have teamed up to deliver a potent HIV education
message to college students. (photo MM)
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Joel Goldman and T. J. Sullivan, friends in college,
have teamed up to deliver a potent HIV education message to college students. (photo MM) |
In a program that combined stand-up comedy with poetic testamonial, they shared that mission with 1000 students and community members in Acker Gym, on Tuesday, October 6.
Goldman and Sullivan delivered the message, "We're all in this together." Pointing out that worldwide, 80 percent of the thirty million people living with AIDS are heterosexual, and that 50 percent of new diagnoses of HIV positive status happen to people college-aged or younger, they moved to the heart of their message: mixing drinking and sex is hazardous.
Goldman shared his history of alcohol use while in college and after. During that time, he said, "I'd start to rationalize so that if I was drinking alcohol and I wanted to find a reason to have [unprotected] sex, I could find it." When he made a choice to stop drinking, he was having safer sex, and was tested for HIV. The results then were negative, but after an period of poor health six years ago, he was tested again.
Goldman spoke of the several moments that changed his life. First, when he heard the doctor say, "Joel, you're HIV positive." Later, when he tasted a cherry lollipop leaving the doctor's, he knew he wasn't dreaming. He made a rule that he'd make no decisions about what to do with his life until he was comfortable with the fact that he was HIV positive. Finally, there was the moment when he decided to use his experience to educate others. That was how he would survive AIDS.
Sullivan provided an entertaining and explicit discussion of the stages of intoxication as they impact risk for unprotected sexual and repeated basic information about HIV. What was new in Sullivan's account was the unmistakable link established between HIV/AIDS and the high level of risk induced by alcohol consumption.
"Joel and I did not come here to tell you, `Alcohol is bad! Sex is bad!' but when we mix alcohol and sex, we forget the consequences. One in four Americans has some form of herpes. With all due respect, do you think this is a gymnasium full of exceptions?"
The two men finished the evening urging their audience to turn the tide of the AIDS epidemic by showing compassion to those already infected, countering ignorance with information, and by protecting themselves.
Larry Bassow, coordinator of Off-campus Housing and Marketing, worked with AS. Programming to bring Goldman and Sullivan to Chico. Their program has reached over one/half million students.
MM