Read on Twitter
Thinking more about #ItsASin last night, I think there's a huge amount to unpack, especially for people around my age, even just from a single episode.
I'm 53. Started uni in 86, didn't come out until 89, after the big safer sex campaigns that were run in the UK.
I'm 53. Started uni in 86, didn't come out until 89, after the big safer sex campaigns that were run in the UK.
Firstly, there's that sense of "There but for the grace of god" - if I'd come out earlier, would I still be here? Was I saved by being in the closet longer, by being just a few years older?
And that leads on to another layer, some anger. Sure, we had house parties, we had fun. But we never had that carefree fun that existed before the shadow of HIV. Our parties had bowls of condoms, and by and large those who were positive were shuffled off to the site, invisible
Our coming out was overshadowed not just by the spectre of HIV/AIDS - parents convinced we'd die lonely deaths - but also by Section 28, and a media that demonised the gay community, and in many cases internalised self-hatred.
And while we missed the worst, that doesn't mean we didn't lose people. Some of our contemporaries, many of our elders, died, often with few by their side. Others were lucky enough to get on to the right therapies, and are still here here.
But I'm sure everyone can remember some horror stories from back then. A friend had someone staying with them who was positive, and tried to take his own life slitting his wrists in the bath. And then spraying blood all over the house.
A neighbour called an ambulance; the guy survived, but my friend came home to an empty house full of blood, just a discarded latex glove by the door. No policeman to tell them what happened. I remember the bath full of blood and water. Helping to clean afterwards.
Months later, helping to paint, trying to reach the blood down the back of the radiator. The police must have guessed it was a gay house. Why did they just leave it like that for the occupants?
All these things are what watching #ItsASin brought back last night. A whole range of conflicting emotions, sorrow for those lost - and for times missed. Anger, grief and perhaps - almost certainly - some survivors' guilt.
And I wonder, as we've got older, and rejoiced in greater equality, and better treatments, and all those wonderful advances, and the worse of the plague has passed into history, I wonder just how many of us who were 'plague adjacent' have suppressed their emotions
Because we were "lucky" and we missed the worst of it, and we know we didn't suffer anywhere near as badly as many, and we know it's absolutely not about us. But still, that's a hell of a lot of baggage to be carrying around.
