Eliminate Stigma

In conjunction with World AIDS Day yesterday, The Malaysian Insider ran an article entitled 'Study links hookup apps for gays to HIV epidemic, but activists point to stigma'.

It was an interesting article though I doubt Daud's claim that he only met 10 men throughout his years using Grindr since 2010. 10 men, seriously?

Come on, be honest with me, we play Grindr, Hornet or even Jack' D - sometimes we meet more than 10 in a year.

There are many reasons we have those apps in our smartphones.

Yes, it's true, our main aim is for hookups. Yeah, when it comes to hookup and gay; casual sex or one night stand comes into your mind right? Hey, straight men hookup for sex also okay?

I can't deny that most of the hookups are meant for casual sex but it's also a platform to make friends as well or even to find a lover. To be honest, I've befriended a lot of genuine friends through those apps. My friends even found their love partners from the apps too. Seriously, the article is slightly unfair to portray gay men in Malaysia as a bunch of promiscuous people who are looking for sex in those apps, which eventually lead to growing numbers of people with AIDS.

Be it gay or straight, technology is not to be blamed here. Like what Dr Ilias Adam Yee said "People have been meeting up for sex even before the development of apps".

Even without those gay apps, gay men will always have their ways to find sex partners. Gay sauna, gay massage parlours, gay club, some gym and even Facebook - when they need sex, they will find a way, trust me. Gay men will create more wormholes to connect with each other when more efforts from the authority to curb the rise of gay practices.


It's utterly unfair to have generalization that gay men are synonym with AIDS. HIV virus doesn't categorize whether you are homosexual, heterosexual or even bisexual. It's a transmissible disease so sexual orientation doesn't play a role here.

As reported, a comparison of new HIV infection from 2005 to 2014 found that they only made 28% of the reported cases of transmission. The bulk of new infections came from heterosexuals (50%) while 19% were from drug users. Overall, there were 105,189 reported cases as of December 2014.

So ladies and gentlemen, stay safe. And stop discriminate gays or even people with AIDS - they have suffer enough. Answer the unity call to fight this plague.