MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

Art honors AIDS martyrs on World AIDS Day

The agony of AIDS and its treatment is expressed in “El Martir” (The Martyr) by Armando Lopez.  It is posted here today for World AIDS Day.

Lopez reinterprets St. Sebastian as an AIDS patient suffering under harrowing modern health-care procedures. Lopez, a New Mexico folk artist, painted it as a tribute to all those who died from AIDS in the early years of experimentation by the medical profession.

St. Sebastian, a third-century Christian saint, is traditionally presented as a near-naked martyr shot with arrows.  Lopez’s martyr is punctured not by arrows, but by the many needles used for medical treatment. 

Read more about “El Martir” at the Jesus in Love Blog

Image credit: El Martir (The Martyr) by Armando Lopez

Around the blogosphere: HIV positive bloggers rise up

Regan's HIV Blog- "Sisters Rise":

I think the formula for helping women rise above HIV is simple. We can borrow from the old Breck shampoo commerical from the '70s (the young women at UPenn will have no idea what I'm talking about). It goes like this: A woman with luxuriously shiny hair (she just washed it with Breck) flips her cascading mane around while claiming that she "told two friends, who told two friends, who told two friends and so on and so on" until the whole world of women with access to a grocery store knew about the wonderous nature of Breck shampoo.

Sean's HIV Blog - "The Return of the Living GRID"

Return of the Living Dead not only entertained the most morbid corner of my humanity, the movie also inspired my first post-diagnosis inner-dialogue of resurrection. Maybe, just maybe, if AIDS struck me down I too could come back from beyond the grave to extract a little revenge on those who were free to live a life of debauchery. As my teenaged peers dreamt of making sweet love to the Playmate of the Year after a hot date, I fantasized about eating her brains after a brisk chase through an eerie, decrepit cemetery.

HIV and AIDS News - "Research Finds No Advantages In 4 Drug Regimen"

Adding a fourth drug to the existing three drug antiretroviral treatment, for the initial stages of HIV has not shown any benefits, according to a U.S. study that covered some 765 patients for three years.

Joe's HIV Blog - "How Much Are You Willing to Pay?"

Until you really take a hard look, you will not know just how much you are already sacrificing. Once you slow down, you will be amazed at how much energy you expend in dealing with day-to-day living, add to that dealing with your infection and you can be on verge of mental meltdown. If you think you can ignore major issues and not pay a price for that, you are sadly mistaken. Stress can and does kill and its effect on pozzies health is well known.