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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 1997)
i VIEW FROM HERE W hat ’ s M ore I mportant : W here Y ou I nvest O r W here Y ou G et Y our I nvestment A dvice . Wait just a minute For the first time in 16 years, a great number of taxpayers can bene fit directly from the major Taxpayer Reform Act of 1997. It’s impor tant to start planning now to take full advantage of these new opportunities. You bring the questions. I'll supply the answers. Are public sex and high-risk behaviors essential elements o f gay male sexual expression ? ▼ by Paul Harris FLORKID WALKER I n the past couple of years it seems that be allowed to have sex in parks or fumble with every gay writer who could even loosely each other in dark public restrooms. If that is his describe himself as an “academic” has felt vision of liberation, I for one want no part of it. compelled to get into print to tell the rest of Having said this, I believe that those who us how we should be leading our lives. argue for the closure of private sex clubs and Recently we have had a group called Sex Panic! bathhouses do the cause of stopping the transmis come into existence. They have described sion of HIV a disservice. Sometime in the mid- Michelangelo Signorile, Gabriel Rotello and Larry 1980s I interviewed Father Fred Tondalo, a priest Kramer as “neo-cons” and “turdz” with a venom in Fort Lauderdale who was involved in the found reminiscent of the treatment of The Gang of Four ing of CenterOne, the local AIDS service organi in China back in the 1970s. zation. He argued pragmatically that the bath With all the smoke, charges, countercharges houses should be left open, as it was a way of and bluster I think we have lost sight of an reaching gay men (who plainly intended to have important issue: Today another 40 gay men will sex no matter what) with condoms, lubricants and die of AIDS in the United States. safer-sex literature. For those with better things to do than to sit The argument made sense to me then, and still down to read all the books and articles that have does. I believe it is wrong to close bathhouses so been published on this matter, let me bring you up long as they are properly regulated. Clearly to date. Some people such as Kramer, Signorile, condoms, lubricants and safer-sex education Rotello and Andrew Sullivan have argued that should be made available. If the means for safer gay men need to radically change their lifestyles. sex are not available, I do not think the business Larry Kramer, blunt as al should get a license to op ways, said, “The whole erate. Frankly, any busi culture has to change. We ness owner irresponsible have created a culture that and stupid enough not to in fact murdered us, killed comply with such a simple us. Why—you can’t help stipulation deserves to be but think if you’ve got any closed down. Whether brains—don’t people ever people choose to avail learn anything?” themselves of the means Someone with brains, to safer sex is, of course, Kendall Thomas, a law pro their decision. fessor at Columbia Uni By the way, I want to versity, and cofounder of remind you that about 40 Sex Panic! responded by gay men are going to die of noting that “a culture AIDS today in the United doesn’t kill people. The States. virus kills people.” Some people believe I think Thom as is that gay men and lesbians wrong. I believe, for ex should seek to emulate the ample, that our society’s heterosexual ideal and homophobic culture has settle with one person, live killed thousands of queer in a house with a white teenagers over the years picket fence and have (or who were filled with such self-hate that they adopt 2.5) children. It may be news to some committed suicide. The culture in which we are people, but only 20 percent of U.S. households brought up and live clearly plays a large part in conform to the supposed norm of the heterosexual determining our actions and lifestyles. nuclear family. While the instability of gay rela The debate is not a simple one about how to tionships is almost legendary, heterosexuals aren’t doing too much better. Over 50 percent of straight contain a deadly virus. It is about how we as gay people choose to live our lives. For some in Sex marriages now end in divorce. Marriage and Panic! a promiscuous sexual lifestyle is seen as a monogamy plainly do not suit everybody. For cornerstone of gay liberation, with its rejection of some it isn’t even an ideal: They enjoy the free dom of being single and having multiple sexual heterosexual society’s supposed values. Tony Valenzuela, an activist/writer and sex worker partners. Although it may seem strange to some, who co-organized a one-day conference in San not every gay man or lesbian wants a gay mar Diego for Sex Panic! says he wants to put sexual riage, a joint mortgage and a cat. liberation back in our movement. (Read about the I am fed up with people moralizing about other conference in stories on pages 10 and 11.) Sex people’s lives. It is none of my business whether Panic! has represented the so-called neo-cons as someone has sex with 200 people next year or wanting to ail but lead the gay population into the makes love with the same person 200 times. All I Rotary Club. ask is that you practice safer sex. Sex Panic! argues that there has been an attack Some people claim that after all these years it upon gay-male sex culture with the threats to is too difficult to follow the safer-sex rules every bathhouses, back rooms in bars, and arrests in time they make love. I ask you, does a diabetic public bathrooms and parks. stop taking his or her insulin or a hemophiliac his Michael Warner, an English professor at or her factor VIII because they are fed up with Rutgers University, writes, “Among the most using them? Of course not. They realize that by doing certain simple things they can protect their effective ways of oppressing people is through lives. Is there any difference between that and the colonization of their bodies, the stigmatizing safer sex? of their desires, and the repression of their erotic energies. We believe continuing work on sexual By the way, today about 40 gay men died of liberation is crucial to social justice efforts.” AIDS in the United States. Hang on a moment. Let’s examine that. It would appear Warner is claim ing that it is “crucial Paul Harris is a nationally syndicated writer to social justice efforts” that gay men (or others) and a playwright. (503) 238-6036 1-800-487-6626 Voicemail:(503) 291-TTI3 http Www.wadddl.com Waddell & Reed hnan < iai sek \ k us W e A p p r e c ia t e O u r J u s t O u t S u p p o r t e r s ! 500 NE M u l t n o m a h , S i ith 27«. P o r t l a n d ; OR 97232 What d o e s the new Tax A c t mean t o you? Let us answer th a t question: The more you know, the more you can take advantage of the opportunities offered in the new law. 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