This World AIDS Day, VICE is exploring the state of HIV around the globe. Watch our special report, "Countdown to Zero," tonight on HBO at 9 PM, and to get involved visit red.org and shop (RED).Today is World AIDS Day. Started in 1988, World AIDS Day has been bringing people together in the fight against HIV while raising awareness and education. According to the World Health Organization, over one million people died from HIV-related causes last year, bringing the total to more than 34 million lives globally so far. The WHO estimates that 36.9 million people across the world were living with HIV at the end of 2014. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected region, with approximately 25.8 million people living with HIV in 2014. The region accounts for a disproportionate 70 percent of the estimated two million new cases each year worldwide.
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I was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2011. Today I'm 25. I find that a lot of people my age are pretty detached from the realities of HIV, so I thought I'd share my personal experience and point of view of being a young and positive American in 2015. Here's my A-to-Z list of what it's like being HIV-positive.When I first found out that I was positive, in March of 2011, I was inundated for weeks with pamphlets, articles, and YouTube videos that were all very sterile and sad. Without levity, without smiles, it was hard not to feel drained. Then I went on Twitter and read some AIDS jokes and actually managed to laugh.For so long after my diagnosis—weeks, months—my brain was stuck on my status. I couldn't think about anything else. AIDS jokes allowed me to stay in that headspace but experience something besides dread. I was able to think about my status, my body, my life, in a way that didn't make me feel awful. I don't have AIDS; I may never have AIDS. But AIDS jokes, for as terrible and dark as they are, allowed me to find humor in what I assumed was my fate. AIDS jokes are cruel and wrong and, in truth, shouldn't even be a thing. But they made me feel like a person during the saddest point in my life.Being positive doesn't mean that I'm celibate—I have a healthy sex life. I'm young, gay, and I live in New York. I'm surrounded by gay men who are either positive or are on preventative medication (A. K. A. PrEP). Because I'm upfront about my status, there's always a precedent of safety, honesty, and forwardness before any clothes come off.Every day it seems there's another article being published along the lines of " A Cure for AIDS: Scientists Say It's 'on the Horizon,'" or "Oregon Researcher: On Doorstep of HIV Cure?" To me, all of these articles are little more than clickbait. Articles and news stories proclaiming that a cure is on the way have been coming out for decades now. If I actually got excited every time one of these types of pieces came out I would be sorely disappointed all the time. That said, I do have hope that one day a cure will happen; just not any time soon. When/if a cure does come about, my guess is that it'll be in the form of a shot, or a series of shots. I like to imagine that when it becomes available I'll be in my mid 40s, that I'll have the day of the last injection marked on my calendar with a big smiley face. When/if I am finally cured, I'll cry. I'll eat cake and drink champagne and start planning a trip to Taiwan, a place that I'm barred from entering because I'm positive. Still, I'm not holding my breath.
AIDS Jokes
Boning
Cure
I remember when I first came out as gay, my mom made me promise not to catch HIV. When I had to come out to her as positive, she just hugged me.
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Dating
Education
Family
Going on a Trip
Health Care
Insurance
Jail
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