A Gut Feeling: Anal Pleasure, Holistic Sexual Health, and Interpretations of AIDS
Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio
Part # 7
“We were talking about the transition between interpretations, correct?” G asked as we connected again.
“We were,” I said. “Have you thought about it?”
“Yes. It’s part of switching to the holistic health paradigm. The allopathic paradigm is based on what’s called patriarchy in feminism. It’s a way to interpret health as war against disease. It translates as ‘barrier’ when it comes to sexual health, as in ‘do as much ‘war’ on my body as I am willing to say yes to, and barriers will protect the ecosystem that’s me.’ The holistic paradigm is based on connectedness. It creates health by respecting life, by treating its ecosystems as part of the feminine divine. It translates as fluidity when it comes to sexual health. Understanding the flow of life and using pleasure to enhance it.”
“But how do you navigate the transition in a way that is safe?” I probed.
“Good question. I guess it depends on where you’re at when you start the journey. Lance talks about proportion. He never says that using a condom in a one-night stand will kill you. In fact, I bet he’d agree that barriers are quite appropriate for those occasions. But when it comes to healing from AIDS, when it comes to finding one’s own balance between pleasure and health, the emphasis really is on proportion. Being conscious, feeling connected to one’s body and its ecosystems, practicing that connection in ways that bring together the erotic and the sacred, that minister pleasure to the body as they generate health. “
“Right, but suppose you’re a gay man who is positive and has AIDS. How do you get from point A to point B without being criminalized or thrown in jail?”
“Good question again my friend. I guess you’d need a lot of good luck and patience. But suppose you focus on getting proportion. Then there is the leaky mucous, remember? The impurities in your blood that get you to test ‘poz’ in the first place. Keep looking at it from a holistic perspective. Suppose you’ve tested positive because you’ve got a mild case of intestinal dysbiosis. You can practice abstinence or protection with moderate amounts of sex until you get better. Then you may test again, and maybe it will be negative. Another option is becoming active in the AIDS dissidence movement, meet others who are healing themselves from intestinal dysbiosis and no longer have AIDS. Lance was one of them.”
“Right, that’s if you’re lucky and very determined. It could also happen that you get profiled as a sex offender, lose your job, lose your home, and end up in jail.”
“I know. And if you’re already, for some reason, subject to being profiled in a negative way, like say as part of a minority that’s considered hyper-sexed, that makes it even worse.”
“Like, for example, if you’re black, or Latino, or bi , or poly, or all of the above?” I asked.
“Exactly! But wait a minute, are you implying that this is Tony Lance’s fault? That the problems you’re describing are a result of his research?”
“No. But the severity of these problems is, I think, what makes all LGBT institutions react so negatively when they hear about AIDS dissidence. They’re afraid.”
“I know. It’s sad.” G reflected, somber.
“Besides, consider this. Experiencing anal pleasure in moderation, practicing holistic sexual health: those are wonderful ideas. But who will truly understand them? The minute some fundamentalist sect hears about them, they’ll be upon us. They’ll will simply turn the whole concept around and claim that science found out that anal sex is bad, that it’s the true cause of AIDS, and will use this to claim that those who have it only deserve what they got.”
“I have no doubts that some people will hear that, unfortunately. Not everybody on Earth can be sex-positive. But consider the situation we have today. Suppose Tony Lance is right. Suppose intestinal dysbiosis is really what causes AIDS, not a virus. Then everyone can heal from it, and continue to practice anal sex proportionally to the time and energy they have for this to happen naturally and in a holistic way.”
“That would be nice,” I offered.
“Right,” G approves. And she continues: “Then people will understand that love is an art that can be practiced in many different ways, that there are many styles of pleasure and it’s good to learn about all of them. People will learn to integrate the arts of loving with the arts of healing themselves. The entire human species will become more holistic, healthier, and happier. Don’t you think that the hope for such a world is worth the effort of facing the hostility of those who are sex-positive in principle, and cannot see the light of this vision yet?”
“Oh well G,” I responded, “you always get so wrapped up in your utopias. You’re incorrigible. I’m not sure all that can happen. But I’ll admit that if Tony Lance is right, if AIDS turns out to be just a bad case of intestinal dysbiosis that can be cured with proper nutrition and respect for one’s rectum, then the world will be much better off than it is today.”
“Oh, great! I’m so glad you can see that,” G exclaimed.
“For one thing,” I continued, “people will stop being afraid of one another. They’ll lose the fear of their own desire for closeness, for intimacy, that now so often turns into repression and hatred. More people will become proactive about being happy and loving and healthy. They will overcome their dependence on products that can mechanically generate those states. This will lower the cost of health care and free us of the twin tyranny of the pharmaceutical industry and medical profession. It will pave the way for affordable and organic universal health care. And it may even afford people more free time and vacation to enjoy amorous company, healthy sex, and conscious loving.”
“So, you see how important what Tony Lance did can be? Doesn’t he deserve a medal?” G asked.
“He does, especially if he is right,” I observed.
“Yes, and it’s easy to find out, and inexpensive. All it takes is really an experiment. Try douching a few rats, giving them wide spectrum antibiotics, having them inhale poppers, and sodomize them daily with plenty of lube and condoms. I bet their gut would cave in quickly enough to diagnose them with intestinal dysbiosis.”
“But G dear,” I said, “it seems really unfair to take it out on rats. Don’t we have enough sickness already?”
“It was really just a suggestion,” G responded. “People tend to trust laboratory experiments. That’s how allopathic science has operated for the past few centuries. Personally, I don’t need this kind of evidence. I find it in those long-time ‘poz’ people who are healthy and have healed themselves.”
“The experiment you were suggesting could be a shortcut, though. It could help redress health policies,” I offer. “For example, those statutes about murder by infection . . . “
“Right. And if you consider the damage that acting on the wrong hypothesis can cause, if you consider all the earthquake devastation that comes from poverty that is often interpreted as AIDS in countries where poor sanitation causes all kinds of intestinal problems, if you consider all the money spent in programs that cannot be effective because they do not bring people what can cure their intestinal dysbiosis, if you consider how this fear of love, fear of expressing the erotic energy of love in natural ways, is transmuting into hatred, war, destruction, and devastation of entire bioregions and their population, if you consider that all the money spent on these futile projects could be used to stop global warming and create the climate stability that can save us all, then, you know, if sacrificing a few rats can to the trick, if it can persuade the powers that be, or at least the honest people in them, that dysbosis is worth considering as a legitimate cause, then so be it, I say.”
“That’s a nice thought. Now, is Tony Lance alone?”
“No. He is part of a team, he presented his work at the first edition of the conference Rethinking AIDS, in Oakland last November.”
“What other scientists were there? Where did they come from?”
“There were vernacular and professional scientists, as well as activists and clinicians, I understand. Many of the professional scientists are based in the US, but they are of foreign origin.”
“Do you think that’s why they don’t get profiled very favorably?”
“That’s part f it, of curse. They can be dismissed as Un-American, in a new form of McCarthyism, as some would say.”
“Perhaps they can afford to be more honest because they are less involved with the pharmaceutical companies. I mean all those marketing efforts to create the need for a drug by persuading average Americans that they suffer from some under-diagnosed ailment.”[1]
“Yes, pharmaceutical companies pay lavish money to professors of medicine ready to act as consultants who promote their drugs and the medical disorders invented to market them.[2] Foreign scientists can do that as well. It’s just that some of them are not game.”
“I get it. Even though, of course, being a foreigner is not a plus in that role since the public tends to trust your vintage American better.”
“You have a point. That’s why, also, people like Duesberg, form Germany, and Bauer, from Austria, have trouble getting heard.”[3]
“But again, when you think of Tony Lance, and other American heroes like him, who self-trained as scientists to save their lives, and are now sharing their knowledge to save others at the risk of losing everything, you see that it’s happening. Dissident science is making inroads. It’s pushing against the paradigm that generates so much paradox that it almost fall of its own weight, like a giant that can no longer walk because it’s too heavy with its own false consciousness.”
“Are there any other countries where holistic interpretations of AIDs are being researched?”
“At the Oakland conference there was a scientist from the University of Florence, Italy, Marco Ruggiero.[4] His team focuses on AIDS and body ecology, including the effects of chemicals.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes, and remember that in these countries where health care is universal, the government has to pay for curing all disease outbreaks, including those caused by pharmaceutical companies eager to sell the wrong meds for the wrong diseases. So that’s an incentive to fund studies that disagree with the main paradigm as well: A way to force integration of allopathic and holistic methods for the common good.”
“Yes. So there is hope.”
“Being the author of a ‘forbidden book’ that has become controversial on account of my intellectual honesty about AIDS, I can tell only one thing for sure: No one on earth (Nobel laureate or vernacular scientist) knows everything that there is to know about AIDS. That’s why it is necessary to open up to all avenues of investigation. The criminalization of knowledge is the crime. Fear the true enemy.”
“Let’s hope fear evaporates then.”
“Let’s,” said G.
“Meanwhile, congrats to Tony Lance and good luck to all of those who are healing themselves from intestinal dysbiosis.”
“Yes, for all those volunteer scientific efforts the world will be absolutely grateful. Knowledge always evolves by disagreement. It’s the same data. But now they make a whole lot of sense. It’s always a matter of interpretation.”
“Science is an art,” I offer as a way to wrap up the conversation.
“Isn’t it? I’ve always claimed we need more people trained in critical theory like myself.”
“Stop bragging about your specialties, G,” I giggle.
“Ok, ok,” she giggles back.
“It was great talking with you, G.”
“Same.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
“Namaste.”
“Namaste.”
[1] Peterson, Melody. Our daily Meds. New York: Picador, 2009. Our Daily Meds
[2] Lane, Christopher. Shyness. Yale University Press, 2008. (A study of the invention of recent mental illnesses in the sociability spectrum.)
[3] Peter Duesberg. Inventing the AIDS Virus. New York: Regnery, 2007. (A classic of non-infective AIDS theory.) Henry Bauer. The Origin, Persistence, and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory. New York: McFarland, 2007. (A recapitulation of and reflection about the inconsistencies of mainstream theories.)
[4] First Rethinking AIDS Conference. Oakland, CA: November 2009. Online proceedings. RethinkingAIDS-Program. Prof. Marco Ruggiero, Univ. of Florence: http://www.marcoruggiero.org/
Disclaimer: This Tale does not constitute medical advice in any way. Readers are invited to consult their own healers and health care providers.
