Clarification: The American Red Cross follows the rules about donating blood set by the Food and Drug Administration.

Donating blood must feel great.

A giant needle stuck in your arm, knowing you are able to share your own life force with someone who is in urgent need — it must feel great. I wish I could save a life.

But the Food and Drug Administration has declared that a man who has had relations with another man is not permitted to donate.

Their reasoning behind this stems from the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. If the transfusion machines process virus-infected blood, not only is the blood unusable, but the machine must be destroyed.

But I don’t have AIDS or HIV. Nor does most of the general population.

I wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eyes in the ‘80s, let alone doing anything that would infect me with the virus.

This doesn’t matter, though. Even if I go in with fresh test results saying I’m clean, they can’t accept a donation. And it hurts. I know it isn’t meant to, but it feels like discrimination.

It’s an overly cautious assumption that all homosexual males are already infected with the virus.

Thousands of gallons of blood donations are lost daily from men who are more than willing to give their blood, while one more piece of red tape separates us from others.

I’m not usually personally affected by these kinds of things, but it did sting that a national organization committed to health and helping people wasn’t flexible in any way on the matter.

It felt like a blow to the stomach, a judgment over something I never would have thought should be an issue.

How long will this be the case? Will I ever be able to make this kind of donation, or will they keep the rules up through the rest of my life?

People know how to be safe, and assuming the worst is assuming a lot in this case.

The donor, the recipient and the American Red Cross — we all lose.