The Pridelets Files for October 8

On this day in 1992, why has Phillip Morris (aka "Big Tobacco") begun advertizing in the fashion obsessed semi-mainstream gay rag "Genre"? Because, says the Advocacy Institute, San Fransisco's gay and lesbian population smokes at a rate 61% higher than straights. (Perhaps it's the smoking after sex?)

BIRTHGAYS (and the occasional straights)
* 1855 - Edgar Saltus, American homeboy of Oscar Wilde, and author of "The imperial Orgy"
* 1872 - "Glastonbury Romance" novelist John Cowpers Powys
* 1892 - Russian poet Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva
* 1958 - activist Urvashi Vaid

Q.UOTE
"To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

THE BEDSIDE TABLE
"Men Like Us : The Gay Men's Health Crisis Complete Guide to Gay Men's Sexual, Physical, and Emotional Well-Being" by Daniel Wolfe
The definitive resource for all aspects of gay men's sexual, physical, and emotional lives, this indispensable, landmark book will empower you to take charge of your health, your relationships, and your life.

For nearly two decades, Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), the world's largest and most respected not-for-profit AIDS service organization, has provided vital support, education, and health information to gay men in the New York City area. Now, with Men Like Us, their guidance--and the insights of hundreds of gay men across America--can help you. Practical, down-to-earth, and accessible, this authoritative health resource covers such topics as
- Finding Doctor Right
- Your sex life vs. the rest of your life
- Sexually transmitted diseases: How to protect yourself, tell if you have them, and treat them
- 5 tests and vaccines no gay man should go without
- Guidelines for gay couples: Rekindling romance in long-term relationships
- Aging well: Strategies for mind and body
- An AIDS primer: Choices for the newly infected; antiviral drugs and how they work; deciding when to start antiviral therapy; determining if your therapy is working; and what to do if it's not
- Spirituality: Waking up inside; working for the gay good
- Mental matters: Meditation; stress reduction; finding a therapist; dealing with depression, anxiety, and psychotropic medications
Filled with expert advice--from leading doctors, lawyers, therapists, and fitness instructors to "ordinary gay men" whose stories provide important voices of experience--Men Like Us opens a window onto the ways we gay men, in all our diversity, care for ourselves and each other.

and
"The Lesbian Health Book: Caring for Ourselves" edited by Marissa C. Martinez and Jocelyn White, M.D.
Health care for lesbians has been sorely neglected over the years because lesbians have chosen to be quiet rather than face the confrontation with a physician over their sexual orientation. As a result, lesbians are faced with the challenge of treating themselves or, if they are lucky to be in a large metropolitan area, seek out a lesbian physician. Thank goodness for Seal Press who asked White and Martinez to edit a book on lesbian health. Through many friends and colleagues they have put together a very interesting book that relives "their stories in such a way that every reader will sit next to them at the doctor's office or lie with them on the exam table, struggle with them in their embarrassment and laugh with them as they discover humor in the midst of pain."
The first part covers a bit of the history of the lesbian health movement and points out the ever present homophobia that is everywhere in the health care system. The second part, "Through Health and Illness," covers the effect of gender and class on lesbian access to health care, a surgeon's perspective of breast surgery, handling your tumor with knowledge and humor, chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome, notes concerning shame and desire, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and lesbian denial and lesbian leadership in the AIDS epidemic. The next section, "Life's Cycle," covers with child, choosing children, aging, and death. "Living True" looks at several issues, including psychic scars, supersize women, black lesbians, and battering. The section provides the hope for the future in 4 chapters, "Lesbian Health Research," "Finding Health Information," "The Future of Our Health," and "Blueprint for the Future."
This is an excellent book that is intended to be a wake-up call for all lesbians who need to stand up and demand better health care and for support groups who need to lobby congress and bring to the attention of everyone that lesbian health care is just as important as health care to the aged. This is a recommended book for all libraries and should be a personal book for every lesbian who feels that her health care has been neglected by the heterosexual society that we live in.

This work is copyright© 2006 Thomas Allen Heald, all rights reserved. Contact the author at tom@idontgetit.org and the latest column are always available at www.Pridelets.com.