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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 3, 1998)
apnl 3 . 1998 • Jaaaft — fTTSyiTl n ew s G rab Y our U mbrella , I t ’ s A bout Upcoming queer guy gathering offers a refreshing twist to HIV prevention and building community explaining Gay City essentially grew from a K guys, what do you look for in a January 1994 gathering called Why A re Fags man? Fucking W ithout C ondom s?, which Leonard orga Is it his sweet or sly smile, or nized along with the Gay M en’s A ID S the gentle or commanding tone Prevention Task Force, a grass-roots coalition of his voice? Is it the way he coos that was advising the Seattle/King County or talks dirty? Want a he-jock, a fellow steeped Health Department on HIV and AIDS. in bookish charm, or a man who opts for Why A re Fags Fucking Without Condom s? Birkenstocks above all other footwear? drew a standing-room-only crowd of 300-plus Should your guy possess a particular edginess, queer men and clearly tapped into an unmet or do you lean toward mellow? Eager to settle need by speaking to them— rather than at down, or enjoy shopping around? them— and fostering a sense of community O h yeah, where do you find a date anyway? which had been sorely lacking. And if you’re not in the market for an intimate partner, where do you find some fun guys just to hang with? A hunch of gay guys— yes, that’s the for mal name— is looking to give Portland-area queer men a chance to communally chew the dating-dilemma fat via an “interactive, multimedia spring fling get-together for gay men” entitled It's Raining Men. T he April 18 shindig, to be hosted by Rose City personalities Poison Waters and Stephen Michael Rondel, will feature a gay guy version of The Dating G am e as well as a roving microphone to capture audience insights into "exploring the perils and promises of meeting and dating gay men in Portland.” Over the past few weeks, a video crew has been scouring the city asking queer guys dating-related questions, and snippets of those “gay man on the street” interviews will pepper the evening in an event organizers are dubbing Drag M eets Oprah. “Hopefully this will be an opportunity to bring lots of gay and bi men together and begin to build a sense of community,” says hunch member Alan Rose. “T hat really has n’t happened here.” Stephen Cassel films while Kevin Cooke ( a k a Poison I ook north and you’ll find one place where it -y/ias been happening for the past few years. John Leonard, 36, is the founder and execu tive director of Gay City Health Project, an innovative Seattle-based HIV prevention pro gram that blends common-sense philosophy with cutting-edge tactics and theatrics in hopes of extinguishing the spread of H IV among gay and bisexual men. Two years ago, Gay City sponsored Manhunt ’96 which attracted 300 queer guys who shared tips on dating etiquette, as well as advice about negotiating sex and other potentially touchy stuff. “W hen we started out, we had no idea what the response was going to be,” he tells Just Out, O ther extremely popular forums followed, tackling equally sensitive topics in a colorful manner— Is Sucking S afe? and Positives and Negatives: C an We G et Along?, for example. Syndicated advice columnist Dan Savage, appearing in drag to act as master of ceremonies, has become a Gay City mainstay, and queer celebs like author Michelangelo Signorile have made appearances. Something significant was brewing. After years of being pelted with benign HIV/AIDS prevention materials that packed as much punch as Nancy Reagan’s Just Say N o anti-drug campaign, Gay City was giving many gay and bi men what they seemed to want: candid talk about sex and relationships, self-worth, homo R ain M en to by Inga Sorensen phobia, body image and community— basically anything they wanted to take on. It remains a fresh approach to HIV preven tion, and apparently a much-needed one, given that many men still continue to engage in high- risk behaviors nearly two decades into the AIDS pandemic. Researchers have repeatedly found neither the reality of thousands of AIDS-related deaths nor numerous safer-sex campaigns have deterred large numbers of men from engaging in risky sex acts. Gay City, however, has swapped preachy lec Waters) interviews Roger Schroeder tures from health bureaucrats for frank chat among peers, which seems to generate an enthu siasm among some to play safe and stay safe. Backers say the project also helps foster a spirit of unity among gay and bi men, and works from the premise that if people feel good about themselves, they’ll be more likely to take care of themselves as well as others. Portlander Geoffrey Bateman, 24, remem bers walking into a Gay City forum at the ten der age of 20. Bateman, who grew up in the small town of Washougal, Wash., had never experienced any thing like it— hundreds of queer men spilling their guts, and having a blast along the way. “It was almost too much, you know what I mean?” laughs Bateman, a member of Portland’s fledgling bunch. He adds, “I was a little freaked, but there was so much energy. I remember thinking, ‘This is what they mean by gay community.’ ” So successful has Gay City been that it recently received a three-year $600,000 grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support program expansion. “I’m getting calls from across the country from people wanting to know how it works and how they might be able to do it in their com munities,” Leonard says. “It’s pretty amazing.” % I. J hile It’s Raining Men is modeled after ' Gay City forums, Alan Rose says it will not be an exact replica. “We want it to have a Portland flavor, because, after all, that’s who this is for,” he says. Hence the installation of local person alities as hosts. T he goals, however, match up pretty well: create a sense of community among queer men, promote their well-being, and hopefully slash the rate of HIV transmission. According to Rose, his employer, Cascade AID S Project, has given $2,500 to bolster It’s Raining Men. A handful of groups and businesses are also sponsoring the event. However Rose wants to make it very clear this is not an organizational event. (Read: Too much history and too much pol iticking have made for some yucky feelings.) “It’s a bunch of gay guys who want to do some good,” he says, adding that organizers are working to attract a potpourri of men— older, younger, men of color, interracial cou ples, men who may have never previously been involved in community activities. Robert E. Wright, project coordinator for Brother to Brother, a group for African- American gay and bisexual men, is also among the bunch. “W hen concerns around inclusivity and cul tural sensitivity have been brought up, they have been addressed,” he says. “It has been a sat isfying experience so far.” Wright adds he hopes It’s Raining M en is a hit: “I think we all lose when we isolate our selves.” ■ I t ’ s R a in in g M e n , the first in a series o f local prosocial gay m en’s events, will be held Saturday, April 18, from 7 to 9 pm at Hawthorne Rhapsody, 3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd. in Portland. Suggested donation is $2. For m ore information, call Alan Rose at 223-5907, ext 107. 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