New HIV and STI Resource Launch in Vancouver, British Columbia!

With the resources for sexual health on the internet being numerous, its hard to know where to go.  Well now HIM has a one-stop shop for gay men’s sexual health information.  The site bundles a host of HIV and STI testing resources together; those who visit www.checkhimout.ca/testing are invited to learn their own “number” – that is, how many times per year they should be testing for HIV, based on their level of risk.

via Advocate, by Daniel Vaillancourt

Mikey Rox and Everett Earl Morrow, both now 30, were committed to monogamy when they met and fell in love. That was five years ago.

The legally married couple has had an open relationship for the last two years. “Who wouldn’t want to be allowed to hook up with other guys and have their husband be OK with it?” he asks.

“Isn’t that what most men dream of, and isn’t the limitation of sex with one partner in a marriage the reason why so many people cheat?” Adds Morrow, “As two men, sex isn’t particularly emotional for either of us. That enables us to separate our love for one another from the occasional physical attraction we may have for another guy.”

Matthew and Pablo, married 40-something realtors in Palm Springs, Calif., were monogamous for the first eight of their 15 years together.

“We sort of just fell into our open relationship,” says Matthew. “It’s been a slow evolution. In the beginning, we only played together, which made it feel less threatening.”

They still enjoy the occasional threesome, but for the last few years have increasingly sought sex outside the relationship.

Jelle and Guido, both 44-year-old ground personnel for an international airline in Amsterdam, have been together since 1997.

For 10 years monogamy reigned. But when physical attraction waned, sex fell by the wayside and the relationship soured, eventually hitting rock bottom.

The two figured they had nothing to lose, opened up their relationship, and saved it. “I’m really happy,” says Guido. “It made our relationship stronger. I’m glad he’s my partner, I love him, and I believe it was a wise decision to give each other the freedom we needed.”

Adds Jelle: “There are so many things keeping us together: love, trust, friendship, security, common hobbies and interests, humor, a shoulder to cry on. Much too much to give up for that tiny but oh so important aspect in life that is sex.”

Although no one knows for sure how many gay couples are in open relationships, or whether they are on the decline, it’s certain these men are not alone. “I would feel comfortable saying that at least four out of five long-term gay male couples are not monogamous,” says Beverly Hills sexologist Winston Wilde.

“Monogamy rarely does work for more than two years — for most straight and bi men as well.”
Which isn’t to say that lifelong fidelity is unattainable. Experts agree that couples who are creative and on the same page can absolutely sustain a vigorously exclusive sex life.

“We are not and have never been in an open relationship,” says Doug Hairgrove. He and partner Warren Wood, married septuagenarians also from Palm Springs, have been together 50 years.

They’re still intimate at least twice a week and see sex and love as inseparable. “We do not understand having one and not the other,” says Wood.

John Sovec, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Pasadena, Calif., encourages his clients to form the most powerful and satisfying bond possible. “I believe gay couples have an incredible opportunity to create whatever type of relationship works best for them without the constraints of a societal norm,” he says.

When one partner wants an open relationship and the other does not, “one person has to yield,” says Loren A. Olson, a Des Moines psychiatrist and the author of Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story.

Read more.

What’s the ‘gayest’ U.S. city? Not necessarily the most gay friendly

By Stephanie Siek, CNN

(CNN) – Salt Lake City, Utah, is known for breathtaking mountain scenery, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the 2002 Winter Olympics.

But today it was also named the Gayest City in America by The Advocate magazine.

The Advocate ranked cities according to its own admittedly nonscientific criteria, including the number of gay and lesbian bookstores, elected officials who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and some edgier metrics like the number of International Mr. Leather competition semifinalists and the presence of nude yoga classes. This year’s list intended to examine cities that are outside the usual orbit of San Francisco, Boston, Miami and New York, and came up with several surprises – Grand Rapids, Michigan, Knoxville, Tennessee. Even Little Rock, Arkansas, ranked 11 out of 15.

Salt Lake City LGBTQ advocates were pleasantly surprised by the rankings.

“Well, you know, we’re all very proud of our community here, and we’ve done a lot of growing and empowering of each other and our allies in the community,” said Valerie Larabee, the executive director of the Utah Pride Center, but “we probably wouldn’t have a higher ranking if the homework was done … We don’t have naked yoga, or at least none of us know about it.”

(For the record: The Advocate counted one nude yoga class there, and one Mr. Leather semifinalist, too.)

According to 2010 Census data analyzed by UCLA’s Williams Institute, 15.36 out of every 1,000 households in Salt Lake City are headed by a same-sex couple. Salt Lake City ranks 81^st out of 1,415 cities nationwide in its number of same-sex couples per capita.

The same analysis found that Little Rock had 7.51 gay or lesbian couples for every 1,000 households, ranking it 392^nd.

Salt Lake City was ranked higher than several cities many would presume to be gay-friendlier, like Denver, Austin, and Atlanta. But Larabee said that Salt Lake’s top ranking shouldn’t overshadow the discrimination and lack of acceptance that many LGBTQ Utahns still face.

“I appreciate that there’s some humor in the selections, in the indices that were used, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves,” Larabee said. “We, like many of these communities, still have some issues that need to be addressed. While we have a thriving community here, we’re united because we have to be.”

Opinion: Attention Rick Santorum – here’s how to support a gay child

Randi Romo heads the Center for Artistic Revolution in Little Rock, which serves as the state’s LGBTQ organization. She was also bemused by the city’s inclusion.

To see the entire list and read more, click here.

 Are Our Future Doctors Receiving Enough Training to Care for LGBT People?

Andrew Silapaswan
Public policy intern, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC)

After relocating halfway across the country to New York City, finding an LGBT-friendly and culturally competent doctor was not high on my priority list. However, my priorities changed when I required medical services in November. I quickly realized I would have to find a new primary care physician who is both knowledgeable in LGBT health care, and who will treat me with understanding and respect.

My experience is not unique, as many others in the LGBT community face similar challenges. In a 2005 survey 22 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual patients reported having experienced some form of discrimination in a health care setting. So why are so many health care providers ill-equipped to handle the health care needs of LGBT people? As a medical school candidate with my sights set on starting medical school in fall 2012, I am cross-comparing prospective M.D. programs and actively examining components of medical school curricula.

A medical school’s curriculum must meet rigorous standards established by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) to receive accreditation. Nonetheless, recent studies and testimony on behalf of medical school administrations indicate that there are significant gaps in curricular content. More specifically, the quality and breadth of LGBT health-related content is lacking and remarkably uneven across medical schools.

One of the most comprehensive studies examining the incorporation of LGBT content in medical education was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report indicated that the median time dedicated to teaching LGBT-related content was five hours (during the entire four years of medical education) in the 132 U.S. and Canadian medical schools that were surveyed. Additionally, nine schools reported zero hours taught during the preclinical years, and 44 schools reported zero hours of clinical training.

In terms of overall assessment of quality, the results are equally discouraging. A majority of medical school administrators revealed that their coverage of LGBT-related content was fair or worse. Thirty-two deans responded that their school’s coverage of LGBT health care was “good” or “very good,” while 58 reported that it was “fair,” and 34 indicated that it was “poor” or “very poor.”

The results are especially problematic given the fact that LGBT people have historically faced barriers in accessing competent medical care in addition to having specific health care needs.

Research findings reported by the American Psychological Association indicate that LGBT individuals may be at an increased risk for negative health behaviors and outcomes and experience a number of health disparities compared with their heterosexual peers. For example, gay men and lesbians report higher rates of smoking. Cardiac and cancer risk factors are also more prevalent among lesbians compared with heterosexual women. A large-scale study published in 2000 found that breast cancer rates and several associated risk factors are higher among lesbians and bisexual women.

Furthermore, men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to face disproportionate rates of HIV and are the only demographic in which new infections are rising in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MSM represent 2 percent of the general population yet accounted for 61 percent of all new infections in 2009. Clearly, the health care needs of LGBT individuals, which are largely complicated by stigma, homophobia, and other structural factors, underscore the necessity for comprehensive LGBT-related content in medical school curricula.

Read more.

Queer and Immigrant for the Holidays

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Erwin de Leon

Many seek the company of compatriots to recreate festivities and meals that evoke their countries of origin.

Most turn to their ethnic congregations for services consistent with their values and traditions.

Queer immigrants, like any other newcomer, can find the holidays tough. But it can also be doubly hard for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender immigrants, as they feel left out not only by the mainstream but by their own families and ethnic communities, which tend to be conservative and unwelcoming of openly LGBT individuals.

“My blood family and I had a contentious relationship due to my political involvement teemed with my sexuality and gender identity,” said K, who identifies as queer, transgender, and of Philippine descent.

“Due to this, I was kicked out, homeless, and estranged as a young person from my blood family. This has incited displacement, a painful sense of mobility, and an instability that show itself during holiday time.”

Tania, a community organizer at the Immigrant Youth Justice League and coordinator for the LGBTQ Immigrant Rights Project at the Association of Latino Men for Action, says her family has come around.

They are more comfortable with her being out, and she is able to bring her partner home for the holidays.
She nonetheless feels a great loss at this time of the year.

Tania is undocumented. Her parents brought their family over from Mexico 18 years ago when she was only 10 years old.

It is important for her to describe herself as without papers. “That’s really an important part of my identity because it’s something that has been true for me for most of my life,” she said. “It’s something that has affected every aspect of how I live.”

“It’s really difficult to listen to people’s plans of traveling at this time to a country where I can’t go even if I wish I could,” she admitted.

Read more.

2011 – A Good Year to be Gay

via theguardian, by Aaron Hicklin

A funny thing happened in America in 2011. With the US political establishment in deadlock and Republicans bowing to Tea Party mandarins over a raft of issues from immigration to curbs on trade unions, one area of American civil liberties celebrated a watershed year.

After decades in which gay rights have polarised US opinion, the country barely shrugged in September when a two-decade old law prohibiting gay men and women from serving openly in the military was finally repealed, prompting thousands of gay soldiers to post coming-out videos on YouTube – just one more example of how the web has transformed gay visibility.

Less than two months earlier New York became the sixth, and biggest, state to allow same-sex couples to marry.

To put that in context, there are more people living in New York than in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage.

The struggle for marriage equality has been one of the most bitterly divisive issues in America, but after a series of defeats for gay-rights advocates, the tide appears to be shifting irrevocably in their direction.

A series of national polls this year has shown support for same-sex unions outgunning opposition for the first time since polling on the issue began in the 1980s – a dramatic turnaround from even three years earlier, when voters in California approved a ballot measure overturning same-sex marriage.

In the 2004 election, under the keen encouragement of Karl Rove, no fewer than 11 states passed ballot initiatives banning gay marriage — a cynical get-out-the-vote ploy that helped swell Republican ranks at the polling booths.

The perception that marriage equality was a poisoned pink chalice persisted up to the 2008 election, when even Obama was careful to clarify that he wasn’t in favour of gay marriage, apparently heeding warnings from Bill Clinton to give the issue a wide berth.

Yet in this year’s debates between the ragtag pack of Republican presidential nominees, the usual rhetoric denouncing gay marriage has been noticeably absent.

Even Obama, facing precarious odds for a second term, has said that he favours repealing the notorious Defense of Marriage Act that has prevented federal recognition of gay marriages, even those performed in states where they are legal.

What changed in those few short years? In many ways the transformation of attitudes has been ongoing for decades, accelerated in large part by the impact of Aids, which reconfigured gay identity around community and relationships.

In TV shows such as Glee and Modern Family, gays are no longer comic stooges or punchlines, their relationships treated with the same respect as those of their straight counterparts.

Read more.

via a&u (America’s AIDS Magazine), by Jeannie Gibbs

Post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is the provision of antiretrovirals (ARVs) to HIV-negative people in order to prevent HIV infection. In light of recently released data, a heated debate is raging in the HIV community on how and if PrEP should be implemented. A vast array of ethical, financial, and medical concerns have been expressed, in fact too many to address in one article. However, most agree that PrEP (with more research), although not a single solution to preventing the continued spread of HIV, should be added to the arsenal of HIV prevention strategies where it is needed most.

Despite the concerns regarding PrEP, many in the HIV community view the recent PrEP data as a dramatic step and a valuable tool in reducing HIV transmission. “We’re excited about PrEP,” states Frank Oldham, president and CEO, National Association of People with AIDS. “Not because it will end HIV in America. It won’t and can’t. The epidemic is caused as much by poverty, homophobia, and an unfair healthcare system as it is by a virus, and no prevention tool, however promising, is going to end it until we do something about those problems. But PrEP has real promise for people for whom other prevention tools aren’t working—like sex workers, homeless youths, and women who aren’t in a position to negotiate safer sex with their partners. PrEP isn’t for everyone. We need to know more about its safety for women and adolescents. We need safeguards to make sure it isn’t given to people who already have HIV. But used wisely PrEP will save lives.”

Michael Ruppal, executive director of The AIDS Institute, echoes NAPWA’s concerns for caution and more data as well as their enthusiasm for PrEP’s potential. “The study data about PrEP offers some of the most exciting hope for stopping the transmission of HIV. With that comes a responsibility to be diligent to do more to answer long-term questions such as drug safety, efficacy, cost, access and ensuring additional studies. We all have a responsibility to educate ourselves and others about the truths surrounding PrEP and not let myths and fear drive our actions.”

Perhaps the greatest concern voiced by those both supportive and critical of PrEP is the high cost of this prevention modality. Close monitoring is essential for those on PrEP, adding to the cost of its use. Frequent HIV testing is necessary to prevent drug resistance from occurring from the use of suboptimal therapy if a person unknowingly seroconverts. Routine monitoring for ARV-related toxicities and adverse events, particularly kidney damage, loss of bone density, and changes in fat metabolism, which have been observed in clinical trials, must be conducted, as well as additional research to measure the long-term effects of ARVs on HIV-negative individuals.

Read more.

It’s common to lack sexual energy when your head hits the pillow. “If the first time you think about being intimate is when you crawl into bed, it’s like starting a cold engine,” explains Stella Resnick, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and author of the forthcoming book “Heart of Desire.”

Resnick advises stoking your libido in little ways throughout the day: Take a break to let yourself fantasize, or give your guy a passionate kiss when you get home from work. You’ll feel less spent and more psyched for sex when you hit the sack.

Health.com: Surprising libido boosters

The excuse: I have zero time to get busy.

We hear you — you’ve got a zillion things going on. But all you need is a few (low-impact, refreshing) minutes to squeeze sex into your schedule. The secret, as unsexy as it sounds, is prioritizing: If doing the deed isn’t high on your to-do list, it will always get bumped for seemingly more pressing pursuits.

“Women sometimes buy into the myth that good sex has to be spontaneous, which is nonsense,” says sex expert Trina Read, author of Till Sex Do Us Part. A pre-planned mini block of sweet lovin’ can be just as satisfying — and is way better than no sex at all.

The excuse: I’m not loving my thighs.

Having a bad body-image day? Sex with your sweetie can actually have a positive effect on your confidence. To jump-start feeling sexy, Resnick suggests slipping on something that makes you feel hot, whether it’s lingerie or a killer pair of heels.

During the act, refocus your attention on how your body feels instead of how it looks, Resnick advises. Also tune in to how much he’s admiring what your body can do!

Health.com: 10 reasons you’re not having sex

The excuse: But those kooky Kardashians are on.

There’s a reason they invented TiVo, gals. If you’re concerned you’ll be mystified by the hot Twitter trending topics tomorrow, set the DVR, get busy for 15 minutes, then come back and watch your show in all of its commercial-free glory.

Read more and if have haven’t already, check out how much sex our members are having at www.mensnationalsexstudy.com!

via University of California Los Angeles, by Enrique Rivero

The trial represents the first use of this novel approach to obtain early insights into the drug’s potential to prevent real-life infections during sexual exposure. In addition, it represents an important contribution to efforts aimed at strategically preventing HIV transmission during receptive anal intercourse.

While anal-receptive intercourse is known to be the main route for new HIV infections in men who have sex with men, far more women than men worldwide practice anal intercourse. The risk of HIV infection, per sex act, is anywhere from 20 to 2,000 times greater with receptive anal sex than receptive vaginal sex – particularly if there are other infections present, such as herpes, gonorrhea or chlamydia, according to the study’s lead author, Dr. Peter Anton, a professor of medicine in the division of digestive diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

The significant reduction in the ability of HIV to infect tissues treated with the drug was surprising, Anton said, as this was a new index in clinical trials. Typically, phase 1 clinical trials focus primarily on safety.
“While the main goal of this trial was also to evaluate safety, these new tests enabled us to evaluate, indirectly, whether this drug and route of delivery might potentially reduce new HIV infections,” said Anton, who is also a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute. “Of course, it is very gratifying that the results were so impressive. This approach reflects the kind of intensive analyses these dedicated participants in these early trials are willing to tolerate to help us evaluate a drug’s potential earlier in the pipeline of drug development.”

Anton also noted that although this is the first time this infectibility analysis has been used in a human clinical trial, the results were quite significant.

Until now, microbicide clinical trials have focused on vaginal transmission. These trials, fortunately, have had successful results in the past year, after nearly a decade of disappointment. But the development of a microbicide prevention gel for rectal application has only been under way for the past five to six years.

In the current trial, researchers tested a formulation of the gel that was created for vaginal use in human trials and that contained two concentrations of UC781. They enrolled 36 male and female subjects at UCLA who were not infected with HIV, and they collected blood and rectal tissue samples at baseline, before participants were randomized to either a placebo group or to receive one of two concentrations of UC781. All participants were given the placebo or active drug as a single exposure by the team’s clinicians, with research samples collected 30 minutes later for analysis.

Read more.

by Sebastino Aviles

Language is one of the few things in life that we don’t really think about, I mean unless you’re a linguist or something like that, I consider it something that we take for granted.

I’m sure everyone experiences this phenomenon all the time in their lives but do we really take the time to notice when and why we are doing it?

I believe that my language is reflected on who I am in terms of social constructions such as gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, class, and age. If I use those social constructions I would describe myself as a young working class gay Latino man.