Out at the Center
January Show synopsis
The Center's half-hour show is hosted by Emanuel Xavier and includes New York State Assembly Member Daniel J. O'Donnell speaking on the Marriage Bill; Christian de la Huerta leading a discussion on coming out spiritually; Dr. Florence Gelo presenting at the fourth annual C Word of the Lesbian Cancer Initiative; Ann Bannon and the producers of the Beeber Brinker Chronicles discussing the forthcoming play based on her books; David Halperin sharing thoughts from his book, "What Do Gay Men Want?" and the band Betty.
Click here and check it all out.
A little bit about "What Do Gay Men Want"
Are homosexuals sick? Since gay liberation, the enlightened answer to that question has been a resounding no. But times have changed. Recent efforts to analyze gay men's motives for sexual risk-taking in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic have
led to a revival of medical thinking about homosexuality and breathed new life into punitive clichés about gay men's alleged low self-esteem, lack of self-control, and various psychological "deficits." What Do Gay Men Want? offers a different language for describing gay men's inner lives.Unlike most writers on the topic of barebacking (condomless sex), David Halperin rejects psychology's claim to hold the keys to human subjectivity. He argues that psychology, which is grounded in a highly prejudicial opposition between the normal and the pathological, between healthy and unhealthy behavior, masks a set of dubious moral assumptions about "good" and "bad" sex.
Against these insidious forms of sexual discipline, Halperin champions neglected traditions of queer thought, both literary and popular, that afford fascinating possibilities for addressing the vexed question of what gay men want. In a series of provocative and often moving readings of authors as obscure as Marcel Jouhandeau and as well known as Jean Genet, he shows how the long history of gay men's uses of "abjection" can yield alternative,
non-moralistic models for thinking about gay male subjectivity.The reverberations of this original and bold contribution to queer studies will be felt for years to come. Anyone searching for creative and non-judgmental ways to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS among gay men---or interested in new modes of thinking about gay male subjectivity---should read this book.
David M. Halperin is W. H. Auden Collegiate Professor of the History and Theory of Sexuality, Professor of English, Professor of Women's Studies, Professor of Comparative Literature, and Adjunct Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan.
Read Bloggernista's post on Halperin and a class he is teaching called: 'How to be Gay - Male Homosexuality and Initiation"
> by David M. Halperin
ReplyDelete> What Do Gay Men Want?
excerpt at
http://books.google.com/books?id=B2M90kXwUhoC
page 13
> Unprotected sex cannot enable the
> transmission of HIV unless it takes place
> between an infected and an uninfected
> partner, and even then the exact degree of
> risk involved depends on the specific
> sexual acts performed and a complex array
> of secondary factors.^24
we'd have to test them all to find that out,
wouldn't we? you can say that, but
the only way is to test the entire group.
> In any case, what does seem to be clear is
> that only a fairly small minority of
> self-identified gay men in the
> industrialized world currently put
> themselves at significant risk of
> contracting HIV/AIDS in their sexual
> practices^25
the only way to know that is to add a
question to that survey about what it is that
they do. which would be another kind of
test. what is it that you have done in your
sexual experience. and you have to hope you
get the truth from them.
regarding footnote
> ^24
> On the various factors that determine
> exactly how likely any particular act of
> sex is to transmit HIV, see the studies
> citied
> by Gregory Tomso,
> "Bug Chasing, Barebacking, and
> the Risks of Care"
> Literature and Medicine 23.1 (Spring 2004):
> pages 88-111, esp. 109 n. 13.
> These are the very sorts of factors that
> often enter into gay men's calculations
> of risk.
footnote indicates that i could almost become
a professor coming up with this stuff
on the fly.
regarding footnote
> ^25
> See
> Paul Van de Ven,
> Patrick Rawstorne,
> June Crawford, and
> Susan Kippax,
> "Increasing Proportions of Australian Gay
> and Homosexually Active Men Engage in
> Unprotected Anal Intercourse with Regular
> and with Casual Partners"
> AIDS Care 14.3 (2002): pages 335-41,
> cautioning that "we avoid describing these
> upturns in UAIR [unprotected anal
> intercourse with regular partners] as
> increases in sexual risk practice per se"
> (page 339) and emphasing that "the
> majority of Australian gay and homosexually
> active men have no unprotected anal
> intercourse during a defined interval"
> (page 340).
>
> Similarly
> Barry D. Adam,
> Winston Husbands,
> James Murray, and
> John Maxwell,
> "AIDS Optimism, Condom Fatigue, or
> Self-Esteem? Explaning Unsafe Sex
> Among Gay and Bisexual Men"
> Journal of Sex Research 42.3 (August 2005):
> pages 238-48,
> note that "74.7% of MSM [men who have sex
> with men] in the Toronto area report using
> only safe sex practices with casual
> partners in the past 3 months, and
> 54.9% report having only safe sex with
> regular partners" (page 240), citing the
> Ontario Men's Survey.
>
> Somewhat higher figures for risky sex are
> reported by
> Beryl A. Koblin,
> Margaret A. Chesney,
> Marla J. Husnik,
> Sam Bozeman, et al.
> "High-Risk Behaviors among Men Who Have
> Sex with Men in 6 US Cities:
> Baseline Data from the EXPLORE Study"
> American Journal of Public Health 93.6
> (June 2003): pages 926-32
> but the data are hard to assess because, as
> the authors acknowledge, they deliberately
> recruited "a large cohort of high-risk MSM"
> (page 930) for reasons unrelated to our
> concerns here and because they did not
> assess the extent to which sexual behavior
> took palce in a context of
> "negotiated safety" (page 931).
> (For the original and authoritative
> definition of "negotiated safety"
> see note 50, below.)
>
> For more detailed information about the
> percentage of HIV negative gay men who
> take significant risks in their sexual
> practices, see note 40 below.
if they're telling the truth of course. only
if they're telling the truth. only if
i wonder if those men are carefully counting
every single incident or could they be
fudging a few cases.
it's like this classic thing men like to say
they had a few more sexual partners and
women like to say less than they actually did.
i have heard people lie about their sexual
experience. i don't know if that's true but
i have heard that.
do they really have a representative sample
of the homosexual population?
what percentage of the population
is actually gay?
if you're an evangelical christian it's very few.
if you're a very demonstrative gay it's more.
and if you look at what's happened to people
in the political arena you have to question
how many gay people are there?
except for the men who had interactions with
them who would have put craig, foley and
haggard in that category?
how many in congress?
how many in the republican party?