Friday is for Faeries

How America Turned into a Nation of Speedfreaks and Ritalin Patients

via AlterNet

An excerpt from Mick Farren's new book exploring the drug that dominates the lives of millions of schoolchildren, soldiers on the battlefield and freelance writers.

The event of rock & roll added a frenetic thrashing drive to the world's entertainment, and television warped the world's perception. The twentieth century was an era of massive overreaching that culminated in us pushing our planet to the very edge of environmental catastrophe, as melting icecaps change the course of the ocean tides. The twentieth century was also a time of scarcely believable greed and all too grandiose dreams. The developed nations of the West demanded more and more, and we grew furious if TV commercials reneged on their promises and we couldn't instantly have it all. The West grew fat even as famines decimated developing nations. We burned energy as if there was no tomorrow, and in so doing, made tomorrow considerably more problematic. And this was where speed found its place, introducing itself to greedy dreams on all levels of twentieth-century culture with seductive assurances of free additional energy, enhancing stamina that enabled users to keep going like the bunny in battery commercial, and feel a euphoric omnipotence as the need to eat, sleep, or even feel anything unwontedly profound were removed by the insulating effects of amphetamine. One could even lose radical weight with no effort of will, and become fashionably slim. Adolf Hitler's doctor shot him up with cocktails of speed and the devil only knew what else, as he designed the blitzkrieg, in his greed for the absolute power he believed would enable him to annex the entire planet for his master race, and organized the deaths of tens of millions. 

Read the rest.

Is a Pill a Day for HIV Prevention Enough?

via Chelsea Now, by Robert W. Moeller, Ed.M. & Perry N. Halkitis, Ph.D.

For years, the HIV prevention field has understood the potential for PREP to help contain the HIV epidemic, particularly in light of programs solely targeting behavior change that have simply fallen short. Ultimately, our success in eradicating HIV may be realized by coupling PREP with effective behavioral interventions. Over the last decade, our collaborators at Harlem United and Gay Men’s Health Crisis have developed innovative programs geared toward helping individuals reduce their behavioral risk. These programs often focus on providing individuals with a combination of knowledge and skill to make sexual decisions that reflect their desire to prevent infection or transmission. Fortunately, these agencies have had the foresight to recognize that any approach to safer sex must move beyond overly simplistic models of “rational” decision-making.

While PREP provides us an innovative and powerful strategy for curtailing HIV in gay men, we believe that PREP will only be effective if coupled with behavioral approaches that pay attention to emotions and desire and that speak to aging as well as new generations of gay men.

Read the rest.

Woof Wednesday

Hey! Keep Your Booty Healthy and Happy with Regular Pap Smears

via AlterNet, by Antoine B. Craigwell

While anal cancer isn’t that common it’s preventable. But you can only prevent anal cancer if you know you have HPV, are screened and have the precancerous areas treated. You can only do this if you live in an area where anal-pap-smear testing is available and resources exist to provide preventive follow-up.

Early one fall morning, 26-year-old Mark Ramos (not his real name) walked into the New York-based Callen-Lorde Community Health Center for a routine medical check up. After several questions about his sexual practices, Mark consented to a rectal exam. He dropped his pants and underwear and climbed up on to the exam table in a kneeling position. The doctor cautioned that he would feel a slight discomfort as he swabbed Mark’s anus and took the male equivalent of a pap smear. Two weeks later, Mark received a call and was advised that the pap smear revealed that there was a suggestion of the presence of abnormal cells and was invited to come in for a colposcopy, a more thorough examination; the male equivalent of a cervical exam.

Except for that heightened fashion sense, creativity, artistry, and culinary skills, men who have sex with men (MSM) do have at least one thing in common with women: one of the effects of the human papilloma virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer in women and anal cancer in MSM. Over the years knowledge and treatment for this virus has gradually “come out” of the classification as a women only problem, where more and more MSM are receiving examinations, screenings, and treatment, if precancerous cells are discovered. Anal cancer came to prominence recently with the death of Farah Fawcett.

Read the rest.

Also of butt health interest:

HPV

Yes, I’m Talking to You! A Conspiracy of Silence about Gay Men’s Anal Health 
via White Crane Journal, by Jeff Huyett

Anal Cancer Info, via UCSF Department of Medicine

How to Create a Nation Addicted to Shopping, Work, Drugs and Sex

via AlterNet, by Amy Goodman

Post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed the conditions required for healthy childhood development.

Excerpt:

if you look at the brain circuits involved in addiction—and that’s true whether it’s a shopping addiction like mine or an addiction to opiates like the heroin addict—we’re looking for endorphins in our brains. Endorphins are the brain’s feel good, reward, pleasure and pain relief chemicals. They also happen to be the love chemicals that connect us to the universe and to one another.

Now, that circuitry in addicts doesn’t function very well, as the circuitry of incentive and motivation, which involves the chemical dopamine, also doesn’t function very well. Stimulant drugs like cocaine and crystal meth, nicotine and caffeine, all elevate dopamine levels in the brain, as does sexual acting out, as does extreme sports, as does workaholism and so on.

Now, the issue is, why do these circuits not work so well in some people, because the drugs in themselves are not surprisingly addictive. And what I mean by that is, is that most people who try most drugs never become addicted to them. And so, there has to be susceptibility there. And the susceptible people are the ones with these impaired brain circuits, and the impairment is caused by early adversity, rather than by genetics.

Read the whole thing.

Monday Morning Perk-Up [Angry Birds Peace Treaty]

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Feel the Love... Sister Glo is Forever

My love for you is a journey; 

starting at forever, and ending at never.

~Unknown

Love is all you need with Sister Glo each Friday on LifeLube.

Friday is for Faeries

Woof Wednesday

Monday Morning Perk-Up [Navy Veneral Disease PSA]

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Monday Morning Perk-Up [Hot Guys do Kylie]

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Get Outta My Way (Boys) Tribute from Jeremy Lucido on Vimeo.

Feel the Love... Sister Glo Can't Get Enough

Where love is concerned, 

too much is not even enough.

~P.A.C de Beaumarchais

 

Love is all you need with Sister Glo each Friday on LifeLube.

Friday is for Faeries

How is Thomas Lyons healthy?

Flakey as it sounds, 

I think I stay healthy 

by trying to live in the present moment. 

 We all regret the past and worry about the future to some extent....but of course all any of us really has is the present. 

Eating right, exercise, not smoking or drinking too much are important.  But being aware of and appreciating what is happening right here and now is just as important to my health.  

Maybe it's just getting older, but I have never lived this way as much as I do now.

-- Thomas Lyons

Chicago

How are you healthy?

Join in the conversation.
Tell us HERE. Send a pic to the same place.
And we'll blog it, right here.
Read past posts.
Learn more about the campaign.

BUTT interviews Roy About His Magnificent Nipples and How to Make Them Happy

via BUTT, by Stuart Brumfitt

It’s all to do with touch, kissing, licking, sucking, caressing and brushing.

Well, there are certain places where I keep them covered up. I’m not exaggerating but they can literally be traffic-stopping. I remember in Paris once I was hanging out with a fashion designer mate of mine and he’d made this top for me and it was really figure-hugging. For some reason it made my nipples stand up erect, because I think it was the material rubbing — it was made out of wool. They looked like bullets. I was walking down the street and my friend goes, ‘Look at that guy in the car!’ There was this guy in a car staring at me as I walked past, and then he crashed into the back of the car in front of him! So I’m not taking my top off in Paris.

Read the rest.

The Real Story Behind Gay Bullying in American Schools

via Salon.com, by Thomas Rogers

When 18-year-old Rutgers student Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, he meant to kill himself -- he probably didn't mean to spark a national uproar. But Clementi's death, along with a series of ensuing gay teen suicides, has prompted an intense conversation over the problem of anti-gay bullying. Dan Savage's "It Gets Better Project," a video project aimed at gay teens, has solicited heartbreaking contributions from everyone from President Obama to Tim Gunn (who admitted his own early suicide attempt) to the employees of Google.

But gay suicide is hardly a new problem -- and, by most accounts, homophobia is on the decline in American culture. So why are we suddenly so concerned? As Stuart Biegel, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, explains in his new book, "The Right to be Out," anti-gay prejudice remains a pervasive problem in American schools. Despite tremendous legal strides over the past two decades, gay students are still punished more severely than their straight counterparts, their pleas for help are often ignored, and, most surprisingly, many LGBT teachers still feel enormous pressure to remain in the closet for fear of reprisal from parents.

Salon spoke to Biegel over the phone about the current state of gay bullying laws, what parents can do if their kids are attacked and the flaws of the "It Gets Better" campaign.

Read the interview.

Who's That Queer? [David Wojnarowicz]

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

David Wojnarowicz was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s. Wojnarowicz died of AIDS-related complications on July 22, 1992 at the age of 37.


In November 2010, G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian, removed Wojnarowicz's short silent film A Fire in My Belly (available online) from the exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" at the National Portrait Gallery after complaints from the Catholic League and Rep. John Boehner.

In response, The Andy Warhol Foundation, which had co-sponsored the exhibition, announced that it would not fund future Smithsonian projects, while several institutions, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art scheduled showings of the removed work.

Read more.

Woof Wednesday