Tea began as medicine and morphed into a beverage of choice!
I don't quite remember when I fell in love with tea but I do remember the most 
Until recently I had never drank Peppermint Tea made with loose leaves. And Honestly, I will probably never go back. The freshness of loose Peppermint Tea cannot be denied. When I open the can of 
I love to read! Inside a book I escape into someone else's life. There is something wonderful about turning to the next page of a wonderful story. Something intoxicating about the smell of the book and the story it brings to life. Reading brings me joy, and these days with my health in the balance, I find solace in my books.
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| Maria Mejia |
When I saw the reason of her distress I was in disbelief. I sat there trying to process what I was seeing. I read her blog post and I liked what she had to say so I asked if I could share it with my readers. Click here to read her blog. I'm sharing her views because I am not alone in this. There is a community of women living with AIDS, doing our part, and fighting to maintain our dignity in the face of stigma.
I had to give this AIDS awareness campaign in France a lot of thought. Like Maria, I understood the point. But I wondered if it did more harm than good. I started to think about all the implications in these ads. Then I Googled the other picture she had mentioned. People with AIDS being compared to Hitler? HUH? The scorpion was one thing, but Hitler? Damn!
And yes, I'm the person who created #FuckinFriday on Twitter and I tweet about people fucking on Fridays without thinking. So while people are making there plans to have sex on Fridays, I remind them to take there fuckin ass to the drug store and get some fuckin condoms so they don't become a fuckin fool. Yep, I actually tweet about that all day on Fridays. So I understand about getting people's attention. I understand hitting as hard as you can with the hope that you have an impact. And I've never been one to sugarcoat a thing.
But there was something about this ad campaign that didn't sit well with me. It left a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. It seemed to overstep a boundary. The difference is in my methodology, i.e., how I approach my activism and this campaign; they name call and provoke fear and hatred.
I mean, come on! When you see a scorpion you immediately think of death. And maybe that was their point. But the fact of the matter, like Maria, I'm not a fucking scorpion. I'm a loving, fabulous woman that God made in His image. Yes, having unprotected sex with a person with HIV will probably get you HIV. But that is one side of the coin, on the other side, having protected sex, i.e., sex with a latex condom, will protect you from HIV.
But then you take the Hitler picture. Make no mistake, there is no good quality that I can muster up on his behalf. So I take great offense to being compared to a man who deliberately set out to kill a few races of people, as well as cultures. It is especially disturbing to suggest that I am a murderer when statistics show that the majority of people who have HIV go to great lengths to protect their partner. To suggest that I am a killing machine is way over the line and it feeds into the stigma that already clouds the real issues around HIV/AIDS.
Case in point, the woman who emailed me that her mother will not go into the HIV clinic with her. The young man who's afraid to tell his family he has HIV and has been living in secret now for three months. And, the host of people on Twitter #teamHIVAIDS, who live in secret with their status for fear of judgment and rejection. Yes, even I lived with this fear for almost 8 years. I understand it well. And remember my most recent blog post on herpes, where I talk about the shame of having both HIV and herpes.
It is campaigns such as these that not only make us feel bad about ourselves, but they also continue to feed into an unjust hysteria about the type of people who actually have HIV. This ad is not just calling HIV ugly, it's making the inference that people with HIV are like the images in these pictures.
So how can you, society, ever like me when I'm compared to Hilter? How will you ever get to know me if you have already pre-judged me? Will I ever make it to your home if you already think a certain way about me and other people living with HIV? If everything you've been told about me directly or indirectly is heartless, nasty and mean, how will you ever really come to know and most importantly, support me? This campaign isolates people with HIV/AIDS.
I overheard a conversation with a woman and a doctor at the clinic on Tuesday. She hadn't been to the clinic in two years, mostly out of shame. And she does have an OB/GYN doctor at another clinic, but she is too ashamed to tell her that she has HIV. So shame has prevented her from getting the proper treatment and care to prolong her life. And ads like this only reinforce shame around our HIV status.
And then let's take it a step further. I can just imagine someone looking at these images and saying, "I would never have sex with someone like that." Yes, I'm saying that these pictures reinforce the idea that the only "certain types" of people actually have HIV. And at the end of the day, most people will think that they could never in a thousand years have sex with a person like "that."
This campaign might have been well intended, but for me, it only created more stigma and shame around HIV/AIDS. I know if it had been in the United States, AIDS activists would have forced that campaign down. #ForReal. There is a part of me that wonders how Europeans with HIV feel about being compared to Hilter and who on God's earth would think it was ok? What the HELL were they thinking?
HIV is not a "boogie man" that's gonna get you. HIV is all of us and when you buy into the stereotypes of who would have HIV, you put yourself at risk. So I will say it again, wrap it up! You cannot look at a person and tell.
So I say it yet again, when you fuck without a condom you are a fuckin fool. There is no sex worth your life. Stop fuckin without thinking. And equally as important, stop buying into the stereotypes about people with HIV/AIDS. All it does is help to create more stigma and shame for people living with HIV, and at the same time gives you a false sense of security.
