✨

i’m new to OF and this industry and he offered me $700 for nudes and custom content (did seem to good to be true, but wanted to give the benefit of the doubt)

i sent some videos and then he blocked me on snapchat and tumblr

i was stupid not asking for the payment upfront but this man is a predator

fucking hate?

you know what really

gets my goat??

that in most of the documentaries that include paul gambaccini, they use his story when he asked freddie, “have you adjusted your behavior in light of the new disease?” and freddie answers, “darling, my attitude is ‘fuck it.’ i’m doing everything with everyone.” but they always CUT HIM OFF THERE.

he adds, “and i also thought, that even though he’s putting up this great front… probably in the back of his mind, he thinks it’s too late.”

but they never include that part. i wonder why. hmm, is it perhaps that they’re demonizing freddie’s sexuality & making it seem like he got aids because he was too indulgent?

fuck that.

“I pray I’ll never get AIDS. So many friends have it. Some have died, others won’t last much longer. I’m terrified that I’ll be the next. Immediately after I have sex I think, “Suppose that was the one? Suppose the virus is now in my body?” I jump in the shower and try to scrub myself clean although I know it’s useless.”

“I was totally devastated when I heard about my friends who have died from AIDS. It brought the seriousness of the illness home to me. I learnt the hard way. When you’re young it is so much harder. I was thinking the other day, we were lucky to have sown our wild oats when we did, but they are just starting out. It is something the young have got to get to grips with.”

“I used to live for sex but now I’ve changed. I’ve stopped going out, stopped the nights of wild partying. I’ve almost become a nun. It’s amazing, I thought sex was a very important thing to me but now I realize I’ve just gone completely the other way. Once, I was extremely promiscuous, it was excess in every direction, but now I’m totally different. I have stopped all that and I don’t miss that kind of life. Everything is fine.”

“You see, I’m one of those people that can go from black to white. I don’t like intermediary measures. It’s quite easy for me to completely give up things. I can give up alcohol at the drop of a hat. AIDS has frightened me to death and so I’ve just stopped having sex. I just like titillation now. I’m into titillation. It’s much more fun. What more can I do? I’ve stopped having sex and started growing tulips!”

“You can’t expect people to just abstain from sex forever. I think the message of safe sex is essential and crucial. Anyone who sleeps around should have an AIDS test.”

“It is a very, very serious thing we are dealing with. I think people have to wait now, better times are ahead. This thing about safe sex is all very worthwhile, but you can still have fun. You can’t expect people to just give up sex. People get freaked, they think they have AIDS and they shoot themselves, and then people find out that they didn’t have it after all. People should be careful, but not paranoid.”

“We’re living with it now and it’s there, on your doorstep, and you’d be a fool to say that you haven’t heard of it. You can’t get away from it. But if you get into the nitty-gritty of it, there are friends of mine who have died of AIDS. It’s devastating.”

“How much more can one harp on about it? I am not the saviour of the fucking thing! I like those television ads where it says everybody is equal with AIDS– like money doesn’t mean anything. AIDS is not prejudiced. AIDS is not prejudiced about who you are or what you do. It gets you!”

During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.

On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.

In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, "Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”

Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a "sinner" and already dead to her, and that she wouldn't even claim his body when he died.

“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, "Oh, momma. I knew you’d come", and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, "I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.

Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him

and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.

After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family's large plot.

After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.

Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, "They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we'd buy medicine, that's how we'd pay rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done", Ruth said.

Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family's plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.

me: ……no