My Fabulous Disease

  For twenty-five years I have been writing about living openly as a gay man living with HIV. Along the way I have spilled secrets, opened up about sex and relationships, highlighted the work of […]

  The first time I contracted gonorrhea, which in my day was affectionately called The Clap, I was 20 years old and had just moved to West Hollywood, California. It was 1981, disco was still […]

They come from different cultures and regions of the world, but these fifteen HIV activists all share one important trait: a fierce devotion to HIV issues and a commitment to leave their mark on 2015. […]

(I can’t resist posting this each Holiday Season. The video below is my very favorite, of the more than 60 I have produced over the years. Enjoy!) My mother’s home here in Shreveport, Louisiana, was […]

My brother Richard smiles a lot. He has an easy laugh. But there was a time, years ago, when he held a poisonous drink in his hands and begged his dying lover not to swallow […]

When Chanse, a 19-year-old gay man living in Shreveport, Louisiana, tested HIV positive a few months ago, his mother reacted with understandable emotion and concern. And then she did something both odd and beautiful: she […]

When Mary E. Bowman stepped to the stage five years ago at SpitDat, an open mic night in Washington, DC, she was 20 years old and terrified. She was about to perform “Dandelions,” her first […]

My friend Carlton is a chain smoker, even if all his cigarettes are imaginary. His standard pose consists of one hand resting on his hip — elbow jutting out as if in the midst of […]

Tyler Helms won’t stop teasing his boyfriend during our video chat interview. He fiddles with Michael’s ear, or tickles his face, from his seat slightly behind him. No matter if Michael Lucas, adult film producer […]

I have twenty staples in my back holding an incision together. It hurts. Just making that rather gruesome statement leaves me feeling conflicted. Yes, I want sympathy. Yes, this pain has been a constant companion […]