With regard to Insure.com’s blog spreading anti-gay myths about gay life expectancy: “[CEO Robert Bland] wrote a response defending his company’s material, and he has left other comments on this web site which suggest that Insure.com has little interest in factual accuracy or professional responsibility. With these latest comments, whatever hope we first held that Insure.com would act responsibly and in the best interests of their customers, shareholders and participating agencies has now vanished.” [BTB]

Scottish lesbians aren’t doing so well.

That is, of course, if you believe a new survey indicating that the nation’s lady lovers are facing some uphill mental health battles: A total of 500 Scottish women took part in the Prescription for Change survey, which was conducted by the charity Stonewall.

It found that 20 per cent of lesbian and bisexual women in Scotland had deliberately harmed themselves in the last year, compared to 0.4 per cent of the general population.

The study also found that five per cent of lesbian and bisexual women have attempted to take their own life in the last year. The poll also shows that the ladies aren’t taking proper physical … Continued…

The gays have loads of reasons to hate on President George W. Bush.

He and his cronies did, after all, use us for political gain and continue to poo-poo on the idea of same-sex marriage.

Despite all that, however, Bush does deserve some lavender love, says activist David Benkof:
It is unquestionable that George W. Bush has done more to fight HIV/AIDS than any president in American history, including Clinton. The people pushing Bush to fight the epidemic at home and abroad are overwhelmingly conservative Christians — the same people we keep hearing gay leaders tar as narrow-minded and bigoted. Well, those narrow-minded bigots (who never had the president’s ear during the Clinton administration) deserve far more credit for relieving suffering from HIV in this decade than gay men and lesbians did in the previous two decades combined.
Continued…

“More than 100 gay Australian couples have paid $80,000 to create a baby using rent-a-womb women in the United States, a fertility clinic says. The controversial scheme, branded as ‘one-stop baby shopping’, is becoming increasingly popular among professional gay men in Sydney and Melbourne, according to The Fertility Institutes based in Los Angeles.” [News Ltd]

” Doctors have long suspected that people with herpes are more likely to catch HIV. So they thought that by treating herpes, they could also cut a person’s HIV risk. But a new study that tested this strategy found the assumption may have been wrong.” [365 Gay]

South African Matthias Rath has been ordered to stop selling his “AIDS curing” multivitamins VitaCell. One activist celebrated the ruling thus: “This judgment is a victory for the rule of law and the scientific governance of medicine. Over the last decade in this country that rule of law has been contested by our minister of health and the president, and a culture of impunity has been created such that charlatans like Matthias Rath can get away with deceiving vulnerable people such that those people end up progressing to AIDS and dying.” [Mamba]

“Despite a stepped up global battle against AIDS, the numbers of people newly infected with HIV are far and away outpacing the numbers beginning antiretroviral drug treatments, U.N. officials said Monday.” [365 Gay]

“A quarter of a century after the outbreak of AIDS, the World Health Organization (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared. In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organizations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO’s department of HIV/AIDS said there will be no generalised epidemic of AIDS in the heterosexual population outside Africa.” [Independent via JMG]

Apparently sex changes with the seasons, so homo-journo Mike Diamond came up with some “summer sex tips.” He also has a list of things you don’t want to hear in bed, like “That’s not my ring. That’s my watch.” [Edge NY]

“Australian researchers said Wednesday they have developed a means of producing a “natural condom” which could prevent the spread of AIDS. The Melbourne researchers said they believe men could reduce their risk of contracting the HIV virus, which causes the deadly disease AIDS, by applying the female hormone, estrogen, to their penis once a week. University of Melbourne researcher Professor Roger Short said that use of an estrogen cream could quadruple the thin layer of the protein keratin on the skin and thereby provide a natural defensive layer. “You create what you could call a natural condom,” [said] Short.” [BreitBart]

What would Mickey say?! In honor of Gay Days at Disney, health officials are out in full force distributing condoms and administering HIV tests. [WDBO]

At the risk of being phallocentric, we’d like to dedicate yet another post to the ever-mysterious penis.

This little video features Amy Sedaris as a cartoon prick who explains the ins-and-outs of puberty. Some of you may have seen this before, but it’s worth another shot.

May qualify as NSFW.

Dealing with hospitals as a homo can be quite the pain. For example, one may not be able to advise on medical treatment for a “partner” to whom they’re not officially married.

In an effort to make things easier for the queers, Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association teamed up for the Healthcare Equality Index, a handy guide to gay friendly hospitals across the country: Just over half of 88 hospitals got top marks under a new rating system created by two national gay-rights organizations which hope the standards will result in more compassionate treatment of gay and lesbian patients.

Policies addressed in the ratings include patient nondiscrimination, visitation and … Continued…

In honor of National Masturbation Month, San Francisco’s Center For Sex & Culture will host an absolutely explosive Masturbate-A-Thon on May 25th. Bring a hanky! [POQ]

Did you know that it’s national masturbation month? Well, now you do, so we hope you honor accordingly. [Gay.com]