2 minute read
Changing the narrative
The image of hundreds of gay men back in the ‘70s and early ‘80s was that of The Clone: cropped hair, moustache, checked shirt, 501s, package protruding either left or right of their button-downed 501s, colours code hankie in the left or right back pocket, and black boots. This was the ‘de rigueur’ of the day.
Then AIDS came along and the syndrome was very much attached to The Clone, which gave rise to the Muscle Mary, showing everyone that they were very fit and very healthy.
Back then AIDS = Death with perhaps the most striking image coming from Life Magazine’s image of gay activist David Kirby, which fashion label Benetton used as part of its controversial ad campaigns and was later heavily criticised for.
Other images of famous men dying from HIV - Rock Hudson, Freddie Mercury - were splashed across the front pages of the tabloid press, along with the government’s tombstone campaigns, which did the job of terrifying everyone.
Of course, we acknowledge that there are many different struggles to work with when living with an HIV diagnosis, but how we are viewed - with images of death and dying - should not be one of them.
Thankfully there is a real surge of individuals and groups like the More to Me Than HIV project who are standing up and helping to break down the misinformation of what it means to live with HIV in 2021.
One of the most high-profile campaigns of this year has to be the Gareth Thomas and Terrence Higgins Trust partnership, Tackle HIV, which is to address public misunderstanding.
To start with, the Tackle HIV campaign surveyed 4,000 adults with the results being ‘61% of people surveyed said if they found out a potential partner was HIV+ they would or might end the relationship. The main reason for this was being worried about contracting HIV (81%)’.
From this alone it is easy to see just how many people are still misinformed about what it means to have sex with someone who is HIV+. Which is why we are so pleased to see a real movement within the HIV+ community to update people’s knowledge.
A brilliant global HIV+ project is Through Positive Eyes, which features portraits of people from more than ten cities in eight countries on five continents and gives them a voice through gallery exhibitions (physical and online) which also includes some powerful video testimonies.
Positive Stories is another excellent visual project, created by photographer Mareike Günsche. These simple but powerful photography and video projects are really helping to change the narrative of what it means to be a person living with an HIV+ diagnosis today.
Together we can update and inform on what it means to live positively with an HIV+ diagnosis.
For those living with HIV, please consider joining the More to Me Than HIV project. For more details about our project and links to the ones mentioned, please get in touch via
