Gays Debate Radical Steps to Curb Unsafe Sex

After all the thousands of AIDS deaths and all the years of "Safe Sex Is Hot Sex" prevention messages, it has come down to this: many gay men who know the rules of engagement in the age of AIDS are not using condoms. As news of a potentially virulent strain of H.I.V. settles in, gay activists and AIDS prevention workers say they are dismayed and angry that the 25-year-old battle against the disease might have to begin all over again.

While many are calling for a renewed commitment to prevention efforts and free condoms, some veterans of the war on AIDS are advocating an entirely new approach to the spread of unsafe sex, much of which is fueled by a surge in methamphetamine abuse. They want to track down those who knowingly engage in risky behavior and try to stop them before they can infect others.

It is a radical idea, born of desperation, that has been gaining ground in recent months as a growing number of gay men become infected despite warnings about unsafe sex.

Although gay advocates and health care workers are just beginning to talk about how this might be done, it could involve showing up at places where impromptu sex parties happen and confronting the participants. Or it might mean infiltrating Web sites that promote gay hookups and thwarting liaisons involving crystal meth.

Other ideas include collaborating with health officials in tracking down the partners of those newly infected with H.I.V. At the very least, these advocates say, gay men must start taking responsibility for their own, before a resurgent epidemic draws government officials who could use even more aggressive tactics.

"Gay men do not have the right to spread a debilitating and often fatal disease," said Charles Kaiser, a historian and author of "The Gay Metropolis." "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," he said.

While not endorsing specific strategies, even mainstream organizations like the Gay Men's Health Crisis support the idea of trying methods that would have been anathema a few years ago. "It makes a community stronger when we take care of ourselves," said Ana Oliveira, the organization's executive director, "and if that means that we have to be much more present and intervene with people who are doing this to themselves and others, then so be it."

For many others, however, even talk of such steps provokes hand-wringing. "We don't want public health vigilantes going out and taking matters into their own hands, particularly if it means breaching the confidentially and civil rights of people with H.I.V.," said Jon Givner, the director of the H.I.V. Project at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "Frankly, I find it pretty scary."

Whether such ideas gain acceptance, the fact that activists are even thinking about curbing gay sexual freedom is a huge shift.

In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, gay men protested attempts to close down bathhouses and strenuously opposed efforts by health officials to trace those infected with the virus. Until now, those advocates, driven by concerns about privacy and the stigma associated with the disease, have successfully fought off efforts to impose a traditional public-health model for tackling the spread of the virus.

"You have to remember that was the era when Jesse Helms and others were saying that gay people got what they deserved, and that the government shouldn't spend any money to help them," said David Evans, an H.I.V. treatment advocate who writes about prevention. "There was a time when people thought, 'Oh my god, they're going to put us in camps.' "

Such fears have faded in recent years, thanks in part to laws that protect people with AIDS against discrimination. Although the number of AIDS-related deaths has 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, frustrating many advocates.

That frustration has been ratcheted up by the growing popularity of crystal meth in New York, which many say has led to an abrupt increase in unsafe behavior and a spate of infections. Although exact figures are difficult to determine, a recent survey of gay men found that 25 percent had tried crystal meth in the last few months.

Those frustrations were given voice in November by Larry Kramer, the playwright and activist who himself has AIDS, in a widely discussed speech at Cooper Union in which he criticized gay men for their behavior. "You are still murdering each other," he said then. "Please stop with all the generalizations and avoidance excuses gays have used since the beginning to ditch this responsibility for this fact."

In an interview, Mr. Kramer said on Sunday that the warning of a possibly aggressive new strain of H.I.V. confirmed his fears and filled him with a sense of hopelessness. "Even in the days of the worst infections, no amount of prevention seemed to work, and that's probably the scariest thing of all," he said.

Even if the warning turns out to be a false alarm, many AIDS experts say it is only a matter of time before a supervirus does emerge.

"You can't have a core group of people having sex with large numbers of people without amplifying any sexually transmitted disease that enters the system," said Gabriel Rotello, author of "Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men." "I don't have any doubt that a resurgent H.I.V. epidemic will hit the gay population in the near future," he said.

It is this fear of a drug-resistant virus that has driven some who track the spread of AIDS to suggest a more aggressive approach to prevention. Walter Armstrong, the editor in chief of Poz, a monthly magazine about AIDS and H.I.V., said the traditional fear-based model of prevention was at best only a temporary solution, especially if no supervirus outbreak materializes. A more effective way, he said, would involve gay organizations using traditional public health measures, such as more widespread screening and a partner-notification effort to track users of crystal meth who have been infected recently.

"Why would it not be possible to get them together to communicate to each other, and then to their sex partners, that lives are being put at risk by reckless behavior?" he asked. "I think there are ways to do interventions ethically, sensitively and compassionately. There's a huge window of opportunity between criminalization and empty prevention messages."

Still, others remain wary of such measures. Walt Odets, a clinical psychologist and the author of "In the Shadow of the Epidemic: Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS," said he thought such intervention smacked of a witch hunt.

Many health experts suggest a more vigorous return to conventional H.I.V. prevention. Isaac Weisfuse, the city's deputy commissioner of health, said his agency was planning to place information banners on gay Web sites and devote more money to hard-hitting ads about methamphetamine use.

Others, like Mr. Rotello, were less optimistic. Until people really believe an unstoppable virus is out there, he said, they will continue to indulge in unsafe sexual practices. "People are not going to modify their sexual habits in ways that are difficult or unpleasant until they see their friends dying again," he said. "And to me that's just an unbelievably depressing thought."

I have done hospital nursing for many years and I can tell you that HIV status is not made known to the staff. I worked in an extremely understaffed and wildly busy ICU and had several needle sticks. The paper work to report this was five pages long and then you would have to leave your patients to go to the ER. I usually made an educated judgment as to whether it was crucial to report the stick. Not smart, I know, but sometimes I had no choice.

All our patients had multiple tubes and lots of drainage so you had to be extremely careful but accidents happen. We found out quite by accident about a positive HIV pt from a doctor who had been stuck with a needle during a procedure and was undergoing treatment.

As far as catching HIV from CPR, it has happened. It was documented in the nursing magazines. The woman, a wife and mother eventually died.

some veterans of the war on AIDS are advocating an entirely new approach to the spread of unsafe sex, much of which is fueled by a surge in methamphetamine abuse. They want to track down those who knowingly engage in risky behavior and try to stop them before they can infect others. It is , that has been gaining ground in recent months as a growing number of gay men become infected despite warnings about unsafe sex.

This is complete intellectual and moral dishonesty from the NY Times and the Homosexual Mafia. What the "radical" procedure proposed is simply Public Health 101, taught in the first week of a simple college course. Moron college freshmen in health sciences majors therefore have more deep insights that the NY Times.

It was also the law, at least until the NY Times and the Homosexual Mafia legally coerced government to violate Public Health basic laws requiring disease tracking plus identification and isolation of vectors.

And so after murdering many millions of lives and utterly wasting untold billions of health care dollars, we have "a radical idea, born of desperation."

I cannot think of a more massive example of Liberalism, and why the democrat party must be destroyed.

"And why do none of the atheists I know act the way you predict?"

Because they only show you what will make them appear righteous.

And your comment about Jews is incorrect, misleading, and quite unfair. But, you are quite consistent in that regard, so I'm unsurprised.

Let's be more precise: I'm against the first imperative of Kant, and very specifically his comments about the 'Law of Reason' - in effect, it is just another idol, just another version of Baal.

When legalists march against grace, the jack boots of history predict the endpoint. Though you don't see it now, chances are pretty good the future history will bear this out .... again. And we'll both argue about who is really to blame.

["And why do none of the atheists I know act the way you predict?"]

Because they only show you what will make them appear righteous.

Really... And why would they do that?

And your comment about Jews is incorrect, misleading, and quite unfair.

Not at all. You claimed:

In short, without Christ, a man will screw himself, his brother, and his sister, b/c it his nature.

These are your words, not mine. Clearly you said that a belief in Christ was necessary for the kind of morality you were talking about, and that without it, "a man will screw himself, his brother, and his sister, b/c it his nature".

Jews are "without Christ", so clearly you hold this opinion about Jews. Or would you perhaps care to admit that your statement was in error?

But, you are quite consistent in that regard, so I'm unsurprised.

Indeed, I am quite consistent in pointing out the logical errors in your prejudices.

I heard Michael Savage railing about this the other night saying they should close the bathhouses in SF. So thye must have reopened.
It is sickening. If this were smallpox or some other plague the CDC and the gov't would be all over this. But becaause it involves queer behavior it's just not politically correct to say it's wrong. Time to quarrantine them like Castro does IMO.

It is not untypical for these folks to have 10 to 20 different partners a night 7 nights a week... Do not remotely think that these people are just normal folks... they are largely mentally ill and engaging in horriffically self destructive behavior.

He and others said it would be more effective to try to identify the underlying causes of drug abuse and self-destructive behavior, including the difficulty of living in a society that rejects committed gay relationships while condemning homosexuals for having sex outside those relationships. Gay men, he said, are using methamphetamine as an antidepressant.

Uh, try the following TRUTH... Instead of the lies offered by a man blinded by his own depravity...

"In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

Well you made might point so I am not sure what I said that was incorrect. Mans nature is sin, it is a battle of the flesh and spirit. If men just feed their flesh and have no regard for the feeding of the spirit you have total hedonism.

My point is that mans nature is to have variety it is not so much with females. To prove this point look at lesbian relationships vs gay men. Lesbians tend to be monogamous for longer periods of time while gay men can have thousands of sexual partners in their life times.
Another example, men can easily have sex with a woman without caring if they know their name or not. Few women would consider such...

Oh horse sh#t. They are using it as a stimulant to increase their already hypersexual behavior. One damn excuse after another. Maybe at some point the psychiatrists will finally admit they were wrong in removing homosexuality from the diagnostic manual as an illness, something they did out of political correctness.

Agreed. Your observation is spot on.

"Crystal Meth" New Drug Of Choice On Gay Party Circuit

Maybe at some point the psychiatrists will finally admit they were wrong in removing homosexuality from the diagnostic manual as an illness, something they did out of political correctness. .....I just read an article the other day that states many gays have become psychiatrists, so many so, that the findings have been refashioned and homosexuals have been removed from the category of mental illness.

Something appears to be wrong with your hypothesis, it doesn't match reality.

That's because they read Romans chapter one but failed to read Romans chapter 2. Certainly humanity is capable of all manner of evil but, as Romans 2 vs 14 and 15 says (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) Humanity is also capable of performing much good - even without God as their objective.

"Many health experts suggest a more vigorous return to conventional H.I.V. prevention. Isaac Weisfuse, the city's deputy commissioner of health, said his agency was planning to place information banners on gay Web sites and devote more money to hard-hitting ads about methamphetamine use."

Great idea. It didn't work before, but what the hell, try it again. The Ad agencies could use the business and anyway, it's all just tax dollars from the breeders.

"...gays lose themselves in self-destructive mindless hedonism to drown out the pain of being rejected by society... "

A common rationalization, but as you imply, largely BS.
It has been used variously for alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, "the suffering of the artist," all manner of dysfunctional aggression.

It is a function of narcissistic rage and the sexualization of the aggressive drive. It is a sado-masochistic tango more akin to ritualistic forcible rape than to heterosexual intercourse.

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