Sixty Five Hours

i don't care where it came from, or what it used to be.

because right now it alienates people living with HIV by perpetuating the stereotype that HIV-positive people are disease vectors who could kill you.

it explicitly uses your (very real) fear of death by means of HIV to sell (very fictional) condoms, by making a direct connection between people who have HIV and a sad, painful, lonely expiration in a hospice ward a mere year after infection with HIV.

HIV, which never kills anyone.

as opposed to AIDS, which does.

if a real advertising agency proposed this campaign—wan, sickly people coughing in their death beds lamenting how they received a death sentence for having sex without a condom—there would be an uproar.

people would lose their jobs.

because that's just not true, and it's incredibly insensitive besides.

hence my rage.

these ideas are toxic, and hurtful.

and incorrect.

to say nothing of lazy and appropriative.

and that book perpetuates them, thoughtlessly, endlessly, forever.

*

look:

imagine you have HIV.

imagine someone who doesn't know you and is not like you decides to use HIV infection (and people with HIV just like you) to make a point about safe sex.

imagine they do so in a romance novel read and rated by thousands of people.

imagine all those people subconsciously thinking of you—and all people like you—as INFECTED WITH SOMETHING THAT WILL KILL THEM IF THEY HAVE SEX WIH YOU.

if they love you.

imagine an author doing that.

to you.

in the book you're reading.

right now.

now imagine they get it wrong.

*

authors should approach writing about groups to which they do not belong with extraordinary care, because the results can be at best disrespectful and at worst completely toxic and appropriative.

the bare minimum requirements do not change even if we are talking about white people writing about people of color, or able-bodied people writing about disabled people.

it's disgusting. and unbelievably painful. and a product of privileges others do not hold.

if you want to write about a group to which you do not belong, you need to be cautious. you need to work harder and do much, much more than regurgitate deranged shit you heard from some dumb bitch at recess in the fifth grade.

because anything less invites mistakes that can literally and actually hurt real human people.

forever.

n.r. walker does not belong to that group.

she does not have HIV.

she didn't check with anyone who had HIV.

or she wouldn't have gotten it so terribly wrong.

*

i think we need to examine why it's so easy for her—and people like her—to appropriate people and things she has no experience of, no matter the dangers to those people and things, without being challenged. that book came out ten years ago, and yet—incredibly—it appears i'm the first to take issue with that aspect of it.

i think we need to examine why someone pointing out why this is painful and incorrect is immediately dismissed, where her clearly insufficient authority is not. even people who know me—friends—didn't think anything of stepping in to speak confidently about things that are not part of their daily reality.

i think we need to ask why this is a thing that happens in MM every single day.

seriously.

i think we really, really need to ask why.

as a community of artists, and readers, and friends, and family.

as a community of people.

because if this is representation—if this is allyhood—

...she can fucking keep it.

*

so yeah.

yeah, you bet your ass i'm going after n.r. walker.

because she may have made her mistakes in this book back in 2006, but those mistakes were decades after she should have known better.

and she's never corrected them.

Cameron's mother's smile faded. "Except not having cornflakes, as opposed to condoms, won't change the course of your life," she said softly. Then she explained, "I do some volunteer work at the local respite house for people living with HIV... Sometimes it doesn't cost you the price of a condom. Sometimes it costs you a whole lot more."

The footage was unedited, as real as it can possibly be. A lady, once possibly beautiful, sat with a blanket over her lap. But it was Cameron's voice which sounds on-screen first. "Just start with your name," he prompted.

The lady smiled, though her ingrained sorrow remained. "My name is Amy," she said. "I was diagnosed with HIV four years ago. I had unprotected sex..." her voice trailed away.

"I was young, thought 'that can't happen to me'." She looked off camera and coughed.

Cameron waited patiently before his voice asked, "How much did it cost you?"

She smiled without humor. "Everything."

The footage cut then, and the on-film Cameron sat down beside a man. "My name is James," the man said. "I'm HIV positive. Been here for 12 months now," he added, looking around the room. "Treat me real nice here, they do."

On the footage, Cameron's voice said, "How much does your medication and treatment cost you a month?"

James answered, "I don't got no benefits... just for my meds, about a hundred bucks every month."

I watched the footage, unblinking. When it finished, I looked across. He was watching me, waiting for my reaction. "Cameron, it was..." my voice was quiet as I tried to find the right word. "...it’s brilliant."

Then I heard other voices, and when I walked into the staff room, he was there. He was talking to the cleaning staff, a man and a woman he called Gustavo and Maria, and they were speaking in Spanish.

They stopped talking when I walked in. "Don't mind me," I told them. "Just want coffee." I set about making myself a straight black, and as I was waiting for the water to boil, their conversation resumed.

Once again, like I wasn't even there.

And my already thin patience started to crack. I tried not to eavesdrop, but then I heard my name.

"Across the hall from me," Cameron said quietly in Spanish to Maria. And I knew then he was talking about me.

"Ah, si," the older lady said. "The new boy. You like working with him?" she questioned him in Spanish.

Cameron hesitated, but answered, still speaking in Spanish. "Very much. He's very good at what he does."

I could feel my patience and my temper stretch tight and I turned around to face them. "That's me," I said in Spanish. "Selling the unsellable."

Cameron's face paled, whether at me speaking Spanish, or because I repeated his very words back. I smiled at Cameron, well, it was probably more of a sneer, and after one glance between us, Gustavo and Maria quietly disappeared out the door.

I stared at Cameron, and he stared at me. I almost snarled when I spoke. "If you want to say something to me, Cameron, then fucking say it in English. And say it. To. Me."

He gritted his teeth. "Gustavo and Maria don't speak English very well. They've worked for my father since I was a kid. I will speak with them however the hell I want."

He turned the two remaining boards to face them, and their reactions were immediate. The two boards were in black and white; one male, one female; both gaunt, drawn and obviously unwell.

Cameron told them, "Fletcher Advertising donates to a local respite centre that specializes in HIV care. I filmed this there," he said, starting the visual presentation. The footage of the two patients, Amy and James, started and our three guests watched in silence. It was confronting and so very fucking real. I got cold shivers watching it, hearing their short but tragic stories, how the mere cost of a condom, or more importantly, the lack-there-of, cost them so much.

"...just how sure are you this gay aspect will work?"

"Mr. Makenna," I started, but Cameron cut me off.

"I know this will work, Mr. Makenna," he said, his eyes darted to the CCTV camera, then back to the man in front of us. "I know this will work, because I'm gay."

He laughed, but I told him, "But I also don't want you to ignore me. I don't expect us to be anything less than professional, but I also don't want you to treat me like I mean nothing to you."

Fuck. Now I sounded like a girl.

He bit his lip, to stop from smiling it would seem. “As in a date?”

“Yes, as in a date,” I answered. Great. Now I was grinning and giddy like a girl.

And that choked-up, emotional lump appeared in my throat again. Fuck. I was turning into a girl.

The ad features a sad and lonely little puppet sock, in a drab, colorless world, who appears to be looking for something he's lost. He passes pretty socks, even handsome socks, but shakes his head and keeps walking. He does look twice at one particular colorful, striped sock – which Cameron insisted on and still found hilarious - but this poor little sock just can't find what he is looking for.

Unable to go on, he is just about to pull a thread to unravel himself, when a cartoon ambulance pulls up, the doctor-socks grabs him, lays him on a gurney and rushes him away. The doctors perform CPR, and when they hit him with paddles, his little sock back arches off the bed. Finally the ambulance doors open, and the animated world is bright and colourful, Wizard of Oz style.

"Where am I?" the sock asks.

"Caiusaro," a soft voice answers. "It's Heaven for socks. Heaven for feet."