No wonder Stephanie Meyer’s indelibly bad vampire book series Twilight doesn’t feature any gay characters! Naturally, if the vampires were to sip on the blood of any homosexual, they’d contract – dun dun dunnnnn – the HIV! And let’s face it…we wouldn’t want the pukiest couple in all of literary history to get AIDS and die. It’d be kind of a buzzkill to the series. It would be almost as bad as ending the four-part journey with a massive, five hundred page build-up to a totally anticlimactic un-battle where like, one minor character dies and nothing of any real consequence occurs.
But I digress.
You see, I guess my real intention is to warn to all readers the dangers of homosexuals. And their blood. Which more likely than not is riddled with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Or at least that’s the message that the American Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is promulgating with the American Red Cross’ long-standing eligibility rules (like, since 1984) of who can and cannot donate blood.
Eligibility guidelines from the Red Cross state: “You should not give blood if you have AIDS or have ever had a positive HIV test…” Duh. It continues: “…or if you have done something that puts you at risk for becoming infected with HIV.” Here’s where it gets sticky. “You are at risk for getting infected if you: have ever used needles to take drugs or steroids; are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977; have ever taken money, drugs or other payment for sex since 1977; have had sexual contact in the past 12 months with anyone described above.”
It goes on to advise against people with hemophilia or people who have symptoms of HIV/AIDS (“blue or purple spots in your mouth,” “lumps in your neck, armpits, or groin,” or “diarrhea that won’t go away,” all of which would fall under the “This Really Blows” category). Which makes sense, because there is actually something wrong with your health if you exhibit these symptoms or have hemophilia.
The Red Cross defines “sexual contact” as vaginal, oral or anal sex. The latter two of which are not exclusive to gay men, ps. The first one…my understanding is that they’re not interested. While the Red Cross has opposed the ban on gay men donating blood, the FDA has upheld it, even in recent reviews.
Besides the offense that comes along with “Men Who Have Sex with Men” (which my good friend Wikipedia cleverly acronym-izes as MSM) being grouped with illegal drug users and prostitutes in the guidelines, some people say (doesn’t everyone appreciate my adoption of Fox News’ favorite strategy?) that other aspects of this rule are offensive and counter-productive to the Red Cross’ mission: to acquire blood in order to save lives and promote the health of others.
Now, of course, it’s a well-known fact that only homosexual men can get AIDS. Naturally, the Center for Disease Control (CDC)’s statistics that 49% of all AIDS diagnoses in 2006 were black people and 19% were Hispanics are bullshit. And the statistic that 11,584 HIV diagnoses in 2006 (approximately 33% of all diagnoses that year) were products of “high-risk heterosexual contact” should certainly be discarded. It’s simply irrelevant.
Females, of course, are not susceptible to HIV or AIDS, nor are straight men. However, if that straight man has had “sexual contact with another male, even once,” there’s a really good chance he’s in the process of developing AIDS. Isn’t that just logical?
But gays – or even curious, now-50-year-old men who were experimenting back in 1977 – please stay away from the blood drive. Even though you can save people by donating, the FDA would just really prefer it if you stay. The hell. Away.
This ban of MSM from blood donation is not discriminatory – it’s necessary. I mean, even gays who have been tested for HIV/AIDS and other diseases and have come back with perfectly clean, disease-free blood just have no place near donation centers. You’re just asking for an epidemic of hiv-blood.
However, hetero dudes who have crazy amounts of unprotected sex and knock up several girls a year, as well as women who fallatio their way through life, don’t require any monitoring. There is no ban on hetero sexual promiscuity, which, in essence, almost subtly suggests that all MSMs are sexually promiscuous themselves. What a fine stereotype! Completely accurate and progressive!
So hip-hip-hooray for American equality!
And thank Jesus, Mary, Joseph, God, Buddah and Allah that gay blood won’t be spread around this fine planet thanks to policies like this. Dying, desperate-for-blood patients can definitely do without blood from those damn MSMs. After all, a homosexual pandemic would be worse than an AIDS one. Isn’t that right, FDA?
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