I'm sure some of a you are waiting for my thoughts on the Hawaii Five-0 finale. Without giving much away, and in a word? Wow.

But something even better happened this week.

I got a birthday present from one of my dearest friends who I never met off-line.

verasteine wrote me a story.

It's called Whispers and Blades.

I don't often rec fics in this space, but this was written for queer_fest and FOR ME! On my birthday!

She specifically used a prompt I submitted and wrote a truly magnificent story, her interpretation of it revealing an understanding on what it can mean to be gay in public.

Her story is a series of moments in Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams' lives as partners both at work and at home. They have to deal with people making assumptions about them, what they do and who they are, simply because they are gay in public.

One of the things which I think gets overlooked both in the media and generally speaking when it comes to LGBT people, is the fact that we are expected to accommodate people's curiosity and assumptions about us.

Snide little micro-aggressions that fill our lives and colour our experience of it that tells us, again and again, that we're off kilter, that we don't fit the proper continuity in society and that we make them uncomfortable and that we are accepted so long as we adhere to certain conditions.

The little micro-aggressions in the story are peppered throughout, some more over than others, but always elusive, because homophobia isn't always verbal assault and it isn't always violence as we are accustomed to know and see it.

But possibly my favourite part in the end, when Steve and Danny talk about these instances, because they get to Danny is a way that I recognise intimately. The frustration and anger of being exposed to other people's judgement for who you chose to sleep with and how it is made into an issue, as opposed to regarded as just another part of who they are.

Steve says: "Being gay means you're on the outside."

There's a truth in that, because when you're on the outside, your perspective shifts and you are positioned in a way that keeps you from denting the straight default, mainly by being there to be and be judged one way or another for not living up to an ideal that was never attainable for you to begin with.

Thank you, verasteine, for illustrating that position so well through these moments between Danny and Steve. Two men, who love each other and push each other, and push against the world.

I'm part of an organisation that was boycotted in Seattle last week.

The Seattle LGBT Commision cancelled a planned evening with Israeli representative of the Association of Israeli LGBT Educational Organisations. Organisations which include IGY (Israeli Gay Youth), Tehila (Parents and Family of LGBT people) and Hoshen (Education and Change - the org I associate myself with).

It happened because a local Seattle activist made the case that by having an Israeli event, the Commission would be participating in pinkwashing - in which the use of LGBT rights are culture are appropriated and used to diminish the human right abuses and violations committed by Israel in upon Palestine and the Palestinian people.

The Seattle activist, Dean Spade (Facebook link) was not wrong. Due to the recent history of pinkwashing the Occupation, it would be safe to assume that any and all events regarding Israeli LGBT groups would perpetuate this stance.

The Queerty article rightly states:

Debate has raged both on Queerty and elsewhere about whether the Israeli government’s efforts to publicize the country’s gay-friendliness are a smokescreen to distract from its mistreatment of Palestinians.

And that’s a valid debate.

But the AILO participants are from nongovernmental groups who might very well have a problem with their leaders’ actions. Are anti-pinkwashers like Spade now saying that all gays from Israel should be silenced in the public arena, lest they accidentally encourage someone to visit their homeland?

Are we calling for the end of civil discourse and kicking Israel’s LGBT off the bus?

Emphasis by me

Yes, a great many of the people I know who volunteer for any number of these orgs oppose pinkwashing. Not everyone sees the cynical use of the Israeli government of the LGBT community as pinkwashing, because hey, things better in Israel than, say, Russia or Croatia.

But that isn't the point. Gay rights are human rights. To "brag" about one groups progression from marginalised and debased (which some of us still are, sad to say, because only a certain type of gay is actually "okay") while trampling on the rights of another group simply due to their ethnic, national and religious affiliation is beyond hypocritical and disgusting.

And no, LGBT Palestinians from the Occupied Territories do not actually "seek asylum" in Israel - seeing as Palestianian refugees are a class of their own according to the UN, practically all LGBT Palestinians who have fled the territories are illegal residents in Israel, subject to deportation back the Territories at any time - and seeing as heterosexual straight couples get no slack when it comes to "family reunification", you can bet same sex couples get zero tolerance.

It is telling that I know of no Arab LGBT volunteer in any of the AILO orgs, but I know of several Palestinian specific LGBT orgs that operate within Israel or have no specific base of operations.

Pinkwashing is heavily debated and is a hugely divisive subject within the Israeli LGBT community (whatever that may mean), it has been so since 2009 as far as I'm aware even though the discourse has existed for longer.

My own opinions are of the radical and liberationist kind. I do not think queer people need or should pander to straight society in order to be "accepted" or heaven forbid "tolerated". I've long come to the understanding that as a gay Jewish woman person there is no "true" place for me on this planet - not as long as religion, nationalism, patriarchy, racism, heteronormativity and homophobia prevail - but I know that doing nothing and just complaining about shit is a useless state of being.

So I joined a liberal org that panders to straight society. Being a role model for younger people is a privilege that I have the ability to leverage into a type of activism that may piss a lot of other radicals off, but has been proved to be effective in the long run.

And being a part of that org means that I participate in pinkwashing, just like being part of the local economy means that I participate in corruption and land appropriation. It is a double edged sword that I grip.

I don't know how much longer we can bleed into this blood sodden earth.

Huh, it seems I've missed a few days of the challenge. Time flies! And stretches! And wibble-wobbles as they say.

I do plan on doing them all - the challenges that are meant to be filled out in my own space as opposed to going to comment somewhere else, those are less interesting to me.

So here we have something for Day 5:

In your own space, share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Regular readers of this DW/LJ know that this not only a fannish blog, and even now when I am being intensely fannish it is still not just about fandom.

You could say I am passionate about a lot of things, I tend to get enthusiastic about a great many things, but politics tend to engage me in a way they never did back when I was an apathetic teenager.

I don't think there can be any doubt that I'm a leftist. In my locale it's a complicated position to hold. Most likely because politics, as they are narrowly defined, are Parliamentary and Judicial and about the occupation and the "situation" as the whole shebang is euphemistically called.

All in all, I find the Parliamentary system in Israel utterly useless when it comes to serving me as a citizen, as it is an oppressive and suppressive government and the fact that it is an elected government doesn't make it any less totalitarian. It is totalitarian because none of the elected officials see fit to end an illegal Occupation over millions of people we keep under thumb, beyond that, instead of dealing with the housing and financial issues within the country proper, it throws money at settlements and illegal housing in the occupied territories.

In addition to the actual crimes this sovereign state commits upon the occupied population of Palestine, the state of Israel sees fit to use it's comparatively liberal attitude towards the LGBT community to make itself appear better than it actually is in the eyes of the Western world we so try to mimic - the fact that LGBT people have it "better" than our siblings in the neighbourhood isn't something to proud about - it's called goold ole' human decency!

The fact that my culture is being used as a fig leaf for war crimes is sickening to me and pretty offensive when you consider that the misogyny that is imbued into the culture here.

So, yeah, politics... I'm passionate about that.

Hint: It isn’t a debate.

Trigger Warning: This post is about the narratives of dubious consent, non consent, rape, sexual assault, body autonomy (or lack thereof) in fanfiction and fandom, and what being triggered actually means.

Before I begin to dig into this issue, let me put one thing on the table; the only moral issue about sex between two or more adults is consent. Everything else is a matter of what floats your boat. My kink is not your kink and that’s okay – in fact, it’s great, because in fandom we share and learn and discuss these things to a greater degree of openness and detail that in the “real world”.

So, I read a fic. It is a good fic. It’s not perfect, but very few stories are. Much like life, I must say¹.

It is a really good story, which, right off the bat, places the characters in a scenario known in fanfic as dub-con, a short hand of “dubious consent”.

Let me put something else on the table here. In real life, there is no such thing as “dubious consent”. Dub-con is a narrative device, it is a construct of point of view, we see and read the conflict of the person (say, Hermione of “Harry Potter”) whose autonomy has been breached and we know, along with Hermione, that she actually wants this happen, only she’s not sure about why, or how, or some other thing – she just knows, kind of, that she wants this other person (say Snape) to do what he is doing.

Alternately, we have Snape’s pov, he who breaches the aforementioned autonomy and magically (no pun intended) knows that this fine, that Hermione actually wants it. That this is sexy, even if Hermione says “stop” or “no” or says nothing at all.

I use this example from “Harry Potter”, because this type of narrative is so typical in this pairing it is practically a trope. But it is a narrative found in all genres and happenstances of fic, be it het or slash, hurt/comfort or fluff – it is there and frankly, I despair at having to actually talk about this.

In real life dubious consent can’t happen. It cannot. Not because we don’t often feel conflicted about doing something with another person in bed, or because there wasn’t enough communication and the sex ended up being more enjoyable for one of the partners over the other (or others).
It cannot happen in real life, because the narrative in our heads can’t be shared. We can’t know if our partner is conflicted, or not comfortable, unless they tell us. The opposite, of course, is the same.

Dubious consent alleges that Ianto (for instance) can and would fight against Jack’s advances and actions if he really wanted to, this is the context of Ianto being subordinate to Jack in the hierarchy of the “Torchwood” team and their age (putting it lightly). With that in mind, it is likely that this scenario wouldn’t actually be construed by fic authors as an issue of consent because it is happening between two men, in the case of slash.

Consent isn’t about Steve’s (for instance) physical ability to stop Danny from performing fellatio on him. Consent is about the fact that Danny doesn’t care to ask or wait for Steve to actually say what he feels about the idea of it happening at all.

That is the point. The disregard to one’s choice, one’s comfort and one’s own wants (and needs) when it comes to sex is endemic, because the idea that the onus is on the person whose will and autonomy is being violated is simply not true. In the fic I read, there was a clear description of someone wanting to say “No”, but didn’t get a chance to do so, due to the narrative dictating that the “No” or the “Wait a minute” didn’t count because the sex was just that good. Dubious consent hadn’t even been an option here, because this scenario was constructed in order for the inner conflict of “do I or don’t I want this” to be taken as a token resistance as opposed to assertion of free will.

This particular fic isn’t even the only time in “Hawaii Five-0” fandom that this sort of thing has happened. In the name of sexy, how many times have we read Steve or Danny say “wait” or “stop” and have the other guy say “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you” or “I know what you want/need” and continue to do what they were doing despite the “No”.

And yes, “wait”, “stop” or even non-responsiveness when action is taking place in sex is a big “NO”.

You cannot know why a person says “stop” or “wait” during sex unless you actually stop or wait. Possibly, this person has a cramp, or you’re digging your knee or elbow somewhere uncomfortable or maybe, you are doing something that is making your partner feel distressed and things need to change.

When you assume that Steve or Hermione can physically/magically prevent Danny or Snape from violating them, you are perpetuating rape culture².

When you assume that knowing what a character is feeling or thinking when their free will is being disregarded by their sexual partner makes this disregard okay, and when you then normalize this behaviour in your fic, you are perpetuating rape culture.

And in the case in which there is clear non-consent going on when you assume that by removing the word “rape” from the fic magically fixes the disparity in power dynamics and that the violence perpetrated now isn’t sexual or gendered, you are perpetuating rape culture.

This is doubly so, when you don’t warn that these things actually exist in the fic!

It doesn’t make a difference what your intent was, I doubt authors are actively malicious, but when you have a character (major or minor) that is assaulted, whether “live”, or in a flashback or memory, or discussed, that is still a textual description of sexual and/or gendered violence. The assault, whether explicit violence, psychological coercion or disregard to another’s free will, choice and autonomy, is still written down and as such must be warned for, because the words you use are the same.

The thing is I don’t mind that dub-con exists in fic, as it is a fantasy narrative device and everyone has fantasies they wouldn’t want to actually happen in real life. This is why we have role playing and BDSM and actually talking to your partner(s) when it comes to making fantasies come true. In the name of full disclosure, I read fics that have dub-con, non-con and rape scenarios in them, because I like hurt/comfort and angst – I need to be warned for this, not because I have triggers, but because I need to know that these scenarios are going to be handled with the due respect and sensitivity that they deserve.

The respect and sensitivity should be awarded to the readers who do have triggers.

It is no secret that transformative art fandom (fanfic, fanvid, fanart and more) is made of a majority of women and/or female identified people and a significant amount of gender variant people, LGBT men and women, non-white people, disabled people and other social minorities who are all vulnerable to sexual violence, because our humanity and body autonomy is considered inconsequential.

The notion that a not insignificant part of your readership will have been through a traumatic experience concerning sexual consent, and sexually based and gendered violence, is not out there!

It is not only a courtesy to warn for this in your header, it will save someone from stumbling into a scenario that will make him or her feel less safe in their own lives, because their hobby and their creative community triggered their trauma.

But in the end, what I find distressing is that people do not recognise what they write for what it is, and in slash fiction it is particularly endemic, due to the fact that this happening between two men. Because rape culture dictates that between men consent isn’t an issue. Because rape culture dictates that men never say “no”. Because rape culture dictates that men can stop the coercion by virtue of being “strong” and physically powerful.

Dear readers, this is bullshit.

As a community of vulnerable people who often place characters we love in painful and violent scenarios that happen in real life to real people in a society that considers our trauma to be exaggerated at best and made up at worst, we have to consider the consequences of our actions and take care of each other.

One of the ways we do this is to know what it is we are writing and to warn accordingly.

Footnotes:
1) This post was triggered (no pun intended) by a particular fic and a discussion that followed, but it is not specifically about any one fic. This post is about a trend and a trope that is all too common in H50 fandom and in fandom as a whole, and I am using this fic as a way to exemplify and make clear my points.
Back to text.

2(For a clear and concise definition of what rape culture is I would refer you to Melissa McEwan’s post at Shakesville where she writes:

[…]Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.[…]

Back to text.

It's probably significant that I'm writing a navel gazing religion thing post-Days of Awe and Yom Kippur, which this year failed to move me as in previous cycles.

It may have to do with the fact that my outside world stress exacerbated my inner world stress. I'll (very very probably, but nothing is signed yet and until then I'm not willing to say live or die) move out by the end of the month. It's going to be the first time living outside of my parents house other then those six months in the US where I lived with my sisters (and had zero expenses).

I don't have a job lined up yet and university is starting... about the same time I'm setting up shop with my room mate (thank god for her, I don't think I would have managed to do anything if it wasn't for her holding my hand throughout this whole thing).

Add to that a "mild" brain meltdown and it's been fucking peachy.

What's all that got to do with religion? Nothing, really, but it seems a good opportunity to talk about things.

Those of you who read me on a regular basis know that I'm atheist, but I also that being Jewish is an important part of my identity. It's a cultural thing, a history thing... a people thing.

Due to the aforementioned life changes I can't say I felt the liturgy flow over me like it usually does. Not even the best Cantor on earth (the only reason I emerge once a year for Yom Kippur to go to shul - Bar/Bat Mitvahs and baby namings don't count) got me feeling that sense of belonging and history I usually feel on Yom Kippur when I stand with the rest of my family and listen to the whole congregation sing the dirge about removing the promises and vows we made the previous year.

Maybe it was due to being stressed about the fact that I'm a sleep away from sighing a binding contract, or that I'm going heading on an entirely new path, one I was not utterly convinced I was going to be on this year.

I've mentioned the brain meltdown, yes?

Not to mention the fact that politically speaking being Jewish puts me squarely in the bad guy's shoes this time around, what with Muslim and Christian graves desecrated over the holy day weekend.

I'm sure "G-d" approved of that bullshit.

So yeah, my "people".

Not feeling the connection that much lately.

Then again, in a new development The courts approve the registration of "no religion" for author Yoram Kaniuk, which would be grand, if religion was actually stated on our ID cards as "religion". It's not, it is stated under nationality - oh, didn't you know that there's no such thing as an "Israeli" nationality. I think if there was, or if there had been, it would have solved a whole lot of things.

But you know, Jewish demographic panic and all that.

I'm bothered that this is what my Judaism is reduced to, and that it's controlled by a Rabbinical court that, well, hates the idea of me.

Ironically, my Jewishness if far more diaspora like than ever, and me? I was born here and I don't really want to leave - despite the fact that some of my closest friends are telling me to join them when they leave.

*clings*

A month ago when the civil unrest in Israel began and I put aside my cynicism in order to participate in the protests and demonstrations, I was irked to hear people (friends and not friends) say they hoped these demonstrations don't turn "political".

I was baffled.

Social justice is probably the most political standpoint in society at large. The demand that resources, the economy and legislation treat everyone fairly is without a doubt a hard political line.

But in Israel, "politics" doesn't mean the power dynamics between groups of people, or how one's identity creates intersections of privilege and disparity, oh no, politics is that dirty laundry best left to elected officials, you know, which dirty laundry I'm talking about.

Racism. Occupation. "Security".

One of my friends the other day accused me of not liking her as much, because she's Right Wing. I'm like, you're not Right Wing, you support economic justice and she's said, in more words but that's the gist, that I was being deliberately obtuse and that Right and Left in Israel don't mean what they mean in other places in the world.

It's true, Left in Israel means opposing the Occupation to the point of hating Israel and Right means that the only way for Israel to survive is for the Occupation to stand because then Israel will be on the brink of destruction.

Safe to say those are two extreme positions even without breaking down the facets of race, nationalism and trauma that are intertwined into both arguments.

The demonstrations against the high cost of living, the class disparity and the over-all economic injustice that swept through the nation did not touch on the subject of the Occupation. I felt that it should have, because so much of what creates the economic disparity in Israel has to do with building settlements in the West Bank, has to do with building the Separation Wall, has to do with troops out there culling non-violent protests and with pushing an Apartheid economy in the West Bank.

An unregulated cartel like economy thrives in conditions like an Occupation.

I don't know much about the economy, but I do know that.

So the Occupation and the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank were excluded from the discourse and activity to do with the social justice campaign the Tent Demonstrations started.

For good reason, Left and Right, such as they are conceived in Israel have to do with security, how Israeli Jewish bodies can be kept safe in the face of the big bad terrorists.

The government solution, bomb the shit out of civilians living under siege (because of Israel) and under social and religious oppression (because of Hamas), even though the People's Resistance Committee (PRC), who committed the co-ordinated attack, are not affiliated with Hamas, have nothing to do with the Hamas government and were all ID'd and killed by the IDF on the day of the attack.

And not to mention that the skirmishes that followed on the Egyptian border killed 5 Egyptian soldiers, after they had to deal with a suicide bomber of their own.

This, as they say, is a clusterfuck.

Beyond the diplomatic nightmare (Egypt has withdrawn its ambassador to Israel) and the "cease fire" between Israel and Hamas being thrown out the window.

Yes, beyond that, the Israeli paradigm that Security trumps society will be tested, and I fear that it will hold true, because we are nothing if not predictable. Our fear and trauma prevents us from seeing that war benefits very few (Israelis and Palestinians) and hurts the innocent more than anyone who actually perpetrates violence.

The Hebrew Leftists blogosphere is already talking about the end of the social justice demonstrations in light of the government's hawkish endeavours. I'm hoping the people have wised up a little, and notice that the government who sweated due to the fact that we know they used the economy against us, will have wised up and see that the government will exploit this renewed violent conflict in order to get back the control it had briefly lost on the citizens.

My response?

Resist and go back to the streets where we've been for the past month.
Resist and don't accept the idea that "security" demands social justice to be forfeited.

*V For Vendetta. What else?

In case you weren't aware, Israel is in turmoil. The good way, as in, people are taking to the streets, rather than to our guns.

Three weeks ago, a protest regarding the cost of living (mainly the price of rent) was started by a young grad student who set up a tent in one of the businest boulevards in Tel-Aviv. And well, the rest is history.

roga has a picspam that will show you the magnitude of this, well, surge.

There have been quite a few big marches and demonstrations, and tonight there were simultaneous demos all over the country.

150,000 people marched in Tel-Aviv alone.

I didn't go to that one. I went to the one close to home, the one in my town. We were 300+ people shouting slogans about social and economic justice.

My town is very fiscally conservative, like most of wealthy suburbia, so I felt it was important to show a presence in places where it is very much not obvious that there will be a turnout.

So there I was, shouting along and holding up the symbolic tent.

Times they are a-changing?

I can only hope the idea of social justice, welfare and economic justice will spill out towards actually touching the Occupation and how the majority of our issues come from the fact that cheap housing is built in the territories, that the jumbo budget of the army should be allocated towards education, welfare and public health.

I don't have faith, but I do have history, I rely on it being repeated.

My speech (which, no matter what people say, has never been absolutely free) has been curtailed in a frightening way.

I cannot tell you which companies not to buy from, because I could get sued and fined (but not confined) for it.

The "anti-Boycott" law which passed last week in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament stipulates that it is a civil wrong (not a criminal offence) to call for a boycott on Israeli made, well, anything.

It is meant to protect Settlement made goods from the West Bank from financial loss.

In effect, it punishes people from doing the most non-violent action possible, asking people to be conciousness consumers.

I am not telling you to boycott, because that would open me up for law suits that could sue me for more money that I've got, due to hypothetical financial loss.

If ever there was a time for you to learn about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign and movement, it is now.

But, well, I can't tell you what you should do regarding that.

In Alphabetical order and a tiny bit of commentary:

Algeria: Defying a ban, protesters demonstrate in heavily policed Algiers. The demonstrations in Algeria in early January due to food shortages, but really, the poverty level in a country that is very rich in natural resources (and a long term dictator) showed it was a matter of time.

Bahrain: Bahrain mourner killed in clashes during another protester's funeral. The violence coming from the government in response to the protests has been overwhelming.

Iran: Police confirm protest death. The Reformists demonstrations never stopped, it just wasn't reported with the same fervor as when it started, but now that fire is sweeping through the region, it makes sense that the demo's are gathering greater numbers and are being suppressed with more violence.

Israel: While the region begins it's slow slog towards something resembling democratic process, we continue to dig our heels is and write out racist legislation like a Bill proposes discount in tuition fees for soldiers - meaning that higher education will become even more inaccessible than it already is to the working class - it is racist and ethnically based because the only ones drafted are Jews and the Druze (only men in this case) meaning that those who do not serve (i.e. Arabs, who also happen to be the most economically disenfranchised) will find it very hard to study at university, creating an even greater disparity between classes that (miraculously) coincide with ethnic and religious groups.

Palestine: Palestinian government resigns in hope of fresh start. Allow me to be more scathing than usual. The PA is so scared of what's happening in the region, the fact that just a few days about Saeb Ereakat resigned because of the Palestine Papers that they'll do anything to make appearnces of appeasement, while they suppress anti-PA demonstrations. Hamas, by the way, will not be running in these elections as it rejects Fatah authority. Like this schism is anything new.

Syria: Schoolgirl blogger jailed. A week after Syria opens their internet up for Twitter and Facebook. The Asad regime is in survival mode, it has been for years now.

Yemen: Yemen protests enter fifth day. The numbers are small, and there isn't a huge presence of women in Sanaa, but following reports on Twitter informs me that there was sizable female presence in Taizz.

That's what I got.

Plural. Stigma
1. a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one's reputation.
[...]
6. Archaic . a mark made by a branding iron on the skin of a criminal or slave.

One of the problems with discussing HIV/AIDS is that you always have to go to the history. The history of AIDS in the West is a pretty disgusting. The mistreatment of those infected with HIV in the United States and Great Britain is pretty well recorded - I personally like Simon Watney's book Imagine Hope: AIDS and Gay Identity as both a perspective and a critical reading of AIDS.
Because like it or not, HIV/AIDS has been a huge influence on queer culture, queer relationships and the way we conceptualise HIV/AIDS as a social phenomenon.

In my previous post I wrote about the frustration regarding the notion that those who are discriminated against bear the responsibility with regards to their "image", in other words, that gays (and lesbians and bisexuals and trans* people and queers in general) are partially themselves to blame when it comes to the stigma we are forced to live with.

My anger at that concept and the conceptualisation that we are deviant in essence because of our incompatibility with heteronormative gender-binary and male supremacist culture, has not waned - if anything, hearing the panel and discussion last night about the discriminatory paragraph that prevents gays and men who have/had sex with men (MSM) from donating blood, has strengthened my opinion regarding the wrongful notion of what HIV/AIDS means in the gay community in Israel.

Because you see, the QUILTBAG (let's be honest, the gay) Outreach Branch of the Israel AIDS Task Force (Hebrew) goes along with the letter coming out of the Ministry of Health and the Israeli Blood Bank guidelines (which go in accordance to the Red Cross, the FDA and the other US and Canadian blood donation organisations). The guidelines are Zero Tolerance to risk groups.

Now, I know, after 20 years and the migration of crisis (supposedly) Gays should not be regarded as a risk group - after all, HIV doesn't discriminate and statistics show that nearly half of HIV+ people are women.

I'd also add that in my locale - there is a sweeping ban (Zero Tolerance) with regards to people who have immigrated from Africa (meaning the major Ethiopian community living here can't donate blood) and drug users who use needle and snorting paraphernalia to consume the drugs.

The "dregs of society". Not much has changed in 20 years, right? The weakest and most disenfranchised members of society are also the most susceptible to disease and lack of treatment (not such a huge problem in Israel, as treatment for HIV is well funded due to our partial public health services).

However, HIV is a huge and growing problem within the Israeli gay (gay men and MSM) community. Whereas in the other groups that are prohibited from donating there is a stabilising trend (and even a reduction in infection), gays and MSM have risen steadily over the past eight years.

The disproportion between the percentage of HIV+ among gay men in accordance to their actual number in the general population is staggering.

In the last year, 140 new positives were identified through blood donations alone - all of them were from men who had had unsafe sex with other men.

in 2010, in a country with public health service, progressive legislation (via court precedences and not parliamentary bills, I have to say) regarding queer rights and banks on gay tourism, the statistics are truly horrific.
A 40% rise in less than ten years. Fucking hell.

The representative from the AIDS Task Force was adamant regarding the ban and acknowledged that while the language is discriminatory (there's no escaping that) gays and MSM in Israel create a higher risk of infection due to positive blood entering the blood bank - the HIV test in top of the market - reducing the detection window from three months to 11 days - still, he said, there are those who always want to skew the statistics and will come to donate 8 days after a careless encounter - the guy didn't show a whole lot of faith when it comes to humanity. I'm inclined to agree.

To me, the rise in positives in the gay community shows a failing in sex and health education and a lackadaisical attitude when it comes to practising safe sex - apparently there's also a syphilis epidemic rampaging through the Tel-Aviv gay community - oh, yeah, great sex tourist spot!

All of this. Everything. None of that has anything to do with the fact queers are maligned and discriminated against as a population within a hetronormative society.

The fact that HIV can be found in higher concentration among gays and MSM in Israel doesn't mean the discriminatory clause if legitimate - but opening up the form to interpretation as to what safe sex is (because let's face it, safe sec is not just putting on a rubber before tab a goes into slot b - reductive sex acts are reductive) is not something worth the public health risk.

Prior to last night I was sure that the clause also prevented gays and MSM from being insured by the blood bank should something happen and they would need a transfusion. You see in Israel - due to us being all social and shit - grant a year's worth of blood insurance with every donation (people who have donated 10 pints get life long insurance) - positive people can be insured, they can go and donate and mark the box that says "Not for Transfusion" and the blood is then either chucked or taken to be studied, but that person in insured.

This is something, I think, most people in Israel aren't aware of.

Now, what to do about the fact that in 2010 so HIV is back to being on a steep rise among gay men and MSM in Israel? Sex education has to be overhauled. Badly. This is not a gay issue, this is an overall social issue. But it is pertinent for gays and queers in general.
The definition of sex needs to be inclusive and not exclusive and needs to be spoken about in a candid way - sex is not a hunky dory activity, even if it is generally speaking fun - anyone can catch an STD. AIDS is stigmatised due to history, alas.

So, while my opinion regarding HIV/AIDS and the stigma attached to the disease due to homophobia has not changed, because Christ, how the fuck can one excuse homophobia in any way, shape and form. My opinion regarding the clause is that it's really the least of our problems. It is a minuscule issue when one looks at the statistics and you go "What the fuck?!".
The blood bank, rightfully, doesn't want to open itself up to risk.

The risk for a gay man to be infected is higher than a straight man or straight woman or a gay woman, simply because there are more gays and MSM who are positive - that's the issue. The blood donor clause is so far down on the list of concerns, I feel kind of silly that I've ever made a big deal out of it.