Doug Pollard"Most evil" HIV spreader convicted (LINK)
August 1st 2008 00:51
Michael Neal - The Age
There’s no denying this case revealed some dark aspects of a section of the gay community. One man registering himself as a dog with the local council as proof of his love for another. Neal setting out to infect another man with HIV – without telling him – saying it’s better to get it from someone you love than from a stranger.
Sadly, some people, eager to demonise us, will jump on this as evidence that we’re all like that – which is nonsense. But there is no doubt that some gay men – often in late to middle age – have been so mangled by what they have been through at the hands of the world that they are, quite frankly, permanently damaged.
How else to explain the fascination with the dark side that so many of them evince, and which newer generations show fewer signs of taking up?
As you look down the age range you find that the current generation of young gay men – 16-20ish – while unafraid to experiment sexually, are altogether the most balanced, the sunniest generation I can remember. How well they age will of course depend on how loving and accepting society becomes, and how well it treats them. That sunny disposition could so easily be brutally extinguished.
But for now, and for the most part – and I’m talking mainly about those in the big cities – they seem remarkably well-balanced.
Even their country cousins, while still doing it much tougher, fare better as more regional groups and more internet resources become available, easing the awful pressure of thinking “I’m the only one.”
Almost forty years ago when I took my first tentative steps to accepting myself as a gay man, we had only just been decriminalized. Everyone seemed very tense all the time, only able to relax with the help of alcohol and, as time went on, more sinister drugs. Many gay men of my generation never had sex sober.
We have made great strides since then. Cases like Michael Neals remind us how far – and of the consequences of society’s repression and denial of homosexuality.
As we move into the era of acceptance, when it is ceasing to be remarkable, or even interesting, for two men to marry and dedicate their lives to each other, we can hope that there will be fewer and fewer Michael Neals in future.
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