Their stories are our stories. (Images via Channel 4) When it comes to the early years of the AIDS crisis, I can't say, “I was there.” Rather, I was around there.
My youth wasn't so much directly shaken by AIDS as it was formed by the tsunami it created. I was already aware of what AIDS was before I had my first kiss in 1987, so by the time I was having sex, it was a fact of life.
There was no meaningful before, during and after for me, just — after. Instead of sexual abandon, I poured myself into collecting things, obsessing over music, making art and writing.
I eventually worked out many of my frustrations in a novel that, in retrospect, exposes some of my AIDS-induced hang-ups — and I think It's a Sin could be read as similarly