A few days ago, I published a piece that managed to re-posted on numerous blogs (here, here, here, to name a few) that critiqued the use of "serosorting" as a rationale for refusing to have sex with Poz men when condoms are used. A flurry of interesting and highly productive conversations came out of this piece that center around a number of problematics: Rationality vs. Emotionality (as noted in Daniel's response piece); Responsibility vs. Recklessness; and Individual Rights vs. Collective Ethics, to name a few.
But alongside these productive conversations came what I see as a highly vitriolic and slanderous response that emerged in the responses on Qweerty -- a kind of mainstream gay blog that gets quite a bit of traffic. I see a big part of the issue here as resulting from the title the folks at Qweerty assigned the repost:
As you can see, they've suggested here that I called people who refused to sleep with Poz men "assholes." I didn't, and I don't think that -- just to be totally clear. I don't know much about Qweerty, but in the past I've certainly seen comments there that suggest a pretty conservative readership when it comes to sex. But I had no way of anticipating the anger and vitriol that has spilled out in the comments against me and my arguments. I certainly understand that these issues are highly emotional, but most readers did not engage the arguments -- they opted instead to call me names. Ouch.
But I'm a big boy. I can take a bit of name-calling. You work long enough in HIV prevention, and you realize that someone's going to smear your name if you say anything that differs from the party-line prevention soundbites. So in the interest of making something productive happen out of this violence, I wanted to take a moment to see if there were underlying logics in the nearly 100 comments that were enabling the anger -- logics that anyone interested in unpacking the politics of prevention should be interested in. Here we go.
1) "I take it this was written by someone Pos." & "hell no. he sounds like som sort of con man": A number of readers suspected that I must be HIV-positive for writing this. I think this is INCREDIBLY telling about the kind of divisive and polarizing kinds of conversations that are all too common in our communities. I'm not HIV-positive, but why does this matter so much? The subtle underhanded suggestion here is that I must be HIV-positive because I seem to be trying to coerce negative men into having sex with me.
2) "Trevor, you have no idea about the breadth of the stigma associated with HIV+ status; and only the few of us very long-term poz, and their friends and boyfriends, who witnessed and were subject to it do.": Let me try to translate: I've got the misery, keep your hands off. This is clear boundary-drawing, attempting to say that I have no right to discuss this issue because of my negative status. All too common when discussing issues of stigmatized minorities.
3) "What a nut. He seemed to also want to outright say -- but didn't -- that it was the duty of negative guys show their commitment to positive guys by fucking them.": Like the comments in #1, these readers presumed that I believed there was some kind of charitable commitment necessary for neg guys to be coerced into fucking poz guys. Again this is really not the point. The point is that there are prevention discourses circulating that making refusing sex with poz men seem entirely logical, and I'm challenging the logical bases by which that refusal becomes obvious or rational. Fuck whoever you want, but don't pretend like it's obviously just about self-preservation
4) "Hoppe is using the same tired rationalizations the community used in the eighties. I'm glan [sic] folks are seeing through this bulls-t. We have to stop aids in our community now. We've known the transmission method for years. And the available strategies have been obvious for years: positives only with positives, negatives only with negatives, honesty and caring for everyone, peer group pressure on thoughtless barebackers, condoms always for negatives except in a monogamous relationship when trust is rock solid. If anyone's feelings are hurt by this, tough s-it.": I think this comment speaks for itself. Here the claim is made that the only strategies for prevention transmission are 100% serosorting, shaming people who don't use condoms, and only allowing for unprotected sex within relationships. And I say: Tell that to the 68% of new infections that are estimated to be the result of condomless sex with people's primary partners. And obviously the pathologization of "thoughtless barebackers" is the kind of shaming that does nobody an ounce of good.
5) "I'm fed up with having to dance around the constantly shifting, ever increasing sexual minefield that horny, unconcerned poz men represent.": In this readers's mind -- and in many others -- the responsibility for transmission rests squarely on the backs of poz men. As if neg guys share none of that responsibility. As if the men leaving the backroom are akin to murderers. This is worse that stigmatization, it's criminal slandering -- and its the kind of hateful logic that Public Health scholars and institutions have too often served to promote and help disseminate in their efforts. I'm not saying poz guys are totally without any responsibility here, but c'mon.
and finally, my absolute favorite:
6) "Is it wrong to refuse to take a ride on a train you know has no brakes? Jesus, how can anyone write such a self serving, irresponsible idiotic article?": Wowzer! There's a lot going on here. First, it obviously equates having sex with Poz guys to getting on a train headed for certain death. I don't think I need to explain why that's the most disingenuous comparison I've heard in months.
Phew. I think I need to take a few days off from blogging. This was quite an intense ride. In the end, I'm reminded of something my mentor Eric Rofes wrote before he died (see pp. 6-7 of THRIVING, PDF found here):
I recently published on a gay news website an editorial viewpoint that attempted to open up new ways of thinking about HIV prevention, crystal use, and gay men who occasionally have sex without condoms. I was attempting to offer new vision. I understood the risk of attempting to offer new thinking and introduce complex concepts in a brief article on a popular website, but I did my best to inject some fresh thinking about risk-taking and the hazards of social marketing into a discussion which has become predictable and, at times, trite. At the same time, despite my awareness of the challenge I was taking on, I had not expected the rage reflected in some of the letters of response from readers. A sampling follows:
Patrick Syring from Arlington, Virgina, wrote:
"Your advocacy for barebacking and party drugs is abhorrent and disgusting. Gaymen like you tarnish the rest of us who play safe and cherish life more than you do. I hope you die painlessly but quickly."
Anthony Altieri wrote:
"Your article is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in print. You are obviously a fucking idiot...You cannot blame people's self-destructive behaviors on prevention campaigns. Have you ever heard of a little thing called "personal responsibility"? Probably not. There are plenty of reasons people make unwise decisions: addictive behavior, loneliness, desperation, isolation, lack of purpose in their lives, lack of education, but I am confident you will NEVER find a case of 'I have uprotected sex and use drugs because I saw a poster telling me to use a condom.' The aids [sic] epidemic has been ongoing since the early '80s. DEAL WITH IT. USE A CONDOM YOU FREAKING MORON. Please do us all a favor, unplug your computer and refrain from subjecting the world to any more of your bullshit. Go sit quietly in your bedroom with the lights off, avoiding the realities of life. You seem to be pretty good at that anyway."
Why do conversations among gay men about HIV, barebacking, crystal use, and bathhouses get so ugly and divisive? Why are they argued in such a vehement manner? Are they simply another example of internecine warfare driven by personality conflicts, ego battles, and bad manners? How can we make sense out of distinct visions that seem to underlie these debates: one which argues that the crisis moment of AIDS has passed for gay men and one which berates gay men for taking a single step beyond the bomb shelter we've inhabited since the early 1980s? Why is gay men's sex so frequently the target of such contentious debate and demonization? How did we reach a point where there are such deep divisions among gay men about sexual health and safety? And in what ways do vehement responses to new vision effectively serve to keep out of our movement fresh, innovative thinkers offering fresh analyses?
All Hail to the Queen
The fags bash the bulbs to make the starts brighter
All peace to the Earth
As orbs of white light moat Emerald Island
2,000 years ago a young woman appeared in the shape of a white buffalo and gave a family a sacred pipe and made them guardians of the Black Hills. Before leaving, she prophesized that one day she would return to purify the world, bringing back spiritual balance and harmony. The birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that her return was at hand.
In 1994 a white buffalo was born in Wisconsin. In many communities there is an aboriginal renaissance occurring, a return to the land is manifesting.
In 1998 Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post AIDS Identities and Cultures was published. Writer Eric Rofes put forward the idea that the AIDS-As-Crisis-Model was long outdated and a new era of focusing on gay men's wellness had arrived.
Its now 2009, 200and mine and I wander the urban Canadian terrain for white buffalo tracks and modern gay male culture.
A pull back-A pull forward,
A pull within-A look outside.
Dry Bones Breathe
Gay men break backs
First Nation women get ignored
The land heaves and sighs.
PAUSE.
I got my panties in a knot a few months ago when I started visiting gay guy social networking sites like MANHUNT and DUDESNUDE. At first I was just jealous of all the lovely bodies that will never be mine, that I will never have.
Here they all are,
stretched,
flexed
out
aching to be clicked,
hooked,
favorited,
chatted and
poked.
I found myself heavy and full with minor outrage.
THE GAUL- WHERE DO THESE GUYS GET OFF?
But then I got over myself and I meant it...
Where do these boys get off?
Where is public sex?
Do these dudes nude know that their flesh is for the viral masses (if so GREAT)
Or do websites create a sense of enclosed space so they think that they are in some version of inside?
I had up into that point never seen a cock just hanging out for all to see
so sexually,
so publicly,
so in the realm for of all.
But there one was, attached to a barista I kind of knew, but now knew better. Tomorrow when I order my coffee I wondered, Would I feel a new intimacy with him? I kept clicking- there was his cock rock hard, there was him smiling with his arm draped around a friend (did she know that she was on this website?), there was his cock again.
With every image I saw I was getting to now him better. I knew what his bedroom looked like, that he had gone to Paris (and taken a dirty photo in the Louvre's washroom) and that he was uncut. Is this now how gay community is formed? Is this the new 70's? (if so great [?])
Last summer I was accepted to do a video curatorial residency in which I would use the moving image to explore how sites like MANHUNT and DUDES NUDE were changing the sexual landscape for gay men.
I had it on my mind that in the face of AIDS, in the face of the internet
sex had not only gone underground, it had gone post-ground and now cruising existed only in the ether.
I was wrong.
The beauty of me is my ability to be wrong, my ability as a vegetarian to eat bacon and crow.
Sitting after dark in Toronto's Queen Park I befriended a man who had been cruising this park all his life. The year that Rock Hudson died of AIDS, he decided to come out. It has made him, if he does say so himself, an expert at giving blowjobs.
He tells me how he calls this park Emerald Island- cause it is- basically we are sitting in a large traffic circle in the middle of a city, permitered by trees, our feet thick in luscious grass and roots aching to come up.
Every few years he tells me the city tries to make the park less welcoming by taking down trees or adding more lights. He laughs and says it doesn't matter- the fags just bash the bulbs to make the starts brighter.
Sitting there frustrated by the lack of play, the willy-nilly fear of men to man up and hook up we start talking. Darting hungry eyes shoot us dirty looks. "WHAT?" I say with my mouth and shoulder, its not like you are doing anything.
We watch for a while as the little guy who wants to be the big guy circles the big guy who wants to get with the little guy.
It is as boring as shit but counts for action tonight.
Finally against a tree, the big guy lets go (did I mention he is on roller blades), the little guy wins and a crowd gathers to watch, stare and play.
The beauty of dry bones breathing is tempered only by the fact that parks such as this still echo all that is hurt inside of gay bones.
Not only is this place a hunt for the great white cock, leaving brown, yellow red cocks dangling in the wind- there is no room for dudes without cocks or cocks without dudes.
Desires are still so repressed that getting laid under the stars, white buffalos winking from the road, is still a revolutionary act. And there is no room for openness, no room for further transgression. We have done our part by coming out they seem to say.
Before I ever went to cruising park I romanced the idea that in such places you fucked what was there. That beauty became relative and a bell curve of hotness was recreated every time someone came or left.
And this is true.
And this is not true.
Our culturally informed idea of beauty still permeates past the trees.
Old guys walk around with nary a wink,
Fat guys sit dejected, staying in the background instead of being rejected.
White buffalo breath revives dry bones.
But animals we are not.
But just spirits we are not.
But online profiles we are not.
But post-AIDS we are not.
Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.
White buffalo breath revives dry bones.
Fucking strangers revives faith in humanity.
Being outside reminds you that you are human.
Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.
Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.
Sept 2009 Ted Kerr
Ted Kerr is a Canadian based writer, artist and actionist whose work primarily focuses on queerness, HIV / AIDS and expression. Find more about him on his website.
Him answering a question at a forum (probably at a college campus), "How many partners is too many?" Note how sex here is totally about potential danger, disease, death, and spoilage. There's no critique of anyone viewing an arbitrary number as problematic and fraught with normative assumptions about appropriate sexuality. There's no celebration of an exploration of pleasure, orgasm, and transformative sex. He even sums up his view pretty clearly when he notes his friends who fucked too much in the 70s and regretted those choices in 80s -- um... are you referring to the fact that they may have died of AIDS, Dan?
I'm reminded of Eric Rofes' statement from his "Gay Bodies, Gay Selves," manifesto:
In most of America today -- including most gay centers, health clinics, and AIDS prevention programs -- one can find others who look at gay men's sexual practices, patterns of socializing, and cultural norms as troubling. Here one can find professionals who'll examine gay male subculture, shake their heads, and point out what's wrong. Whether the subculture involves urban street youth, bears, circuit boys, Black MSM's, bare-backers, muscle boys, or leather men, you can find someone who'll point out substance abuse, obesity, narcissism, low self-esteem, food disorders, and internalized homophobia as major themes of gay male life in America. You can create programs, write grants, establish projects, and make speeches decrying the "epidemic of epidemics" facing gay men, expressing surprise and dismay at the sexual practices of gay men, and identifying homophobia, internalized or externalized, as the dominant force influencing gay male life today.
But you're wrong. You'll win grant funding. You'll get great press coverage. You'll sell books. You'll win community service awards. But you're wrong.
You would be popular because you would buy fully into the dominant thinking about gay men that reigns throughout American culture today. Whether taking the form of pity or disgust, sincere concern or superficial empathy, blaming or shaming, the overarching understanding of gay men's lives today is one of tragedy and pathos. Why are they so sex obsessed? Why do they do so many drugs? Why do they use steroids, work out obsessively, and dye their hair as they age? Why do they have to cruise all the time? You'd be affirming the overarching belief that gay male culture is immature, irresponsible, and irrational.
It kills me that Dan Savage is our spokersperson / media whore these days. He's no better than the same shit we hear about sex all the time. Make no mistake about it. He's gay. But he's a conservative when it comes to sex.
Last night I had the pleasure of participating in a public forum on social marketing tactics used for queer health promotion -- particularly HIV prevention. I've long been an advocate for reform in the way social marketing is done. It tends to be overly stigmatizing and poorly researched and designed. The audience seemed to agree with the panelists, who came to a consensus that change is needed --- though we disagreed over how radical that change should be. One the panel: Michael Petrelis, Michael Seiver (who runs Tweaker.org), me, and Jason Riggs (deputy director of the STOP AIDS Project).
Hopefully I'll have a copy of the night's full video in my hands soon -- but until then, above you'll see a short clip of me talking about unintended audiences with HIV prevention. The compression is a bit funky since my friend shot it vertically instead of landscape, so I had to rotate it 90 degrees. So I look a little wide :) But it's good stuff nonetheless.
Chris Bartlett just called to chat briefly today, this second anniversary of Eric Rofes' death. Just two years have passed! It seems like much longer since I last saw him. I still regret not making it to the last Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy he presented, which he encouraged me to attend. If you haven't looked at his final, uncompleted manuscrupt ("THRIVING: Gay Men's Health in the 21st Century") which several friends took time to edit and publish online, definitely check it out.
Here's a letter to the Bay Area Reporter editor that I wrote the day he passed away. My feelings haven't changed:
With the untimely and unexpected death of longtime gay activist Eric Rofes, San Francisco has lost a truly wonderful activist, organizer, researcher, and a dear friend ["Author, activist Eric Rofes dies," June 29].
In my own life, Eric was a mentor and role model. He was, without a doubt, one of the most influential thinkers in my life. Eric was one of the few gay male voices in America speaking progressive values to action. He was an unabashed feminist. His book, Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures, changed the way I thought about HIV/AIDS and gay men. He never settled for simple answers. He always demanded complexity. He always challenged me to think more deeply in my own work and research on HIV/AIDS and gay men. For all that he did for me, for all that he did for gay men, and for all he did for HIV-positive people, we will all be forever indebted to him. His death leaves a great void in our community.
My friend Crispin Hollings is plastered all over a Salon.com article titled "Kiss my ass." Yea, Crispin!!! Such a sexy San Franciscan!
I'm a bit too tipsy to actually bother to read the article, but Crispin looks good! For those not in the know, Crispin was the late Eric Rofes' partner before he passed away in 2006. Curiously, it seems that photo was taken exactly three years before Eric passed away -- which was on June 26, 2003 -- my brother's birthday and the day the Supreme Court struck down Bowers v Hardwick in their historic ruling, Lawrence v. Texas. Oh yea, and that asshole Strom Thurmond died that day too! What a busy / crazy / historic / sad day in history!
Good morning! It's 7:30 AM here in beautiful Guerneville, California - rise and shine! I can't believe I got up so early; I intended to sleep for another hour. Must be the mountain air! Yesterday around 3:30 PM, my friend Bill and his roomie Jason picked me up from my old apartment in the Castro to make our way up the California coast to Guerneville. We took the scenic route, quite literally. It was gorgeous. I'll add photos to each of these posts when I get back home (or if I'm able to scrounge up a USB connector for my camera). We drove up the CA-1 highway -- it was truly breathtaking!
Of course the scenic route had a cost -- it took us some time to get here. But we arrived at the Wildwood Retreat Center (where Chris just informed me Eric Rofes was married to Crispin some 10 years ago), which is a gay-owned little piece of heaven near the Russian River. It's really beautiful! We had to climb up a one-lane, twisty-turvy stretch of several miles to get to the Center. It was a bit daunting! But luckily we made it up without incident -- and we arrived just in time for dinner!
We moved from dinner to a session in the "yurt," a circular, hut-like structure where we all sat around in a circle lit by candles. It was beautiful! Each attendee was asked to, when the spirit moved them, to call out the name of a person who had inspired them and that they would like to honor in that moment. The diversity of our group was reflected in the range of people that attendees called out to. For some it was a family member or a close friend; for some it was an author or activist; and for others it was a fuck buddy who had unexpectedly impacted them.
I called out the name of Eric Rofes, for the way in which he mentored me and "took me seriously" as a thinker and activist. I remembered the way that, before I moved to San Fran in 2005, I would e-mail him three or four-page mini-essays on HIV and gay men -- and how, within the hour, Eric would have responded with an email just as thoughtful and lengthy as mine. I said that he was a model for a "feminist gay man who has a lot of great sex -- which is all I can ever hope to be." Amen.
After the session concluded and everyone had spoke, we broke up and went to mingle around the center. Of course, I immediately jumped into my bathing suit and headed for the hot tub! Oy vey! I *love* a good hot tub, and their's was no exception. The best part was that the pool was seperated from the hot tub by a small partition, which made jumping between the two pretty easy! The pool was *freezing* -- but it felt great after roasting in the hot water for a bit. Yum.
I spent the evening milling around the center, having some really fabulous conversations with many of the participants here about any number of issues: HIV prevention, social marketing, gay men's communities, doing prevention work with men who have sex with men but don't identifiy as gay -- what a great group we've got here! There are men (and one woman!) here from Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Fort Lauderdale, New York, and even Australia! I'm really excited and thrilled to be joining such a lovely group of guys. I think I'm in for a wonderful weekend! I'll be keeping y'all up-to-date on things here. Have a fab weekend!
I got a lovely phone call last evening from none other than Chris Bartlett, a dear friend and fabulous organizer on a range of LGBT health issues. We've been working together on organizing the various LGBT health summits and getting LGBT health on the agenda for the Creating Change Conference a few weeks back in Detroit. He's a gem.
Anytime I get a phone call from him, I'm happy. But I was particularly thrilled yesterday when he informed me that I had received a scholarship to attend the upcoming Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy in Guerneville, California March 21-24. Wew-hew! I booked my flight last night (thank God for frequent flyer miles!) - I'm SO excited! I hope to be podcasting for "The Gayest Podcast in Michigan" there, keeping everyone informed as to the goingson at the event.
For those who are unfamiliar, the GMH Leadership Academy is basically a three-day training and networking session for gay male organizers doing work on gay men's health issues. It happens a little under twice a year, and I've been aching to go since Eric Rofes encouraged me to do so back in 2005. Rofes of course founded the GMH Movement in the US. He sadly passed away in June of 2006.
I spoke too soon! In my Thanksgiving post, I mentioned that I was *hopefully* presenting two workshops at Creating Change in Detroit. Sadly, I just received word that both my proposals were rejected! I am reminded of Eric Rofes' constant struggle with Conference Director Sue Hyde (who I interned with in Boston in the summer of 2003) over his many workshop proposals that were generally rejected. I worry that, now that I'm labeled an "academic," perhaps I'm no longer welcome at Creating Change as I'm no longer a full time organizer / activist (whatever that means!).
I submitted two proposals, both of which I think were timely and reasonably compelling. I wasn't surprised that they rejected my proposal on the ethics social marketing as a tool for HIV prevention (although this was submitted as part of a larger "LGBT Health" mini-track, which I thought Sue had agreed to prioritize), but I was surprised that they rejected the proposal I submitted with fellow UM'er Paul Farber titled "Making it Work!: Mobilizing Gay and Lesbian Identities in the 21st Century" - the premise of which was that, while gay and lesbian were still useful sites of resistance in certain places (small towns, rural areas, etc), their utility in major metropolitan areas was on the rapid decline (San Francisco, for instance, where politically mobilizing gays "as gays" around anything is just about impossible).
If the movement is to sustain itself over the coming years, conversations like this are (in my opinion) *critical*. Too often we simply take for granted that our current modes of organizing are the best or most effective - but this to me is clearly not the case in many places (particularly on the national level, with organizations like HRC existing solely for the purpose of raising money to pay its staff).
Oh well. I'm still going to keep my commitment as a member of the host committee and in particular as a member of the "Youth Engagement" subcommittee (this'll be the last year I'll be a youth at Creating Change!). But, yea, I'm pretty bummed.
After a bit of channel surfing, I settled in tonight to watching the Molly Ringwald classic, Sixteen Candles. I was struck by how familiar the actor who played Jake looked, and so I hopped on IMDB to find out who played him. Apparently, it was Michael Shoeffling, who also co-starred in Longtime Companion, one of the first films to portray the way gay men were dealing with the epidemic.
Now, I'm not a sappy person. It's just not really in my nature. Anyone who knows me can attest to it. But damned if I don't start tearing up just seeing the title of that film. I can't explain my relationship to these early AIDS films (It's My Party and And the Band Played On also come to mind). I don't just cry - I bawl. I weep. What is it about these stories that makes me such a puddle of mess? Why do I connect to these stories of deep, painful loss - when I never experienced that kind of loss myself? I was born far too late to ever have friends die of AIDS in the way that these films depict - and the way that my older friends talk about. I came out in 1997, just a year after the introduction of protease inhibitors, and the beginning of the end of the AIDS crisis for urban gay men (for more on this deliniation, see my late mentor Eric Rofes' wonderful book, Dry Bones Breathe).
So what's up with my tears? I've been thinking about this a lot over the past three years --particularly after moving to San Francisco and having a dear friend test positive. In San Fran, the disease was much more tangible than it felt in North Carolina. I remember hearing people tell stories about the Castro being an amazing place to find bargains on art and antiques in the late 1980s and early 1990s because of all the garage sales that were constantly going on as more and more men died. I lived in the heart of that history: 17th Street and Noe. The middle of it all.
After having some time to reflect, I think I've narrowed it down to one key issue: I lament and resent the deaths of so many of the men who I wish were around today to mentor me. Where are the 40 to 50-something year old sex-positive gay men? All we seem to have left over are fucktards like Andrew Sullivan and Michelangelo Signorile. Eric was one of the few radicals who had survived and remained HIV-negative - which makes his death from a heart attack last year all the more tragic. In his book I mentioned above, he speculates that it was his distaste for anal sex that kept him alive. Another mentor of mine similarly speculated that, had he not been abroad researching for his dissertation when AIDS hit, he would probably not have survived either. Both were highly sexually active, after all, and in those crucial early years nobody knew how to protect themselves.
So my theory goes something like this. Eric once mentioned to me before he passed away that he thought about 30% of gay men in San Francisco died from AIDS complications in the "crisis years" (1983 - 1995). While that's a giant chunk of the population, it's not enough to explain the lack of mentorship I feel in my life. But who were the men who were dying? Were they the ones with the more sexually radical politics - who were regulars at the local bathhouses and sex clubs - were they the ones more likely to test positive? Perhaps its a naive way to think, but I can't help but think that, yes, the guys who had my kind of sex politics were almost certainly the guys in the highest risk categories - and thus the ones more likely to test positive.
So this is my question: Did AIDS kill off the most sex-radical elements of my community? Or did the epidemic just make gay men more conservative in general? Because, sometimes - actually, almost all of the time - I wish there were guys out there in their 40s and 50s fighting the good fight. But it seems all we get are Dan Savage, Larry Kramer, Michelangelo Signorile, and Andrew Sullivan. If that isn't depressing, I don't know what is.
I have the great privilege of writing from my hotel room in Philadelphia, PA where I'm attending the 2007 LGBTI Health Summit. This was an annual organizing event and, really, political movement that Eric Rofes worked hard to put together year after year. In his absence this year, there's a great deal of rumbling over what the future has in store for this conference, and the movement for LGBTI health as a whole (gay men's health, in particular of course).
I also had the great privilege of spending a great deal of time getting to amazing, wonderful, and inspiring activists and thinkers like Tony Valenzuela, Michael Hurley, Bill Jesdale, the French activists from WARNING, and Amber Hollibaugh. These folks made this summit one of the most academically rich and thought-provoking weekends of my life. I owe them a great deal. If America had just one HIV social science researcher like Michael Hurley from Australia, we would be a much better place. His thoughtful presentation on gay men's intensive sex culture was mindblowing. What a treat!
I also was honored to present my thesis work here at the conference under the title "HIV Panic and Young Gay Men: Preliminary Results from an Exploratory San Francisco Study." It really turned out to be a lot more about gay communities, sexual shame, and then of course about fear of HIV for young gay men. I was really pleased with how my presentation came together - I kept making changes in the days during the conference before my own workshop was scheduled. Add some sex here - a bit more about desire there. The feedback and support from my colleagues was nothing short phenomenal. I hope I can post the slides from the presentation here soon!
Anywho, must sleep. More conferenceing tomorrow! Then back home to SF tomorrow night.
"Richard Burns, executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City, introduced the Eric Rofes Memorial Scholarship Fund this afternoon. Eric Rofes, an activist and author, passed away on June 26. The fund, created in his honor, will provide scholarships for young activists who wish to attend Creating Change. Burns spoke movingly about Rofes’ life and accomplishments, calling him 'an architect of friendship.' A slideshow and music followed.
Rofes, a former Task Force board member, was an enthusiastic and thought-provoking contributor to the Creating Change Conference, which he attended annually and where he presented some of its most challenging and stimulating material.
To contribute to the fund, go to this page. For more information about the fund, contact Charles Robbins at crobbins@theTaskForce.org."
What a whirlwind of a week! I'm here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, staying at a lovely bed and breakfast called "The Library Bed and Breakfast" run by a really wonderful woman named Joan. She's a real treat, and if you're ever in the area, you should consider staying here. She cooks a mean breakfast and is a wonderful host.
I'm here for two reasons: 1) to check out Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus as I'm applying to grad school here next year and 2) to attend the "AGAINST HEALTH" conference, a convening of some of the nation's (and world's - as we have several folks from Australia and Canada) most astute scholars working critically to problematize the category of "health."
As for number one, Ann Arbor is an incredibly charming little town that I could definitely see myself spending 5-6 years in working towards my PhD. They even have a gay bar, AutBar, which I actually have yet to check out (perhaps tonight?) and a gay dance club night (which I will be checking out tonight) at a bar called Necto. Slim pickings, but not too shabby for a small college town of its size. I've also met a few boys and found them quite hospitable ;)
As for number two, the academic environment here is unparalled. The number of faculty doing work on sexuality and gender is astounding - and many of them are superstars in that field (David Halperin, Gayle Rubin, etc.). I met with several graduate students in Sociology who all praised the university and program's level of support for sexuality-related work - which is key to surviving 5-6 years at an institution. All in all, I'm rather in love with the place.
I'm happy that I made time to come out here to attend the conference. I found myself today sitting and having lunch with a group of folks doing phenomenal work on HIV/AIDS and gay men: Kane Race, Susan Kippax, Barry Adams, and David Halperin. The discussion and workshops were wonderfully informative and inspirational for my current research on young gay men and HIV prevention and for future ideas for my dissertation.
I also had the great honor and privilege to speak at the conference in tribute to Eric Rofes, who was slated to attend. It was a cathartic process to both write and deliver the speech - and I'm grateful that David Halperin invited me to do so. Here is what I had to say:
It is not easy to memorialize a giant like Eric Rofes. Upon first hearing of his death, many initially thought the news was some kind of cruel joke. If Eric’s life was about anything, it was about the survival of epic tragedy and of great struggle – his death seemed almost unthinkable at this point. He seemed almost bigger than life itself, which made his sudden death of a massive heart attack at the age of 51 all the more shocking. He is survived by his loving partner of 16 years, Crispin Hollings.
For those of you who did not know him, Eric was one of the bright lights of the movement for sexual liberation and for gay men’s health. His professional career began as a sixth grade public schoolteacher in Boston after graduating from Harvard college in the 1970s. He was eventually fired from that job when he came as a gay man to his principal and school board. Before coming out at work, he marched in one of Boston’s early gay pride parades with a bag over his head. After being fired, he quickly became a powerhouse activist within the burgeoning movement for gay and lesbian liberation in Boston – working at different times as a writer for the Gay Community News collective, the nation’s only weekly queer publication; as the founder for Boston’s first LGBT group for teachers, Boston Area Gay and Lesbian Schoolteachers; as the founder of the first Boston-area group focused on gay and lesbian voters; as the founder of two of the nation’s first queer youth groups; and as a founding member of the Boston Men's Childcare Collective, which provided childcare at women's music concerts and shelters for battered women. He somehow managed to find time during this period to publish three books that he developed with with his students at the Fayerweather Street School in Cambridge – who hired him after he was unjustly fired – including The Kid’s Book About Divorce: By, For, and About Kids in 1983.
And this was just the beginning. In the limited time that I have, I cannot possibly relay to you all of his accomplishments, but perhaps the most important to highlight were his roles as Executive Director of Los Angeles’ gay and lesbian center (the largest gay non-profit in the world); and, later, after moving to San Francisco in 1989, as executive director of the Shanti Project, a pioneering AIDS service group. Though he remained HIV-negative until his death, his work at Shanti led him to the work that he is most known for, his work on HIV/AIDS and gay male communities. His efforts fighting AIDS in what were very bleak years for urban gay men later informed his work to ignite a movement for holistic health for gay men that extended beyond STDs and HIV/AIDS.
Of course, it would be entirely inappropriate for me to say all of this without also highlighting Eric’s role in leather/SM/fetish communities as a proud bear and a tireless advocate of sexual liberation. His creative spirit for exploring and celebrating sexuality informed all of his work, and was, really, nothing short of awe-inspiring. To say that he enjoyed sex is something of an understatement. How he managed to accomplish so much professionally and still find time to so… vigorously explore his sexuality, I will never know.
It was only just over a year ago that, still living in North Carolina, I first came across Eric’s book Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities in Cultures as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Written in 1998, it was a daring call to reevaluate the way we understood the epidemic in a post-anti-retro-viral world – particularly how we went about doing HIV prevention. Perhaps his most jarring claim in this book was that, for at least many communities in the industrialized world, “AIDS” was over. That is to say, the medications had improved the quality of life for HIV-positive patients to the extent that many no longer exhibited the symptoms of AIDS.
When I read this, I could not help but reflect on my own life as a young gay man, and I was left struggling with a number of questions. Despite it being almost a decade old when I first picked it up, his analysis remained incredibly provocative and challenging. This is in part due to the fact that, from my perspective, Eric was one of a tiny handful of people critically and sensibly thinking about the epidemic, especially in the years after anti-retroviral therapies were introduced when many public health officials were still trumpeting the idea of the “AIDS Crisis,” a kind of scare tactic that Eric argued was outdated, wrongheaded, and entirely at odds with gay men’s experiences. His analysis was made all the more compelling for the ways that he connected his ideas to his own experiences as a sexually active gay man in San Francisco. As a self-proclaimed feminist, his work clearly took the age-old feminist axiom “The personal is political” very seriously. Dry Bones Breathe shook my core and gave me a clear direction towards a kind of work that managed to straddle the academic and activist worlds – a kind of work that allowed for the researcher to clearly position themselves within their work and their arguments.
A true child of the Internet generation, I immediately sent him a long, confusing, and winding e-mail. Some of you in the audience may well know that I have a penchant for these kinds of notes to people who’s work has such a profound impact on me. I was desperately seeking a mentor – a gay man who had seen what I had not, and could provide a personalized historical framework for my work on gay male communities – something that no movie or documentary could ever really adequately supply. More importantly, I was looking for a kind of emotional support and inspiration that was difficult to locate in North Carolina. Words cannot truly express how I felt, then, when I opened up my e-mail to find a response from Eric – no more than 2 hours later; Eric was known for his superhuman e-mailing capabilities – that was just as long-winded and just as sincere as mine had been – if not more. To have a giant like Eric Rofes take my ideas seriously – even those that he might have disagreed with – meant a great deal to me.
What is most amazing about Eric is that I am just one of many people who can tell you a story like this. Somehow between his countless research and activist projects, he made time to create rich and meaningful relationships with literally hundreds upon hundreds of people. This was perhaps what Eric loved most about life. He had an uncanny ability to connect people – even those from seemingly disparate communities – to bring people together in ways that do not often happen in our increasingly specialized work environments and fragmented communities. It was in these moments that Eric truly shined.
With his death, I find it difficult to find much to say that’s uplifting or inspirational. As a young gay man, I cannot tell you how troubling it is to lose another one from Eric’s generation – particularly a giant like Eric. Sadly, when I look into the academic world in search of queer men doing wonderfully progressive and radically queer work like Eric’s, I find a scant few of these voices. I cannot help but feel that AIDS has stolen from us some of the most radical and provocative voices, without which we are suffering – particularly young gay men. Perhaps a new generation of young queer men will take up Eric’s agenda – a movement towards a politics that somehow managed to navigate the tensions between sexual liberation and feminism. An agenda that fought tirelessly for the respect and dignity of the marginalized. In his absence, though, I find myself somewhat pessimistic. He leaves in his wake two incredibly large shoes, which I know I can never really hope to fill – but I will certainly try.
It has a been a long time since I've posted, I know! So much as been going on. My research project is coming along rather slowly, but it looks like I'll be on track to graduate in May. I'm in the process of applying to PhD programs in Sociology. I'm looking at: Berkeley, Michigan, NYU, and CUNY. Michigan would be a joint PhD in Women's Studies. I'm also applying to a PhD program in American Culture at Michigan, and the American Studies program at NYU.
I just sent my book proposal off to publishers! I'll keep the lids on that project until I hear anything. I've been working on the concept for an anthology that I would edit for about a year. Here's hoping that someone bites!
The Bay Area Reporter (BAR) here in SF just did a story based on a presentation I gave at the late Eric Rofes' SexPols reading group on racialized desire. It's a hard concept to explain in a few words, so I think it came out a bit muddled. But I was happy to see a front-page story on racism in the queer male community. You can find it here.
I miss Eric tremendously. He died unexpectedly on June 26th after a massive heart attack while visiting Provincetown, MA. The BAR carried a letter to the editor I wrote in his memory just after he passed. You can find that here. You can also find the BAR's article here.
I'm going to be visiting Michigan in a few weeks for the AGAINST HEALTH conference and to visit the school. I just recently realized that a friend I made at the 2004 Summer Institute on Sexuality, Society, and Health here in San Francisco, Steph Osbakken, is actually a PhD candidate in Sociology at Michigan. I'm looking forward to seeing her and getting to know the campus!
I'll also be attending the Creating Change Conference in November, where I'll be giving two workshops! One workshop will be a reprise of my HIV Risk 101 talk that I gave at the Unity Conference back at UNC this past April. The other will be in coordination with Roberto Tijerina of the Highlander Research and Education Center on being a queer male feminist! I'm super psyched about that - and just in general about presenting at Creating Change! this will be my fourth CC, but my first time presenting. I attended CC's in Portland (2002), Miami (2003), and Oakland (2005).
I found myself today on the front porch of a beautiful garden home, chatting casually, with three of the most important architects to my politics and thinking that exist. I took a deep breathe, and examined the people around me. David Halperin. Suzanne Pharr. Eric Rofes. Talk about overwhelming.
Two weeks ago, I was at Eric Rofes' house for his monthly potluck gathering to discuss issues of sexuality (politics, theory, journalism, ideology, and more). Before the meeting, Eric and I were discussing Suzanne Pharr (author and activist, wrote "Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism") - his friend and also who I brought to UNC as keynote to my final Unity Confererence. Because of our previous connection, he invited me to a benefit he was hosting at his house for The Highlander Institute today (Pharr used to be executive director of the Highlander Institute).
And so, here I am two weeks later. David Halperin let me know back in September that he was coming into town this weekend for a conference. I met David at SFSU's 2004 Summer Institute on Sexuality, Society, and Health. Incidentally, in honor of his visit, I made my first trip to Steamworks - the big gay bathhouse in Berkeley. I'll blog about that experience more later!
Somehow today I wound up having brunch with one of David's former colleagues at MIT and then I invited David to Eric Rofes' house for the benefit for the Highlander Institute.
My life is too crazy. I was lucky enough to arrive in time to the event to hear Suzanne speak. She was, as she always is, brilliant. She spoke of the political and cultural aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with the conviction that has made her career as an activist so succesful. I got a chance to chat with Eric and David - which was surreal enough in its own right (since I met David in San Francisco and then later read, in Eric's book, David's thoughts about HIV prevention work in Australia).
And I love it! Yesterday (Wednesday) kicked off my career as a San Francisco State University Graduate Student. My schedule looks like this:
Tues (4:10 PM - 6:55 PM): Foundations in Human Sexuality
Wed (4:10 PM - 6:55 PM): Research Methods in HMSX Studies
Thurs (4:10 - 6:55 PM): Sexuality and the Internet
How fucking awesome is that schedule? To top it off, my cohort (or the other 14 students in my graduate year) is so amazing. After our orientation on Tuesday we went out for drinks and dinner with a bunch of the second-year students and I met some amazing personalities. I got a chance to talk for a while with an incredible second-year who is studying fat burlesque dancers in the city for her thesis. She mentioned that the Dove "Real Women" campaign (featuring, *gasp*, size 10 and 12 "real" women who aren't models professionally) had driven some to put stickers up on the ads saying "Future Type 2 Diabetes." Size 10! Fuck I hate the anti-body regime that is Corporate America.
Our cohort is a diverse bunch in terms of research interests, though the fact that only 2 people of color are included among our group of 15 has me and others worried. It not only leaves conversations on race and issues that race impacts (like, oh yea, everything) virtually incomplete but also puts a great deal of pressure on the two people there to speak for their entire race. I think the group seems to be at least attuned to these issues so I think we can work through two years succesfully.
Last night I had the pleasure of going out one-on-one with another cohort member, Jesse, who hails from NYU where he studied dance. He's the sole arts person in the program and I was happy to meet and hang out with him. We talked about how social scientists often see research and traditional methods of communicating that research as the only legitimate form of work. However, some of the most fascinating stuff I have scene has been performance art BASED on social science research (see, for instance, this blog entry RE: a play by Eric Rofes) - which will, in turn, present the research to a whole range of people who would absolutely never pick up an academic book or journal. I'm glad to have him amung us, for sure. We drank and talked on a pretty quiet Wednesday night over in the Mission at a bar called Cama and then chowed down @ Bagdad Cafe (which, as we noted, was strangely misspelled).
This Saturday both first and second-years are getting together at a second-year's house for a barbeque afternoon drinkfest dubbed "Dirty in Pink." Fuck - I have to go buy a pink shirt.
In just four years, new research is showing that the rate of new HIV infections in San Francisco has been cut in half. This is pretty significant stuff. I thought it best to just leave the commentary to those doing work in the SF community. Eric Rofes, a long time HIV/AIDS activist in San Francisco, had this to say via e-mail to the news and to Public Health officials who initially said they were unsure of the cause of the new data:
The gay men of San Francisco have worked hard to get the sex they want and minimize risks to their own health and well being and that of other gay men. They should be applauded and appreciated for their creativity, altruism, self-care, community care, and commitment to sex-positive values.
And they are doing so successfully, with minimal assistance from many public health leaders and journalists who see us as irrational, self-destructive, and irresponsible.
Despite creation of a cycle of panics intended to scare gay men away from sex (Superbug panic, crystal panic, second-wave-of-HIV panic, circuit-party panic, cyberspace panic) by public health leaders and journalists, gay men in San Francisco continue to do what we've always done: work assiduoulsly to maintain sex-positive values and create vast and diverse opportunities for the fulfillment of sexual desires, as we proceed with concern for the health and safety of ourselves and our community.
Recent research into sero-sorting--a practice NEVER encouraged or endorsed by HIV prevention leaders who continue to be locked in a "use-a-condom-everytime" mentality, despite the fact that local gay men have pioneered additional creative sex strategies for more than a dozen years--shows that San Francisco gay men are savvy, strategic, and caring of one another. One would never get this impression from the statements of local health officials and from most of the health promotion campaigns displayed in recent years.
This is what the "gay men's health movement" is all about: stepping outside of the pathology-based public health paradigm and the guilt/shame of HIV prevention and believing that gay men are healthy, reasonable, caring, and successful, even if we organize our sex and relationships in alternative, creative, and, occasionally, wild ways.
Sitting here in my bed at the Holiday Inn in San Francisco, I find myself exhausted from a day filled with both fun and not so fun moments. The apartment search has turned out to be much more competitive that I had been anticipating. We looked at two places yesterday that we were really excited about - both in the Castro and in our price range (which, believe me, is AMAZING). The ad for the place had gone up that morning and we were the second group to look at the place - so we didn't think that haste was so important. We learned the hard way: they both had been rented out to people other than us before the end of the business day.
I found this news out today after attending a fantastic session at the ISAACS Conference presented by Cathy Cohen, a wonderful black Poltical Scientist at the University of Chicago whose analysis of political movements and the "down low" was dead-on. Specifically she teased apart comments from Bill Cosby referring to young black men and women as "knuckleheads" who can't speak English resonated with me and my own concerns for the Gay and Lesbian political movement. Groups like with HRC have fought hard to say similar things: we're just like you, we have manners, we have money, etc. It was really awesome to make some clear connections between racism and homophobia - and really awesome to hear it coming from a Political Scientist.
Okay so back to the apartment search. After Cohen's talk, I got the message about the two apartments in the Castro. I was upset - to say the least. I was hoping that our search had finally come to an end. We had an appointment, though, at 1:30 that afternoon to check out a decent place in an OK location - so all was not lost. Me and Troy left the conference early and went to the computer lab to try to find a few more potentials. With a few numbers in hand, we made our way to the subway station - I was starting to fall apart. I just really couldn't handle the stress of this search at that moment. But really it all caved in when, after waiting for 30 minutes, we realized the "M" line to get us to the next apartment was broken down. What the fuck? What Karma hell did we fall into? Needless to say, we missed our 1:30 PM appointment.
With Troy's support I managed to get one with my day and meet with Eric Rofes as scheduled. We saw a play he produced the previous evening called "Test / Positive / Now: The Infection Monologues." The play was really fascinating and touched on a variety of really compelling issues dealing with HIV+ men. Eric's been doing research on his own on gay men who've recently tested positive and from the stories he has been gathering he has produced this play. The play didn't try to sugar coat and of the issues or these men's experiences. None were denied their own complex realities and relationships with their diagnoses. One thing I found interesting was one character's struggle with Public Health officials and other gay men talking about HIV Prevention and the decision to practice safe sex in such calculated, rational ways. When we discuss issues about safe sex we're almost always in classroom-like settings where thinking rationally isn't hard to do - but in the bedroom, this is no longer the case.
One character also argued that, as long as HIV exists without a vaccine, new infections will continue to happen amung gay men. We will always make mistakes because we're human. To expect us to do otherwise is unrealistic. This, I think, is especially true in an era when HIV is more like a chronic, manageable disease rather than a terminal illness - the life/death impetus to use a condom simply isn't there as it used to be. I was really honored to be able to see this play in its first incarnation - Eric plans to more than double the cast in the near future as his research continues to expand.
Eric and I had coffee and discussed my upcoming move to San Francisco. He's such a fantastic guy / thinker - I'm SO excited to be in the same city as him and his colleagues!!!
Our meeting cheered me up so I met back up with Troy to have a few cocktails in the Castro. We went to Bar on Castro where drinks are 2 for $4 during Happy Hour. 6 drinks later, I went home to rest and he stayed in the Castro to hang out / have fun. After a few hours I called Troy and he sounded like he was having quite a fantastic time - in fact he had consumed about 8 strong drinks after my departure. I was simultaneously checking out Craigslist and found a fantastic listing the Castro - a bit pricey, but a good listing. After making an appointment tomorrow to check the place out, I hopped in a cab to rescue Troy / check out the exterior of the building. Troy was fine and the apartment looks great - at least from the outside. We'll see tomorrow if it lives up to its exterior. It's literally a 4 minute walk from the apartment to the bars in Castro - quite excited about that potential (as is Troy, since he wants to wait tables in that area).
Tomorrow's Agenda:
11:30 Apartment Viewing
1:30 - 5:00 PM: Gay and Lesbian Film Festival - "The End Of AIDS: The Search for a Vaccine" and "The D Word" (a parody featuring lesbian comedian Marga Gomez of the Showtime series, "The L Word").
Oy! It's Thursday morning and I'm at work at UNC's computer help center and I figured, hey, what could be a better time to post my first real blog entry?
I've long resisted the blog movement - but finally my technocrat urges gave way and here I am. I want this to be a blog that's not just my rants and raves about the day-to-day things in my life - though you can be sure to hear bits and pieces of that - but also with some analysis and, hey, why not some thought-provoking material?
Today I'll just start off lite. Eric Rofes just posted an article on Gay.com about the recent rise in unprotected sex and methamphetamine use in gay men accross the nation called "The Condom Backlash". In it, he critiques the public health campaigns of the past 20-30 years or so, and argues that maybe gay men are just so burnt out from all the fear-based education that they've been numbed to its message.
I've thought quite a bit about this lately - what's causing this recent rise in unprotected sex and HIV infections? It's troubling - the number of new infections had been on the dramatic decline since *1996* until 2003. As a gay man who has grown up in the South, I can say that my sex education was clearly not adequete - I learned through my own research on the Internet at a young age.
This might seem to contradict Rofes' message about being inundated with anti-sex sex campaigns - but he's coming from an environment based in San Francisco, not North Carolina. But, still, I'd like to end this first short entry just considering his argument:
We have been "educated" to death. Under the rubric of "safer-sex," and "HIV prevention" we've been told what to do and what not to do, shamed and guilted incessantly. We have been messaged and marketed a million times. We have been directed, instructed, commanded, suggested, harangued and manipulated -- all by people who believe that if you tell people repeatedly what to do or not to do with their sex, they will comply.
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Pam's House Blend
She's a fabulous North Carolinian blogging about politics, LGBT and women's rights, the influence of the far Right, and race relations. What more can I say?
After a bit of channel surfing, I settled in tonight to watching the Molly Ringwald classic, Sixteen Candles. I was struck by how familiar the actor who played Jake looked, and so I hopped on IMDB to find out who played him. Apparently, it was Michael Shoeffling, who also co-starred in 
