I partly agree... since it's a novel and a serious work ,not just a cute love story with sad ending, the author…
Having sexual encounters with strangers met online is a reality. I can’t fault a work for reflecting reality, and moral responsibility on the part of the author is a slippery slope. The series doesn’t promote or glorify Yeong’s actions, nor does it want to explore HIV in detail. Cramming ten years into eight episodes, a lot is omitted. Like the doctor handing Yeong a pamphlet and speaking two sentences, the second fading out, that’s as far as it wants to go.
We do know that Yeong has been sexually active after his diagnosis, and has engaged in two serious relationships.
We do know that neither his friend circle nor his mother know of his HIV status.
We do know that when Yeong reveals his status to Gyu-ho, he says it’s the first time that he’s revealed this (in Korean, and subtitles say “first person”).
From this, we have the basic question of why does Yeong, post-diagnosis, maintain a sexually active lifestyle without disclosing his status to his partners.
We don’t know how Yeong maintains his health. We don’t know the specifics of all of Yeong’s encounters.
The practical implications of Yeong having a non-transmissible viral load and using a condom for anal sex but not necessarily oral are different from Yeong having a higher viral load and receiving unprotected oral sex.
Perhaps Yeong could have avoided any situation where transmission was a possibility. Maybe he only met people who were on PrEP. His diagnosis was in 2014. I think PrEP became available in Korea in 2018, but some might have had access to it from abroad earlier. I also don’t know whether to take Yeong literally that his reveal to Gyu-ho is indeed the first, or if it’s the first time he reveals it to someone who matters to him. Personally, I’m finding it hard to believe that he didn’t have to tell a random encounter, but it’s not impossible. Like the Dutch building dikes…
We know how rumors around Yeong and Mi-ae affected them during their time in university, that Yeong’s sexually active friend group judges someone reputed to be HIV positive, and we know that Yeong fell out with Mi-ae when she revealed his sexuality to her boyfriend. We also know that a positive blood test known to others has consequences for Yeong.
Hypothetically, even if there was no oral or anal exposure of body fluids during an encounter, it makes me uncomfortable that Yeong did not reveal this to his partner. Particularly that he didn’t tell Nam Gyu or Yeong Su doesn’t sit right (not sure about the timeline with Nam Gyu though), but Yeong was preoccupied with other aspects of their relationships. On the flip-side, if I were Yeong, taking reasonable precautions, and understanding the risks of my HIV status becoming public, I’m not sure how I would handle the situation.
I’m not seeking to negate the main ethical question of Yeong’s actions. I’m pointing out that there are lots of factors involved. While one may disagree with Yeong’s actions or the series’s handling of HIV, there’s a lot more going on with Yeong that lead to the story told.
Everyone is bringing their own knowledge and opinions to the Kylie issue to which they are entitled. I’m not saying that I agree with knowing nondisclosure prior to the act. It’s a complicated, complex, and sensitive issue. It’s important to recognize that Kylie is understood and reacted to very differently around the world.
At the end of Ep 5, the lead tells his new bartender boyfriend that he has had HIV since 2014. Now, the show is…
Opening with a cuckold in a military uniform didn’t strike me as an overt statement. It seemed more like an inevitable fact of life for men in their 20s.
If I recall, the scene in ep. 1 took place in a gay enclave where seeing public displays of homosexual affection wouldn’t be unexpected.
At the end of Ep 5, the lead tells his new bartender boyfriend that he has had HIV since 2014. Now, the show is…
I’m not inclined to believe it was withholding information for a deliberative plot twist.
The narrative was about Yeong’s journey through his 20s to his 30s with his relation to love. Kylie wasn’t relevant to Yeong’s story for the first two parts. The late reveal may change the audience’s perception of the character, but it’s not meant to make one fundamentally question the everything from the beginning as a whole, nor was it a case of showing event A for drama, skipping to C for the unexpected resolution, and with an immediate flashback to B to explain it all. That said, it probably could have been set up or hinted at earlier.
Personally, after reading the comments and thinking more, this plot point added a new, deeper layer to Yeong and his relationship with Gyu-ho for me. I fully agree that there are practical, complex, and sensitive questions around Yeong’s handling of Kylie when it comes to others. The series doesn’t concern itself with those questions, understandably since the audience will come to it with wildly varying degrees of knowledge and opinions. It tells the story it wants to tell, take it or leave it.
We should probably not have too muchexpectations considering it's directed by a certain someone👀
i agree about we are, but i wouldn't put all the blame on the director. not every decision is up to the director, and not every decision the director makes will necessarily be the one they want to make. 16 episodes was way too long, and the writers didn't fill those episodes effectively for whatever reason. new gets a bad rap, which i don't really understand. i much prefer his "draggy" instinct in a project to the wildly chaotic and borderline incoherence that cheewin's directorial instincts often bring.
despite the many weak points, it was enjoyable for what it was, and more coherent and watchable than a lot of what i've watched recently out of thailand. i found the story in the past to be quite poignant, delicate, and moving.
i've seen most of the bl series that the director has done, and increasingly i don't know what to make of his works.
i didn't not enjoy it, but i really hope the actors were either willing and hopefully totally into it for the right reasons, or their underwear was stuffed with protective cups. the amount of crotch petting, crotch in the face, cheek licking, and tongue was mind blowing.
am i missing something or was the origin of the photo never fully addressed, and what happened to......
keng? was he dead when he was thrown on top of non? was the photo a fake? that was alluded to when non's parents were with the police. so did tee's uncle cook it up to get people off his track?
i liked it, i loved it, i was enthralled and teary eyed throughout, and gmm is producing consistently good series......... but i would like to see more originality, more daring storytelling, and break out of the formula more. aof brought us gay ok bangkok, and bee's credits include kinnporsche, love mechanics, and oxygen. so it'd be nice to slip away from the 1000 stars, bad buddy, dangerous romance, never let me go mold (all of which i liked, some more than others), and kick gmm up a notch with some more only friends and moonlight chickens.
off delivered. he was always enjoyable, but with "not me" he's really shown growth, and this is no exception. and mix. seriously, can he get a light role for once? him and first always get deep edginess to their characters. i wouldn't mind seeing some fluff!
i was watching this and thinking nithan sounds like and has the expression of mild from kiss/dark and 3 will be free. then on here i see, oh, it is mild. is it me or does she look way different? i remember her as having this amazing, sultry beauty and kind of looking like constance wu, but her appearance has lost a bit of its edge. i mean she's still gorgeous, but something's different?
Hey, the real (English) Ed Miliband isn't so unhot, now that I come to think about it. Or rather think about him.…
"unsee" came out wrong. ed was actually pretty hot in his clean-cut leadership days. more like, i spent the rest of the series going like, "is jeng gonna eat a bacon butty?" jeng's stoicism is much more david m though but i swear i was watching the thing thinking man could play ed in a biopic. i don't find ed's bride of frankenstein hair these days all that appealing, but listening to him at the despatch box these days may sometimes moisten me pants.
We do know that Yeong has been sexually active after his diagnosis, and has engaged in two serious relationships.
We do know that neither his friend circle nor his mother know of his HIV status.
We do know that when Yeong reveals his status to Gyu-ho, he says it’s the first time that he’s revealed this (in Korean, and subtitles say “first person”).
From this, we have the basic question of why does Yeong, post-diagnosis, maintain a sexually active lifestyle without disclosing his status to his partners.
We don’t know how Yeong maintains his health. We don’t know the specifics of all of Yeong’s encounters.
The practical implications of Yeong having a non-transmissible viral load and using a condom for anal sex but not necessarily oral are different from Yeong having a higher viral load and receiving unprotected oral sex.
Perhaps Yeong could have avoided any situation where transmission was a possibility. Maybe he only met people who were on PrEP. His diagnosis was in 2014. I think PrEP became available in Korea in 2018, but some might have had access to it from abroad earlier. I also don’t know whether to take Yeong literally that his reveal to Gyu-ho is indeed the first, or if it’s the first time he reveals it to someone who matters to him. Personally, I’m finding it hard to believe that he didn’t have to tell a random encounter, but it’s not impossible. Like the Dutch building dikes…
We know how rumors around Yeong and Mi-ae affected them during their time in university, that Yeong’s sexually active friend group judges someone reputed to be HIV positive, and we know that Yeong fell out with Mi-ae when she revealed his sexuality to her boyfriend. We also know that a positive blood test known to others has consequences for Yeong.
Hypothetically, even if there was no oral or anal exposure of body fluids during an encounter, it makes me uncomfortable that Yeong did not reveal this to his partner. Particularly that he didn’t tell Nam Gyu or Yeong Su doesn’t sit right (not sure about the timeline with Nam Gyu though), but Yeong was preoccupied with other aspects of their relationships. On the flip-side, if I were Yeong, taking reasonable precautions, and understanding the risks of my HIV status becoming public, I’m not sure how I would handle the situation.
I’m not seeking to negate the main ethical question of Yeong’s actions. I’m pointing out that there are lots of factors involved. While one may disagree with Yeong’s actions or the series’s handling of HIV, there’s a lot more going on with Yeong that lead to the story told.
If I recall, the scene in ep. 1 took place in a gay enclave where seeing public displays of homosexual affection wouldn’t be unexpected.
The narrative was about Yeong’s journey through his 20s to his 30s with his relation to love. Kylie wasn’t relevant to Yeong’s story for the first two parts. The late reveal may change the audience’s perception of the character, but it’s not meant to make one fundamentally question the everything from the beginning as a whole, nor was it a case of showing event A for drama, skipping to C for the unexpected resolution, and with an immediate flashback to B to explain it all. That said, it probably could have been set up or hinted at earlier.
Personally, after reading the comments and thinking more, this plot point added a new, deeper layer to Yeong and his relationship with Gyu-ho for me. I fully agree that there are practical, complex, and sensitive questions around Yeong’s handling of Kylie when it comes to others. The series doesn’t concern itself with those questions, understandably since the audience will come to it with wildly varying degrees of knowledge and opinions. It tells the story it wants to tell, take it or leave it.
i didn't not enjoy it, but i really hope the actors were either willing and hopefully totally into it for the right reasons, or their underwear was stuffed with protective cups. the amount of crotch petting, crotch in the face, cheek licking, and tongue was mind blowing.