

partyguinness wrote: »

What does an 18 year old think

Well you seem to know what people would say in scenarios that did not happen - and what people like me feel despite not having expressed those feelings - so why stop there when you could imagine what some random 18 year old thinks too? Is any part of your central point on this thread reliant on anything except what you have imagined in your own mind?

But this fantasy - much like most of your others - is a fantasy about entirely the wrong thing. What your fantasy dialog shows is not that things about Gareth's medical history are relevant. Rather what your fantasy dialog shows is extremely bad parenting.

Were the same conversation to occur in my house it would go something more like this:

18 yr old: "Garth Thomas is HIV+. What does that mean?”
Parent: <Proceeds to explain what a virus is, what HIV+ specifically is, and how it affects the person who has it>
18 yr old: "So how did he catch it?
Parent: <Proceeds to explain that how any one individual catches it is irrelevant to their message - but then explains the multiple ways such a disease can be caught and how to avoid it in each case>

The rest of your contrived little fantasy dialog then would not happen as it would have all been addressed. The 18 year old in question would also not be left with the false notion that this is some disease linked solely to homosexuals but that it is equally a concern of heterosexuals.

So actually your nonsense makey up conversation proves my point not yours. Should such a conversation happen then Garth's goal of consciousness raising - stimulating learning and conversation - and removing of falsehoods and stereotypes - would be achieved. And discussing how he in particular contracted it would add absolutely nothing to those goals or achievements. Because we as parents should be educating our children on _all_ the risk factors involved.

partyguinness wrote: »

There you go. But you see according to some other posters that is not relevant or even connected and merely a "subsection". How he caught HIV is but a trifling little footnote. Don't worry about.

You are strawmanning now.

What "some other posters" are actually saying is that sex education and messages about contracting the disease are important too. What "some other posters" actually said to you is that we need voices discussing those things in our society too.

And yes sex education is pretty poor in many countries. Not helped by little pearl clutchers who think discussing the subject of sex with children is some kind of bad thing.

But what "some other posters" have been telling you is that there are other messages - other voices - and other discussions to be had in the discussion too. That it's having a mixture of voices and messages - each focused on separate aspects of the whole - that will give a stronger overall holistic message on the topic.

And those other aspects do not all require a discussion of contraction of the disease - and much less how any one single individual contracted the disease. As I said twice already - I would discuss the production process of flour if I was discussing the origin of food stuffs. I would not do so if I was discussing how to bake a cake. Two very related subjects - but certain information can be relevant in one context and entirely irrelevant in another.

As I said at the beginning "Does everything have to be everything???".

Points of view can be backed up too you know. Just because you choose not to does not mean they can not be.

And yes I have backed up my point of view multiple times. You decided to ignore and not reply to any of it. But that does not mean it was not there.

For example I pointed out that when making a _general_ message about life with HIV to discuss how one individual contracted it risks constraining the message to people like that. Whereas to leave it out entirely means the message is more universal. You simply ignored this. That does not mean I did not say it.

Another example I pointed out how the disease is contracted is not at all relevant to a message about living with it. Because if you are discussing what living with it is like - then that is going to be just as true for someone who contracted it sexually as it is about someone who contracted it medically. This too - ignored.

In my most recent post I also pointed out how in the twitter generation it is often useful to keep messages short. So including superfluous information or discussion just needlessly makes the message longer. Also ignored.

Also I discussed how when discussing a complex topic like HIV - we are better off having many people making many different messages and discussing several aspects and subsections of the whole rather than everyone being expected to discuss everything about it. A mixture of voices and messages rather than drones all saying the same things. Also - you guessed it - ignored.

So no - the "double standard" you mention is just another in a long line of things that you have imagined but is not actually there.

You seem to think it is relevant however. But I am not seeing a single sentence in any of your posts showing how it actually is. While I have offered several reasons why it isn't and why mentioning it is actually counter productive. All ignored by you.

So yes the analogy stands - the accusation of straw manning remains accurate - and the relevance of how the HIV in this one particular case was contracted remains a mystery.