So, I was hopping around the internet and happened upon this post over at Bloggernista featuring a prevention PSA developed by an activist in NYC by the name of Eric Leven. It's quite something, and definitely relates to my own experiences getting tested for HIV. Here's the vid:

I like the idea of using online media to reach gay men in new and different ways. I think it's clear that the standard practices of billboards and subway posters is problematic because 1) it only reaches urban men and 2) the urban men it does reach don't pay any attention to them - they're over it!

That said, I'm a little put off by the implicit idea here that we should perhaps be more choosy in our sexual partners. I'm not sure that "Be Selective" is the right message. Is it about choosiness? Or is it really just about using a condom or not? I think that, in general, if you follow #3, then #2 is a moot issue. Perhaps I'm missing something in his argument. Also, I'm supposing that the idea here is that the man in the video didn't use a condom - and is getting tested for this reason. But this isn't clear, and I really would have preferred that to be explicated in the background dialogue. Because that, to me, is the real issue here. If there had just been an added line like "C'mon, we trust each other - we don't need a condom." That's the crux of the issue to me. And it's a bit dissapointing that Eric didn't choose to bring it to the forefront.

But I do, however, like the focus on the anxiety that gets produced in the testing process - and the process of remembering and reconstructing that gay men experience in those moments. I don't think we've really paid adequete attention to that. In my view, I think that a lot of these anxieties are irrational for those guys who use condoms. They're the product of an internalized stereotype that all gay men eventually test positive - and of poor sex education that doesn't give young gay men much useful information about how to stay negative. That's why I would have liked the video / PSA to explicitly state that they didn't use a condom. Because if they did - and he's freaking out anyways - then he's really just confused about the difference between the possibility of infection and the probability of infection. That's what I talked about many moons ago in my piece on HIV Panic.

That said, Eric's moving in the right direction. I'm happy to find other fellow travellers! You can find his blog, KnuckleCrack, here.