A room of more than 75 people broke into cheers when Hope Barrett, Center on Halsted senior director of public programs, said people don't stop having sex at age 30.
"We know that people are still having sex at 50, at 60, at 70," Barrett said over loud applause during a meeting at the Center on Halsted's Hoover-Leppen Theater.
That fact may seem obvious to many. However, if one couples the stigma surrounding sex and elders with a persistent stigma around HIV/AIDS, there is a trend that is putting more people over 50 at the highest risk of HIV infection ever.
That trend is the subject of a powerful new documentary produced by Center on Halsted. Aging POZitively: The story of three older adults living with HIV, directed by Dennis Belogorsky, follows the lives of three older adults coping with a virus they contracted late in life.
The 34-minute film premiered May 23 to much fanfare and many tears.
"It was very difficult to find folks to come put a face to this," Barrett told the audience before the film started. Barrett told Windy City Times that older adults shied from talking publicly about their HIV status.
Barrett finally found willing candidates in Helena Bushong, Frank Parker and Walter Maul. They each offered an unprecedented telling of the ways HIV affects older adults not just medically but personally.
Helena Bushong was 47 when she found out she was HIV-positive. "At the time, I was in an environment where I felt I couldn't reveal my health status," Bushong said in the film. Bushong left for Chicago to stay with friends who wanted to care for her.
"I moved here [ to the Beverly neighborhood and ] pretty much resolved to die," she said.
That was 13 years ago. Today, Bushong is active in AIDS prevention advocacy and transgender organizing. However, life is hardly simple for Bushong. She can't always go see theater on the North Side, one of her favorite things, because doing so would interrupt her HIV regimen. She struggles with deciding when and how to tell people she meets that she is HIV-positive.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics suggested that, in 2005, people over age 50 made up 35 percent of AIDS deaths and 15 percent of new HIV infections.
Aging POZitively aims to bring those numbers out in the open through personal interviews and expert commentary. Featured in the film are Center on Halsted's Jill Dispenza and Gregory Gross; Magda Houlberg, M.D. from Howard Brown Health Center; and Nathan Linsk, Ph.D., from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
According to experts, healthcare providers tend to shy away from talking to older adults about HIV/AIDS because many feel uncomfortable with the idea that older people have sex. New drugs like Viagra, however, have made it possible for many older adults to have sex later in life.
Some older adults may mistake HIV symptoms like fatigue for signs of aging, but stigma prevents many people from getting tested, discussing HIV with sexual partners, and finally, talking about HIV if they are positive.
"I don't know another word other than 'shame,' maybe, that you've fallen to this level," said Parker on screen, of the progression of his HIV and his nagging shortness of breath.
Maul also struggles with HIV and aging. The 50-year-old former interior designer is often forced to recuperate for an entire day if the previous day was busy for him. Maul has moved past feeling embarrassed that he has HIV, however. Like Bushong, he puts much of his energy into HIV-prevention efforts.
Audience members at the screening lauded the courage of Bushong, Parker and Maul in sharing their stories. The three sat together in the audience, holding hands. When the lights came up, many in the crowd stood up and "came out" as being HIV-positive. Others cried quietly.
Bushong said unless older adults start talking about HIV, AIDS advocacy work will continue to target youth. "The whole idea about being transparent and open about HIV is really important," she said. "Once we address those secrets, we're set free."
A portion of the $475,000 grant awarded last year by U.S. Health and Human Services to Center on Halsted for senior services funded Aging POZitively. The film will be available for free viewing at www.centeronhalsted.org .
