A refrain from reducing the lives of gay and bisexual men to isolated, behavioral acts in need of intervention...
Cover photo - Tom Williams[via APLA]
AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) is excited to share the seventh edition of Corpus. Corpus is unique in that it utilizes art, memoir, fiction and poetry to explore sex and HIV/AIDS in the context of gay men’s lives. Corpus stands apart from the mainstream HIV/AIDS industry because it refrains from reducing the lives of gay, bisexual men, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) to isolated, behavioral acts in need of intervention, the way that science in the name of prevention tends to do. [Check out other editions of Corpus.]
Skillfully compiled by Guest Editor Andy Quan, Corpus 7 marks important turning points in the social history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As the global north and west struggle past the dark days of conservative governments with their censorious HIV prevention policies and fixations with HIV testing, circumcision and randomized control trials, MSM from the global south — Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Latin America — are unapologetically breaking silences about their existence and the disproportionate burden they shoulder in their regions’ respective epidemics.
We wanted to produce this issue in conjunction with the 2008 International AIDS Conference to expand the buzz. In doing so, we highlight images and narratives not often privileged on the printed page. Nevertheless, these works will feel or seem familiar in their themes of sex, struggle, hope and love and there within lies the power of Corpus, and other efforts like it: we find connection with one another in sharing our experiences. Although our perspectives, places of origin, histories, sensibilities, opportunities, spoken and performed tongues may vastly differ, it is through this act of sharing (storytelling and showing) that we are able to reclaim ourselves, find each other, and change what is possible.
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