June 2005 Archives

The ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) AIDS activism of the 1980s and early 1990s was built around a singular expression of rebellion: Silence = Death. The idea was that if our government and our culture continued to live in silence about the American AIDS epidemic, we would only be greeted with an ever-increasing death toll and, ultimately, the erasure of sexually active gay men. ACT UP's powerful slogan jolted many into action and helped transform the organization into a powerful political entity that created real policy change in Washington.

Today, the slogan smacks of the past. Its mention does not bring to mind any current crisis, but harkens back to another time when almost an entire generation of gay men was lost to HIV. We live today in a world of protease inhibitors. A positive test result no longer represents the first nail in the coffin. HIV has shifted, for those who have access to the expensive medications, from terminal to chronic, from untreatable to manageable.

A new generation of young gay men has come to age without the looming specter of AIDS constantly at the horizon. We do not know what it means to see a community nearly crumble and to have weekends filled with memorial services for friends, lovers and mentors. Moreover, those who did know such a reality - the gay men surrounded by the AIDS crisis of the 80s and early 90s - are not around to tell us about it. The marked decline in dialogue between young gay men and their older counterparts has hurt our community. We - the young gay men of the 21st century - have no mentors to describe to us what it was like, then. We easily take for granted the dead whose bodies have paved the way to our present existence.

History can, for our people, be understood as something passed down from one generation to the next. Among those communities that face prejudice, the mainstream does not take notice of our accomplishments or failures. The likes of Harvey Milk or Harry Hay will not be found in any high school textbook. To survive, we must do the work ourselves. The decline in intergenerational dialogue among gay men has gravely perverted this process. Our history is disconnected. The result is a young generation of gay men that for many knows of no gay history beyond Ellen.

Without our history readily available, we - the young gay men of the 21st century - are forced to fend for ourselves. We have grown of age alongside the Internet and have developed new meanings of community electronically. In this modern, electronic age, our geographic isolation no longer demands that we travel to gay ghettos like the Castro to find others who identify similarly. Moreover, gay spaces have appeared in communities across the nation, even in the likes of rural North Carolina (where, for instance, in Fayetteville the gay bar is a double wide trailer). We are everywhere. Our numbers growing and our presence increasingly less clustered, we have managed to build new understandings of what it means to be gay.

For a time, it seemed that we were doing so while at the same time reducing new HIV infections. After the introduction of protease inhibitors, new infections among gay men were on the decline year after year after year. Yet, today we find ourselves in an undeniably uncomfortable situation. The 21st century has brought with it a rumored rise in unsafe sex, raising the potential for a reversal of the past decade's trend.

Skeptics of the rumors should simply log on to any of the gay male webspaces and spend just a few minutes flipping through profiles. It does not take long to find someone looking for "Raw," "Bare," or "Natural" sex. Gay male E-culture has helped strengthen the movement against consistent condom use. Gay male social pundits have been quick to place the blame squarely on young gay men's shoulders. “Grow up," they say, “and quit your irresponsible fucking."

However, critics seem to be missing something. It is through no fault of our own that we find ourselves in this predicament. No one told us any better. We have few mentors to pass down a communal knowledge of not just history but also sex, bodies, and politics. Our High School Sex Ed courses certainly did not teach us anything of value. Sex education campaigns, even when present in our lives, often promoted either fear or abstinence, two options not particularly compelling to a gay man coming to terms with his sexuality.

Today, though, as we see more evidence that risky sex is on the rise, gay men will face a choice to either continue in silence towards an uncertain future. Or, we can choose to proactively tackle the rumors and help stem the push towards unsafe sex. We must be willing to talk openly and honestly about sex and our sex lives -unafraid to make mistakes or ask questions. We must conceptualize the consistent use of condoms as not the mere act of an individual to protect or not protect simply himself. Instead, we can begin to understand it as an act of a community member done in the interests of all gay men. Condom use is an expression of love not just for our sexual partners, but also for all gay men.

It is clear that now is the time for us all to think deeply and choose wisely. This is not just a decision for gay men 18 to 30 to make. Anyone who came out after the introduction of protease inhibitors understands HIV/AIDS similarly. We stand at a crossroads that lead to two very different realities for what it will mean to be gay in just a few short years. Dialogue is essential. It's up to you to start the conversation. Silence = Death.