CHEM FUN

Nino died of AIDS-related pneumonia a couple of years ago. I was a frequent visitor to his condo at that time. He and his partner held a regular after-party and many of us would go there after the clubs closed and party on.

Nino’s death was a trigger for me. Safer sex had never been on his agenda. I became angry at the attitudes around me. It seemed the people I knew only played lip service to the concept of safer sex. Safer sex simply wasn’t part of the culture.

It still isn’t. If I take a look at my group of friends in Malaysia, three have died of AIDS. Without even trying very hard I can list eight friends who have the virus. And another few who probably have it but haven’t told me. It’s a high proportion of my social circle. Disturbingly higher than my equivalent circle in London. Yet we’re told infection rates are much higher in the UK than in Malaysia.

Since Nino died, I have wanted to do something to promote safer sex awareness here in Malaysia. When I was in London last year I brought back some great postcards from a British charity called Gay Men Fighting Aids (GMFA). I showed them to Matt, my partner at Underground Soundz and asked him if we could somehow adapt them to Malaysian culture. Matt is a doer. He took my idea and ran with it. With the help of an illustrator he came up with three images.

Two are reworkings of GMFA’s postcards for local culture.

OK, they may be a bit campy but the captions say it so well. It doesn’t matter how hot your partner is, it doesn’t matter how well you think you know him: he may have the virus and if you fuck without a condom, you may get it yourself. You cannot make assumptions about people’s status from the way you think, because they don’t think like you. So the only way you can protect yourself is to fuck safely.

The second one is a morning after scenario. Every time you fuck without a condom, you’re gambling that the person you’re fucking with is HIV negative. And that is a stupid gamble. That guy is in anguish thinking about consequences. Don’t put yourself through that, guys!

BREAK THE ICE

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting to a mate at Marketplace. He told me that he loves to take e and ice together. Last weekend he’d fucked so long and so hard on ice that his dick had ended up red, chafed and swollen. I did a double take.

‘Weren’t you using a condom?’ I asked.

‘Haven’t you heard my news?’, he replied. ‘I’m poz now.’

Let me make my position clear. I’ve taken a whole heap of drugs in my life. I’m chem friendly. But I can’t stand to be around ice. In my experience, ice users get selfish. If they’re chatting, they lecture on and on; they can't listen. If they’re in bed, they’re insatiable and demanding.

Unfortunately, that’s just the beginning of their troubles.

·      Ice is highly addictive. That means big financial outgoings, failure to meet responsibilities and loss of self-control.

·      One US website reports that 50% of new HIV infections in the USA are related to ice use. Ice users like to bareback. So using ice is going to get you in trouble, because you or your partner are going to demand raw sex and you or your partner are statistically more likely to be HIV positive.

·      Side effects of ice include depression, insomnia and paranoia.

We’re talking about severe insomnia here. One of my close friends here simply couldn’t sleep for days after using ice. He became a nervous wreck..

And the depression that affects ice users is also severe. One guy I knew in KL died last year in suspicious  and tragic circumstances. His flat exploded after he left the gas on. Rumour has it he was depressed after long-term ice use and this was suicide. He took a week to die in hospital from his burns. 

It's impossible to describe how deaths such as his and Nino's affect  a small community such as the one in KL. It's like a shockwave of sadness and confusion. Nino was only 24.

Ice use is prevalent in KL. If you check out the gay websites like gay.com or gayromeo, you’ll see scores of guys looking for chem fun, any night of the week.

The point I want to make on this post is that of all the drugs you could choose for chem fun, ice is the very worst one you could pick. For all the reasons I’ve listed above.

So here is our first 'Break the Ice' image.

Our illustrator did a great job. That is not a pleasant scene.

SPREADING THE MESSAGE

So, what are we doing with these images? Well, we intend them to be an integral part of each Freedom party. Freedom is held at Marketplace on the eve of public holidays. At the last Freedom, we gave out a free thumb drive to the first fifty paying guests, loaded not just with supercool deejay sets but also with these images, and various safer sex animations and promo films.

We've been financing this ourselves  so far. To date we have given out over a hundred thumb drives. Recently, we’ve been in discussion with Pink Triangle Foundation (PTF) about how to get  funding to enable us to distribute these thumb drives to everyone who comes to our parties, not just the first fifty. PTF are right behind us. They like the idea that there’s an initiative about safer sex and drugs coming from a club promoter. It’s a ‘cooler’ voice than from an AIDS charity and we pass on the same message in a very effective way.

It would be nice if we could print these images as postcards but we need to be careful of local sensibilities. After all, this is a Moslem country and these are graphic homosexual images. Handing them out in front of a club could fatally embarrass the club.

One way is for viral promotions. That means you! If you’re reading this and you like what we’re trying to do, then please copy these images and post them to your facebook profile. Or your gayromeo /gaycom profile: Or your Grindr/Boys Ahoy app profile. Step up to the post! Let everyone see them!  As the current Aidsaware campaign says, we can all ‘be the message’.

Thank you for helping!!!

Special thanks to our illustrator Vio Lau, and to GMFA for the inspiration. 

Read more about ice

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/crystal-meth-britains-deadliest-drug-problem-425161.html

Finally, let's not forget that this is a music blog! If you'd like to download a free DJ  mix, here's a link!

THANKS FOR READING - HERE'S A FREE MIX FOR YOU!