LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Renew Bold Gay Leadership on AIDS |
by Mubarak Dahir |
There needs to be a new wave of vocal and public discussion from within the gay community on the difficult and ironically controversial task of safer sex. There can be no doubt that unprotected anal sex is on the rise in gay men these days. For years, it has been evident in our community from personals ads, bar talk and online chatting. We've even given it a nickname"barebacking"and eroticized and sexualized and glorified it. But until now, there has been little direct scientific evidence that unsafe sex was fueling an increase in new HIV infections among gay men. In fact, those who expressed fears about the seemingly obvious threat have been labeled anti-sex gay Uncle Toms. Sadly, but not surprisingly, however, evidence is starting to come in that is very bad news for gay men: A new study in San Francisco shows that the increase in unprotected anal sex is indeed leading to an increased number of new HIV infections. The San Francisco Department of Health is reporting that new HIV infections in gay men have nearly doubled in number from 500 in 1997 to 900 in 1999. Expressed as a percentage, the rate of new HIV infections in 1999 is nearly triple that of 1997. In 1997, new HIV infections accounted for about 1.3 percent of cases in San Francisco; in 1999, they accounted for 3.7 percent of HIV cases. More sensitive testing techniques now allow researchers to identify people infected in the past few months, compared, for example, to people who may have been infected years ago but just never gotten an HIV test. Thus, researchers were able to track new infections and conclude that increased unsafe anal sex among gay men in San Francisco is responsible for a jump in HIV cases. Even before this study, there have been strong indicators that there was increased unsafe anal sex, and that it would likely lead to an increase in new infections. In 1999, a University of California San Francisco study showed the number of gay men practicing unprotected anal sex rose from 31 percent in 1994 to 41 percent in 1997. Recently, the city's health department noticed an increase in other sexually transmitted diseases, such as anal gonorrheaconsidered an indicator by which to measure the likelihood of increased unprotected anal sex. In 1994, there were 20 cases of rectal gonorrhea for every 100,000 gay men in the city. In 1999, that number jumped to 45 per 100,000. The most recent study by the city's health department also showed that the number of gay men who reported always using a condom for anal sex fell to 54 percent in 1999 from 70 percent in 1994. The fraction of gay men having unprotected anal sex with more than one partner also increased to 43 percent in 1999 from 23 percent in 1994. There are many reasons for the increase in unprotected anal sex among gay men. The most often repeated ones include a misconception that the AIDS crisis has subsided thanks to new drugs, a sense of battle fatigue in keeping up a guard against the virus for nearly 20 years now, and a nonchalance by many younger gay men who do not have the memory of burying one friend after the other. There are even those who will always be attracted to the risk and danger of tempting fate, even ifor maybe especially ifthe stakes are life and death. But as gay men, we need to consider this important discovery: The researchers found no significant increases in new HIV infections except among gay men. Not in women, not in IV drug users, not in any other category of people in San Francisco other than gay men. I can't help but fear that the resurgence of HIV in San Francisco's gay population is linked to some degree to a dangerous gay movement that mistakenly equates unsafe anal sex with a gay cultural and political identity. I'm not talking about the "AIDS denialists," the people who dispute that HIV causes AIDS or that any kind of epidemic ever existed. Though they are disproportionately loud compared to their numbers, these "AIDS denialists" have not yet established significant influence in the way most gay men think about HIV or AIDS. Luckily, they remain on the extreme fringe. What I am talking about is much more frightening and dangerous for gay men, because it is not fringe thinking. In fact, I fear it is becoming all too mainstream. It is cloaked in a powerful but flawed ideology that misleads us into believing unprotected anal sex is about our gay sexual "rites" and "rights," that it is about self-identity as gay men, or that it is about asserting our cultural and political independence and strength. Those who ascribe to this line of thinking assert that when we practice safer sex, we as a community of gay men are somehow being deprived of a basic "bond" of gaynessthe sharing of sperm in the anal cavity. An odd paranoia also permeates this ideology, preaching that safer sex allows straight society to neuter our gay cultural and political movement because they are succeeding in somehow making us "less gay." So having unprotected anal sex somehow becomes a political and social act championed by unafraid renegades out to reclaim gayness. The movement also villainizes anyone who dares to challenge its fallacy. Dare say that unprotected anal sex is irresponsible or dangerous or crazy, and you are labeled an anti-sex, sex panicked, self-loathing collusionist in cahoots with the oppressive heterosexual majority. Indeed, many activists who buy that line are furiously working to undermine the results of the San Francisco study, as they have tried to refute all the other previous indicators. But it is high time the rest of us stop being cowed and quiet by this intimidating and senseless mind set. If we speak up now, it won't be too late to reverse what is happening to gay men in San Francisco, and prevent the trend from sweeping across other major cities. It's time we adopted the understanding that while HIV prevention is a health issue, it's also a political and social and cultural issue inexorably linked to being gay. We need to resurrect the political message that part of being gay is caring about ourselves collectively, that being gay includes the compassion to look out for each other in a way that others in heterosexual society will not. We need to let each other know how much we care that all of us will be around in another 20 or 30 years, still contributing to the definition of what it means to be gay. We need to let each other know that HIV prevention is not passe or blas, because not a single one among us is expendable. We can't afford to lose one more gay man to HIV. That's the political message that we need to rise up and once again give voice to when we think of unsafe anal sex and what it really means to the political, social and cultural landscape of being gay. Mubarak Dahir receives email at MubarakDah@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 9, July 14, 2000. |