Here are a few things from around the web that I've been meaning to blog about:

1. Larry Kramer slams Obama in a speech at an ACT UP / Healthgap demonstration in New York. A choice quote:

President after President have treated us so badly. Ronald Reagan. George Bush the first. Bill Clinton. George Bush the second. Barack Obama. They have all treated us like... shit. Like little pieces of shit that they can step on with their heels and grind into the ground. Obama is treating us just like that. Like little pieces of shit he can grind into the dirt with his heel to make us go away. I wish you could see that. I wish you could see what he is doing to us for for what it is. He is manipulating us into invisibility. He HAS manipulated us into invisibility. Our people in Washington live in a never-never cloud cuckoo-land, thinking that this man likes us, not responding as, little by little, he take bits and pieces of us away. That is how they control us. Can't you see that? Why can't our people in Washington see that? They give them a dinner as they take away another right.

2. DC-based Fuk!t has signed up our favorite twink Brent Corrigan for a safe-sex PSA. This would be all well and good, but the asshole director (an MD - no surprise there!) gave perhaps the most condescending interview with The Advocate I've ever read RE: Corrigan's previous bareback porn movies. Just listen to this pathologizing, fucked up response to whether the doc believes Corrigan was "taken advantage of" when doing bareback porn when he was 17:

"Oh, I would say that he was taken advantage of pretty clearly. No 17-year-old knows what they're doing (laughs). He knew what he was doing as well as any 17-year-old brain knows what it's doing. He definitely was taken advantage of, I don't have any question about that... which is why he's grown considerably. He's an amazingly mature individual for someone who's been through what he's been through."

And that, my friends, is why Terry Gerace, MD, is my asshole of the day! Typical doctor bullshit.

3. Canada's highest court has ruled that an HIV-negative man is not placed at "significant risk of serious bodily harm" if they fuck a HIV-positive bottom. The court ruled in 1998 in R. v. Cuerrier that HIV-positive people must disclose their status before engaging in sex that carries a "significant risk" of transmission. Topping can't be used to prosecute that anymore. It's a step, but far from enough.

4. In other news, the Michigan judge hearing a case against an HIV-positive man being charged with bioterrorism for biting his neighbor during an incident he describes as a hate crime has refused to drop the outrageous bioterrorism charge.

The data we've all been waiting for! The Kinsey Confidential has up data released from Condomania -- the largest condom store on the web -- that ranks cities based on dick sized based on the orders they get for sized condoms. Condomania explains their "methods":

So just how does Condomania know these intimate details? In 2004, the company launched TheyFit Condoms, the world's first line of tailored-fit prophylactics, in 76 sizes. Since then they have sold custom-fit condoms to over 27,000 men in 70 countries, and now have just begun to analyze this incredible cache of data.

"These fitted condoms range in length from 3 to 10 inches and from super slim to extra roomy." says Chris Filkins, Condomania's Directory of Technology. "After gathering detailed information on over 27,000 penises, we now have the most comprehensive database of penis sizes on the planet! Needless to say, these men's privacy is our utmost concern, and we're interested only in the statistics, and not who's who! But the data itself is pretty interesting."

Previously, the largest formal survey of penis sizes was conducted in 1948 by the famous Kinsey researchers, when 2,500 men recorded their erect penis sizes on pre-stamped cards.

Condomania's ten-times larger database is compiled from the unique "FitKit" measuring system for TheyFit condoms, where the user measures the length and girth of his erect penis to the millimeter and then matches those results to one of 76 possible sizes that comprise different length and girth combinations. In this system, the 76 sizes are comprised of non-sequential letters and numbers, so that the smallest is no more obvious than the largest.

They also include data on the top ranked states based on penis size, and in that formulation, New Hampshire of all places wins the prize:

1. New Hampshire
2. Oregon
3. New York
4. Indiana
5. Arizona
6. Hawaii
7. Louisiana
8. Massachusetts
9. Alabama
10. Washington
11. New Mexico
12. California
13. Arkansas
14. Nevada
15. Virginia
16. Tennessee
17. Illinois
18. Oklahoma
19. South Dakota
20. Georgia
21. Pennsylvania
22. Mississippi
23. Michigan
24. Florida
25. Rhode Island
26. Kansas
27. Maryland
28. Minnesota
29. Vermont
30. Connecticut
31. Wisconsin
32. New Jersey
33. North Dakota
34. Idaho
35. Texas
36. Missouri
37. Montana
38. Ohio
39. Nebraska
40. Colorado
41. Maine
42. North Carolina
43. Delaware
44. South Carolina
45. Kentucky
46. West Virginia
47. Alaska
48. Iowa
49. Utah
50. Wyoming

Moral of the story: I'm not moving to Wyoming anytime soon.

Thanks to Eric for the link

It's time for another installment of The View from the Bottom, the vlog about gay male health and sexuality as told from the perspective of three bottomless bottoms. This week, Trevor, Rostom, and Maxime discuss what they got for Christmas, how to deal with online harassment, what condoms are best for bottoms, and Pat Robertson' repugnant comments about Haiti.

Just thought I'd share this (definitely NSFW) video intended for a lesbian audience. It was posted on French lesbian and gay website www.yagg.com. For those of you who do not read French, you can find a translation of the very few subtitles on this website. I do not think that anyone will have the least difficulty getting the point anyway ;)

Pretty funny stuff via Lifelube:

That one brings a hearty laugh, and it's queer through-and-through. I like it!

Lifelube has helpfully posted information on a new study published in the journal Culture, Health and Sexuality that asks 120 gay men in New York City: what exactly does the term "bareback" mean? The researchers here are trying to better understand how gay men use the term in their own lives, so I very much appreciate the spirit of the project.

The Meaning of the Term, "Bareback"

A few interesting findings about the term emerge from the project:

1) No Condoms: Obviously, most agreed "bareback" implied anal sex without condoms.

2) Natural, Intimate:Curiously, although some men defined the term using words like "natural" or "intimate", the researchers don't interrogate this at all. Obviously, I think this is a mistake because it adds another layer of social meaning onto the behavior. I would add it as another category in their findings (as I have here).

3) Intentional: Some implied that intentionality was critical. This is very interesting. For instance, when they ask a participant whether sex would be considered "bareback" if a condom breaks, one participant replies:

"Technically, I guess, briefly, unless they don’t pull out or if they continue, then yeah. But barebacking is usually a conscious choice. But I understand that is kind of complicating the situation. But if the condom breaks, then no, I don’t think so, because I think that barebacking isn’t by accident. It’s a conscious choice, unless the person’s fucked up and doesn’t know what you’re doing."

4) Risky: Risk is a critical component of the definition for some men. For instance, they asked some participants if sex would be considered "bareback" if sex without condoms between a monogamous couple where both partners are HIV-negative. Some said it would, but others said things like this:

"That’s not bareback … (Why not?) It’s not because these two guys are in a relationship. They’re in a monogamous relationship. They love each other. They’re both HIV-negative. They know their status. They’ve – it’s natural, I mean, for the gay world … But it’s just natural for them to have sex without a condom, if they know neither one has HIV or has an STD, or whatever, and they’re not sleeping around on each other."

Bareback Identity

They move from this linguistic investigation to an investigation into bareback identity. A few possibilities here:

1) "Yes, I'm a Barebacker": About 1/3 of the men involved identified as barebackers, and these men were more likely to be HIV-positive than negative. For instance, in this exchange:

I: Do you think of yourself as a barebacker?
R: Yes.
I: Is that an identity?
R: That’s an identity. That’s the truth. The truth … is the light. So I’m a barebacker, baby. And I ain’t going to sugar-coat [it] – I’m a barebacker [singing], I’m a barebacker! [laughter] OK?
I: That identity, is that, is that a private one? Is that something you –
R: I would want somebody to know? Yes, I’m a barebacker. I feel…it, it, it gives me a sense of empowerment, so to speak. I feel good about [that] shit. Yeah, I like the ass, I like to fuck and I like to get fucked. You know, and I like to be explicit. And I can get to the exact nature of what I’m about, so it empowers me. Barebacker, huh? You know, that is that term.

2) "No, I'm not": Around 1/4 of participants said that, in fact, they were not barebackers. A variety of reasons existed, including the stigma attached to the term, some men's desire to use condoms, or -- very interestingly -- "because labeling oneself as such would make others think, ‘Oh, sure, he’s a barebacker, so he’ll accept my dick inside him’." This is fascinating language here, but again the researcher's stop short of a more in-depth analysis, which is a shame. But curious that this quote is about being a bareback BOTTOM, and not a top.

3) "Maybe I am": Some indicated that they might be, or that they were only partially a barebacker because of the frequency of their having sex without condoms. For instance:

I: Do you consider yourself a barebacker?
R: Sixty percent of the times, yes, I do, mm-hmm. Yes I do. You know, because like I say I do…my best to practise safe sex, but once, you know, I meet a certain person or – it’s like – it’s like something that will go off in me that I’ll be, like wow, I would just love to feel him inside, you know? Or I would just love to run up in them and – stuff like that.

You can download the PDF of the report here, thanks to IRMA.

So I have a bit of an embarrassing question for folks with some knowledge in the area. I've been casually seeing a guy for a bit now, and every time we go to have sex, the condom breaks. I've never had a condom break in my presence in my entire (prolific) sexual career, but it usually takes three condom-attempts before a successful try. Yes, that means that he usually breaks two condoms before we get one that doesn't break. It always happens immediately when he tries to start fucking. I don't know what's up! It's so bizarre to me. We always laugh about it and get another, but condoms are *expensive* and we've gone through dozens in just a few meetings. lol. That sounds like bragging, but really it's not! I promise!

Any ideas? I thought perhaps it's because he's leaving air in the tip when he puts it on, but that seems to be a pretty dramatic response to that common problem -- it's something that lots of guys do, but usually only results (to my knowledge) in a break when the guy cums. In any case, I'd like to solve this mystery before we manage to go through another dozen. Let me know any thoughts!

Meant to post this a few weeks ago. It's wonderfully cheeky.

Hey everyone! As promised, here's a copy of my remarks that I gave this morning on Wellness in the context of Gay Men's Health. Tipsy, so can't add too much more presently. But the plenary today went really fabulously. I hope y'all enjoy these remarks:

Good afternoon! I’ve been asked to provide some provocative opening remarks about Wellness – but I’m going to do something very academic-y, and talk a bit around the issue. Rather than defining what wellness looks like, per se, I want to ask us to be thinking about how Power works to structure Wellness. That is to say, how power – a concept I’ll elaborate on in a minute – works in different ways to either give or deny access to Wellness. Power gives us access to Wellness – without it, we can never hope to achieve it, collectively or individually.

So let’s dive in. It’s a rather vague word, “Power.” What ever does it mean? I want to briefly sketch out three potential meanings that have a direct impact on Wellness. First, from a Marxist or materialist perspective, we might first think about power as whether or not we have access to material resources – and by material resources I mean things like jobs, housing, health care, a down payment on a car that your parents lend you, or even the twelve dollars it costs for a monthly subscription to Manhunt.net. This is perhaps the most obvious kind of power because – especially in the last few months – we’ve seen how money and materiality can deeply impact our social worlds. But it’s not the end of the story.

There’s also another kind of power I’d like to draw on, a more sociological or anthropological notion of cultural capital. Money can buy many things, but often it’s who you know (and of course who you don’t) that prove to be your greatest assets. We see this in studies of job applicants. It’s not a resume that gets most people their first job out of college – it’s the fact that their fraternity brother’s father is doing the hiring. Or – more realistically perhaps for many of us in this room – that a friend works for the company and put in a good word. So understanding how gay, bisexual, and transgender men are networking is important to understanding the resources they have to draw on in times of need. More than just social networks, though, this kind of power also lurks around a thing we like to call in sociology “social status.” You know, the moment you turn to the guy to your left and ask him who he works for and where he went to school. Certain answers may lend him more credibility, while others may not.

So that’s two. One more to go. The final kind of power I’d like to present is more often associated with sex. And that’s the kind of physical power of brute force. Obviously, things like rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence come to mind here. We all know the serious impact that misuse of this kind of power can have on our Wellness – and the Wellness of our communities.

So, you say, “Well that’s all well and good Trevor, but what the hell does this have to do with Gay Men’s Health?” I think we’ve been relying on a very simplistic notion of power that we get from epidemiological public health data that shows HIV infections clustered among certain populations. Men of color, sex workers, etc. Most of us think primarily about race in this way – race is a rough approximation, it seems, for power relations and that has implications for Wellness. But this actually has told us very little about why this clustering is actually happening. We continue to distribute surveys, and we continue to be baffled when we get data back that indicates that, for instance, Black MSM aren’t engaging in riskier sex than their white counterparts – and yet their rates of infection are outrageously different. I have some news for you: surveys and epidemiology will never explain that difference. And I mean never.

This is because we’ve been too focused on the big picture. Let me use an art metaphor to help explain my meaning. It’s something like viewing a Monet painting. Far away, we can see a certain shape and structure to how things are operating. We think we see the picture. But as we get closer, we realize that that area of the painting that looks blue from far away, is actually composed of thousands of brushstrokes of all kinds of colors – red, green, and maybe even turquoise. To get back to race, the epidemiological data is giving us a rough approximation in the form of pie charts and time-series graphs. But this doesn’t tell us a damn thing about what’s happening up close and personal, about what kinds of variation exists within that “46% of new infections.” We know the outcome – the big picture – but we don’t have a fucking clue about the why. Settling for a macro-level “Big Picture” analysis of power does not paint a complete picture.

This occurred to most clearly while recently reading and essay written by a radical faerie by the name of Middle. The article was generally about bareback porn, but his analysis extended into relevant territory. He says:

I'm repelled when terms like bareback, pre-condom, and raw are used to brand, commodify, and attach a premium to risk. There's a human impact I've encountered first-hand - men and boys who feel their willingness is a commodity to be traded against their perceived shortcomings: age, ability, cock size, weight, femininity, HIV status. Where the vulnerable or clueless pursue fantasies fueled by glamorization of risk with little or no brotherly support, unhappy results range from name-calling to seroconversions, addiction, and worse.

Now he is making an incredibly illuminating point here. He’s noting that men online are often feeling the need to “trade” against their perceived “flaws” (judged on the gay marketplace of desire) – whether that be their old age, curvy figure, smaller cock size, race, or gender - he’s arguing that they feel compelled to trade their willingness to go bare against that perceived flaw. Too fat? Well maybe if you agree to get fucked raw, you might get laid. Too much of a queen? Just tell him how much want his load in your hole.

In this way, power is operating in all kinds of crazy ways both inside and outside our bedrooms. Though they are certainly playing a role, it’s not just about race or class – the two primary lenses through which many of us typically think about power relations in gay/bi/queer/trans male communities. It’s also about age, ability, weight, femininity, whether you’re a top or bottom, and even how big your dick is or isn’t. This is why we are in desperate need of a complicated analysis of power relations. Because – while from far away we think we understand what’s happening on the ground – the closer we get, the more muddled things become.

We need to better understand how sex and power interface to create risk disparities among different populations of gay, bisexual, and transgender men. Until we start thinking critically about these relationships, we will never understand why Black and Latino men account for the overwhelming majority of new HIV infections. And let me be clear: this is way beyond HIV. Power structures Wellness in all areas of our lives. You want a happy, healthy community? You better start thinking about housing and health care. You better start thinking about homophobia in public schools and racism in our bars. Wellness will not be achieved by knocking out one of these contributing factors. We won’t end homophobia without ending racism. We won’t eliminate new HIV infections without challenging and attacking the violent and destructive influence of masculinity in our lives and communities. Wellness is a package deal. I hope you will join with me this weekend in thinking critically about how your work moves us towards that vision. Thank you.

[ Image redacted - see here (Warning: Explicit) ]

The faerie magazine RFD has a very interesting article by "middle" over the mag's recent decision to run ads from bareback porn studios (namely Treasure Island Media -- the ad pictured above is from issue #131). You can read the entire article on the flip (it's not available online, so I have transcribed it for you!), but I was particularly struck by one bit in particular:

I'm repelled when terms like bareback, pre-condom, and raw are used to brand, commodify, and attach a premium to risk. There's a human impact I've encountered first-hand - men and boys who feel their willingness is a commodity to be traded against their perceived shortcomings: age, ability, cock size, weight, femininity, HIV status. Where there vulnerable or clueless pursue fantasies fueled by glamorization of risk with little or no brotherly support, unhappy results range from name-calling to seroconversions, addiction, and worse.

Bingo! This is EXACTLY the issue I have been trying to put my finger on for some time. I see men out there -- online in particular -- "trading" in the way that he describes. Too fat? Well maybe if you agree to get fucked raw, you might get laid. Too much of a queen? Just tell him how much want his load in your hole.

This is the kind of logic I see operating left and right in online sex sites. And it's not just operating in the minds of bottoms; tops are totally working this logic to their own advantage. I get the sense that many guys out there are looking for bottoms they know they can prey on in this manner -- guys who they perceive as low(er)-value on the hooking up marketplace, guys who will desperately want it, no matter the cost. It makes me furious to see it happen -- or when I feel that it's happening to me. I got that sense in San Francisco almost every time I logged online. They'd ask if I fucked raw, I said no, and they said goodbye, hoping that I'd lose my will and give in.

Ugh. It's manipulation of the worst kind. Not only does it make you feel like an abject piece of meat, but -- oh yea -- it also is extremely high risk sex for the bottom.

You can read the whole article on the flip.

(Via LifeLube)

New data from the CDC indicates that -- while all men who have sex with men are still at a high risk for contracting HIV -- black versus white MSM are contracting the disease at different ages. It seems that black MSM who are seroconverting are doing so in their late teens and early twenties, while their white counterparts are contracting the disease in their 30s and 40s.

This is VERY important information, and should translate directly into targeted prevention approaches for the two communities. Research has already demonstrated that black MSM generally are not engaging in higher risk sexual behavior than white MSM. But I wonder if that data has an fluctuation by age group. That would be very important info in interpreting this new data.

The data on white older MSM I'm sure is in part due to condom fatigue, something I quickly discovered in my research this summer interviewing HIV-negative bottoms in San Francisco. The older guys in my study almost universally hated condoms, and weren't afraid to say so. They were sick of using them. For many of these guys, bottoming was a strategy to avoid having to use them themselves -- that is, to avoid having to put condoms on their own dicks. In this sense, bottoming was a safer sex strategy for many of the men I interviewed.

We need some qualitative, on the ground work, that really digs deep into the practices, norms, and cultures of these different communities, however, before we can really understand where these numbers are coming from.

Here's the New York Times:

An unusually detailed study of people newly infected with H.I.V. in the United States has confirmed that the majority of new cases occur among gay and bisexual men and that blacks are most at risk. But the data show that whites and blacks tend to be infected at different times in their lives with the virus that causes AIDS.

Most new infections of white gay and bisexual men occur when the men are in their 30s and 40s, the study found, while black gay and bisexual men are more likely to be infected in their teens and 20s. The results were reported on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The C.D.C. reported last month that the study found that the virus was spreading faster in the United States than had been thought. In 2006, the study found, 56,300 people were newly infected with H.I.V. — 40 percent more than the agency’s previous estimate of roughly 40,000 new cases a year. The study was performed using new technology that allowed researchers to distinguish between new and older infections.

(Via Lifelube)

Just got this over e-mail from the folks at the NSRC. The event features my dear friend Bonnie Zylbergold, who just interviewed me for her video podcast segment "Getting it on With Bonnie" (should be up soon)! In the meantime, stop by the Trojan Bus Wednesday to say hello:

The Trojan Evolve bus stops at Justin Herman Plaza this Wednesday--and National Sexuality Resource Center (NSRC) will be there to capture it all, as folks immerse themselves in a multi-media experience designed to promote safer sex, condom use, and youth sexual responsibility. Now that's something we can get behind (or on top of). And we want you to join us.

Race against the clock to demonstrate responsible behavior with the Evolve Yourself Olympics, kick back in The Lounge and get your sex questions answered, or test your sexpert knowledge with a spin of the Evolve Triva Wheel.

Think you know more than us? NSRC and our own resident sexpert Bonnie Zylbergold will be there to go head to head with all comers--and we'll get it all on video.

The Trojan Evolve Tour kicked off this spring with a 40-foot long interactive bus, 40-foot wide IMAX-style rollercoaster ride, multi-stop comedy tour and concert experience, which was launched by the condom maker in response to an alarming decline in America's sexual health. With condom advertising restrictions on network primetime television in affect, and over a billion dollars spent on abstinence-only education that does not advocate condom use, the tour
is designed to engage Americans directly and calls on them to create change by personally pledging to use a condom every time and signing a petition for change.

Date: Wednesday, August 20th
Location: Justin Herman Plaza (Market Street/Embarcadero)
Time: 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM

More details are available on trojancondoms.com.

Brooklyn-based "STFree Certifications" is apparently providing members with STI testing and a membership card that their sex partners can use to dial-in and find out the date / results of their last test (see picture below). This is perhaps the worst idea I've ever heard. They call their card a "Safe Sex License," but they're dumb as nails if they think that this won't be used in the exact opposite way. "You're clean? Great, no condom needed."

Clearly the founder didn't read the part in HIV 101 where it says that testing can't pick up recent infections (the so-called "window period") -- you know, that period of time where you're the MOST infectious / likely to infect your partners! I can't believe anyone's funding this ridiculous project.

(Via Joe. My. God.)

From a New York Times article on hands-washing campaigns:

For years, many public health campaigns that aimed at changing habits have been failures. Earlier this decade, two researchers affiliated with Vanderbilt University examined more than 100 studies on the effectiveness of antidrug campaigns and found that, in some cases, viewers’ levels of drug abuse actually increased when commercials were shown, perhaps in part because the ads reminded them about that bag of weed in the sock drawer.

A few years later, another group examined the effectiveness of advertising condom use to prevent AIDS. In some cases, rates of unprotected sex actually went up — which some researchers suspected was because the commercials made people more frisky than cautious.

Bullshit. Show me the study. And show me how it linked condom ads to unprotected sex rates. It's hogwash.

This is incredibly sad news. While most psychotherapists make my blood curdle -- particularly when it comes to sex politics -- Shernoff was one of the good guys. He worked hard and asked difficult questions since the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Sadly, he was diagnosed in March 2006 with pancreatic cancer, and lost his battle with the disease last Tuesday.

If you're unfamiliar with his work, see this interview he did with The Advocate in 2006 about his last book, Without Condoms. I love this quote from that interview, which sums up his approach to "risky sex" and gay men:

It’s important for me to meet patients where they are at. Good therapy provides curative emotional experiences. I don’t need to act like a nonapproving parent. With patients who have developed drug problems, I needed to advocate a harm-reduction approach if the patient in question wasn’t ready to stop using. I decided to apply that same approach to men who engage in unsafe sexual behavior so that I wouldn’t run the risk of alienating them or driving them away from my office. If I shake my finger at them and try to tell them what to do, the patient feels judged and infantilized. A harm-reduction approach doesn’t eliminate harm all together, but it can help the individual make certain choices that reduce the risk to himself and to the broader community should he choose not to use condoms during sex.

Losing another good guy from his generation is.... :(

Love this French commercial for Hansaplast condoms. Apparently it's four years old, but it feels totally current! If only this kind of stuff could happen in the US without people flipping their shit!

Now, *this* is how you do prevention. The message: "Do whatever you want, but do it with a condom." And this is from the *government* of Brazil. Not some radical gay group or sex-positive community organization. The government. Puts the bullshit we deal with in the US in some perspective. It's sexxxy!

Thanks to Lifelube for the pic!

[ Image redacted - see ]

Paul sent over a link to this quite fabulous condom educational video from the Nrityanjali Academy in Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. It's in a language called Telugu, which is primarily spoken in Andrha Pradesh. It is pretty amazing! They talk about just everything - gay sex, female condoms, scented condoms, where to buy condoms, what they look like, how to apply them, and how to dispose of them. All in 7 minutes! Now that's some good sex education! And the song is quite catchy, too!

Enjoy!