Chicken Little Won't Stop HIV

Scare tactics from the left won't prevent HIV anymore than scare tactics from the right. It's time to tell the truth about this disease.
Friday, July 01, 2005

PRESIDENT BUSH AND his conservative colleagues think the best way to prevent the spread of HIV is to preach 'abstinence only until marriage.'

He's right, of course, that chastity until marriage is a surefire way to stop HIV in its tracks, if it bore any relation to the real world outside of Sunday school.
Unfortunately, the alternative offered for years by HIV/AIDS organizations is every bit as impractical. You could call their strategy 'scared into using condoms every time until death.'

For years now, we've heard from 'alarmed' HIV prevention workers about the AIDS 'crisis' that demands that everyone, and gay men in particular, be scared by the prospect of a sure and wretched death into using a condom every single time they ever have sex for the rest of their lives.

Once upon a time, that story was true. Many of us who came out in the late 1980s and early '90s remember the scores of gay men dying every week from AIDS, and the fear that instilled in us to practice 'safe sex' every time. Some gay men even wore condoms during oral sex, as unlikely as that sounds today.

But happily, those dire prospects are no longer what HIV-negative gay men face as we make decisions about sex, and pretending otherwise has about as much credibility with us as President Bush's exhortation to 'Just Say No' until marriage ' which, by the way, he opposes for us anyway.

In fact, the unwillingness or inability of HIV/AIDS groups to dream up more realistic prevention strategies can be blamed for opening the door to the 'abstinence only' crowd, who can rightly point out that the same-old 'safer sex' message has failed for years to slow the rate of new HIV transmissions in the U.S.

BUT WOE UNTO those heretics who dare to question the Chicken Littles of HIV prevention, who you better believe are ready to pounce on any description of HIV that isn't utterly dark and desperate, and any prevention strategy that dares to stray from the party line of 'scared into using a condom every time until death.'

Just ask Andrew Sullivan. The gay political pundit and author penned a provocative column, entitled 'Still here, so sorry,' in the June 21 issue of Advocate magazine. In it, he apologized ' with tongue firmly planted in cheek ' for not dying earlier from HIV, thereby doing his part to keep HIV-negative gay men sufficiently 'scared into using a condom every time until death.'

To make matters worse, wrote Sullivan, his 12 years living with HIV haven't been that wretchedly horrible, and he's even found ways to use the lessons of HIV to make his life ' and even his sex! ' richer and more meaningful. Blasphemy!

The reaction was swift and depressingly predictable, and nowhere more so than from Michelangelo Signorile, the gossip columnist turned ACT UP activist turned columnist again. In an angry screed of an open letter, Signorile plays right into Sullivan's hands, proving the latter's point about how intellectually bankrupt old-school HIV prevention is.

Outraged that anyone with HIV should dare to live happily or take away positive lessons from the disease, Signorile slams Sullivan for supposedly 'extolling the virtues of having HIV and the wonders of being positive.'

'I must say,' writes Signorile, 'very effective. It was enough to make any young gay man declare, 'I gotta go get some of that hot poz seed!''

Does this ring a bell' Can't you just hear Church Lady scolding us that handing out condoms will only make young men declare, 'I gotta go have some hot sex with some girl!''

Putting aside Signorile's lengthy armchair psychoanalysis of Sullivan ' sum it up as, 'I am jealous of Andrew Sullivan' ' the message from Signorile is as out of touch with the reality of gay sex in the 21st century as President Bush's abstinence mantra.

Telling the truth about HIV ' that while incurable it is treatable through drugs whose side effects are becoming less and less problematic ' will no more make young gay men seek out HIV as handing out condoms in schools will encourage young people to copulate like rabbits.

Hearing lefties like Signorile exaggerate drug side effects and statistics on HIV transmission and AIDS deaths is really no different than hearing righties exaggerate the failure rate of condoms and the supposed emotional devastation from premarital sex.

The Taliban on both ends of the spectrum just don't get it, for their own very different reasons: People act more responsibly when they're told the truth.

AS MUCH AS it might endanger alarmist AIDS grant proposals, Sullivan is right that, 'HIV is fast becoming another diabetes,' and it's about time that prevention strategies adapt to that not-so-new reality.

Rather losing all credibility by trying to scare people into abstinence until marriage or safe sex until death, HIV prevention ought to arm people with useful information from which they can make their own judgment about what risks to take.

If you're at a high risk for diabetes, your doctor wouldn't dream of scaring you with warnings like, 'Don't you ever eat another chocolate cake in your life!' Or, 'Don't even think about skipping a cardiovascular workout for even one week!'

Instead, people with diabetes risk are told the general steps they can take to lower their risk of acquiring the disease: eat healthier, exercise, and so on.

A new HIV prevention strategy would take a similar approach.

Gay men, who are by nature at higher risk of getting HIV, can take certain steps to lower their risk: explore safer sexual activity like oral sex and frottage; stick to being a top in anal sex if you do not want to wear a condom; remember to ask your sex partner if he has been recently tested for HIV before making a decision about condom use; limit bareback sex to monogamous relationships after you and your partner have been tested.

Gay men who already have HIV should also be hearing a message grounded in reality: explore non-risky sexual activity like oral sex and frottage; stick to being a bottom in anal sex if you do not want to wear a condom; if you really want to bareback as a top, make sure your partner knows your HIV status.

Will messages like these absolutely eliminate the risk of HIV' Of course not. But only completely unrealistic strategies ' like 'abstinence only until marriage' or 'scared into using a condom until death' ' can make that claim. And neither is working.

WashingtonBlade.com - Chris Crain