04

Aug

2008

Fatal Love and the Girl Next Door PDF Print E-mail
By chichi layor
04 August 2008
Fatal Love and the Girl Next Door
By chichi layor

She’s a young, attractive New Yorker who has a lot going for her: artistic talent, affluent parents, an elite education and an outgoing personality. Her future looks good. Her name is Alison Gertz and she’s sixteen years old.

Alison and her mother are close. They even discuss that most difficult of subjects – sex. She tells her mother when she plans to lose her virginity and together they go to a gynaecologist for advice on contraceptives.

The day she has her first sexual encounter, street smart teenager that she is, Alison thinks she’s well prepared. She’s already on the pill.

Cort Brown is 27, and a bartender. He’s an acquaintance of Alison’s and she thinks he’s “the most beautiful man” she’s ever seen. A year after she meets him, he comes to her home (she’s picked a time when her parents are away) bringing champagne, candles, roses and something else. Alison is blown away by the romance.

But the actual experience doesn’t live up to the billing for either of them. So they both agree not to sleep together again. And they don’t.

Fast forward six years to 1989. Aged 22, Alison becomes very ill. Doctors can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with her. Finally, one doctor makes a frightening diagnosis: Alison is HIV positive.

She contacts her previous boyfriends, urges them to get tested. They’re all HIV negative so she traces back farther. To her first sexual partner, Cort. Now she finds out he was bisexual and has since died of AIDS.

What does she do next? She goes public with her HIV infection so that other young people can learn from her experience. After all, she’s one of them, so they’re more likely to listen to her message.

And she’s right – she becomes an instant hit as a spokesperson for HIV, speaking to students in the US. Her story inspires a movie. The World Health Organization distributes a film about her.

Alison is a young woman on a mission, warning that anyone can get infected with HIV. Her parents support her all the way. She’s their only child so one can only imagine how difficult it is for them to watch her health deteriorate.

They are both at her bedside on August 8, 1992 when she dies of an AIDS-related illness, at 26. Alison’s three best friends set up an organization to continue her work of educating young people about the life-changing consequences of HIV and AIDS. Her parents also set up a foundation to help raise funds for AIDS research.

Interestingly, the XVII International AIDS Conference is being held in Mexico City this week. At about the same time in 1992, Alison Gertz died of AIDS.

What lessons can we learn from Alison’s story? I’ll list three that stand out for me.

First, parents need to discuss these issues with their children. OK, maybe few Nigerian parents will discuss contraception with their teenage daughters – heck, many parents won’t even discuss sex at all. But isn’t that like putting your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away? Many teenagers are sexually active whether their parents know it or not.

Interestingly, after she disclosed her HIV status, Alison promoted abstinence as the only real safe sex. But she told young people to protect themselves if they were going to have sex. She knew that not everyone would abstain. She herself was sexually active after finding out she was HIV positive, although she did disclose her status to her boyfriend. After that, they slept together twice using double protection. But he didn’t feel safe and they ended their relationship.

It’s not only teenagers that need educating about HIV and AIDS; adults need this too. So lesson 2 from Alison’s story is this: if you are sexually active, don’t dismiss the threat of AIDS unless you are in a 100% monogamous (meaning no cheating on either side, ever) relationship and you are both HIV-negative.

People choose to take risks but no one chooses to become HIV positive. Except for the thrill-seeking “bug chasers” who deliberately set out to become infected by having unprotected sex with HIV positive people.

Lesson 3: every experience, no matter how painful, can be channelled into something positive. Alison didn’t just bemoan her fate, as others might have done. She decided to help others, to warn them against putting themselves at risk of HIV and AIDS. As she said in an interview reported in The New York Times in March 1989:

“If I die, I would like to have left something, to make the world a little better before I go, to help people sick like me and prevent others from getting this.”

Let me ask you: what can Nigerian parents and young people learn from Alison’s story?

By chichi layor

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RobotRobot is offline

 # 1 | 04.08.2008 06:39

Fatal Love and the Girl Next Door
By chichi layor

She’s a young, attracti...Read the full article.

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DewdropsDewdrops is online

 # 2 | 04.08.2008 07:11


=Robot;4295079042>Fatal Love and the Girl Next Door
By chichi layor

She’s a young, attracti...Read the full article.



How sad but real. Her other boyfriends need to keep getting tested too.

Yup! It only takes one time. The reason I adocate the use of "mast" aids.:wink:

Poor girl. A simple condom should have saved her life. Or better still, she should have bought herself a good dildo.

Many women contract STDs from their matrimonial homes from their husbands and vice versa. May God continue to protedt us all so we can make the right choices. It gets to a stage in marriage, you have to use condoms to sleep with your spouses.

Amen!:sad:

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emjemj is offline

 # 3 | 04.08.2008 13:11


Lesson 3: every experience, no matter how painful, can be channelled into something positive. Alison didn’t just bemoan her fate, as others might have done. She decided to help others, to warn them against putting themselves at risk of HIV and AIDS. As she said in an interview reported in The New York Times in March 1989:

“If I die, I would like to have left something, to make the world a little better before I go, to help people sick like me and prevent others from getting this.”

Let me ask you: what can Nigerian parents and young people learn from Alison’s story?




That no one is safe, knowledge is power.

Also, when it gets to the stage that you cannot trust ur partner, then it's not worth the risk.
Like DD said, most women now contract STDs, and AIDs from their philandering husband...a very unfortunate development.

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ikechijiikechiji is offline

 # 4 | 04.08.2008 16:32


=emj;4295079195>
Like DD said, most women now contract STDs, and AIDs from their philandering husband...a very unfortunate development.



EMJ - So na only men dey philander eeh? Who dem dey "philander" with? No be women? My sister, na two-way street ooh!

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DewdropsDewdrops is online

 # 5 | 04.08.2008 17:34

Yes men "philander" with women. But men are more promiscous and usually cannot do without more than one woman. Most women can do without another man because women are emotional beings while men are strictly "physical" entities!

MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS!!!

Most men initiate this "cheating" of a thing. Most do not want to wear condoms and just keep going in and out from one woman to another even till old age. One in like 3 men in Nigeria have one STD or another. The women? Poor things, the reservior for all "deposits". Where people do not go for annual physicals yearly till they are "sick" with "malaria". Everything na "malaria"! When most go for their "green" card interview, they find out that they have the HIV virus, having spread the thing all over the country till it is too late.

The saddest part of it all is that it is becoming increasingly popular for men to infect their wives with the HIV virus or other sordid gifts all because they cannot sit their ar$$es in one place. In Nigeria for example, those politicians are terrible. Most are polygamous and with numerous concubines all over the country and outside the country. The only form of entertainment after 5PM is screwing around after eating suya and drinking beer. What a life!

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philipikitaphilipikita is offline

 # 6 | 05.08.2008 00:54

Indeed, we need to open up more and discuss freely with our children. I appreciate the points raised and recommended in the article.

Sad as the reality is...I am quite suspect of all these "superstar" hiv-aids-carrier activists!

You see, after seeing and feeling very close kith and kin succumb to HIV-AIDS, after working with carriers and other networks on HIV Aids in a brief stint as a social worker, I have grown to become very suspect of this HIV-AIDS superstars".

It has become business to these superstars and their promoters!


@DEWDROPS:

I disagree that only men infect their wives with STIs including HIV. You need to shine your eye again...women also bring "death" to their husbands.

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DewdropsDewdrops is online

 # 7 | 05.08.2008 01:05


=philipikita;4295079434>Indeed, we need to open up more and discuss freely with our children. I appreciate the points raised and recommended in the article.

Sad as the reality is...I am quite suspect of all these "superstar" hiv-aids-carrier activists!
You see, after seeing and feeling very close kith and kin succumb to HIV-AIDS, after working with carriers and other networks on HIV Aids in a brief stint as a social worker, I have grown to become very suspect of this HIV-AIDS superstars".

It has become business to these superstars and their promoters!


@DEWDROPS:

I disagree that only men infect their wives with STIs including HIV. You need to shine your eye again...women also bring "death" to their husbands.



You suspect that AIDS activists deliberately contracted the HIV virus and AIDS to get some kind of attention or what?:eek:

I did not insinuate that ONLY men infect their wives. I meant that the men are more guilty because they are more promiscous than females generally speaking.

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OluwatoOluwato is offline

 # 8 | 05.08.2008 04:25


=Robot;4295079042>Fatal Love and the Girl Next Door
By chichi layor

She’s a young, attracti...Read the full article.



Thanks for the article. I'm a little surprised her other boyfriends tested negative, perhaps she had begun the use of safer sex after her first boyfriend.

STD.s and STI.s will always be a tool in the hands of the devil to shorten human lives. I hope Allison was saved before she died.

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felziedoofelziedoo is offline

 # 9 | 05.08.2008 05:43

Condom! Condom! Condom!!! Is not everybody that knows CONDOM that CONDOMIZE

What am trying to say here is that, the girl also loves fun without contraceptives, no matter who you are you must use condom to protect yourself, even Angels use condom not to talk about we human.

She loves to face the Boomerange of Life and that's what she's facing, most people said it's the Devil with two horns and a tail that caused it ( mistake )

We should always abstain from mistake, let us mistake-mistake, some people just loves enjoying mistake, which is not suppose to so, not that am trying not to have human feelings but we should always face reality on the other hand.

Such a girl like that should not try and fall like that when she come to this world again, but she should try and abstain from trust of the first LOVE!:D
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Any lady that loves a guy should not give him sex until he marries her, should when the both of them get married, love is said not to be complete, though they said for better or worse, no matter what, no body knows other better, so you can judge the fact that STDs is the Handing work of anybody, so far the Lord said he has given man dominion over all things, so what are to talk about?

That thing the Lord has given man dominion to rule over them are now ruling over man

What we should apply here is just the formular of wisdom, we should be wise in all our acts and doing:D
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Should when we thank the article, people still run into the trap of Life which is not suppose to be so.

Some have eyes they can just see with it.

The things Man sees are more than what man understands.
all we need to do is just to sit right and caution ourselves, over these mistakes, or ELSE!
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_________________________

=Dewdrops;4295079311>Yes men "philander" with women. But men are more promiscous and usually cannot do without more than one woman. Most women can do without another man because women are emotional beings while men are strictly "physical" entities!

MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS!!!

Most men initiate this "cheating" of a thing. Most do not want to wear condoms and just keep going in and out from one woman to another even till old age. One in like 3 men in Nigeria have one STD or another. The women? Poor things, the reservior for all "deposits". Where people do not go for annual physicals yearly till they are "sick" with "malaria". Everything na "malaria"! When most go for their "green" card interview, they find out that they have the HIV virus, having spread the thing all over the country till it is too late.

The saddest part of it all is that it is becoming increasingly popular for men to infect their wives with the HIV virus or other sordid gifts all because they cannot sit their ar$ in one place. In Nigeria for example, those politicians are terrible. Most are polygamous and with numerous concubines all over the country and outside the country. The only form of entertainment after 5PM is screwing around after eating suya and drinking beer. What a life!




What are you tying to say? Do you want to prove it that the both parties are not human, no feelins or what?

The question is that, how did an human beign Mindset is been programed?
please just answer this question for yourself

The level of our IQue is different, whats your level, we just ought to play a better role in life!
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=ikechiji;4295079288>EMJ - So na only men dey philander eeh? Who dem dey "philander" with? No be women? My sister, na two-way street ooh!



I guess you are very right, most of all these disease are commonly contracted from Women, though men fails to understand something that you should never MAhMAh with a woman that'son her period, that's the only time they clear and flush their health condition.

No matter how beautiful she is, Bedmatic, etc, we all know that a man is said to do anything to his wife, because he bought her with a price, living home and family hungry.

Men are often the cause of this thing, because when a man is a seximaniac, he will always spread this to one woman to the other and from the women to the men to make it equal!
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_________________________

=emj;4295079195>That no one is safe, knowledge is power.

Also, when it gets to the stage that you cannot trust ur partner, then it's not worth the risk.
Like DD said, most women now contract STDs, and AIDs from their philandering husband...a very unfortunate development.



No! No! no! no! at all!, what are you talking about? science proved it that, it was being generated from a woman hormone, so what else? who knows maybe its the woman at home that has it, because marriage of today never went through thorough test, the love has carried out the test for us.

No wonder people are scared of getting married, while some are scared of going for status test, ehn ehnnn, den den, just like a-dunk a-dunk, this is not a tete-a-tete thing!

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philipikitaphilipikita is offline

 # 10 | 05.08.2008 07:00


=Dewdrops;4295079437>You suspect that AIDS activists deliberately contracted the HIV virus and AIDS to get some kind of attention or what?:eek:

I did not insinuate that ONLY men infect their wives. I meant that the men are more guilty because they are more promiscous than females generally speaking.



No one goes to contract HIV/AIDS deliberately. No. But there are people out there who enjoy "junketing" around the world and do not want to hear about anything near cure for the disease. It's a very complex industry that includes activists and carriers who become "superstars" and thus make money from their status; phamarceutical companies who prefer to continue making more money from ARVs than provide more money to support research towards a cure. You need to peer a little into the world of HIV/AIDs activism to appreciate what I am saying. Right within the world of AIDS activism, you'd find people arguing against these "activists" who have now come to dominate the business of AIDS activism.

Let me illustrate to you how Nigeria (I mean Nigeria's government, not the people) has epitomized this "business of AIDS". "NACA" (National Action Committee on AIDS), an ad-hoc structure recently transmuted to "National Agency for the Control of AIDS", complete with an act of the national assembly to "back" up the new NACA. The WHO developed a framework for combating AIDS through Ad-hoc committees because they do not expect it (AIDS) to torment people forever! WHO recognizes that there are hospitals, Primary Healthcare, ministries among numerous health systems that only need coorodinated activity and intervention...But the Nigeria government, demonstrating that HIV business must continue forever, have decided to show "commitment" by "surpassing" the WHO conventional framework and turning theirs into a "permanent agency". If you see the billions of naira that goes to NACA, AIDS victims have no reason to lack ARVs. These millions are about junkets to talkshops, locally and around the world, for both "activists" who are carriers of the virus and those who are not. They love it. They freak and argue when researchers talk of some breakthrough in the search of a cure.

Again DEWDROPS. Can you prove the "men are more guilty because they are more promiscuos"? This statement sounds stereotypical and is gender biased.
If you keenly observe, you'd see that the men are only brazen and bold because of our very patriarchal culture; the women are generally subtle and shy in expressing their sexuality, it does not make women "less promiscuous".
 

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