V
just out
Vol. 4 No. 5
March, 1987
S t e p p in ’ O u t
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photo by Jay Brown
E D I T O R I A L
Does safe sex mean no sex?
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The sensitive nature of the health education campaigns , the
epidemic , and sexuality itself raises many questions.
BY
J AMES
S K O L A U T
ondoms For Oral Sex?” the
leading question of a Cascade
AIDS Project ad, is bound to
raise more questions of prevention and
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decision should be “ unanimous” in ’87.
While most of us respect reliable informa
tion demystifying the AIDS virus for our
own personal safety, the social and politi
cal integrity of such campaigns could be
better respected if sexuality is to survive.
This calls for the adaptability of not just
gay and bisexual men, as the ad suggests,
but of people of every persuasion, the
larger medical community, especially.
Leading off with the condoms for oral
sex question is a little like the nervous but
forthright mother asking the teenage
daughter if she’s taken the pill before go
ing out on a date. It presents oral sex in the
context of a lifestyle option in which any
one considering it had better First consider
the condom. Good advice stretching over
anal and vaginal sex as well, and espe
cially timely for those pursuing sex as a
matter of lifestyle. Here, however, one
might detect a strangely interesting irony:
That no one pursuing sex as a lifestyle
stands to risk anything in snapping rubbers
on and off in an orgy of encounters that
may continue indefinitely. Those who
would not have condoms advertised on
television use this as their leading argu
ment, that in spite of necessity, condoms
represent a passport to promiscuity. These
same people would have us abandon sexu
ality altogether, in the name of a morally
perfect universe, rather than address the
crisis of sexuality in today’s real world.
The Unsafe Sex campaign encourages,
on one hand, the false notion that some
how we can sheath ourselves absolutely,
even unanimously from the personal risks
and contradictions of sexuality for an inde
finite period of time. It raises unfair and
unrealistic expectations on the other that,
like a war raging, the epidemic will just be
“ over” on the day when we can crawl out
of our shelters and risk living again. Indi
cations are strong that we’ll be at war with
the virus for a long time. Perhaps longer
than the number of years remaining among
the very youngest for them to risk living a
full and sexually responsible life. If unsafe
sex is indeed obsolete, or should be unani
mously, what about those in exclusive sex
ual relationships that are based on trust and
an acceptance of all the risks in keeping a
commitment alive?
If oral, vaginal and anal sex without
condom is unsafe in all circumstances, then
the attitude toward assessing risks becomes
prohibitive. Yet someone must risk ques
tioning the social integrity of health cam
paigns which generate the feeling that we
are correct politically in the sense that we
are restrictive sexually. Such feeling
creates a prohibitive climate in which it’s
easier to hide, to “ just say no” than to
assume that some risks might have to be
weighed against the prospect of sexuality
becoming socially, even politically repres
sive.
Clearly, the ability to weigh personal
decisions carefully against the risks of
contracting AIDS will require the steady
flow of factual information about the virus
itself. This puts the AIDS foundations
across the country “ at risk” with the re
sponsible intentions and interpreting
abilities of the respective communities.
The success in the war against AIDS will
flow not from the politics of prohibition,
but from the same sense of social commit
ment that marked our community’s rapid
ability to mobilize from the start. In this,
credit must be accepted for taking the
proper risks.
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Featuring
THE BROWN BOMBER & DIVA TOUCHE FLAMBE
BY RUPERT KINNARD
Just Out 3 March, 1987