“The passage of time. It’s clearly marked. So I’m going to just keep on recording it as best I can.”
August 8, 2018: Mark S. King is one of today’s most extraordinary writers and activists. He creates insightful, pitch-perfect stories about LGBT rights, HIV and AIDS activism, sex work, addiction, art as activism, and so much more. In 2011, King was on the POZ 100 list of most influential HIV advocates.
An activist since testing positive in 1985, King has established an incredibly perceptive blog called “My Fabulous Disease,” touching upon subjects that are not only related to his own life, but the lives of other activists and organizations. He hopes to inspire others and to influence his audience into raising their own voice. He has also published a widely acclaimed memoir, A Place Like This.
King is quite an extraordinary observer, ready to share his thoughts and name injustices and prejudices that he sees every day. He writes in a fearless and curious voice, always ready to listen to and lift up others’ stories, showing who they are and their value in times of great turmoil.
“I know a little bit about a lot of things, as they say, and I use my blog to learn more and fill in the gaps,” explained King. “I used to get a little hurt when people would say, ‘Oh, that Mark, he really simplifies things and makes them easy to understand.’ I know now that it’s a skill to do that, and besides, I need things simplified, too. HIV is so damn complex. It’s important to have basic truths explained to us.”
King’s blog is popular and the topics change depending on what’s going on. He often receives messages from people who have been moved by his words and experiences.
A&U Magazine, January 5, 2018, Baltimore, MD
He is aware of his privilege as a white man and seeks to use it to uplift the voices of those who don’t have the same access. “People risk their very lives just trying to be themselves, and most of them don’t look like me or have the safety buffer around them. They aren’t white men,” explained King. “Anyone with the opportunity to speak up with a minimum of consequences–well, I don’t think I need to explain the costs to a community or a democracy when we are not amplifying voices that desperately need to be heard.”
A former meth addict himself, King sees addiction as one of the most pressing issues in the LGBT community. “Although I have dealt with addiction for most of my adult life in one form or another, I initially kept it from my blog,” he admitted. “I was still trying to get a grasp on living in a new way, and that process felt really precious and fragile. I relapsed a lot. So, other than occasional pieces, I didn’t talk much about it. Now, several years after my last drink and drug, I feel more secure.”
King has been a long time advocate against HIV criminalization, producing a film called “HIV Criminalization: Masking Fear and Discrimination,” which was published by the SERO Project. “I got involved early on because my friend and mentor Sean Strub believes so passionately in this. He tutored me. Changing the homophobic, racist, hysterical state laws that would punish people with HIV for daring to have sex at all, well, we must fight this,” exclaimed King.
King sees art as a powerful tool for activism and a way of capturing the moment we’re in. “Mostly, though, I marvel at how all art is a memory piece. Come to think of it, life is a memory piece. Writers and painters and filmmakers are preserving the emotions we once felt. The older I get, now well into decades I never believed were possible when I tested positive in 1985, the more that the passage of time is clearly marked everywhere I turn. We’re all watching it pass. Will I be remembered? Did I make an impact?”
Today, King is enjoying life and soon plans on going on vacation to the Grand Canyon with his husband. “So many of us emerged from the fog of war as surprised as anyone that we got to live through the first decades of AIDS. And now I’m going to see the Grand Canyon and maybe stay in one of those cute motels where everything is made from logs or rocks the size of my living room. We’ll take tons of pictures and bore everyone on Facebook with them. How great is that?”
King is also a big fan of PWN-USA. “A lot of my blog work is video, and my favorite of the last few years is the one I did at the 2018 Speak Up! Summit, because it captured so many of the diverse voices within PWN. I’m really proud of that one.”