In reading the early coverage from the Toronto AIDS Conference, there are a few things that leap out of the stories and, as someone living with HIV, make my stomach turn, and my heart leap with hope … usually all within the same story. Humanity is at a critical juncture with respect to AIDS – a fact which is lost on no one attending the conference. Unfortunately, the approach of many political leaders and conservative ideologues is to deny the reality of the situation in favor of policies that are ineffective, reward political cronies, or (in the case of conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper) ignore AIDS and the largest gathering ever assembled to share ideas and strategies for solutions to HIV.

One of the biggest topics of conversation, as the Washington Post reports, is a "prevention strategy controlled by women — and usable without the knowledge or permission of men."

Pause for a moment. Re-read that sentence.

Sex is difficult to negotiate under any circumstances, whether you be a modern heterosexual couple trying to schedule time alone between appointments; a gay youth overcoming political, dogmatic, and societal rejection of your reality; or even if you are a single woman in a relatively liberated environment. But that statement, "without the knowledge or permission of men" brings home the very real problem with any policy that pretends to be a solution, but in actuality doesn't even start to address the cultural issues women in much of the world face … simply for being born female.

As a gay man who contracted HIV through unprotected sex, I understand my error. I cannot understand a world in which women are forced into sex by husbands who may be unfaithful and spreading disease to them and their children. Adding to that tragedy, some people hold those relationships up as "models" while denying the rights of marriage to others.

Unprotected sex in this day and age — no matter your age — is only exceeded in its folly by those who pretend abstinence-only is really a solution. Those on the left who engage in unprotected sex like to use the term "sex positive or affirming" and shy away from talk of "responsibility" favoring "consent" suggesting that whatever two people agree to is okay, even if it means spreading disease. They mask their denial of the reality of AIDS and their complicity in spreading it by suggesting that the only way to be affirming about sex is to deny one's responsibility to their partners, so long as the partner "consents".

Those on the right who deny that humans are sexual creatures and prefer to deny condoms, or contraception, or the importance of a full range of reproductive health services in the fight against AIDS (or simply to empower women where history and patriarchy have conspired to keep them down), are similarly in denial. In this case the political extremes seem to be birds of a feather, flocking together in denial.

Now consider this from the New York Times, a quote from Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation: “When Bill and I visit other countries, we are enthusiastically accompanied by government officials on all our stops — until we go meet with sex workers. At that point, it can become too politically difficult to stay with us, and our official hosts often leave. That is senseless."

Senseless is right. Politicians around the world are far too concerned about their public image while presiding over policies that serve only to spread disease, not curb it. Nero would be proud at the merry band of fiddlers leading the nations of the world today.

AIDS and human nature are real. Our choice now is simple: do we take the latter into account when addressing the former? Or do we ignore the denial, the fear, the power of patriarchy, machismo and all of the senseless hypocrisies that allow powerful men to hire sex workers and then deny them, or to infect their wives and deny it, and that have created an environment where sexuality is stigmatized, while denying that these policies have anything to do with the spread of AIDS.