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Jackie Braxton, the porno peddler masquerading as an HIV prevention message.

Ah yes, the proverbial Jackie the HIV hoax is not gone. The good folks at Time Magazine who flew into Detroit for a year long expose on the city have published a blog in which they praise the porno star for her public service.

Seriously.

In a post that is part breathless adulation for the 23-year-old, and part puritan the wages of sex are death, Darrell Dawsey manages to not only miss the damage Braxton’s porno promotion stunt did to HIV-positive people, it continues the woefully inadequate coverage of HIV in Detroit that has hamstrung the story from the word go.

First of all, let’s get this clear. Braxton may claim an altruistic intention for her porno pandering. But, if you visit the skin flick site she and her husband host, you find the self-proclaimed HIV awareness aide ignoring her own advice. Nothing says be safe like porno without condoms. This stunt was a commercial venture, plain and simple. Braxton and her hubby wanted more people to oogle their raw sex, and rake in some more cash. She didn’t care about HIV when she made the B.S. video in which she claimed to have syphilis and HIV and to have infected 500 others with the diseases; and she sure as shit doesn’t care about it now, either.

She wanted more traffic on her site, so she created a scandal to drive the traffic there. This was about GREED, not HIV prevention.

And THAT simple fact is what makes Dawsey’s fawning adoration of her all the more vomit inducing.

So, how about some fact checking for Mr. Dawsey’s ass kissing escapade.

He writes:

…it’s a crime for someone with AIDS to have unprotected sex without informing the partner beforehand…

WRONG. Michigan law makes it a felony for am HIV-positive person to engage in sexual penetration, “however slight,” without first disclosing their HIV-positive status. I am HIV-positive, and I do not have AIDS. Under Dawsey’s ignorant rant, I can have as much unprotected sex as I want without disclosing my status.

In addition, the law is mute about the issue of protection. In fact, it specifies things like sex toys. Yes that’s right. Under Michigan’s law, I can share a needle with you without telling you I m positive. However, if after we get stoned on whatever drug we did, we decide it would be gleeful fun to take a brand new out of the wrapper vibrator and commit penetration, “however slight,” I must then disclose.

Way to praise ignorant behavior by showing your own Dawsey.

Stupid comment number two:

Thank you, for reminding a state that has more than 18,000 AIDS cases — and a metro Detroit area that’s home to nearly 40 percent of them

WRONG. Hey, dimwit, being HIV-positive does not mean some one has AIDS. State statistics from 1981 to 2008 show that 10,005 people had been diagnosed with HIV, and 4,604 of those people died. Meanwhile, 7,170 people had been diagnosed with AIDS, and 4,224 of those folks had died.

An HIV diagnosis is just that– the person has tested positive for HIV. As you can see, people are still dying from HIV disease without being clinically diagnosed as having AIDS. And once a person is clinically diagnosed with AIDS, they are moved from the HIV diagnosis column and into the AIDS category. Once there, they don’t go back.

And finally, while you are out there giving Braxton a medal, maybe you should stop and ask WHY her porno peddling fright fest worked to get some more people in for HIV testing. First, why does it take a masked wingnut blathering anonymously online about allegedly infecting 500 people (men and women, which the TIME blog fails to note) with HIV to get Detroiters to pay attention to the epidemic raging in their midst?

Seriously, out of the city’s 38 zip codes, 1 zip code has a prevalence of 6 %, 10 have a prevalence of 5%, 6 have a prevalence of 4%, 3 have a prevalence of 3%, 3 have a prevalence rate of 2%, and 2 have a prevalence of 1%. That means that in over half the city’s zip codes, HIV prevalence is 3 percent or higher! Where is TIME Magazine with THAT piece of information, or for that matter the rest of the mainstream media?

With those kinds of prevalence rates, where is the Michigan Department of Community Health? The Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion? Go to a church health fair in Detroit and you can get tested for diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. But nary a word about HIV. Why is that? Because Detroit does not want to admit to the crisis in its midst and relying on raw sex porno promotion to do your HIV prevention messaging is not good public policy.

I expect more from TIME Magazine. You should too.