Why Are So Many Mid-Life “Gay” Men Getting HIV?

More on that “healthy” “gay” lifestyle…the one that our schools are promoting to our children…

Excerpted from Why Are So Many Mid-Life Gay Men Getting HIV?, by Spencer Cox and Bruce Kellerhouse, PhD, published Mar 15, 2007, by the pro-homosexuality Gay City News:

New data released by the city’s department of health show that the highest rates of new HIV infections are among gay men 35 to 49 years old. These findings are alarming and, to some, perplexing.

Why are so many mid-life gay men who were able to avoid HIV infection for so long now taking risks that are exposing them to the disease?

We believe that one common thread runs through most of these men’s life histories – they came out and/or lived during the death-saturated culture of the 1980s and early to mid-1990s.

Mid-life gay men have lived most of their adult lives during the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, experiencing the loss of partners, friends, and people in their community…

By 1988, gay men had already on average lost six lovers, friends, and/or family members…

Many health problems that are now common among gay men are made worse by loneliness and lack of social opportunities…

Furthermore, gay men have high levels of depression and anxiety disorders, another characteristic of people who have survived trauma. Studies estimate that gay men have about twice the levels of depression than are found in Americans generally. Depression is strongly linked to high-risk behavior, including drug use, alcoholism, and risky sex.

The methamphetamine epidemic that has swept through urban gay communities also contributes to high levels of new HIV infections. A recent study from the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, which offers HIV testing, found that one in three new HIV-positive tests was associated with meth use. About one in 10 gay men in New York City report recent meth use.

In some ways, gay men in mid-life are at the center of a “perfect storm,” in which multiple problems converge to create a very high-risk environment…

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