Now in this section I am going to use some words that are often considered swear words so I’m giving you advanced warning so you can decide to turn off if you prefer.

Actually these words are not swear words at all but the exact correct English-language words to describe some pretty unsavoury behaviour. It is the behaviour that turns these words into words with a bad reputation.

However if we never use them never talk about the topic then it can de facto have a big effect because we avoid paying attention to it.

So here goes! You have been warned. The topic is sodomy also known as buggery. In a medicalised sense it is about anal intercourse. There is every reason why it is a swear word. Being ‘buggered’ doesn’t mean feeling great. Not a pleasant thought but something that is widespread and is having big effects in our community. So we need to think about it and whether it is resilient sustainable behaviour.

Firstly it is the primary behaviour that is the sexual activity of the group we call ‘gay men’ or ‘bisexual men’.

Secondly it is the primary behaviour that transmits the HIV-AIDS virus.

Thirdly it is becoming a prevalent form of behaviour being demanded and expected of young heterosexual women from male sexual partners. For some young women now their first sexual experience is anal sex. This is largely a result of versions of sexual activity being promoted by the porn industry into our community and to our menfolk and young people.

If The Grove suburbs follow the Australian average it would mean there are about 125 people aged over 50 living with HIV-AIDS locally here. I haven’t had any figures to work with for people under age 50. The figure of 125 for people aged over 50 is likely to be quite a bit too high because the figures for gay people living in this community would be likely to be below the national average. The ABS census statistics show that a high proportion of the people who live locally around here are families.

The latest figures from the Kirby Institute point to troubling new increases in HIV diagnoses in Queensland. No-one should be complacent. Living with HIV is no picnic.

Symptoms of HIV-AIDS including side effects of the anti-retroviral drugs that are now used to control it include:
accelerated ageing (by up to 30 years! so that someone whose chronological age is in the mid 50s may have the immune system of someone in their late 80s); osteoporosis cognitive impairment – a slowly developing form of dementia known as HAND – HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder; progressive multifocal leukoencephalitis PML where you suffer paralysis loss of vision speech impairment cognitive deterioration and loss of fine motor skills (bladder control ability to drive sign your name to be understood in a conversation on the phone your balance); and many other conditions.

Anti-retroviral drugs are subsidized to the tune of as much as $20000 per person taking them per year.

There is no way that getting HIV is resilient or sustainable behaviour. If it wasn’t for our enormously high-tech enormously high cost health system most people who contract HIV now would die just as they were in the early days before anti-retrovirals developed to the point they are today.

HIV-AIDS is an example of a disease which can only be ‘afforded’ by an extremely wealthy society like ours and then only in the short term while our oil supply and wealth lasts and our whole health system becomes unaffordable which it pretty well is now.

HIV is also transmitted vertically from mother to child but we do not have the stats on that. And it is transmitted by injecting drugs with a needle that has been previously used by someone else who is HIV positive.

Your life can be irrevocably changed forever by one experience of sodomy.

One of the most damaging things any of us could do for our health is to take up smoking. Fortunately we’re well on the way to having very low rates of smoking in our community. Smokers have a 7-10 year shorter life not to say poorer quality of life with the disease conditions that go with smoking.

But we are not being warned about an even more damaging activity. In fact it is being promoted in such a way that it would be unreasonable for a child now not to grow up considering it as normal and an option they should consider for themselves.

This is a homosexual lifestyle or anal sex.

Here are some more figures to think and discuss:

A homosexual man has a life expectancy of some 20 years less than the average male. They also have higher rates of suicide substance abuse and depression.

Approximately half the new cases of HIV-AIDS are among homosexual men while one quarter are among injecting drug users.

Anal sex is no longer restricted to the male homosexual community. It is now common for the first sexual experience of a young woman to be being pressured to have anal sex.

Although anal sex is extremely high risk behaviour for HIV-AIDS transmission it is pushed on women in the heterosexual community to participate in this graceless and physically challenging behaviour. Anal sex has been promoted through the pornography industry but how many people now think it is normal behaviour?

We’re always looking for ways that we can live healthier lives locally using only our local resources. Well here are things we can do:

Choose never to agree to anal sex no matter which gender we are. I’d like to go further and suggest that if someone puts the hard word on you to agree to anal sex to regard it as a form of extreme abuse and get away from them and any relationship with them as fast and completely as possible.

Never inject drugs with a needle that has been used before (I’d like to say never inject drugs! There is a Needle Exchange Service at the North West Community Health Centre in Keperra)

If you are male get circumcised. It significantly reduces tranmission of HIV-AIDS

Be very choosy about your sexual choice of partner and choose to the best of your ability someone who is faithful and monogamous. Ask yourself if you are a woman: Do I know whether my husband or male sexual partner has ever had sex with another man?

This isn’t being sexist. The point is that by far the most common method of transmission of HIV-AIDS is by being the ‘recipient partner’ in anal sex where the non-recipient partner already is HIV positive. The wall of the rectum simply isn’t designed for this sort of behaviour and easily gets small tears through which the HIV virus can get into the blood stream. Whether the recipient partner in anal sex is male or female the non-recipient partner is going to be male. It is those men in our community who are HIV positive (getting it primarily from anal sex or needle-sharing) and who are the non-recipient partners in anal sex with other men or women (including their wives) in our community who are doing most of the transmitting of HIV-AIDS.

Don’t risk a promiscuous lifestyle. If you sleep around ask yourself: How can I be sure that the man I am with isn’t sleeping around too? How on earth can I ever really know for certain that he hasn’t played around with being buggered?

The more of men you have sexual relations with the more you put yourself at risk of catching something serious.

Well I sincerely hope you survived the awful words but they are the right words to name an awful condition that is invading our community.

Let’s think about it and be aware and treat it seriously instead of only using happy words like ‘gay’ in relation to what is very risky behaviour.