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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 3, 1995)
18 ▼ m a rch 3, 1 0 0 5 ▼ Just o ut Are we drowning? Continued from previous page safe” messages and have gay and HIV/AIDS groups rooted firmly in place—cities like San Francisco and New York City—are reporting alarming in creases in unsafe sexual behaviors among gay and bisexual men. A study last year involving HIV-negative gay men in New York City—a metropolis where half the gay men are estimated to be living with HIV— found up to a quarter of those questioned said they had had anal sex without a condom with another man who was either positive or of unknown status within the previous three months. Another survey of gay men in several smaller cities found up to a third had had anal sex without condoms within the previous two months. And a soon-to-be-released study of young men in San Francisco finds the rate of new infections has nearly quadrupled since 19X7. “Studies indicate that 2.5 percent of the gay population nationally isscroconvertingeach year,” says Stall. “If that continues, it would mean that by the time a gay man reaches 30 he’ll have a 30 percent chance of seroconverting, when he’s 40 he’ll have a 40 percent chance of seroconverting, and by the time he reaches 50 there is a 50 percent chance he will be HIV positive. That rate spells disaster for the gay community in this country.” “Once HIV had been discovered in the early ’80s and a test had been developed, there was a gradual reduction in the rates of new AIDS cases among gay men. We hit a low in the late 19X0s, but with the new decade there was a sharp rise,” explains CAP volunteer coordinator Roger scrambled to learn what was going on and how to Schroeder. protect themselves. As time progressed, and the Picture that progression on a graph and what shock settled just a bit, there would be a burst of you’ll see is a wave— actually you’ll see one wave hope about a possible cure. It would happen again, and the creation of another. From that image comes and, a little down the road, again. Now, nearly two the phrase “second wave,” which is increasingly decades later, those bursts of hope have settled into used to describe the upturn in HIV-infection rates the rather somber reality that this disease is here to among gay and bisexual men. stay, at least for the next few generations. Stall and Stall says he is fully aware this may be a hot- others say with that reality comes the reality that button subject for the gay community, but he the gay male population must not only have safer believes it is too important to ignore. “We don’t sex—but absolute safe want people to view this sex— in order to sur as a ‘blame the victim’ “If people are worried that vive. situation,” he says. “But “Safe sex is like a we ’re letting out a community ourcommunity has totalk diet, and the vast ma about this. If people arc secrety I say to themy ‘What jority of people find it worried that by talking difficult to stick to a diet. about this we’re letting can the right wing do to us They slip and eat a piece out a community secret, I with this information that is of chocolate cake. In the say to them, ‘What can case of AIDS, though, the right wing do to us worse than more men if you slip, you could with this information that seroconverting?y yy die,” says Stall. “What is worse than more men this epidemic tells gay seroconverting?’ I think men is that we have to be perfect the rest of our nothing.” lives, but we’re human, so it makes it extremely “This is not a matter of education. These men difficult.” know what they are or are not supposed to do in And, with so many dead and dying, it’s easy to terms of sexual practices,” says Schroeder, who lose hope. Therein lies one possible reason that a conducts regular trainings addressing the “second man who has engaged in safe sex for years may one wave” concept. “I do outreach into the Portland day forgo the condom. [gayJ community and talk candidly with these “It’s called survivor’s guilt,” explains Jim men. What I have learned is that there is a complex Everett, clinical services director for Phoenix Ris set of psychological reasons as to why a gay man ing, a gay and lesbian counseling center in Port may ch<x)sc to ignore sex-safe messages and take land. “They’ve buried all of their friends and they risks.” feel guilty about being negative. Finally they may Many say watching the epidemic over the years decide it’s not worth it any more.” has been like riding a rollercoaster: First there was the shocking jolt that began the epidemic. People Survivor’s guilt, depression over the epidemic, David Lane o f the Oregon Health Division Dan Bueling o f Cascade AIDS Project emotional exhaustion, damaged self-esteem— and plain-old humanness— may prompt people to take sexual risks. According to Schroeder, gay men often pro vide rationales for their slips: “They may say, ‘I’ll do it just this once,’ or, ‘Oh, he looks healthy, he can’t be positive.’ But the motivations behind those actions and rationales go deeper. They’re depressed over all the friends they’ve lost, or they may truly think that even if they’re negative now they’ll eventually get HIV anyway, so they ask themselves, ‘What’s the point of playing it safe?’ It may also be internalized homophobia or low self-esteem.” Or maybe two men fall in love and convince themselves that their monogamous relationship is enough to protect them from infection. Or maybe the overwhelming need to belong sometimes out weighs the need to remain HIV negative. In fact, some researchers speculate that gay men no longer view HIV/AIDS purely as a disease. Instead, they say, the epidemic has spawned a new gay identity: one whose every essence has been informed by the epidemic. “Sometimes it seems that in order to feel like part of the gay men’s community one has to be positive,” says Dan Bueling, who heads up CAP’s Men’s HIV Prevention Program. “I’ve facilitated focus groups with negative men who told me that they feel like they are not a part of the gay commu nity because of their status. They feel completely shut out.... We need to end this sense of isolation and support not only positive men, but negative men as well.” Says Stall, “It is the only way to end this epidemic— keep those who are seronegative from seroconverting.”