The 32 Hottest Guys From HIV Medication Advertisements

Thanks to Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Boehringer Ingelheim, Abbott Laboratories, Tibotec Therapeutics, Pfizer, Hoffmann-La Roche, and GlaxoSmithKline, being a hot guy who’s living with HIV is easier than ever.


You’ve worked hard (to become HIV positive?), so why settle?

Remember back in 2006 when Truvada was only being used to treat HIV, and not to mislead people into thinking it could effectively prevent HIV in negative people? Don’t forget to wear your helmet.

I am cherished (by GlaxoSmithKline).


As if having HIV wasn’t bad enough, now you’re fat! Don’t worry, Egrifta is here…

But what kind of medication does the Egrifta manufacturer make to treat the side effects of Egrifta?

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You can’t criticize any company (even a pharmaceutical one) for manipulating their target audience by using attractive people in cheery advertisements. And it’s not just HIV medication advertisements. It’s all medications. People in the Lunestra ads look particularly amazing. If portraying HIV as trivial and controllable (look at me—I’m hanging off the side of a mountain!) helps people feel empowered, great. And yet, isn’t it all sort of disgusting?

Of course, I’m not fully qualified to gauge how positive people are “supposed’ to react to all these nice people who seem to not have a care in the world. As someone who is HIV-negative, my reaction to these ads is that maybe having HIV isn’t that big of a deal after all, and maybe it makes me a little less inclined to worry about catching it. If I ever do get HIV, I’ll just get a boyfriend and go rock climbing and take one pill per day. Maybe I’ll even become a model and pose for an advertisement for the pharmaceutical company that makes the pills I take. Maybe I will finally be able to take control of my life, once I get HIV.

 

17 thoughts on “The 32 Hottest Guys From HIV Medication Advertisements”

  1. You’re a fucking asshole. So, what, people who are HIV+ should only have images of themselves in the public sphere as wasting men with KS lesions? Because that’s the public image of people with HIV, because that’s all that was present in movies, TV, magazines for decades. So HIV ads have images of people not spending the rest of their lives sitting in a dark room waiting to die. Good for them. If you’re HIV+ it’s good to have at least a few positive representations of yourself in public–and besides you can look and feel healthy for decades now with HAART.

    And no the guy in the first ad didn’t ‘work so hard to become HIV+’, it’s talking about the other goals in his life that he shouldn’t have to give up just because he became HIV+. Seriously, that was the most dickish thing I’ve read on the internet in some time.

    What’s with all your focus of haranguing Poz people lately? Sit on a few questionable dicks or something?

  2. Now Michael Lucas can model for Truvada as living proof that it prevents the HIV-negative from getting infected.

    Thrilling, ain’t it?

  3. Nice. You can barely find a black go-go dancer, bartender, model, porn actor represented in the gay media (outside of the ghettoized thug stuff) but at least they’re equally represented in HIV ads.

    The gatekeepers of the gay image/media are sooooo not racist. At all.

    1. Well, if it’s not the “ghettoized” thug, they are either super nelly queens, drag queens or drug dealers. And apparently gay black men are only employed in fashion (makeup, styling, etc.) or as drag performers. Oh and about 90% of us are HIV positive. All according to gay media.

      1. please common, how could u be so reductive??!! go get to the real life and pay more attention to the people around you, how about trying to be a bit more open minded also? it’s worth a try…

        1. Exactly how am I being reductive? That word has been used so much by the media as of late that I’m afraid people don’t quite understand its meaning. And how exactly would observing more people around me change my impression of how gay black men are typically portrayed in gay media??? About the same good as being “more open minded” would have, I guess. I would sincerely suggest that you spend time working on your cognitive faculties to better compose a more appropriate response to someone’s post. You know, sometimes it’s okay to keep your mouth shut.

  4. Zach, I wish you had a platform a lot bigger than The Sword. This is long-overdue. What’s been lost in the gazillions of dollars that have been spent by the pharma industry and AIDS Inc. is this message: that it is STILL a personal and financial disaster to become HIV+ and one should do anything to avoid it at all costs, but if you do get pozzed, all is not lost. I wish that sort of balance could be achieved not just publicly but in the minds of the public.

    How about putting together a kickstarter campaign to fund an advertising blitz of poz men talking about the challenges they have faced living poz, from side effects, to acquiring a new hobby called spending large amount of money on co-pays, and end each ad with the question: If you could do it all over again, would you been more careful to stay negative? And then let them answer the question facing the camera.

  5. Love this. Sincerely, this is great work. I’m all for supporting HIV positive people in pursuing as normal a life as possible after this tragic diagnosis; but I’m not for trivializing this disease to the point that people, especially the younger generation, gets it in their heads that HIV is “no big deal.”

    1. oh yesssss, in an episode of queer as folks brian kinney had to do an ad for hiv+ medicine, and instead of showing off happy faces that kinda lead people to think like “i’m positive but i feel strong, or i live my life looking for the better days, or i still got all my hopes…” and the crap like that, he, the clever BRIAN KINNEY, the one and only, the UNIQUE chose to talk about realness and HONESTY. so the ad ended like “i feel like shit but the medicine helps me overpass it, i’m positive but if the medecine can let me live one more day i’ll take it…’ = morality = nothing works better than honesty irl. i SOOOOOOO love these queer as folks series. like i’ve seen every single 83 episodes of the 5 seasons like a million times and still watching it every now and then! can’t get enough, so brilliant, only regrets why there’s no more series like this. so i love with the brian kinney and justin taylor drama, soooooo IN LOOOOVE.

      1. btw, anyone could please tell me any other series involving gay romance\drama\comedy??? i saw the lair, dante’s cove, noah’s arc, the la complex and of course the UK and US version of queer as folks. any ohter suggestions please???? THNK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR THE ADVICES, i’m so looking forward for it so really, pleeeeaseeeee feel free to help me if u could.

        1. I’m a big fan of Brothers & Sisters and while it’s a predominately straight show, one of the characters Kevin has a very good storyline in my opinion. It stars Sally Field as the mother and she won an Emmy for it the first year of the show. Kevin has some of the best lines on that show.

          1. thank u, i saw that too, i liked it much, any other ideas???? there is also hollyoaks (en uk serie, there are many storylines with gay characters, i loved bendan and ste, doug and jp, jp and craig, ste and noah…), not bad at all it is a daily feuilleton so there are many episodes running time about 25 min each.
            there is also a spanish (i don’t really know spanish or portuguese or what? i kinda assumed bresilian or latino maybe… i couldn’t see the whole story cause as i don’t speak spanish nor portuguese i just watched the subtitled versions i fout on utube) called xy where the storyline is really interesting, so bad i don’t know where to find the entire serie…

    1. Freddie, the commenter

      No, they aren’t. But they are trying to sell medicine like people usually advertise cars, household appliances or deodorants. Not only associating the shit they are trying to shove in our asses with happiness but saying aids’ medicine is the same of a deodorant, toothpaste etc. A lie…Barf!

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