Brian
West Scot’s corner
SEEKING A BRAND NEW LABEL
We all live with names, but how much influence do we have
over them? We have no choice about the names we are given at birth. If I’d
been born female, I was going to be Gloria... Anyone of similarly advanced
years like me will recall the horrific image this represents of Laura Brannigan
belting out a disco classic in the early 80s. No male name was prepared for
me as it was assumed this restless foetus was going to be a girl. “Brian”
was chosen hurriedly, and I’m named after a footballer.
But other names and titles catch on. We might be able to influence them, but
regularly others get in first. How about some words used to describe those
of us living with HIV?
How are our relationships described? If your partner is HIV negative and you
are HIV positive, you are in a ‘sero-discordant relationship’.
Thanks a bunch for creating tension right there at the start. Living with
HIV can make it difficult enough to develop or sustain a relationship anyway
without someone coming along and implying that there is an inevitable battle
on the horizon.
The word discordant implies there is jarring, a conflict going on. Maybe I’m
unusual, but most of the conflict that goes on in my relationships has nothing
to do with HIV. It generally relates to the other man not being considerate/thoughtful
enough. Of course, that’s never a problem with me. I’m a saint.
If you are both positive, you are ‘sero-concordant’. I personally
have had some pretty turbulent relationships with men who are also HIV positive.
The same HIV status is certainly no guarantee of happiness. The overall implication
of all this is that HIV positive and HIV negative do not mix. Of course, the
term came into use from a medical perspective; we aren’t the ones who
started using it, we had it applied to us, and took it on board.
The UK Community Advisory Board of HIV positive people and community advocates
has had a discussion recently about moving over to using the terms sero-same
and sero-different to describe our relationships, and I agree. It describes
what is going on and sets the record straight about what the issue is. It’s
about people having a different HIV status. It doesn’t imply there is
a conflict going on. These would also be names that we had chosen to use,
and a sense of ownership is an important part of connecting with language.
Sero-sorting has become popular lately both as a term, and a practice. It’s
what people living with HIV can do if they only want to have sex with other
people who are HIV positive. I feel happy with that. It’s not morally
loaded and doesn’t send out a message that sero-sorting is right or
wrong. It’s just something that I might want to do. Did we come up with
that term? I don’t know. Presumably someone from an advertising background
could have come up with something like ‘sero-branding’. Suitably
labelled, yes. Please don’t anyone even think about it...
Why don’t we define our language more? Are we scared or powerless? I
know very few gay men who like to be referred to as ‘men who have sex
with men,’ far less MSM, but it has caught on as a term. Actually, I
don’t know anyone who likes it. This is supposedly the catchall term
for men who do not define themselves as gay or bisexual, but does it keep
anyone happy? Or is it just that by now we all know what it means, so we live
with it?
Does language really matter? I think it does. The other week I was chatting
to someone from a Scottish newspaper. They wanted to know whether I was “just”
HIV positive, or whether I had Aids. The term Aids clearly makes for a juicier
story. I was slightly taken aback and didn’t really know the answer
because I hadn’t thought about it for ages.
I’ve been living with HIV for 22 years and had an Aids-defining illness
in the early 90s, but that was before the Ark in HIV terms. But statistically
I will forever be in the databanks as one of Scotland’s people with
‘Aids’. Perhaps I’m even a ‘long-term survivor’.
But these are not my terms and it’s not my language. I’m not surviving,
I’m doing very well. And if the truth be known, I don’t think
the term ‘having Aids’ really applies to me any more. Not because
I find it too severe or insulting, but because I associate it with a time
when I had real trouble living with HIV and was very ill. Maybe it’s
different for others, but this is the way I feel. Should we be doing more
to define the words used to describe us? Or are we happy with it?
Let me know. I’m not going to leave it to others to decide what I’m
called.
