Life This Is What Pisses Me Off.
posted by on February 5 at 12:55 PM
In the comments of my most recent post on King County’s new drug-resistant strain of HIV, commenter “BD” makes some good points about the need for personal responsibility, but then writes:
Here’s the problem…We go on witch hunts in the gay community…looking for “patient zero”.
When we hear about a new “upward trend” or “superstrain”, we respond with hysteria, and create a hollow “Manifesto“…whose purpose is to only shame and punish a community that’s been shamed and punished for decades.
I’m sorry, but this confused line of thinking needs to be knocked down. And it needs to be knocked down forcefully, “BD,” because it’s extremely harmful (never mind that it’s also a great example of what you describe in your comment as gay men being “their own worst enemies”).
Not all shame is the same, “BD,” and not all shame is worth rejecting out of hand. Here’s how I dealt with your (all too common) brand of confusion in the piece that I’m working on now:
For a long time gay men have fought, correctly, to be free from shame for who we are sexually. But some gay men have gone further, conflating their morally-neutral identity with certain morally unjustifiable actions, and incorrectly asserting that they have some right to be free from shame no matter what sexual decisions they make as gay men, and no matter how adversely some of those decisions affect their own health or the health of their community. Woe to the writer who suggests that some gay men—particularly some “core group” members—should have a little more shame about their actions (not their identity), or at least be a little more ashamed about the unhealthiness their actions are perpetuating.
And here’s how I dealt with the same type of shame confusion back in 2003:
Joseph Sonnabend, a doctor treating people with AIDS at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, had this to say in 1982 about the gay men’s health leadership: “A desire to appear non-judgmental, a desire to remain untinged by moralism, fear of provoking ire, have all fostered a conspiracy of silence. For years no clear message about the danger of promiscuity has emanated from those in whom gay men have entrusted their well-being.”Then, as now, the roots of the gay leadership’s reflexive refusal to be judgmental, or moralistic, or directive, are fairly obvious. Gay men have been persecuted by moralists, judged unfairly, blamed improperly, shamed unnecessarily, told the behaviors that define us are unnatural. It has harmed us tremendously, and continues to harm us. It keeps us in closets, it destroys our self-worth. But in response, many of us—including many gay men’s health leaders—seem to have completely rejected all morality, all forms of judgment, all blame, all shame, all suggestions of proper behavior. These people seem to think it is possible to build a healthy community without such things, though much of human history—not to mention the current state of the gay community—argues against this proposition. Theirs is an understandable, but unsophisticated, response to persecution. And it is also dangerous. It ends up giving license to the immoral minority; the people in our community who are harming themselves and others by doing things that are undeniably wrong, irresponsible, and shamelessly reckless.
Take your pick, “BD,” but I wish you would listen.
A-Fucking-MEN! I'm sick and tired of other gay men using moral neutrality as an excuse for irresponsible behavior.
I make it a top priority to protect myself (and by proxy, those I fuck) rather than bitch and moan to compensate for spinelessness.
I only wish our entire community had as much sense.
The trouble with this, of course, is where we paint the line of reckless and immoral.
Barebacking with a partner without knowing your status or theirs? Reckless. Immoral. Shameful.
Mething it up so you can't tell or don't care who's wearing a condom or not? Reckless. Immoral. Shameful.
Hooking up in a public park, discussing status, using protection?
Meeting a guy at a bar, fucking him seven ways from Sunday, with an exchange of status information and the use of protection?
Repeating the above 7 days a week?
Where are the lines?
Even safe sex is no guarantee that you will not get infected. There is something to be said for knowing the person you are about to fuck. And yeah, I am going to get ripped to shreds for saying that and called a self hating homo ect ect. But how can anyone expect respect when they will not even respect themselves? Fuck people, how many gay men have to DIE before we pull our heads out??
We have a warning shot, the lightning bolt in the distance of a new mutated virus that is in the community right now. This is not a theory, this is the reality. We have to change our behavior and be responsible and respectful. I am all for having fun and fucking but we need to think with the other head first.
JAK, as long as people are using protection, I don't think anyone's going to care too much where they met, or how well they know each other. It's not a hard line to draw. If there's no barebacking and no meth, there's no shame.
I disagree, Gitai. I've had too many friends that were following the "it doesn't matter how many guys you fuck, it only matters how you fuck" rule who then got infected. How many, how much--matters as much as how.
Dan,
Men should not put themselves in circumstances (hookups) where the heat of the moment overcomes their ability to factor risk. Period.
However, I am hesitant to accept the additive risk factor argument. No one has proved false the statement: "it doesn't matter how many guys you fuck, it only matters how you fuck". What studies have proven that this is not the case for repeated sexual encounters?
The justification for a new gay moralism should come from empirical fact, not statisical analysis.
Daniel
Dan as quasi virgin prince - how Strange.
Of course, it is all explained as from the past and now, a new sort of super gay person is needed to just say no, no, no.
So, Dan and Stranger staff, what is my new sexual quota?
Spell it out clear and forthright. I am a very horny single guy in my mid twenties, have nice apt. and money. Said to be almost good looking, nice bod, all the plumbing works very well, well indeed.
What now? Close the bath houses, increase park police, no explicit ads, no male whores, shut the bars earlier, limit what else in the name of good health .... smoking weed get me going more than meth.
Or, education and more education. And screw one more version of the really old morality play of good gays and bad gays. That is the play the straight community likes and rewards.
You guys are making money hand over fist and have good conservative. Imagine.
Yeah, sure, Dan, sometimes people who do everything right still get HIV. What we're talking about is morality, recklessness and shamefulness.
Is promiscuity, with all the caveats (safety, consent, etc...) "wrong?" Is it immoral? Or is it men being men and using their brains to mitigate their risk factors?
And, can we be sure that the people who say they were following the "how you fuck" rule really were? I knew a guy who claimed he never engaged in anal sex who came down with HIV, despite the fact that there's not one documented case of an HIV infection where oral sex was the sole possible exposure vehicle. We take those folks at their word, don't we? How do we know they're not just trying to save face?
If you really, REALLY don't want HIV, then sure, don't have sex. But if you're willing to understand and employ protection to control your odds -- which can be made EXTREMELY favorable -- and inform your partners and demand to know their status, what's "wrong" with that?
I've had some sex in my life. A lot of sex. I've never once had unprotected anal sex, and I've never once had sex with someone I didn't know under the influence of anything stronger than booze. I'm still negative, and I've managed to avoid the other STDs too. Sure, tomorrow I might draw the short stick, but I'm comfortable with that risk, because I've made it so low, and you won't catch me whining about my lot.
damn I get tired of gay men taking ownership of the AIDS situation. It lets others that are not gay and with very little information think it is a gay issue when gay men discuss AIDS and just themselves.
Well,
I was wondering why the other thread was petering out...
Wow! A thread in my honor!
Sorry, Eli,
it's the tone of the "Manifesto" that I feel continues to shame and punish the community.
And what the hell is the problem with posting from a point of moral neutrality?
Anyway, Eli, you seem to run away and start a new thread when the waters start to get choppy.
Eli,
I make a lot of points about personal responsibility. I thought they were good points. Do you agree with any of them? If so, which ones?
BD: Like I said, I thought you made some good points about personal responsibility — and I think what you say about gay men sometimes being our own worst enemies is true, and I agree with you that even legitimate feelings of victimhood can sometimes morph into unhelpful excuse-making.
I just think the equation of the 2003 "Manifesto" with past oppression of gay men is confused at best, intellectually dishonest at worst, and in either case in need of correction.
My larger point, again, is that all suggestions that people should have some shame are not alike — either in motivation or validity. The people who wrote the "Manifesto" weren't trying to oppress you or tell you it's bad or shameful to be gay. Quite the opposite. They're fine with you being gay; they just expect healthier behavior from gay men.
Brian @ 9:
Maybe gay men talk about this issue a lot because we're the ones getting HIV and dying. It IS a gay issue.
92% of HIV cases in Seattle are male. 73% of cases were contracted by MSM (men who have sex with men) behaviors, 82% when you include cases where the cause of exposure was either MSM or injection drug use among men who have sex with men.
Only 5% of current cases could be conclusively linked to heterosexual behavior.
These numbers are through 9.30.05 and can be found here: www.metrokc.gov/health/news/04062301.htm
If you want to hear a really scary number, listen to this: Gays and lesbians make up 12.9% of the total Seattle population, and 82% of the HIV cases. Doing a little math, it's easy to figure that somewhere around 9% OF SEATTLE'S GAY MEN ARE HIV+, if we assume that lesbians and gays make up equal proportions of the queer community.
So, again, you know, be careful.
BD,
The point you seem to keep making is that if we only take responsibility for our own actions we will be okay and we don't need to worry about other people spreading disease. My problem with this point is that a) I wasn't born knowing how to protect myself from STD's - b) many of my choices are not based on logical calculations of risk. Instead I was lucky enough to learn behaviors that keep me safe from other people and a big part of the reason that I adopted and practiced those safer behaviors was because of the social expectations of my peers. Shame is one of the ways those social expectations are enforced and I am fucking glad about that because it has kept me and my friends disease free.
We all are a part of a larger community, and even if the sexual behaviors of a few don't affect those that practice safer sex (and I think they do) we still have an obligation to create and socially enforce behavioral expectations that will foster a healthier community. You know, all that "no man is an island" shit.
C'mon, folks,
where are your reading and comprehension skills?
The people who wrote the "Manifesto" weren't trying to oppress you or tell you it's bad or shameful to be gay
Where the heck did you read THAT? What did I say that made you deduce that? I find the tone of the Manifesto to be one of shaming the community into better behavior. And as I've said many times, I don't think the "stick" approach works. And all you need to do to validate that is to take a look at the thousands of ads placed by men in Seattle on the various bareback sites...looking for (duh) bareback sex. So...is that Manifesto working? Does this "cluster" of meth-induced drug-resistant HIV infections show the power of the Manifesto? I don't think so.
The point you seem to keep making is that if we only take responsibility for our own actions we will be okay and we don't need to worry about other people spreading disease.
NO, that's not quite what I'm getting at. What I'm saying is that by fostering an attitude of personal responsibility in our community, and getting away from this near-bloodlust when it comes to those "few assholes" in the community...we'll end up changing the overall tone of our community for the better.
Take a look at these threads. it's amazing that just the mere suggestion of approaching the WHOLE community with the carrot approach is met with anger and bloodlust because of a "few assholes". It's almost as if because of those people that we need to treat the whole community with the stick. I disagree.
Wow. As much as it pains me to type this: I agree with BD...at least @15.
There's a boatload of literature on behavior change and virtually all of it focuses on carrot type approaches. There are very few instances in which scare tactics (including shame and stigma) work. The areas where it does work are where it's very personal and direct.
So in the 80s when skeletons with lesions roamed the streets and the obit pages were full, the scare tactic was quite succesful. Even then, however, the best messages were those that emphasized positive themes -- staying alive and community under fire.
Trying to shame people into safe sex ain't gonna work. The easiest place to look for this is in the rates of HIV among black men who have sex with men. The rates here seem to be driven by the stigma and shame associated with being gay in the very conservative black community.
What's it gonna take to reduce new infections in gay men in Seattle? I really don't know. But I do know that when I see comments like "don't have sex with meth users," I think that the person making it either doesn't know much about behavior change or isn't really interested in it. I know I just tune the message right out...and I'm not gay or a meth user.
Why is it that gay men cry and moan and take to the streets to protest the criminalization and shaming of their sexuality...
and write disertations of pointed historical example about the constant denegration of male sexuality throughout history -
first - the old testament shame - leviticus and sodom,
second - the Catholic sin, inquisition, witch-murder and all that,
third - the medicalization (making it stick with 'science') of the perversion of male to male sexuality -
medicalization part A - the new science of psychology, Freud, et al, telling you it's dolls, narcissim, oppressive mommy, absentee daddy, and whatever else, that makes you want to take it in the mouth, or ass.
part B - the 'genetic cause' of wanting to suck dick. no, no, no really, they'll find the... 'gene'! (what a laugh).
part C - gay sex kills.
Oh, right, but that's not new - that's the underpinning of all the rest.
Sexual sin, recapitulated as science - and in our era, you , the gay population, is the only one on earth, that willingly allows the men in white suits to poke, prod, measure and dictate the pathological meaning of your sexual behavior.
It's an amazing thing for a non-homosexual to watch.
I mean, all the energy you spend on worrying about what is and is not 'safe' - this does not occur in your hetero peers, unless they are equally conditioned by hate and history to seek cultural approval for your right to exist.
It's a tough gig, I'm sure, being a gay man.
Just like to point out that there's more than one B.D. here and I'm not the one commented on. Whew!
Dan, giving the scientific evidence roundup on serodiscordant couples (www.fhi.org/en/fp/fpother/conom/index.html), I have a difficult time believing that your friends who were infected were using condoms consistently and correctly.
Trying to moralize sexuality will not, has not ever worked for any length of time and we have multiple examples of people trying to do that repeatedly since the beginning of time, no matter their high intentions or if I agree with them or not. Trying to do so especially here in this forum with advertisements for the slut lab or other ways to "meet" people running in the margins is hypocritical and defeating to what the message is.
That being said....Getting people to have better self esteem, a healthy respectful relationship with others and care about any sense of community starts at home. Every generation will have its sexual fiends who will resort to risky behaviors when it comes down to sex just as you will have a group of people who will always race cars, sky dive and jump out of perfectly good airplanes.
The proverbial "line" of what is moral or not, will always be determined by what one can get away with and what feels good. Darwin will sort out the rest.
Mitigating your decisions with facts brought about by a real education from reliable sources is the only thing that will protect people. If you want to effect change with peoples sexual practices and determine what is healthy and unhealthy behavior, reguardless of social or peer pressure to the contrary, then a good education and leading by example is where to start. Followed by discussion of what you do and why, with all judgement intact as opinion is what people hear easily.
When I tell my nephew not to jump off of the swing set, but to instead climb down the ladder I tell him why and pass judgement as to the results..Its not that jumping off isn't fun, but that your LIKELY to hurt yourself, maybe not this time or the next but eventually it will happen.
The rest is up to a Darwinian priciple of the smartest will survive. Which is I feel a more realistic way to look at effecting social change and a better measuring stick to judge if a society is improving.
Being a gay male who came out in the 80's and having had multiple sex partners, my education as to what is/isn't risky behavior, what state of mind (drugged/sober) Im in when Im in places like BP are all questions and experiences that I carry with me. I know what is safe and what isn't and am fully aware of making those decisions and owning them as my own 100% of the time. That is what needs to be changed in our society, being allowed to mantle yourself as the victim is socially allowed and ultimately I think what truelly pisses you off Dan. Its not socially exceptable to be pissed at your friend for caving his head in while he was riding his motorcycle with out a helmet, no its more exceptable to garner sympathy from others for the fact that he has to eat through a tube for the rest of his life and he has to sell everything he's ever owned to have to pay for it, or worse now WE have to pay for it.
At this time, after over 17+ yrs of continual promiscuity outside of a committed relationship I am still disease free, even of the herpes (which admittedly is surprising) and yes I test bi-annually for all of it. I have educated myself and have also had enough experience to know that there have been some situations I was in that were both stupid and risky but I have myself only to blame if I wound up sick. I don't feel to be the exception to the rule but actually the one that proves it.
Sorry so used to Dan and his rants, I ment that last post for Eli
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