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Friday, August 22, 2008
It
doesn’t
affect
me.
That
was
the
perspective
that
Victor,
a
33-year-old
D.C.
resident,
had
about
HIV
before
he
learned
in
2005
that
he
was
infected
with
the
disease.
Victor,
who
requested
his
full
name
be
withheld,
said
before
he
contracted
HIV
he
thought
the
disease
was
“something
that
happened
to
someone
else.”
“It’s
just
one
of
those
sort
of
off-the-wall
crazy
things
that
is
never
really
going
to
happen
to
me,”
Victor
said.
“It’s
just
another
possibility
along
with
being
killed
in
a
building
by
a
plane.”
Damian,
a
34-year-old
D.C.
resident
who
also
requested
his
full
name
be
withheld,
similarly
thought
he
would
never
be
infected
with
HIV.
He
discovered
he
was
HIV
positive
in
2003.
“I
didn’t
think
I
was
invincible,
but
I
really
didn’t
think
it
would
happen
to
me,”
he
said.
The
two
are
among
a
growing
number
of
young
gay
men
in
the
United
States
contracting
the
virus.
New
data
from
the
Whitman-Walker
Clinic
suggest
that
the
number
of
infections
in
D.C.
has
jumped
considerably
just
in
the
last
year.
The
Clinic
revealed
earlier
this
month
that
the
number
of
its
clients
testing
positive
for
HIV
jumped
from
80
in
the
first
half
of
2007
to
266
in
the
first
half
of
2008
—
an
unprecedented
increase
of
232
percent.
Clinic
officials
said
the
findings
are
particularly
alarming
because
the
total
number
of
people
tested
so
far
in
2008,
about
6,500,
is
roughly
the
same
number
it
tested
during
the
first
half
of
2007,
meaning
the
spike
in
cases
was
not
a
result
of
testing
more
people.
The
Clinic’s
numbers
come
on
the
heels
of
recent
reports
from
the
U.S.
Centers
for
Disease
Control
&
Prevention
finding
an
increase
in
HIV
infections
among
gays,
particularly
with
young
men.
A
June
report
found
that
the
average
annual
increase
of
infection
was
12
percent
in
the
13-to-24-year-old
group,
compared
to
a
1
percent
decline
for
25-to-44-year-olds.
In
the
younger
bracket,
there
was
a
15
percent
increase
among
blacks.
Gerard
Tyler,
a
54-year-old
gay
man
and
D.C.
resident
who
found
he
was
infected
with
HIV
in
1990,
said
the
recent
spike
in
infections
is
“troubling.”
Growing
up
in
a
Catholic
family,
Tyler
said
he
had
no
knowledge
about
safe-sex
practices.
“I
find
it
hard
to
believe
that
people
today
are
as
naïve
as
I
had
been,”
he
said.
“It
just
shows
that
people
still
are
not
using
precautions.”
Despite
the
rising
numbers,
Victor
and
Damian
said
they
believe
young
gay
men
look
at
HIV
as
less
than
a
serious
threat.
Before
he
was
infected,
Victor
said
he
considered
HIV
to
be
a
disease
of
an
earlier
generation.
“I
belong
to
a
generation
of
gay
men
that
at
least
on
some
level
might
think
of
HIV
as
a
historical
footnote,”
he
said.
“The
absolute
terror
that
people
used
to
have
about
HIV
has
begun
to
wane
a
little
bit.”
Victor
said
the
HIV
epidemic
in
the
late
’80s
and
early
’90s
that
took
place
when
he
had
not
yet
graduated
from
high
school
was
a
concept
that
“was
happening
on
TV
and
was
happening
someplace
else.”
Victor,
who
contracted
HIV
by
having
unprotected
sex
sometime
in
2004
or
2005,
said
not
realizing
the
threat
of
HIV
was
a
factor
in
how
he
was
infected.
“I
do
think
that
forgetting
how
real
HIV
is
…
I
know
certainly
contributed
to
my
contracting
the
disease
and
I’m
sure
contributes
to
other
people
like
me,”
he
said.
Although
Victor
found
a
long-term
boyfriend
and
has
been
with
him
for
about
six
months,
he
said
being
HIV
positive
still
carries
a
strong
social
stigma
that
has
made
dating
“very,
very
difficult.”
“It’s
something
for
the
life
of
me
that
I
just
can’t
scrub
away,
and
there
are
people
who
won’t
think
about
dating
me
because
of
it,”
he
said.
“That
makes
it
a
very
lonely,
lonely
place.”
Victor
said
he
has
sex
with
his
boyfriend,
who
is
HIV
negative,
but
the
two
always
use
condoms.
Damian
discovered
in
2003
he
was
infected
after
having
unprotected
sex
with
his
long-term
boyfriend.
“In
the
heat
of
the
moment,
I
would
not
use
a
condom
because
it
took
too
long
or
because
he
didn’t
have
one
or
some
silly
reason
like
that,”
he
said.
Damian
needed
to
start
taking
medication
the
first
day
he
discovered
he
was
infected.
After
about
one
year
of
taking
a
one-a-day
pill,
the
virus
was
not
detectable
in
his
bloodstream.
He
currently
has
another
boyfriend
who
is
also
HIV
positive.
John
Gourley,
a
nurse
who
handles
HIV/AIDS
cases
at
the
Whitman-Walker
Clinic,
said
he
thinks
that
the
growing
number
of
HIV
infections
is
the
result
of
both
the
growing
acceptance
of
homosexuality
and
a
lack
of
education
on
gay
sex
in
schools.
“A
lot
of
these
men
are
telling
me
that
when
they
were
younger,
first
and
foremost,
they
were
not
receiving
the
proper
education
in
high
schools,”
he
said.
“A
lot
of
schools
now,
mainly
they
teach
abstinence,
so
there’s
not
a
whole
lot
of
support
and
education
there.”
Gourley,
who
is
gay,
said
teens
are
coming
out
at
15
or
16,
practicing
“risky
behaviors”
and
“as
a
result
are
becoming
positive
later
on.”
She
said
most
of
the
patients
who
discover
they
have
been
recently
infected
range
in
age
from
18
to
30.
She
noted
a
majority
of
the
men
who
have
recently
contracted
HIV
are
black,
although
whites
and
Latinos
have
also
been
newly
infected.
Gourley
said
patients
have
a
number
of
different
reactions
when
they
find
they
are
HIV
positive.
Many
clients
are
“very
much
traumatized”
and
feel
that
they
will
be
ostracized
from
their
families
and
their
communities,
he
said.
But
a
handful
of
other
clients,
commonly
known
as
“bug
chasers,”
want
to
become
infected
with
the
disease,
Gourley
said,
and
feel
some
relief
after
contracting
HIV
because
they
feel
like
they
won’t
have
to
wait
for
the
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