22
• January i 2£m
Risky Business
Continued from Page 21
can STD s com plicate h ealth care for poz fel
las, hut acquiring new strains of H IV can
quash effective drug regimens.
• D runk, drugged and buggered. A nother
major reason harehacking is on the rise is sub
stance abuse. G et dm nk or get stoned, and get
fucked in more ways than one. Alcohol and
drugs affect how you decide who you sleep with
and what you do. In short, lower your inhibi
tions and increase your risks.
Among my guy gang, about half said alcohol
and drugs sometimes are involved when they
sex it up. Three said “always.” Similarly, of the
11 man-sex syphilites in M ultnomah County,
seven reported using alcohol or drugs, such as
poppers or meth.
“Portland is a huge meth town,” Knowlton
remarks. “People who use meth find it hyper-
sexualizing and get very turned on. They’re hav
ing unprotected sex because it’s something they
don’t have to think about.”
W hich sounds hot, until you hear that
guys who com bine m eth and sex are five
times more likely to becom e infected with
HIV.
• A natural resistance. T h e third rea
son— safe-sex fatigue— is the m ost en co m
passing and perhaps the most widespread.
You’ve built up a tolerance to th e message.
You know it, you understand it, hut you
accept the consequences because you d o n ’t
want to live in a “bubble of fear" com e hell,
high water or HIV. You refuse to rem ain lone
ly or live in a closet.
“My status will change someday, but my
whole peer group is poz, so I’ll just be in the
club," one barebacker writes.
“As a society, we don't talk
about sex. We don’t see people
on TV or in ads or in the
movies negotiating safe sex
and talking about how they’re
going to have sex. It’s always
the thrill of the moment.”
— Margaret Lentell
Exhaustion over prevention tactics and
weariness of “condom police” have left mixed
feelings of apathy and fatalism. Lacking 20
years o f “condom s, condom s, condom s,"
young studs think the HIV epidemic mode
applies only to old fags. O ld fags think the epi
demic should’ve been long gone by now. In
the middle are average Joes who believe HIV
and STDs are just part of being gay.
“I hear the logic when people say: ‘Why fight
it? I can take these drugs. I can become a client of
CAP, get my rent paid for and get extra cash. I
don’t have to ever use condoms again, and I don’t
have to go through the worry of wondering am I
positive? Is this guy positive? Is there a condom
involved .r ” Knowlton reasons. “T hat’s a lot of
pressure for gay men.”
So much pressure th a t some bareback
because they want to become HIV-positive
(including two hug-chasers even in my small
group of 27). K now lton says it’s n o t u n
com m on. Outrageous, maybe, but an HIV-
positive diagnosis is the second part o f their
com ing out.
“How do you co m p ete w ith
that?" he asks. “Guys look better
th an they have in th eir entire lives
because they get to go to the dtK tor
and take steroids w hen their testos
terone is low because of HIV. They
pum p up. T hey d o n ’t have to work.
T hey get to travel around to circuit
parties. W h at is the downside to
that?”
T he downside, he reveals, is that
you don’t see the guys when their
drugs start to fail and they get so sick
they can’t leave their house.
“People think that HIV today is different
than it was 20 years ago, and it’s not,” Knowlton
argues. “If anything, it’s stronger.”
Strategies for sex
ou can already hear the lecture. You can
picture the finger-shaking. “Condom s
every time, all the time.”
T h a t is still w hat “disease intervention
specialists” w ant to say, hut today’s reality is
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