Be Safe ... Still

Do Gay men create their own oppressors? Or, better yet, do Gay men create the fodder which their oppressors giddily rummage through -- like the ragman through my garbage can -- and, finding a particular nasty treasure, hand it over to the ever-increasingly right-wing media to exploit 'til the cows ...um, elephants come marching home?

Dare I ask, could Karl Rove had choreographed the following any better?

It all seems to have started with a New York Times article by Andrew Jacobs, entitled, "Gays Debate Radical Steps to Curb Unsafe Sex," which appeared in the February 15th edition. Jacobs reported that, apparently, many gay men are not practicing safe sex by utilizing condoms, but, in fact, are really pushing the oh my god! envelope by their sexual regaling within the lunacy of the particularly nefarious delights of crystal meth (methamphetamine) use which, apparently, precludes any inclination whatsoever to utilize condoms under any circumstances. Or, that's what the Times article seemed to want to communicate: crystal meth + gay=unsafe sex=AIDS.

Although Jacobs reported that, "Although the number of AIDS-related deaths had plummeted since the advent of a more potent class of drugs in the mid-90's, the rate of new infections has remained unchanged at about 40,000 cases a year..." (Please, let's not forget that almost a half-million South Africans have died from the insidious affects of AIDS! Or that one-quarter of the population of Zimbabwe is HIV positive, with about 2.2million souls affected.)

Jacobs' piece in the Times relies upon quotes from Charles Kaiser, who Jacobs refers to as "...a historian and author of 'The Gay Metropolis.'" Kaiser is quoted as saying, "A person who is H.I.V.-positive has no more right to unprotected intercourse than he has the right to put a bullet through another person's head."

Well, kewl so far, huh.

A few words about Charles Kaiser's "historical" credentials. Kaiser wrote a book that George Chauncey (an actual academic; an actual historian, with a Ph.D from Yale, who is a professor of history at the University of Chicago) noted is, "Nonetheless ... distinctly a product of the 1990's, which judges the past from a contemporary perspective rather than trying to understand it in it's own terms. ...This is a narrow slice of gay life, masquerading as the whole."

Kaiser's work is intensely parochial, focusing on New York as the absolute center of the universe with regard to all things interestingly gay. And, in that focus, Kaiser seems to exclude all but the most colorful and notorious and well-known of gay society to the exclusion of, well, folks just like you and me who, by the way, had a small hand in our collective history; even those of us in Des Moines or Dubuque, Paonia or Pittsburgh.

Kaiser is/was a journalist. Not an academic. Not an historian. And, his book, The Gay Metropolis is critically reviewed by George Chauncey as not so much an academic endeavor as an attempt to titillate the gay reader with narratives and quips about Manhattan's rich, white, beautiful, gay culture. Chauncey concludes: "Mr. Kaiser's preoccupation with the elite, though initially fascinating, is eventually wearying and ultimately troubling. Most men in this book are rich, white and beautiful (usually "very beautiful"), or at least a beautiful date or hanger-on. It's telling that virtually the only glimpse the book gives us of Harlem comes from Philip Johnson's account of visiting the neighborhood. This is a narrow slice of gay life, masquerading as the whole."

But, nevertheless, the Times hangs the moniker, historian on Kaiser, presumably to give him a wee bit more credibility. Kaiser is, after all, essentially a journalist. And, how much credibility do we really assign to journalists these days?

So far, so good.

Interestingly, Badpuppy's Gay Today's, Jesse Monteagudo fawned all over Charles Kaiser in an interview in March of 1998 in which Kaiser poo-pooed Chauncey's critical, academic review of his work by telling Monteagudo that, "...academic scholars like Chauncey tend to look down at writers, who [like Kaiser] are journalists and popular historians. As a result, when they review books, academics are much more dishonest than journalists can ever be."

Hmmm... Let me cogitate on that statement for a moment. Okay, I'm done. Conclusion: Kaiser's full of shit. And, what is a "...popular historian?" Having been degreed in history myself, I'm really not sure what Kaiser means, except that maybe he's alluding to the fact that anyone can relate history without being academically disciplined. But, then, does that popular history become less than credible? I don't know.

Randy Shilts who wrote, And The Band Played On, which is a fascinating chronicle of the HIV/AIDS epi/pandemic was, indeed, a journalist and, I suppose, a popular historian.

Anyway...

On February 18th, 2005, William F. Buckley, Jr. was published in the Sacramento Bee -- of all places -- in an article entitled, "Killers at large." Now, most of you won't remember that Buckely was the founder of the far right publication, the National Review and, even though I sincerely admire his writing style and intellect, and understand that he is essentially, ultimately, a corncob-up-the-asshole Conservatively inclined clever curmudgeon, he, too, quoted our dear gay friend, Charles Kaiser: "Gay men should not have the right to spread a debilitating and often fatal disease. A person who is HIV-positive has no more right to unprotected intercourse than he has the right to put a bullet through another person's head." Buckely goes on to talk about the Times piece and what is to be done to rein-in those crystal-meth-gay-condomless-fuckers who may or may not be sharing the bogeyman's delights with their suspecting or unsuspecting partners. Buckely writes, "The boundaries of the new campaign, let alone the niceties, haven't been resolved upon, but not much thought is being given to concerns of privacy. Murderers need to be stopped [remember now, that everyone, including Buckley is quoting Kaiser's "...bullet through another person' s head..." comment), and if this means opening their mail, well, such things happen, and you can take comfort that you may be saving a life."

Okay, then. Let's start opening people's mail to preclude the crystal-meth-gay-condomless-fuckers from ... fucking. That'll work! Right!

Buckley ends his piece: "The objective is to identify the carrier and to warn his victim. Someone, 20 years ago suggested a discreet tatoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned. But the author of the idea was treated as though he had been schooled in Buchenwald, and the idea was not widely considered, but maybe it is up now for reconsideration."

Tatoos now. Perhaps a scarlet "A" on the forehead of the crystal meth-gay-condomless-fucker! James Dobson would love that one.

Well, finally, this Sunday's Washington Post include a piece by Richard Cohen entitled, "Gays should show sexual restraint, too." Nope, not "HIV Positive Crystal Meth-Gay-Condomless-Fuckers should show sexual restraint, too." Just "Gays." I guess that means you and me, too. Not heterosexual drug abusers or adolescents of every stripe, color and creed. Nope, just us. You and me.

Now, can you guess who Cohen relies upon for the most dramatic lesson of his piece. Well, here goes: "My guru in such matters is Charles Kaiser... A common philosophy, according to Kaiser [amongst gay men], goes like this: 'I am not subject to the rules.' ...The fact remains that a portion of the gay population -- maybe 20 percent, Kaiser estimates -- conducts itself in ways that are not only reckless, but just plain disgusting."

One wonders who Kaiser's "...20 percent..." is? Twenty-percent of his friends? Twenty-percent of people he's heard about from his friends? Twenty-percent of people who've told his friends about people who...

The point survives the exaggeration. Kaiser drops his titillative sound bite and the straight media (William F. Buckley, Jr. for heavens sake!) gobbles it up and spews it out in a kind of orgiastic revelatory, hurly-burly -- Just lookit them nasty queers, will ya, Martha! -- pontificatory op/ed revelation which, indeedy, I'll betcha just brings a great big smile to Karl Rove's face.

I remember it must have been the summer of 1981 when we began to hear the reports of a gay pneumonia that had cropped up in New York. Not long after that, reports -- once again from New York -- of a gay cancer appearing in young, gay men hit the gay press. And, at that time, the best wisdom the great American medical community could give to us was to avoid sex with anyone who was obviously sick or had purple lesions on their body.

As I noted in my earlier post, Be Safe, it didn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing (sorry, Bob!) in the summer and fall of 1981, and many, many Gay men just simply took it upon themselves to clean up their act. The Big Party was over. Period. The risks soon became known and the consequences soon became clear. We didn't need a Charles Kaiser or a Larry Kramer feeding the straight media with bombastic sound bites.

Yeah, this subject is serious and we, as a community, need to address it. What we don't need to do is give aid and comfort to those whose agenda consists of (and certainly helped put Dubya back in the White House) right to life and gay marriage. (Goddamn, now we really need to stop them queers in their nasty tracks, Martha!)

Anyway... Be Safe ... Still