Test Drive

Per a recent communication with my brother in-law Ron, I am obliged to begin this posting with a warning. You see, all of a sudden, he's turned into this BIG BABY who can't handle some of the rough edges of my life, and would prefer the option of skipping any of my more, shall we say, "earthy" entries.

Okay, Ron, here goes: the following post, though illustrated with a shot of the gold foil encased condom that was left by my keyboard this morning, is ABSOLUTELY RATED G. Nothing that follows will turn your stomach or make you question the accuracy of the highly moral compass implanted in my brain by the "Twin Furies", aka Miss Eloise and Miss Julie. In fact, as I waited my turn for an HIV test this afternoon during Nation Media Group's "World AIDS Day" activities, I actually considered lying if they asked when I last had sex.

After all, they'd probably think I was lying, physically impaired or half dead if I told them the truth. So I wondered if it would somehow raise my social profile to fib and say I'd just returned to the office from a quickie at the hotel next door. Fortunately, the young man who couldn't stop laughing when I told him my age came up with a great compromise. He asked if I'd been intimate within the past 6 months. Telling the truth about that didn't feel so loser-ish.

Anyway, let me once again assure you, RON, that is will not be a gross, girly blogpost full of personal junk that I probably shouldn't be revealing in public. All I really want to share is my opinion that on the African continent, the battle against HIV will never be won until men take full responsibility for knowing their status and protecting themselves and their partners. The survey I mentioned in an earlier posting pretty much backs up my opinion, I think. If the average Kenyan man has 7 or 8 sexual partners, and only about 3 out of 10 Kenyan men know their HIV status, there's no way to argue that the epidemic is NOT driven by men.

My own test result was reassuring, even as it confirmed that my last potential exposure occurred sometime during the Pleistocene Era. But hey, maybe this is a step in the right direction, a sort of "Greenlight for All Systems Go," so to speak.

But let me stop there, before Ron barfs all over his keyboard.

:-)