with links at wikipedia.
Scandals In May 2001, Village Voice columnist Michael Musto revealed that Sullivan had anonymously posted advertisements for "bareback" sex (anal sex and/or oral sex without a condom) on America Online and the now-defunct website barebackcity.com. Subsequently, the Italian-American journalist and activist, Michelangelo Signorile, wrote about the scandal in a front-page article in a New York gay magazine, LGNY, igniting a storm of controversy.
In the advertisements, Sullivan noted that he was HIV-positive. Sullivan's critics have argued that it was hypocritical of Sullivan to engage in this kind of sexual activity while simultaneously arguing against gay sexual promiscuity; they claim that the vision of gay sexuality presented in Sullivan's writing is at odds with the activities he was revealed to be engaging in. They also charge that because Sullivan was HIV-positive, it was unsafe for him to engage in sex without a condom. Sullivan's critics argue that it is unfair for Sullivan to criticize Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions as "reckless" while engaging in unprotected sex himself.
Sullivan's defenders respond that he only had bareback sex with consenting adults who were also HIV-positive. According to Sullivan, this significantly reduced the risk inherent in his behavior, and he has derided what he called a "thin reed of evidence" of the existence of "reinfection," which, according to some medical experts, heightens the destruction caused by the virus. His supporters have also argued that it was a violation of his privacy to publish information about his sex life. Sullivan has called the scandal "sexual McCarthyism". Sullivan supporters also argue that those who revealed the details about his sex life were motivated by a desire for payback, because they disagreed with his politics and his comments about the gay community. His detractors respond that his hypocrisy was reason enough to publish the stories. In Sullivan's book, "Love Undetectable", published in 1999, Sullivan wrote "Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold."
Sullivan's journalistic ethics were called into question, when he announced that he would be accepting a sponsorship to write his blog The Daily Dish from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobby for the industry that he credited with saving his life, but which has also been criticized for its practices in AIDS-affected areas of the Third World. The controversy lay in Sullivan's initial refusal to disclose the relationship in writing outside his blog, even though much of that often touches on drug manufacturers and their policies in poor countries. He dropped the sponsorship in the ensuing uproar.
That is disgusting.