On the Biomedical Question - Are We Set for PrEP?

Charles Stephens wonders what oral prevention and rectal microbicides might mean for prevention and pleasure, risk and taboo.

Condom-centric HIV prevention created the “cum pig.” No one back then in the 80s, could have known that, but here we are. 

There has been a considerable amount of discussion, debate, and exploration around the scientific and ethical implications of biomedical HIV prevention. This I believe has been useful. However, moving forward, it’s imperative that we consider the implications such advances might have for our community and sexual practices for gay men.

So far, especially as it relates to PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, or oral prevention), I’ve mostly heard things like “it will just mean more gay men will have sex without condoms.” And usually, I’m the one in the room that says, “maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

These discussions are important, even if they are limited and frustrating, because we have to think ahead. We have to imagine how these shifts in prevention technologies and strategies today, will influence our sexual practices, inform our identities, and shape our communities tomorrow.

Essentially, we have to question what these advances will mean for the future of gay men. How rectal microbicides, for example, might influence how we as gay men experience anal sex. How we think about anal sex. And how the potential meanings we attach to both anal sex and our anuses will evolve, along with our sexual landscapes and fantasies. The strategies we develop around prevention, can’t only be for the present, but also for the future.

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The Brotherhood

I wanted him to hold me more than I wanted him to want me. But then I wanted him not so much to desire me, but be concerned about me, be interested in me, and then, maybe finally, find me desirable.

by Charles Stephens for LifeLube

[He is an Atlanta-based gay men’s health advocate and writer. Read more of his posts here.]

When I was younger, and more open, and more hopeful, I figured it would all be like a big fraternity, the gay thing. I imagined there would be an intimacy, a tenderness with other men. Bonding. A kind of fraternal love, not so much romantic love, those desires would come later. I thought everything would be intense. Moving. There would be vulnerability I thought, and secrets shared, and pains revealed, and crying, and holding each other, and loving each other so much, not necessarily even romantically or sexually, but loving each other so much that it hurt. And I’ve experienced some of those things, in pieces, not nearly as frequently as I hoped, but at times. As time has gone on, and experiences have been collected and suffered through and celebrated, I’ve found myself less deliberate about creating the kinds of relationships I initially desired.

Masculinity then, in my mind, was something we could have relief from, in being gay. There would be spaces to tend to each other and that we would all co-exist in an expanded and perfected notion of manhood.  I have not experienced this much, probably because I stopped looking. Not because I gave up, but because I forget how much I wanted it.

When I was 15 or 16, in those years, in Atlanta, I was always searching, for someone for something, to guide me. I still seek guidance even as I fight it. Being gay, back then, was still an experience. Everything was new. Everything was exciting, and kind of scary, but exciting nonetheless. But you did it anyway. Despite the fear you did it. There had been no pains yet, and no rejections, and feelings of inadequacy, and thus I could move without pause or hesitation.

There is a courage one can still have even in innocence, a fearlessness, that we read later as ignorance or stupidity, we remember ourselves as reckless. However, I don’t know if I have ever been again as courageous as I was at that age. Wiser yes. Courageous, I’m not so sure. And I often look back at that time, even now, especially now, excavating my memory not just for lessons to remember, but the courage to continue.

On one of these adventures, an experience I could never have now, time has shattered my innocence in a way, I came across an older man at the local public library. There were older men, of course there were older men. That was what working-class 16ish year old black gay boys did then. And I was neither coerced nor forced nor taken advantage of. And they weren’t predators, not all of them.

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Resilient?

Fantasies have to be expressed, channeled

If I was more inclined to have anal sex more, especially receptively, I would probably be more inclined to do it raw, because of my eroticization of raw sex.

by Charles Stephens
Read more LifeLube posts from Charles

I am a 29-year-old black gay male and I’m HIV-negative.

Of the group of gay men I came out with, three have died, and I am now one of the few left in my social network that’s still HIV-negative.

I don’t see my being HIV-negative as the result of “good choices,” I’ve made, verses “bad choices,” I’ve avoided. I don’t see being HIV-negative as a prize for good behavior. To me it’s been more a matter of inclination, even if this inclination has produced a kind of “resilience factor,” for me.

I have sought to have a fulfilling, open, and interesting sexual life, and remain HIV-negative along the way. To some degree I think I’ve managed to achieve this, even as I’ve created boundaries for myself. I believe that my being HIV-negative has to do, more than anything else, with my lack of receptive raw anal sex, and my overall ambivalence around anal sex in general. To be more clear, if I was more inclined to have anal sex more, especially receptively, I would probably be more inclined to do it raw, because of my eroticization of raw sex. My lack of engagement with receptive anal sex has more to do with the discomfort it causes me, rather than some moral stance, so the logistics of the act, creates a kind of covert protective factor. But I still eroticize anal sex, particularly raw anal sex, even though I do it infrequently, and have sought ways to channel those desires in a different direction.

I yearn for other HIV-negative gay men to tell their stories, and share their strategies, especially those like me, that don’t like condoms, eroticize semen, exist in high prevalence HIV sexual networks, and develop strategies to remain HIV-negative.

My rule for the most part is to keep semen out of my mouth and ass. And if I choose to indulge in that particular pleasure, I would identify strategies to do so that would reduce my risk along the way. Even though I don’t think sex is ever completely rational, I do believe I can be deliberate and intentional.

I think bareback porn could potentially be an HIV prevention strategy.

Once I was with a guy that wanted to penetrate me condomless. I did not want to do it. Or rather I wanted to do it, but chose not to do it. This has not been the case every time, but was the case this time. We ended up masturbating together, while he narrated to me his fantasy of barebacking with me, ejaculating inside me, feeling the inside of me raw. I found this extremely powerful and the fantasy hot. We were able to engage in a very intense way, our sexual fantasies, without actually doing it, all the way. Our orgasms were powerful, even if his semen was collected on to his bellybutton and not in my rectum. I also watch bareback porn, gay and straight, and find that an effective way to channel my desires. I think bareback porn could potentially be an HIV prevention strategy. Fantasies have to be expressed, channeled. Must be. In the theater of the erotic arts, we have an opportunity to witness visually the sexual archetypes and fetishes that structure our psyches and animate our fantasies. Those are two imperfect strategies that I have found effective for the moment.

The gap that I’ve found in HIV prevention, is the lack of engagement around HIV-negative men that remain negative. Eric Rofes years ago, called for support groups for HIV-negative gay men. Spaces. This still has not happen on a large scale, and I believe strongly that it’s necessary.

Thus, I’m calling for an HIV prevention agenda for gay men that would include three things:

(1) An exploration of how gay men, particularly black gay men, have remained and continue to remain HIV-negative, especially those like me, that have a dissaffinity for condoms. What strategies have they used? Those that has existed in and fucked in sexual networks and contexts with high HIV prevalence that remain negative should be studied and interviewed rigorously. Urgently.

(2) An STI prevention workshop for gay men that like to have raw sex. Not just a list of strategies or tips, but a workshop, that can be replicated within community-based organizations and centers for gay men targeting gay men that bareback.

And (3), spaces for gay men that are HIV-negative that can talk about their ambivalence, their desires, and their challenges in a supportive and affirming environment.

Is there some resilience I have that has guided me, facilitated my remaining HIV-negative? I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about this since the brilliant Walt Senterfitt referenced the notion of resilience to me, and it’s value in thinking about gay men’s sexual health. One thing is for sure, the notion of resilience in gay men’s health, and not just as it relates to sexual health but also mental health and other realms, could provide some really valuable strategies as we map out our collective destiny.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based gay men’s health advocate and writer.

How is Charles Stephens healthy?

I stay healthy by getting tested for HIV and STIs regularly.

I believe that knowledge around my HIV and STI status is an important aspect of my sexual health, and overall general health. It also makes me feel empowered to know my HIV status, and be able to communicate that to my partners.

Though as gay men we are terrorized by fear-based messages around HIV, I have made peace with that through getting tested and knowing my status.

-- Charles Stephens
Atlanta

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On gaze, acceptance, history and connection

Black Gay Men and Aging

by Charles Stephens

Read more from Charles here on LifeLube.

Usually it’s at a conference or a workshop or a meeting. I will come across another black gay man 55, 60, 65 or so. Most of the attendees will greet him politely but cautiously. Watch him from afar, without trying to look at him, not wanting to stare. Avoiding gaze. The gaze symbolizes desire and we are careful how that message is sent, economical. Curious but guarded. Awkward. As gay men, far too often our social interactions are mediated by desire or shade.

If the facilitator knows him, or is familiar with him, he will give him attention, reference his age. The audience will respond. Maybe through applause, or through nodding their head, or the “mmm hmm,” affirming that the brother is still here with us. But then do any of us really wanted to be affirmed? Wouldn’t we rather be accepted? Fit-in? Be in the in-crowd? Among the beautiful?

He might speak-up. Even outspoken. I find that often, when a black gay man of a certain age, especially an elder, crosses my path, he is hungry to share his story, to share his experiences. Even entitled, especially in groups. But then, why wouldn’t he be? Any survivor — and if a black gay man is 50 or more he is a survivor in more ways than one baby — would feel compelled to share his story. However, we have failed to erect the appropriate monuments. We have failed to carve out those spaces for that sharing, at least outside of pathology, support groups, and clinical settings. Our stories have to exist outside of mental health settings.

It’s unfortunate how we banish our elders to the forests. Send them away. That is our challenge, to figure out how to honor them, retrieve them, and give them space to share themselves.

Sometimes, in a group setting it can be awkward. Sometimes, the brother of a certain age, can take up lots of space. Too much space. There is an eagerness to be acknowledged, to be recognized, an urgency. An eagerness to be heard. In conference settings, unlike club settings, we are forced to listen to each other. Listen to him. And if he goes on and on, we might look at our watch, or stare at our phone, or look outside, or cough, flip through conference books, or ramble through our bags.

In club settings, and more explicitly sexualized environments, the young, the beautiful, the selfish, have the ability to ignore. It’s even encouraged. Rewarded. What’s more desirable than a beautiful asshole? Or online, especially online, we can filter out who we want to talk to, filter out the undesirable. In conference settings, we are polite, we know we have to be polite, so we listen, we acknowledge, at least most of us try to. Or fake it.

He will sometimes talk about Stonewall. Often Stonewall. “Outside of New York, it wasn’t a big deal,” he might say. Or those 80s, “I went to funerals every week for years. I got so tired of wearing that damn suite.” They were in New York and DC and Philadelphia and knew Marlon and Joseph and Essex. Remember Charles Angel, the founding of GMAD, Other Countries, and so forth. I try to see myself in him, I try to imagine myself as I grow older.

I try not to be vain about aging. I barely made it out of my quarter-life crisis in one piece and now I occupy that bizarre space between young adulthood and middle-age. Of my quarter-life crisis, it was less about fading beauty and more an anxiety around not feeling like l have accomplished enough, achieved enough, done enough.

Maybe it’s because I never valued youth, that I refuse to be vain about aging. Not really. I would never be 20 again. I swear to God. And I have always been more sexually attracted to older men. Always. As a youth, an identity that was always ill-fitting, I never much cared about advocating for youth or youth issues, even as I was frequently tokenized as “youth,” or “queer youth,” the spokesperson for this youth or that youth. Don’t get me wrong, I chose to be that, to do that, who wouldn’t like being invited to things, to feel special, but it always awkward since I never saw myself as youth or young.

Now that I’m no longer considered youth, and I creep up on 30, I want to look forward to the time when I will be some old man sitting in a conference, and people having to listen to me. Or I could start doing DILF-oriented porn. I also look forward to a culture where aging isn’t seen as a burden.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and activist. Check out his blog.

What We Can Learn From Our Artists

by Charles Stephens

Read more from Charles here on LifeLube.

Essex Hemphill begins his brilliant poem “Now We Think” with the lines “now we think as we fuck... this nut might kill us.”

This simple and provocative line has haunted me since I’ve been involved in gay men’s health. Words that for me speak to the ambivalence, urgency, pleasure, necessity and caution gay men experience in our sexual lives. Art has that power, to convey the complicated and contradictory feelings we experience. Language especially, spoken and unspoken, is an important tool, because it gives us the raw materials to imagine ourselves in the world, and imagine what’s possible. Through language we can also create meaning, develop new narratives to guide our experiences, and acquire greater precision in thinking about ourselves, our feelings, and the world around us. As gay men this is particularly important, because for generations we have been invisible and silenced. Collectively this has meant creating our own language, our own categories, meanings, and definitions for ourselves, our artists being on the forefront in this regard. However, surveying the curricula being disseminated to respond to gay men’s sexual health needs, one is definitely left wanting a far more robust engagement with art.

I am thrilled with the possibilities of HIV prevention in the age of Obama. We have the opportunity to achieve so much. However, there seems to be, at least in the conversations I’ve been a part of, a thrust toward the empirical, the scientific, the evidence-based. Perhaps, this is largely in reaction to HIV/AIDS during the George W. Bush years. Years where ideology impacted and ultimately hindered many of our efforts to adequately address HIV/AIDS in our communities. To counter the unchecked ideology, and unhinge ourselves from this puritanical regime, many of us especially in the behavioral realm, want to get back to designing interventions that are rooted in our best Public Health theories, behavior models, and are realistic for the communities we serve. And I believe this is important. However, I do have a bit of a concern. There are clearly advantages to relying on Behavioral Science, Public Health and Psychology to provide insight into our experiences as gay men, and giving us tools to reduce our risk for HIV and other STIs. We should invest in sexual health educational tools that can provide models and strategies to optimize our sexual health. But I want us to go further.

Certainly, at least in the HIV prevention interventions I’ve come across, there are some questions that are answered, and areas covered quite effectively. But there are other questions that I don’t think are answered as well. Areas that are referenced or signaled, but not explored fully. And maybe, I would argue, it’s due to the limitations of the disciplines that behavioral interventions draw from, at least the most replicated and upheld behavioral interventions.

So we are banging down the doors of the CDC and NIH to research and create more interventions, more interventions, more interventions.! We complain that some groups have fewer “evidenced based” interventions than other groups. Meanwhile, I wonder what it would mean for us to try and get the National Endowment for the Arts or the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop HIV prevention interventions. There is as rich of a body of knowledge produced by artists and writers from Edmund White to Marlon Riggs, as there has been by the Psychologists, Sociologists, Epidemiologists, that are overrepresented in the creation of HIV Prevention tools. Eric Rofes begun the project of seeking to utilize and learn from the social and behavioral sciences, but also opened himself to pull from Cultural Studies, Philosophy, and so on. We have to continue this work. David Halperin certainly does an amazing job of this in his work “What Do Gay Men Want?”

We need to create educational resources for gay men, that seek not to merely correct, reinforce, and ultimately control behavior, but help gay men grapple with the complexities of their feelings, fetishes, pleasures, desires, and yes, ultimately their behaviors. It’s troublesome for a variety of reasons, but a trap many preventionists fall into, of seeking to privilege a normative behavior, and not creating room or space for all sorts of relationships we might have with other bodies, sensations, and bodily fluids. As David Halperin and Camille Paglia have both argued for the most part, our desires and our sexual behaviors aren’t these rational places that behavioral interventions can map themselves onto, nor are they Danielle Steel novels where everything is a long walk on the beech, making love by the moonlight, and being swept off our feet. Desire can also look like the fetishist protagonist of Samuel Delany’s

The challenge before us as we develop HIV prevention educational materials is how we can affirm the sexuality of the gay men we work on behalf of, without pathologizing their desires, reinforcing normative standards of behaviors, and yet advocating for an ethic of mutual responsibility and self-care. This is certainly a riddle, but if we look at figures like Dowsett, and Rofes, and Halperin, and artists like Samuel Delany, Essex Hemphill, Edmund White, Marlon Riggs, they provide the blueprints.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and organizer. Check out his blog.

Gay Men and Anger

We are not each others enemies.

by Charles Stephens
Read more from Charles on LifeLube

All right, o.k., I admit it, sometimes I get extremely angry with other gay men.

Extremely angry.

I get angry when I schedule volunteers that don’t show up, and refuse to call and let me know. I get angry when I’m critiqued and the person doing the critiquing does not understand, or try to understand how hard I work. How hard I work for them. Or worst, I get critiqued and the person doing the critiquing has never attempted to offer any help, support, or assistance. I get angry when I’m trying to tell someone why they should be out about their gayness, or should be involved in activism, or should question their religious beliefs, or in someway behave more like me. I get angry when I’m around a group of gay men, and for whatever reason they don’t meet my gold standard of gayness. Some high and unattainable standard that they could not possibly achieve. A standard I probably don’t achieve. This is not good. These feelings force me to question to what degree, for even those of us that know better, we still harbor the residue of internalized homophobia. That I might still harbor. We might not believe we are hell bound heathens anymore, but the messages we grow up with, hear, are socialized with, linger stubbornly in our psyches like little barnacles. I’m sure Harvey Milk got pissed off sometimes.

I have also witnessed other gay men in their anger. And how their anger can transform them (I hope I don’t sound too much like Yoda). How sane, rational, loving individuals can say things more harsh than the most vicious homophobe. I’m certainly not above it. I have at times been temporarily possessed by Anita Bryant. Though I vanquish her eventually, she is a powerful one. And before I can get the garlic and holy water out, she has possessed me again.

I’ve seen it happen to others too. They start out with the best of intentions. They mean well. They want to liberate all gay men. Carefully and inspired they seek to build their armies to overthrow our homo-hating culture. But something happens. Maybe a series of things, one more scarring than the one before. The cross they bear becomes a weapon they wield. Passion becomes self-righteousness. Their causes become their cages. Other gay men, and not heterosexism, becomes the enemy.

Thoughts creep into our minds, subtly at first, but later more pronounced, and subsequently invade our conversations. “Gay men are just apolitical,” we say. “Gay men only care about sex,” we think. Perhaps, some of us activists develop this bizarre relationship to other gay men. We don’t say it, at least not openly, but feel that we are somehow more enlightened. We are special. So we will talk about how superficial other gay men are. How frivolous, narcissistic, hedonistic they are. As gay activists, we are of some higher order.

I am convinced, that ridding oneself of internalized homophobia is so much more, far more than coming out of the closet. In some ways that’s the easiest part, or at least the first step. But once you start interacting with other gay men, and once the honeymoon/romance is over, that’s when the real work begins.

It’s when your heart is shattered into a million pieces by a man that you loved. It’s when your co-worker, colleague, another gay man, attacks you in that meeting, questions your competence, makes you feel lesser than. When your integrity is challenged. It’s when another gay man insults you, picks a part that one insecurity you try to conceal, in front of a live audience. It’s when you are rejected by someone you are interested in. It’s when the pedestal you built selflessly, meticulously, proudly, for someone you admire, collapses around you because they let you down, when you realize they were not who you imagined. When you pick yourself up, put the pieces back together, in the face of despair, that’s when the real work begins. When you really do the work around eradicating internalized homophobia from your psyche.

Part of it is remembering. Remembering why you got involved with activism in the first place. Remembering all of the powerful, transformative, beautiful experiences you’ve had with other gay men. And also remembering, that we are all complicated, and that we are not each others enemies.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and organizer. Check out his blog.

Prevention Justice in the Age of Obama, pt. 1

We have 8 years to push our agenda

by Charles Stephens
Read more from Charles on LifeLube

The way I figure it, we have 8 years to push our agenda before the country swings back right. What do I mean by that? Well historically speaking, or at least for the past 50 years, a two-term President is usually followed by someone of the opposing party. The exception being George H.W.Bush. And the way the Republicans are going, their likely nominee in 2016, that’s assuming that Obama can get re-elected in 2012, will be right-wing conservative. It appears that the Party has had their fill of mavericks, moderates, and sensible Republicans. Although some will say there is no such thing as a “sensible Republican.”

That being said, we have a prime opportunity, as HIV preventionists, to push our agenda and have some solid victories.

Part of our agenda should be strengthening the coordination of our efforts nationally, if not globally.

Even the smallest and most local of AIDS Service Organizations should see themselves in a national context. What if, for example, there are particular organizations or groups, that are renowned, resourced, and skilled in a particular area? Let's say social marketing. What if we had that group skilled in social marketing take the lead on a national social marketing campaign for gay men. I have seen, especially with gay men, some really wonderful local campaigns. But none nationally.

Or if a group or organization, has a demonstrated history in policy and advocacy, why don’t we have them develop a national advocacy agenda and plan for all of us? Or if an organization or group has an absolute expertise in leadership development, have them replicate it nationally?

There are lots of groups, doing lots of great work. However, I wonder what it would look like if we singled out and supported particular groups that have the capacity based on infrastructure, resources, past success, and willingness to work, to take the lead on particular areas nationally. That does not mean that all groups have to stop doing the work they are doing and bow out. I’m just suggesting that if there were a coordinated effort nationally, we could have certain groups take the lead on specific areas for a national front.

I acknowledge the particulars and regional context of prevention. I know what works in Seattle might not work in Nashville.

However, perhaps there are some things that can be replicated nationally, and those are the things we can focus on, like for example a de-stigmatizing social marketing campaign for gay men.

By better coordinating our efforts, we would be more effective overall. In terms of funding for a more coordinated national effort, it might be -- and I know some of this is being done already with the US government -- working with and challenging some of the larger foundations to better prioritize domestic HIV prevention efforts. Or partnerships with the private sector.

Another area for growth in our work and our movement is in skills building.

The professional HIV world still looks like a plantation. The top is still very white, the bottom is still very black, especially for black gay men.

Black gay men are far too often trapped and tracked into outreach worker and program positions, and not nearly enough into policy, research, and executive management positions, especially in the larger organizations.

I insist, to remedy this, that there be professional development funds available for groups disproportionately impacted by HIV to create more professional development.

And not just money for applying to the United States Conference on AIDS and other conference. No, there should be an actual fund, that people can apply to for assistance in attending conferences, continuing education, purchasing computers, and other resources that facilitate professional development. Maybe even a fellowship for gay men of color, black and latino, for higher education in public health, public administration, business, etc. We have gotten better at having black gay men and other marginalized groups at the table. However, without substantial skills sharing and knowledge building, they are not able to maximize their position at the table. Either their expertise gets narrowed to “community representative,” or they are only seen and relegated to their demographic.

Finally, and most importantly for HIV prevention in the age of Obama, we need to document everything.

We need a blueprint. Those that come after us should be able to find, with relative ease, the lessons we have learned, and best practices we have discovered. Our success isn’t just what we do in the present, but how those that come after us are able to build on the foundation we have set.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and organizer.
Check out his blog.

Shooting the Elephant

by Charles Stephens

Read more from Charles on LifeLube

First, let me clear the air, I really hated the film Crash. I found it disgustingly sentimental. Contrived and absolutely overindulgent in it’s political correctness. It was one of those movies that sought to dispel stereotypes, and yet managed to reinforce the most simplistic notions of race since Driving Miss Daisy. It also reminds me of why I cringe at discussions of race in general. It was ultimately a movie to make politically correct white people, and people of color that are thrilled by any acknowledgement of racism, feel good. Even if it’s still racism, just with lipstick on it.

It’s funny to me how awkward discussions about race can be, even among the enlightened, even in 2008, even among the Gay Men’s Healthitocracy. Like the film Crash, this leads to a superficiality in the conversation, one that limits the possibilities of how we can think about, and interact around our racial differences. In conversations about race, we are far too reliant on creating victims and villains, roles that lack the categorical complexity to address the nuanced roles we play.

White people, especially of the liberal variety, are usually terrified of saying something racially offensive. This makes for superficial conversations at best, or self-righteous posturing at worst. They are afraid of being accused of racism. This unfortunately arrests any capacity to have meaningful dialogue and strips away the honesty.

And then there are approaches to race that I’ve witnessed, especially in progressive movements. There is the “I don’t see race, everyone is human” approach. The problem with this model is that it attempts to ignore the impact race had and continues to have. Just because you put a bag over your head, or cover your faces, or close your eyes, doesn’t mean something ceases to exist. Further, we are all exposed to and socialized around notions of racial difference and racial hierarchy. Saying you don’t see race, also suggests you don’t see racism, your own or someone else’s.

There is, within racial discourse, the chronically appalled model. One keeps score in the discussion or meeting of the various racial offenses. For some white people, this provides them the opportunity to “out anti-racist” each other, creating a hierarchy not of race, but of anti-racism. They each compete to show the others how much they “get it.” And before you know it, after the score has been tallied, the meeting turns into a support group.

There is the “I am too evolved to be a racist,” approach. Humor, or an attempt at it, is the key ingredient of this model. The best example of this model in pop culture is Sarah Silverman. Meaningful dialogue is substituted with provocation, and if you don’t “get it,” then you don’t have a sense of humor. And though humor is useful, and satire can be illuminating, every time one acts out or reinforces racial stereotypes, doesn’t mean they are shattering some taboo, and isn’t always funny.

What I would propose is rather than seeing race as something to transcend, wallow in, or make light of, we should seek to acknowledge racial difference without reinforcing racial hierarchy. At best this is done by recognizing racial difference and rejecting racial mythology. Insisting upon racial complexity rather than falling into notions of what constitutes good or bad versions of racial representation. Institutional discrimination is contrary to democracy and must be banned. Whiteness has to be talked about and called attention to, so it’s not seen as a standard, a universal, where everything else is a deviation. As gay men in particular, we must vigorously seek out ways to grapple with racial difference, be it erotically, politically, or socially. We also might have to invent models from failed past ones in our movement, models that have worked for other movements, and dare to imagine new ones.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and organizer. Check out his blog.

Can Sexual Liberation Exist in the Age of Marriage Equality?

By Charles Stephens
[read more from Charles on LifeLube here]

Will the battle for marriage equality end the plight for sexual liberation?

I’m not sure how confident I am in looking toward the state to legitimize our relationships. Even if it’s in the name of protecting our rights. And though I’m mostly supportive of marriage equality, in as much as I’m supportive of any challenge to heterosexism, I’m still a bit ambivalent.

Perhaps there is a line, arguably, from Harry Hay to Allen Ginsberg, on through Samuel Delaney, Gayle Rubin, Camille Paglia, Patrick Califia-Rice and Michael Warner of queer sexual liberationists. Individuals that embraced and continue to embrace the more transgressive aspects of our sexuality. Views that run counter to the privileging of marriage, gay or straight. And yet these voices are muted, relegated to the shadows as we march onward toward Gay Marriage. This is unfortunate, since the success of any movement, long-term, has to be reflective and self-critical. And marriage equality will be completely useless to us in the long-term without being accompanied by a rigorous critique of the institution of marriage overall, even as we enter it.

Should we be fighting for equality with the majority? Or fighting for those of us that wish to remain outside of the mainstream? Can we do both? Especially since there are those of us: butches, BDSM practitioners, piss pigs, bug chasers, hustlers, drag queens, pornographers, and other perverts and sexual outlaws that will never be apart of the gay American Dream. Some of us don’t want a partner, a house, a SUV, and multiracial adopted children. Some of would rather have a dungeon, a trough, and a few slaves. And who is out there fighting for those rights? The last thing many marriage advocates want soiling their movement, is the image of the “undesirable.” This makes these individuals, the true queers, the most marginal and most vulnerable, in our pursuit of clawing our way for a place at the table.

Culturally speaking, a bland kind of middle class gay identity, has taken hold of our politics and our culture. This began in the 70s with what was known as the “clone.” This has gotten worst, because marriage equality has become the defining gay issue, along with the military, and has created a small space to have conversations about other aspects of rights. There is certainly an energetic queer counterculture critical of the more mainstream, assimilated, gay culture, but they are largely white and middle-class, and largely rooted in a kind of academic leftism that doesn’t circulate much outside of conferences, nonprofit organizations, and college campuses. And even members of the queer left too, have become absorbed in the marriage equality movement.

What I am wondering is, should we relinquish our history of transgression for a white bread American dream? Certainly, rights are important, but what do we give up in the name of being equal? And is it worth it?

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer an organizer. He blogs at http://charlesstephens.wordpress.com

Notes on Bareback Porn

by Charles Stephens

I have seen hundreds of action movies across my lifespan, and wouldn't you know, I've never had the urge to jump off a building, blow up a car, or crane kick an evil agent?

Or for that matter, I've never had the urge, that I can recall, to drive a car off the side of the Grand Canyon holding hands with my best friend to the tragic but bittersweet end. At least not yet. Nor do most people, it would appear, since there haven't been outbreaks of people performing stunts they've seen in action movies or chick-flicks. And yet one of the critiques I often hear about bareback porn, from my colleagues in the world of HIV prevention, is the fear that it will make people think it's ok, God forbid, to engage in that behavior.


Pornographic movies, even of the bareback genre, do not define sexual cultures and behaviors, they represent them. Pornography does not create sexuality, no more than the cinema creates reality, it merely projects it. The trend of barebacking, and the fetishization of semen, started long before the bareback porn genre, and would lead me to believe that it's not that porn creates the behavior, but the behaviors, and subcultures that drive the porn. I would not go as far as the pornographer Paul Morris to suggest that bareback porn is a kind of ethnography, however, there are clearly some anthropological implications documented in bareback porn. For example, it's impossible to think critically about representations of gay men's sexuality in our time, without a serious consideration of bareback porn.

Most importantly, what bareback porn tells us, and it's increasing popularity, is the desire for us to see diverse representations of our sexuality. That might look like the muscled and Tom of Finlandesque aesthetic of Titan Media, who is a decidedly pro-condom company, the brown and twinky boys of Flava Works, or the cum pigs of Treasure Island. In the real world our sexuality isn't monolithic. We are a kind of democracy of sexual behaviors ranging from vanilla to scat. Bareback porn, and it's evolution should not come as a surprise, other than to indicate the absolute resilience of gay men to be self-determining in our sexual practices. In other words, after over 20 years of being told that our semen is toxic, there are still those of us that manage to eroticize it, aestheticize it, and subsequently represent it. And most importantly, perhaps watching bareback porn, and the ability to channel one’s fantasy voyeuristically, might prevent some gay men from actually doing it.

Am I suggesting that pornographers specializing in bareback porn have no responsibility to their consumers? No. I actually resent the simplistic libertarianism, and cynical market worship of some porn producers. However, we have yet to develop a substantial model that can be replicated of private/public partnerships with pornographers. A model of mutual responsibility that respects both the need of HIV Preventionistas to provide HIV prevention messages, and the desire of the pornographers to do and create their art. Like Camille Paglia, I believe that anything that can be imagined, must be represented, and we have to create space for that. And yet, we have to be committed to co-creating communities where HIV prevention messages can co-exist with semen fetishists and raunch enthusiasts. Having been the victims of sexual repression we must remember the lesson of George Orwell's Animal Farm, and not engage in the same oppression and intolerance that has been done to us.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and organizer. You can check out his own blog here. and he can be reached at charlesfstephens@gmail.com.

The Art of Gay Men’s Health

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta based writer and activist. He is interested in the politics of desire, gay men’s health and wellness, and black gay history and culture. Like everyone else he blogs.

LifeLube is delighted to have Charles share his ideas for a 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda.


One of the most tragic things that our collective experience as gay men living with, among, and around HIV, has robbed us of, is our ability to imagine. We have to imagine. This is a necessity. And for this to happen, we have to bring and centralize artists in the work of gay men’s health. We have to commission artists in our movement to tell our stories, visually and textually, so we can remember where we have been and imagine where we are going. Thus, I am calling for a gay men’s health agenda that advocates explicitly for art to be core to our movement.

We need artists that can continually bear witness to what has been and what can be. There have been those artists that have been doing this, brilliantly, but we need to ensure they are able to continue. They hold our stories and our truths. Susan Sontag saw the use of metaphor as potentially problematic for how we think about illness in general, and subsequently AIDS, but as human beings we need metaphor to help us make sense of our existence. We need more meanings, more symbols.

How do we as gay men attach meaning to our bodies and bodily fluids? How do we as gay men make sense of our existence in our evolving and ever changing sexual cultures? What are the possible configurations of our relationships in the sexual contexts we operate from, in our Post Protease-Online-Gay Marriage-bareback porn-Clay Aiken gay reality? These questions are being explored by some of our more courageous researchers, particularly in the realm of the Qualitative, Gary Dowsett and many others have been breathtaking in this regard. But we also need artists to respond to these things. We need to constantly develop language to articulate our current realities. And this can happen best through art.

Public health can certainly address everything from bareback porn, bug chasing, to the meanings we as gay men attach to cum. However, it has been and will only be through the arts, that the nuance and complexities of these matters can best be tackled. In the 1980s there were artists like Joseph Beam who gave us “Black men loving Black men is the revolutionary act of the 80s,” and “we are worth wanting each other,” in his powerful essays. The poet Essex Hemphill who gave us “now we think as we fuck this nut might kill us,” a line that speaks to the pleasure, fear, ambivalence, and defiance that has been such a strong part of gay male sexuality. In the 90s, Eric Rofes, an activist/writer/scholar very much influenced by Cultural Studies, by art, by the Humanities, was able to imagine gay communities and sexuality in a way that still leaves me breathless. Art is indispensable to our movement. We need to nurture and support a new generation of artists so that our past, present and future will not be told only through charts, graphs, statistics, and epidemiological data.

[Click here to read previous input into the 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda. Please feel free to comment there - or you could send in a full post of your own here. We will be happy to publish it! The feedback we receive will be featured in the closing plenary of the upcoming National Gay Men's Health Summit and will be a means of moving the community forward in the new year around issues that are important to all of us.]