Tonight I put the finishing touches on two papers for my classes, which marks the ending of my official first semester as a Human Sexuality graduate student. Only 3 more semesters to go - goodness how little time we have!

This semester has proven to be both more and less challenging than I anticipated. It has been less challenging in the sense that I find my HMSX classes to be pretty easy and haven't provoked too much critical thinking on my end. I stopped reading months ago because I found it to be unnecessary for success in all of my classes this semester - and because I found a large chunk of it entirely uninteresting.

On the other hand, it's proven to be personally challenging in my quest for knowledge in the realm of sexuality studies. I'm not alone when I say that this program is seriously lacking in several critical areas that I did not anticipate -- namely, feminist thought and theory; queer theory; issues of race and racism; transnational comparative sexual politics and theory; and, possibly to my greatest surprise, Les/Bi/Gay/Trans studies. This boils down to a lot of talk of straight white men (like Freud, for example). To say that I am disappointed would be an understatement.

Slightly more than halfway through the semester something of a coup occurred in our Foundational Theory course when professor Gil Herdt asked students how we were doing. I couldn't restrain my feelings any longer - I had spent the previous two weeks in misery (especially after a guest lecturer on "feminist theory" opened by saying she knew nothing about the subject at hand). I blurted out a diatribe of complaints that ranged from procedural to ethical. The silence that enveloped the room was, in a word, deafening.

I met with the professor several times following that emotional classroom encounter and we've worked through a few of the key issues. He has agreed, for instance, to devote a day or two on race and queer theory. This of course does not satisfy my demanding appetite for critical knowledge and understanding in the field, but it is at least forward movement.

Beyond the class, however, these series of events has certainly set off a chain of doubt for me as to whether I can truly envision a life within the academy. I worry that if a Human Sexuality Studies department conforms to such monolithic, non-threatening understandings, then can I expect any better from more established disciplines such as Sociology? I still have hope that I can, and that this program is a product of a certain school of thought that is not representative of the larger Human Sexuality Studies academic community.

It seems frankly unusual and alarming that my courses and faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took strikingly more radical and progressive views of the field. Professors like Sherryl Kleinman, Karen Booth, Pamela Conover, and Randall Styers all were far more compelling for me than my professors *so far* here at San Francisco State University. I look forward to next semester when I'll be taking classes from both Deb Tolman and Amy Sueyoshi whose work is far more in lines with my expectations for this program.

In any case, I'm doing extremely well despite the academic woes. My thesis is coming along beautifully. Presently, my research question is as follows: "How do young gay men negotiate sexual risk?" I'm interested in finding out how men who grew up with AIDS in the background and who "came out" after the introduction of powerful new HIV therapies in 1996 perceive and understand sexual risk. I think the old mottos of "use a condom every time" just aren't cutting it for young gay men today - and for legitimate reasons concerning how they perceive HIV. They never watched as a community was faced with extinction or had the unpleasant experience of losing many of your close friends within a few short years. So, yea - that's what I'm trying to investigate. What's it like for sexually active 21-25 year-old HIV-negative gay men?

I'm headed home for the holidays exactly a week from today. I can't wait to be back in North Carolina for two weeks! My friends there are throwing me a "Welcome Home / Happy New Year's" party that I'm oh-so-excited about. I can't wait. I'll also be making a visit to Chapel Hill at some point to see a few faces up there and have a drink at my old haunts. Good times, indeed.

Happy Holidays - y'all.