THIS WEEK, I got three things on my mind: sex, drugs, and, er, sex. Whoever said I had a one-track mind?

Take the first. Sex. I know a guy, not a close friend, more a friend of a friend’s flatmate. He’s gay, he’s Irish, he’s got AIDS. We were talking, me as usual watching my every word in case I made one of my characteristic sick jokes about death, guarding my every gesture against coming across fake over-nice or not seeming interested enough.

DYING FOR A SHAG

It was going okay. Then, out of the blue, he starts talking about AIDS. It’s a relief it’s out in the open and I try to adjust myself in preparation for whatever is to follow. The guy has my full sympathy but the last thing I want to do is come across pitying: I must be positive, willing to listen, responsive.

Then he comes out with it: “Ah well, sure at least there’s one good thing about knowing that you’ve got it . . .” I nod encouragingly “. . . you don’t have to bother with condoms any more.”

No. Not a joke. Deadly serious. And Shane is a strict adherent to the toilet trading school of homosexuality. Brazenly, proudly promiscuous, he’s already had three operations to tighten his rectum because he was getting incontinent. His body, his life, his business. But this . . .

Staring in the face of a dying murderer, I’m totally lost for words. “Is it a wind up?” I ask his friend, who shakes his head. I turn to my friend, hoping beyond hope to detect a grin crinkling around her mouth. Nothing.

“That’s enough, Shane,” she says. “You know what I think of the way you carry on. There’s no need to go boasting about it.”

Yeah, bravado. Yeah, trying to desensitise himself against the terrible emotions he would otherwise feel. Yeah. I don’t care. Too many more like you, Shane, and they’ll be tattooing all gay men with AIDS, just in case they are all like you. Just so the vigilantes will know who to shoot. Innocent or guilty, it’ll all be fair game. What’s another dead faggot, Shane?

SALESIAN CONVENT

In a vast leap backwards for law and order, health and hygiene, human rights and having a good time, Michael Howard is upping the fine for cannabis possession from £500 tops to £2,500. The police were the first to say thanks for nothing: higher penalties means more crime to pay the fines.

An interesting move, as increasing number of GPs are coming out in favour of permitting AIDS patients to keep a limited number of plants for personal use, because a spliff helps overcome the crippling side effects of anti-AIDS drugs, particularly loss of appetite.

The Times, in an unbelievably irresponsible piece of third rate hackism offered inaccurate and misleading information on the state of play with street drugs. Quote: “Solvents: induce intoxication, hallucination. Risks: accidental death, heart attack.” What about the unpleasant short term effects which might seriously discourage someone in the immortal throes of adolescence, like outbreaks of uncontrolled violence? Respiratory disorders? Nausea? Blinding headaches (as we discovered in the second year at the Salesian Convent)?

Other nuggets of wisdom included cannabis (“induces feelings of elation, linked to organic brain damage”) and LSD (“illusion that one can fly”). Side effects of speed were given as psychological dependence and contamination from shared needles. Nothing about amphetamine psychosis, nerve damage, exhaustion, collapsing nasal cavities (or bags of energy to dance or screw the night away).

There was at least one saving grace: the reporter evidently got thoroughly ripped off during his researches. The going price for cannabis he gives as £15 for a 16th – double the going street rate. So I’m told.

THROBBING THINGS

Steven Milligan. What can I say? The joys of strangulation are well documented in the works of William Burroughs, from the spontaneous ejaculation causing by the snapping spine of a hanged man – or in the tasteful works of Uncle Bill, innumerable hanged boys – to the pulsing, throbbing semi-conscious state of heightened sensation caused by pressure applied to the throat or oxygen deprivation by other means.

Take a trip to your not-so-local sex shop and you will find dildo gags, designed to fill your lover’s mouth and throat, partially blocking the airway; inflatable masks which block the nose and mouth, complete with a pump which allows you to decide how much air your lover gets and when; and other things I’m not telling you about. Na-na-na nah nah.

No I’m not into this kind of shit personally, but I make it my business to know about these things.

It’s also about heightened awareness and increased intensity: when the body feels endangered, it fights back, putting out some rather interesting chemicals. So when dressing up funny and have a wank no longer gives you a kick, you can fantasise that you’re being forced into it by a big butch trucker with the assistance of a little personal discomfort.

The closer you get to coming, the harder you tug on the ligature round your neck until you’re in a right old frenzy and everything’s going boom-boom-boom and you’re all dizzy and your perceptions blur and all you know is throbbing things and . . . and . . .

As I say, I make it my business to know about these things.

Don’t try this one at home, boys and girls!!! (Go to a specialist.)