Me, an Inspiration for HIV Blackmail.
SHOWROOM: Christmas day 2019 at work.
In 2019 I was the pre-opening operations manager for a multi-million pound new build luxury aparthotel in Aldgate with over two decades of experience. Although content with the role and the £45k salary I fancied a change and had done for the last few years. Then in March 2020 I was hit with HIV and the Covid-19 lockdown and made redundant. For my next role, I wanted something where I could have a laugh and essentially be around my own [gays] despite ‘tapping out’ of the LGBT “community” years back. I still went to gay pubs/bars and had gay friends but I had switched off to all the shit that was being spouted. My view was, we have our rights so shut the fuck up and enjoy them. Why overcomplicate things? And I do not regret this decision as I saw recently across social media the infighting within the LGBT community with all the pronoun and cis bollocks. Even my 6 transgender friends over the age of 50 have told me to stop supporting or at least verbally offering my support to their community citing they find it all embarrassing and have ‘tapped out’ themselves, yikes!
DIRTY: Op’s Manager getting his hands dirty 2 Days before the assault.
I have gay friends and even heterosexual friends who have said they have a “don’t engage” policy with the LGBT community. When I asked, “why”? they say “in case I say the wrong thing and they kick off, I don’t want the tantrum, the drama” and laughing I’d agree with them. So I kick myself daily as to why I was so surprised that working in a Soho gay bar, a gay colleague would use my HIV status to blackmail me.
Since the book has been published I have been inundated with messages from various people from a variety of backgrounds including those living with HIV. With every message, they cite ‘bravery’ with me having to go through the ‘ordeal’ and to then go on to share my story so publicly. I always reply that I was not brave, I just did what most would do and did not allow the blackmailer to, well, win! They often conclude that there needs to be more education about HIV and HIV Stigma in a bid to avoid HIV blackmail.
I don’t agree.
Rightly or wrongly, ‘stigma’ for anything comes from fear. And fear comes from a lack of knowledge and this is evident when comparing the AIDS pandemic with that of the Covid-19 pandemic. Just look at how quickly we all became experts of Covid-19 within weeks if not months of the virus hitting the UK. We all learned a language and words that we didn’t use in everyday life before covid-19. Symptomatic, asymptomatic, Lateral flow, antigen, and so many more. We joked about how we all became experts and scientists when coming to terms with and then living with Covid-19.
This was no doubt due to the scientific advances we have today and the amazing talent across the world. That worked collectively to inform us all of Covid-19, how it is transmitted and how best to protect ourselves against it. Look at how fast this information and knowledge was able to spread with the media we all have at our fingertips compared to that of the 1980s and 1990s and the AIDS pandemic. Yes, we had small pockets of Covid-19 stigma surface, the main one I recall was the stigma the Asian population faced. But this dissipated quickly and has not stuck with the mainstream due to the knowledge we gained that removed any fear regardless of how irrational it was.
They say fear is removed when you gain knowledge and that is on the adage “knowledge is power”. But an individual who decides to ‘weaponise’ someone’s HIV status to instil ‘fear’ does so on the basis that this gives them ‘power’. Therefore my dismissal that there needs to be more education on HIV and HIV stigma is based on the fact that an individual is already knowledgeable of the subject in order to weaponise it. Also, the person being blackmailed has an equal share of the power as they can also reveal the alleged compromising information that the blackmailer threatens to reveal while simultaneously outing the blackmailer and their bizarre and malicious behaviour.
You could argue that if everybody was fully educated on HIV then the blackmailer would have no leverage to blackmail in the first place. But many I have come across that do not know all the in’s and out’s of HIV say they know it is not a concern anymore purely because it has not been in the public conscience for a couple of decades now. Society has become so media-dependent that if it’s not being talked about then it’s not of concern. We are exposed to so much that we quickly filter information and before you know it we have forgotten it, making HIV and AIDS a thing of the past. I believe and having experienced it myself that exposing someone as having HIV or AIDS today does not get the hysterical reaction that a blackmailer may hope for, as it would have years back.
Shortly after my HIV diagnosis, I spoke to several people living with HIV who had been blackmailed. One had not disclosed his HIV status to his family and he was being blackmailed with exposure to his immediate family by an ex-partner. I rolled my eyes each time he shared he was blackmailed for £20. Is that it, twenty quid! Surely HIV exposure is worth more than that? Although this went on over several months with £20 being sent frequently to the blackmailer’s bank creating a paper trail. If you know me then you can imagine the various Judge Judy quotes I sent to the person sharing this with me. Then the demands did increase the more he gave in to the blackmailer, to £30, I mean honestly why bother?
From others that I have spoken to that were forced to share their status or had their status exposed through blackmail shared the reaction was not hysterical but more sympathetic. More often than not a reaction followed by a touch of disappointment that the individual didn’t feel they could share/confide their status with that person(s). An amazing U-turn from the stories of the AIDS pandemic where families abandoned loved ones who were living with HIV/AIDS. Of course, it’s not all shared teacups and happy endings and there will still be a minority that perhaps know there is no truth in all the old haunts of HIV/AIDS but will refuse to believe it for various reasons. Such as cultural or religious beliefs, but then surely the stigma lies within those beliefs and not HIV stigma?
On hearing about these instances of HIV blackmail I had time to think about what I would do in each of these scenarios. But given it was 2020 and the knowledge people have about HIV today I felt assured I’d never be on the receiving end of such behaviour in the belief I was not interesting enough.
When I received the first malicious message from the ‘Lost Boy’ threatening to expose my HIV status, I didn’t get goosebumps, I didn’t gasp for breath and I certainly didn’t panic. I liked working with the other Lost Boys but was not invested enough to worry about them being told my HIV status.
Also, the ‘Lost Boy’ was only demanding that I resign or quit which I was slightly offended by. I mean, if you’re going to blackmail me at least make it exciting, say demand £1,000 in used notes or summert!
I have never been someone who would deliberately continue to do something if I knew it annoyed someone. If I was tapping my foot and someone said it was irritating and asked me to stop, I wouldn’t deliberately continue until we got into a confrontation. However, in this instance, I knew being blackmailed for my resignation meant my mere presence bothered the ‘Lost Boy’ and this made me more determined to stay and not quit. Which meant the risk of being exposed as HIV positive was greater than if I just left. I like a laugh and have always been popular amongst work colleagues as someone who doesn’t get drawn into the politics of working life. I am not loud, gregarious nor seek to be the centre of attention therefore I knew I was not a genuine irritant to the ‘Lost Boy’ to agree my presence/services were no longer required.
Even before I discovered which ‘Lost Boy’ was sending these malicious messages of blackmail I understood that they were not sent on the basis of his ‘fear’ nor out of any alleged concern for the other lost boys. Referring to my HIV as “AIDS” demonstrated he knew the historical significance of ‘HIV Stigma’ and the fear he intended to inflict upon me and the other lost boys. My feeling at the time of the malicious messages was, he had either watched too much ‘It’s a Sin’ which documented the UK AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and 1990s and accurately dramatised the appalling stigma around HIV/AIDS. Or this was more societal if not an ‘LGBT community’ issue brought about through his apparent unhappiness with himself.
AE/AER PRONOUN: Who has time for this!
And I am laying blame with ‘society’ if not a community [LGBT] given the lost boy blackmailing me had the same self-righteous attitude as a minority within the LGBT community today.
I often witnessed the blackmailer scream and shout at anybody, even Lost Boys and customers who dare voice an opinion on or use the alleged wrong pronoun. Yet here he was blackmailing a gay man with “AIDS” by way of his deliberate misdiagnosis when referring to my HIV. The same with some of the other Lost Boys when they used language he deemed to be outdated. One Lost Boy used the word “retard” in a jovial sassy remark to another Lost Boy and he pounced on them that this was discriminative and outdated language. For me as a gay man with a 10-year drag career and ‘the gays’ known for a sense of humour even at times when it is caustic or outdated, it is all about context. But regardless if that word or others were outdated I was miffed he had the gall to take issue with such given he was deliberately referring to my HIV as “AIDS” in his malicious blackmail messages but claimed he took exception to the word “retard”.
MASCARA: Will 1989 a little camp boy
This behaviour had all the traits of ‘attention seeking’. Someone wanting the spotlight on them ‘all the time’ despite his conflicting stance on what was right and wrong. There is no escaping the generation that spent their childhood shut away in their bedroom with social media as their only friend. Have turned out to be self-righteous individuals who believe they are pushing boundaries no doubt in the vain belief that they will be cheered and admired by the rest of the LGBT community. I have said it before but I and other members of the LGBT community are tired of being ‘told’ and lectured on what it means to be LGBT from a generation that thinks they have just invented the acronym.
Born in 1982 I was a generation that was battered in the playground until I was black and blue in 1989 because right up until I was 18 years old I was perceived to be gay. And while I knew I was, like my peers you never dreamt of openly declaring you were gay, not out of ‘fear’ but because it was not the done thing. Now individuals have the freedom to go to school in the identity that they feel they are and I think that’s fab and only wish I would have been able to have that freedom to be who we were without fear.
In high school in East London in the 90s, the white cohort called me “fag” and “queer” and the black cohort relentlessly shouted “batty boy” and so much more. So I do not expect these emerging generations to come and tell me that they are upset because someone has allegedly used the wrong pronoun, that they have it tough, or are fighting for ‘rights’. Just as I would never dream of telling my peers that they didn’t have it as hard as I did. When they were the founders of the LGBT community fighting for gay rights and lived during a time when being gay was illegal and came with a prison sentence. A generation thinking they are pioneers allegedly reclaiming homophobic slurs such as “fag” [faggot"] and “Queer” to then be crying in a gay publication because a group of straight men called them a “fag” while innocently walking down the street. When Lost Boy Elias sent me that article I replied with the painting nails emoji. The next time I saw Lost Boy Elias I said, “how did he know they were straight”? To which Lost Boy Elias replied, “How did she [he] know they were men”? Both of us highlighting that an LGBT generation gets hysterical claiming that you can not ‘gender’ someone by looks alone yet you seemingly can when you’re spreading alleged homophobic propaganda against the heterosexual community.
This is not a mere attack nor rant, my point is the Lost Boy who was blackmailing me had all these self-righteous traits and behaviours. Me and Jack being of a similar age both recounted our times spent on the gay scene over the years and agreed we had seen this dramatic change in the LGBT “community”. Jack constantly referred to it as “toxic” and shared he too had turned his back on it opting for a quieter life. And while he agreed with my above rant in parts, he shared from his studies that the Lost Boy who was blackmailing me had a personality disorder, he was a narcissist. I always thought a narcissist was someone who was exceptionally good-looking or perhaps thought they were good-looking. ‘Narcissist’ a word you often hear when someone is always looking in the mirror or constantly talking about themselves. Jack while explaining what a narcissist was pulled up this overview from the internet:
Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others
With the above, I said to Jack “that describes the majority of the young members of the LGBT community perfectly” to which he smirked and said, “yeah it does, doesn’t it”.
It is clear in my case that ‘HIV stigma’ was not the cause of being on the receiving end of blackmail from a Lost Boy of Soho. Even by the end of the last century, the dimmest of people understood that the rhetoric that made up HIV stigma had all been debunked. In my case, it was clearly a narcissist at work and initially, I hoped he exposed me as being HIV positive as I was going to draw on my acting skills and deny it. What would he demand to prove his allegation, a blood sample? And I think I would have pulled it off and I wonder how things would have panned out for him as the Lost Boys asked why he was being so malicious.
But as I pondered this move I had become tired quite quickly and decided I would just ‘out’ myself in a defiant act. The only regret I had in doing this is that the lost boy was not there to see and hear the reactions of the Lost Boys when I told them I was HIV positive who really couldn’t give a toss.
As for exposing him as being the blackmailer to the other Lost Boys, well I didn’t need to because when they all attempted to guess who it was they all guessed correctly the first time, isn’t that interesting? But my taking back the ‘power’ from the blackmailer was short-lived given I strongly suspect he is a narcissist on the grounds of being mentally unstable. He can now spend the rest of his life telling people that I wrote an entire book all about ‘him’.
THE HIV PODCAST MINI-SERIES: HIV & BLACKMAIL
Sarah & Jess at THE HIV PODCAST are kicking off a mini-series on HIV & Blackmail. The duo kicked off their weekly podcast by sharing that “…this whole mini-series has been inspired by one of our lovely listeners William Hampson”. After a bit of uncontrollable giggling over the pronunciation of my name, host Sarah, the more sensible of the pair goes on to share “…he wrote a book ‘The Lost Boys of Soho’ and originally we were going to feature him on our podcast” given the book tells my true story of HIV blackmail in the workplace.
However, the pair decided against inviting me on their show given they just couldn’t accommodate my Uber let alone my ryder. And quite frankly I would have eclipsed them both post-Christmas gains and been the star of the show. But truth is, the mini-series will no doubt like the previous mini-series leave us all aghast at what they uncover. And I for one can not wait for them to reveal the shocking truth and effects of HIV blackmail that will no doubt remind us how far we have come and what more needs to be challenged.
CONTEXT: Thoughts and opinions are my own and I express them as per my human right. As a gay man, 40 years old I have always been an advocate of living your life how you please. I have also learned that in life while we may have similar interests, in this case, a sexuality defined under the community acronym LGBT we can have a difference of opinion and at times may not agree. I have many transgender friends who I adore and support and I have always been respectful of those that declare ‘pronouns’ including those that push ‘the norm’. The fact I have to state this demonstrates the state of the LGBT movement where anybody with a different/opposing view is labeled ‘phobic’.
