Don't ask for a Party Bag

Sorry this is a bit late in the day, but I've just got round to watching HIV & Me, Steven Fry's documentary about attitudes to AIDS. Here's a transcript of a scene where he's been talking to Gay lads in Manchester about how complacent people are getting about it...

STEVEN FRY (VO): I find that all rather depressing, but little do I know that Gordon has saved the most worrying for last. He’s known Mark for years, and assures me that what I’m about to hear is true…

MARK: I’ve got a friend. Er, he’s been to a party in Nottingham, er, where there was a 19 year-old lad, he was Negative, and he wanted to be given ‘the Gift’.

STEVEN FRY: ‘the Gift’?

MARK: They’re called ‘Gift Givers’. People with HIV.

STEVEN FRY: Good God…

MARK: …and there were five Positive guys who had sex with the Negative lad, to Poz him up, and, um…

STEVEN FRY: ‘Poz him up'?

MARK: Yeah. They all had sex with him unprotected to give him ‘the Gift’. He wasn’t held down, he wasn’t forced, he willingly…

STEVEN FRY: So your friend was one of these five who, who shagged him…

MARK: Yeah.

STEVEN FRY: Can you have any insight into…why he wanted to…he thought it was a badge of honour, or…?

MARK: I have no idea, to be honest. I mean, a lot of lads these days…a lot of lads like unprotected sex…

GORDON: Yeah but of course, you know what happened at the end…

STEVEN FRY: What?

MARK: Yeah. When they finished having sex with him, they inserted a butt plug into him to make sure that none of the semen came out of him. To make sure that he definitely…

STEVEN FRY: My God…that…I’m sorry, that is very odd…

MARK: It is. It’s horrible.

ME: (hands over eyes, trying to slide down the side of the sofa)