Egg, Banana, and Coconut: Are Gays More Racist?

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Marten Weber

Anyone following the hype over U.S. basketball star Jeremy Lin will have observed the thick layer of racism lying ponderously over the media.

One not-so-witty journalist rightly lost his job over the headline "Chink in the Armor," after Jeremy's recent setback, but the public statements of some athletes and the reactions in the press showed that race still matters, and racism is yet a fact of life.

As a hopeless (or hopeful?) sentimentalist, I like to think that there exists a global community of gay men and women who, in the face of discrimination and prejudice, all love and respect each other regardless of skin color, a worldwide brother- and sisterhood with common interests, similar outlooks on life, and shared values. Yeah, right!

How deluded this idea is was brought home to me during last year's visits to several American and European cities.

Almost every major metropolis with a gay scene has separate bars for Asians, and even for Asian-lovers, both of which have to endure a plethora of derogatory denominations, from "rice queen" to "potato queen" and a whole lot of edibles in between. (Do you know what a banana is? How about an egg or yolk? Or a coconut? Don't ask!)

A look at online profiles will bring the same disheartening revelation: the gay world is full of narrow-minded, bigoted racists.

Prowlers proudly pin their racism and prejudices on their profiles: the favorite "no fems, no chubs, no Asians!" reminds me of the old "no dogs or Chinese" store signs of pre-war Shanghai, and I shudder.

On my U.K. book tour in the lovely city of Manchester, we listened to natives explaining why Poles were good for a hot one-night stand (no pun there, I was assured), but not really boyfriend material; why one should always avoid Arabs and Turks ("they smell and lie"), and that Asians -- no offense to my husband, or indeed to me -- were only suitable for old queens or really ugly guys. "They are only after your money anyway."

The amount of racial affinity is staggering. Even in big metropolises like Madrid and Milan, we counted far more profiles of young men looking for men who were "alike" in age, looks, and muscle development than we found explicit interest in otherness and delight in racial difference.

The more subtle date-seekers qualify their predilections with the moronic "no offense, it's just my taste."

The author Andrew Holleran described the gay world as a social melting pot, the gay disco that most democratic of institutions, where construction workers meet lawyers on equal terms.

Apparently they do mingle, as long as the both share approximately the same genetic makeup. No Moroccan construction workers for that Danish lawyer, please.

As a biracial couple, we are especially attuned to such attitudes. My Asian husband tends to like or dislike cities by the number of friends we make on social apps -- thus Boston is better than Los Angeles, and Berlin better than London.

We made a test and changed his app picture to show only his torso. His dedication to healthy cuisine was rewarded by a whopping 143 Hi!s in half an hour!

Of those, 140 disappeared or blocked him when shown his -- and you must believe me here -- absolutely gorgeous Asian face. I won't tell you which city, but we ain't gonna visit there again, I tell you.

Go through any magazine in a Western bookstore or your local porn shop and you can count the number of ethnic cover boys on one hand. "Ethnic" is of course itself a Caucasian-centric term.

The fact that it, along with "Interracial," is a category on many websites is a sign of how far away we are from an equitable, accepting society in which the color of one's skin does not matter.

That Jeremy Lin has to be an Asian-American athlete rather than just an American basketball player is simply ludicrous.

To compare notes, we interviewed the owners of two straight dating website for this article, who told us that Asian men did not have a big following, whereas Asian women were fairly easy to match with desirous Caucasian husbands.

In general, the straight bars and pubs we surveyed had a higher percentage of racial diversity than any of the gay venues. In Asia, of course, Caucasian are invariably in high demand and are often treated better than their arrogance deserves. Perhaps because there are so few to go around? So is it racism or just a matter of supply and demand?


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Op-ed: Our Groups Need More Color in Their Rainbow

via Advocate, by Jimmy Nguyen op-ed contributor

The rainbow flag, the very the symbol of gay pride, represents both our aspirations and the diversity of our population. 

Yet the top of the gay community’s rainbow — the leadership tier of LGBT non-profit organizations — is more awash in white than any other color. 

At the executive director position, LGBT groups have historically been led almost exclusively by white men. 

A step down at the board level, gay non-profits have tried for years to recruit members who better match the racial diversity of America.

After all this time talking about the need for greater racial inclusion, it’s time LGBT entities did better in finding leaders who represent the full spectrum of colors.

The figures are troubling, especially at the very top.  In 2008, only 4% of executive directors of LGBT organizations were people of color.

That figure comes from The Pipeline Project, a group formed to develop LGBT leaders who reflect our multicultural, multiethnic community. 

It is a far cry from the 36% of the U.S. population who self-identifies as a racial minority.  And our 4% is one-third less than non-profit groups in general. 

While I have not come across more recent statistics, it’s hard to imagine racial diversity among executive directors has dramatically improved in the past few years.

Executive directors act as faces to the public of their organizations and the overall LGBT movement; it is critical that those faces be as diverse as possible.

Because the LGBT population is itself a minority group, it is sadly ironic that our organizations need their own diversity initiatives.

In the boardroom, the picture is better but still lacking.  At the major LGBT non-profit entities, only 25% of board members are racial minorities, according to the 2011 annual National LGBT Movement Report released by the Movement Advancement Project, which studies the health of LGBT organizations. 

Despite efforts to improve board diversity, the 25% figure has not materially changed from the prior year.  While the MAP study does not capture data from all gay non-profit entities, it represents a good cross-section.

The 2011 report (summarizing 2010 data) covered 40 of the most prominent groups that collectively control 71% of the budgets from known gay organizations. 

Luckily, LGBT non-profit entities are doing well at the staff level. 

MAP found that 32% of staff members at participating organizations identify themselves as people of color.

This more closely tracks with the 36% figure for the U.S. population.

Why is the leadership of our LGBT organizations so awash in white?  Let’s begin with the elephant in the room. 

The gay community needs to be more racially inclusive – not just in its organizational structures and political strategies, but in its social fabric. 

Ethnic minority groups still are not as integrated into the gay world as they should be. 

That isn’t to say Caucasian people have no racial minority friends, but it is a fair observation that their social circles tend to be less racially diverse. 

This spills over into the milieu of “A-gay” charity events, where the people who historically run the show (often gay white men) invite people they know (usually more gay white men than racial minorities) to attend, contribute money or support in other ways. 

Trust me, I’ve showed up at many gay fundraisers to find myself as an Asian man just one amongst a limited number of racial minority people in the ballroom.  That results in fewer people of color getting exposure to the good work of LGBT organizations.

In turn, this affects boardroom composition. With leaders of LGBT entities being less diverse, so too are their social circles, which they reach out to for recruiting prospective board members. 

This leads to a spiraling cycle that makes it difficult for non-profit groups to improve their ethnic diversity.
 
Adding to the challenge is the money factor. For executive directors and board members, a big part of their job is to solicit donations from people who have money or strong business relationships to leverage. 

That immediately starts filtering out some people of color from the contact list.  There are, of course, many LGBT racial minorities who are professionally successful. 

But it’s the cold hard truth that an income disparity still exists in America between whites and racial minorities (irrespective of sexual orientation) even with the same level of educational attainment. 

This monetary discrepancy leaves racial minorities less likely to be invited into LGBT leadership.  I’ve experienced this myself during my time on an LGBT board. 

I would look through my contact list to see who amongst my friends had the financial means to make a significant donation or had business contacts that would be valuable. 

Fewer of my racial minority friends fit that bill than my Caucasian colleagues.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having gay, white men at the top (just as there is nothing inherently wrong with straight, white male leaders). 

But we need more color not just for atmospherics; we need itto help win the gay civil rights movement. 


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Gay Bigots-I Hate Them

via GayNZ, by The Gay Blade

And there is so much racism out in the gay world, and it really comes through in the online setting. So many ads in NZ that read  ”No Asians/Indians”.

Hmm, so that’s over 2 billion people, about 1/3 of the globe’s entire population you’ve decided to dismiss because why…?

OK, if it’s just the gay portion of that more than 2 billion you’re dismissing, it’s considerably less, several hundred million men, absloutely none of whom you could ever find sexually interesting.

 Zero. Zip. Nada. Not one.

That’s crazy – and no, it’s not “just my preference”: it’s racism pure and simple. And I have a particular loathing for racism and racists.

It’s racist because it is firmly and entirely built on the idea of race in the first place. How can you generalise about all men from Korea or Sri Lanka? You can’t – if you try to, you are using a tool of racism, and you are racist.

It’s racist because it fails to see our shared humanity – you are relegating and dismissing one group of people purely and simply because of your own bigotry based on their ancestry and what this does to their physical appearance.

If it’s “just a preference” consider how the sentence reads if you say “No Maoris (it’s just a preference) ” or ”No Jews (it’s just a preference)”

Does that feel right? Does that sit well with you? I can’t imagine anyone using that on a profile here in NZ, although I know there are men who have that view.

I have met loathsome white people in NZ who can’t have sex with “brownies” I’m sorry to say.

And can you imagine the effects of that constant negative barrage on people?

It just seems so weird to me – some men are hot, some aren’t. I don’t care about ethnicity. I’ve met hot, beautiful and sexy men from all sorts of backgrounds.

There are some amazingly unsexy and ugly whites out there, but I wouldn’t use that to justify saying “No whites”, so to me it comes down to some level of fear of the unkown.

Fear of those that are different.

Saying it’s “Just a preference” is a load of bullshit. That’s a cowardly, mealy-mouthed way of pretending you’re not prejudiced – pure and simple.

What happens when you walk out of a dark room and find that muscle-god with the 8 inch dick who was banging you into a happy quivering mess turns out to be Chinese, Thai or Indian? Do you turn round and go “Oh dear, I don’t like Asians, sorry”

The truth is we are taught to associate certain groups with being sexually desirable and not others. We learn it through porn through our general culture and the images that are put out.

So in NZ we see people associating Maori and Pasifika men with being hot and sexy, hence the lack of the “No Maoris (it’s just a preference)” in the online world.

We’ve decided they are hot. But that’s part of a long tradition of seeing brown-skinned people from the Pacific as sexually freer than uptight “white” culture, freer and available. It’s racist, it’s exploitative and it’s based in fantasy, but it’s accepted.

And fear of what is different isn’t just about race either. I am still amazed at the well-educated, intelligent men I meet who are completely irrationally terrified of making love with someone who is HIV+.

Even when they regularly use condoms, if they know how to have safe sex and do it, if you tell them you’re poz they become gibbering wrecks.

It seems we embody all their fears about their own behaviour. I can’t see what else they are afraid of. If you know what you’re doing you’re not going to get it, no matter what the HIV status of your partner.

And this is another form of discrimination that’s close to racism. It’s a refusal to acknowledge that you are dealing with another human being who is just as worthy, just as real, just as human as you are.

Yes, I find some Indian and Chinese men unattractive – but I find the same about Germans and Anglo-Americans too, I find some Brazilians deeply unsexy to look at.

But I don’t dismiss the entire group because of it. Some men with HIV are sex-on-a-stick, some of us aren’t.
We gay men came from such a position of fear and discrimination ourselves – I guess this is why I react so strongly to this.

For centuries we were persecuted for being who we are, I find it amazing to see the same sort of ignorant nasty bigotry in our own world.


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The Faces Missing from 'The Gay Rights Movement'

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Zach Stafford

I am a gay, multiracial male who grew up in Tennessee. When I was little I felt like an outsider, like many gay folks, but my "outsider" position was not just because I was gay; it was much more complicated.

I was one of the only people of color in my school, and I was the most effeminate little boy there, as well, which pegged me immediately as a "faggot."

I also was pudgy, not very athletic, and liked video games too much, but those are all minor aspects of why I didn't fit in. Needless to say, no one around me was like me, the puggy, effeminate, brown boy living in the South -- and that was lonely.

As I grew up and got to high school, a few gay kids did start coming out, and I did make some gay friends, but these kids, due to being in a white suburb, were all white.

So my race and my gayness then began to work together, making me feel different, making me feel hopeless, making me unable to consider that it could get better.

When I watched some of my favorite gay-friendly TV shows, like Will & Grace, I would see gay folks having fun, being gay, and enjoying life in a city, most of the time.

This gave me my first insight into what being gay was, and my first suspicion that gay was not like me -- it was wealthy, it was white, and it didn't bother to have people who looked like me for me to look up to, or even begin to understand what my experience was like as a gay person of color.

After graduating from high school, moving to Chicago, and reaching drinking age, I went to the famous Boystown neighborhood and soaked in the abundance of gay bars, restaurants, centers, and anything you can imagine.

However, I felt out of place, like I didn't belong; I remember looking around and noticing that most of the men looked like Abercrombie models, or at least tried to look like them, and were mainly white.
I got very little attention there, and the little attention I got was due to my exoticism, because when one is brown, that could mean one is Brazilian, Egyptian, Puerto Rican... the list goes on. Gay had a look, and I wasn't that look.

So as I watched the YouTube Video "The Gay Rights Movement," which has recently gone viral, I got progressively sadder as the video played through footage of what the gay community seems to consider milestones.

Lots of familiar faces rolled by, and happy emotions did rise inside me, but I still felt hints of sadness, a sadness that was familiar, that wasn't new, and I knew exactly what it was: I, and a lot of other people within the gay community, were not there.

It's not like we weren't ever there; there have been tons of queer folks of color who have done amazing things in America.

For instance, the video shows Martin Luther King Jr., but not his advisor and one of the main powers behind him, Bayard Rustin, a gay black man.

The video shows Ellen Degeneres over and over talking about suicides, but not another famous lesbian who is black, Wanda Sykes.

It shows coverage of the suicides of gay male youths, but not the countless suicides of transgender people, which happen yearly and go quite unnoticed, just like the faces of trans people in the video.

It doesn't show a lot.


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Foolish Thing Desire

via MetroWeekly, by Sean Bugg

A few years ago, before I began dating my husband, my then-boyfriend took me to a summer cookout with a local gay Asian group.

It was a fun Sunday afternoon of volleyball, hotdogs and chả giò, meeting new people, and all the enjoyment you're supposed to get out of a Sunday afternoon party.

While scarfing down some pasta salad and Korean barbecue, I overheard one of the few single white men in attendance, who'd been pretty openly cruising around the party, lecherously questioning a guy across the picnic table from me: ''So, what country are you from?''

Dude, you're not doing white people any favors with that crap, I thought.

The intersection of sex and race is just another of those things that brings out the worst in a small number of people, who then go on to make headaches for everyone else.

I've been pondering this again lately, in part because of sudden surge of interest in a 2010 Metro Weekly opinion column by Daniel W.K. Lee on sexual racism in the gay community, as well as Alexander Chee's essay last week for Out, ''No Asians!'' both of which delve into the increasing sexual segregation of the gay community.

It's of more than passing interest to me, given that my husband is Asian. (If you're wondering ''What is he?," he's Vietnamese).

So I tossed the subject out on Facebook and a couple of email groups to see what my multicultural circle of friends and acquaintances think about the issue.

The short and polite version: We seem to lack consensus.

On the one hand, people of color have a pretty strong case that dismissing entire classes of people solely for racial and ethnic backgrounds is, at its core, racist. (I would add that desiring people exclusively because of their race is just as problematic.)

On the other, there's an equally strong case that you can't force people to experience sexual attraction, and it's immoral to label as ''racism'' a response over which people lack any conscious control.

Still, I'm more sympathetic to the former (although I pull back from declarations of racism, because I understand the latter).

During my days of very enthusiastic dating and hookups — back in the earliest days of using the Internet to find sex partners — I never had the experience of scrolling through person after person declaring ''No whites!'' But black and Asian guys?

I can see exactly how they could walk away from that with a different take on the racial harmony of the gay community.

The embarrassing thing is, back then I was skipping past most of those guys who were black and Asian. My own history of sexual desire is a history of change – I grew up where it was actually pretty rare to see anything but white people, which I believe shaped much of my young gay life.

It wasn't until later that I understood that desire is fluid; what turns you on at 25 may not do it when you're 40.

I've learned a lot from being in an interracial marriage, the main thing being that it doesn't make me a special snowflake. I'm just a guy who's lucky enough to have found a good relationship.

And I'm thankful that my own youthful tunnel vision expanded to the point where I was open to it when I found it. We all turn away too much happiness because of our own unexamined expectations.


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A Tribe Called Queer

via Out Magazine, by Jon Roth

Gay couples can’t marry in Washington. But near Seattle, tucked away off the Puget Sound, there’s a sovereign nation whose citizens can marry whoever they choose.

They’re called the Suquamish, and they were there before Washington was a president, much less a state.

The Suquamish enjoy the right to same-sex marriage, thanks to Heather Purser, a 29-year-old lesbian tribal member who grew up near the reservation.

She’d already tried to come out of the closet twice during her childhood, and retreated both times before she arrived at Western Washington University and started attending LGBT events. “I saw that I could be safe there,” she says. “I decided I wanted to have that feeling back home, too.”

Purser began speaking with her tribe about same-sex marriage in 2007. A year later, she addressed the tribal council, which cautiously encouraged her cause.

She did her research: contacting a tribe that had recently passed a similar law, requesting copies of their ordinance, reviewing it with an attorney, and translating it into Suquamish.

After three years, she put her petition to a vote at a council meeting. “Everyone said, ‘If you do that, it’ll kill your dream. We have to do this slowly,’ ” she says.

Purser demanded a vote anyway. In a room of 300 people, not one dissented. In August of 2011, her dream became law.

This isn’t the first victory for queer Native Americans. In 2006, the First Nations Two Spirit Collective formed, creating a political platform for LGBT native people.

In 2008, the Coquille tribe of North Bend, Ore., became the first to allow same-sex marriage. This summer, the Suquamish became the second.

Two months later, the Oglala Sioux tribe of Pine Ridge, S.D., issued a proclamation in support of LGBT equality, declaring it “time to ignite the civil rights movement of the 21st century.”

This may sound progressive, but Native Americans’ recognition of queer people predates Columbus. The Navajo call them nadleeh, the Lakota say winkte, the Plains Cree use iskwekan -- there are almost as many terms as native languages.

One word you probably won’t hear is berdache, a pejorative (something between a catamite and a male prostitute) introduced by early French colonists. In 1990, a queer Native American caucus settled on “two spirit” as an umbrella term to describe indigenous people of alternative gender or sexuality.

“In traditional communities, ‘gay’ wasn’t even a category,” says Dr. Karina Walters, an out member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and Director of Washington University’s Indigenous Wellness Research Institute.

“Quite often there were third gender statuses, sometimes up to seven,” Walters notes. “These relationships weren’t homosexual, they were heterogendered.” Two spirits often inhabited the in-between spaces, working as medicine people and mediators between rival factions, living on the outer ring of camp to serve as buffers from outsiders.

Some two spirits were even present in Washington, D.C., during treaty negotiations. At best, they were revered. At worst, they were tolerated, sometimes teased.

Like smallpox and whiskey, homophobia was a Western import, codified once the U.S. and Canada became nations. Government-run boarding schools spearheaded this reeducation: Students were given Western names, clothes, and haircuts, along with a set of foreign values.

Dylan Rose, 24, who describes himself as a mix of Plains Cree, Scottish, Irish, and French, deeply resents the lasting cultural impact of those schools, which flourished through the 1970s.

“They taught us not to be Indian,” he says. “We’re devalued because of same-sex relationships now, and that’s not how it used to be.”


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No Asians! Sexual Racism in Online Hookup Sites

via Out Magazine, by Aleander Chee

I more or less forgot about the Internet tricking grind. I’m happily settled with a man, and we don’t have one of those one-eye-over-the-shoulder relationships where we each wait for the other to leave the apartment and then hit the web for the day’s hookups.

So it was off my mind until this summer, when a Tumblr, Douchebags of Grindr, launched with a storm of ridicule aimed at particularly egotistical profiles.

Much of the mockery on the DoG blog is reserved for the guys whose profile photos consist of Bentley keys and Black AmEx cards, or ones like the arrogant hottie whose profile reads, “I choose you! You don’t choose me!”

But what caught my eye was that there was a special place in Internet Hell reserved for the ones who put NO ASIANS on their profiles.

The no asians proclamation is usually accompanied by no FATS/FEMMES/POZ, as if being Asian is something cured with a visit to the gym, doctor, or behavioral therapy.

There’s a temptation here to try and litigate with the no asians crowd -- “How can you say you’re not into Asians? What about Harry Shum/BD Wong/Daniel Dae Kim?” -- but that’s really beside the point.

Disturbing as it was to see, I decided to really think about it.

Last fall, Alex Rowlson, in his piece for Canadian gay mag Fab, wrote, “The culture of sexual liberation has been replaced by sexual segregation.” The thing is, if that happened, it happened a long time ago. Racial preference in the gay community is not new.

Twenty years ago, I moved to San Francisco after college and entered the bewildering maze of gay bars there that suggested gay life was more about race than about gender preference:

There were bars for white men to meet black men, black men to meet black men, white men to meet Asian men, Asians to meet Asians, and so on.

This Balkanized sexual landscape presented certain complications. I’m half Korean, half Scotch-Irish. Inside of these strict scenarios, I disappoint the rice queens, as well as the snow queens.

I have sometimes passed as white to those who didn’t ask questions. I’ve had guys ask if I was everything from Swedish to Mexican or African American.

If they didn’t ask, they’d engage in a guessing game. In the meantime, I’ve had boyfriends of many creeds. The only thing my boyfriends have in common is me.


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4 Colored Boys Like Me

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Dane Harrington Joseph

I am not a racist.

There's a perfectly sound reason why my new project, Langston's, is subtitled "a film by (4) colored boys." Besides the obvious answer (it's a collaboration between four noted black and latino filmmakers), there's also a much more personal reason, dating back about 20 years to when I was a little colored boy myself (as my grandma would affectionately call me).

Back then, I would occasionally wet my bed at night. After such incidents I'd hide my gold-tinted "tighty whities" from my father, who would undoubtedly "whoop" me if he found them.

Nonetheless, despite my best efforts, he would sniff them out after they had festered for a few days in some ill-concealed location.

He would then call out for me in his ironically shrill, baritone voice, and, after a series of insults, proceed to beat me, accentuating verbally my various flaws with each lash.

My worst offense, however, would be crying, because "black men don't cry," an adage he'd bark at me whenever my eyes started to well up.

So I would just bite my lip until he was finished, then retire to my room and cry secretly into my pillow, all the while thinking, "I need help."

Of course, I didn't mean I needed to be rescued from my father's "tough love." Rather, I needed help controlling my compulsion to be me. I didn't want to be me. I hated me.

"Me" needed help, and I knew no other little "colored" boys like me who could show me the way.

So I looked to pop culture for guidance: music, movies, TV. Bill Cosby? No. Montel Williams? Denzel Washington? No. Flava Flav? Hell no.

There was not one media personality or public figure that reflected me. I wasn't relevant. I didn't matter.

I grew up, cried a little less, and, as a teen, became even more obsessed with the idea of finding someone to connect with -- other little colored boys like me. I discovered this newfangled thing called "the Internet" at the library.

I made new virtual "friends" and consequently put myself in unsafe situations, sexually and emotionally, just to feel something, to relate to someone.

I thought that love manifested physically between a 41-year-old Italian bear and a 15-year-old little colored boy could fill a void, could help substitute for the lack of love I felt for myself; it didn't.

I recall going to my mom a few months later and having her take me for my first HIV test, and crying, and then her crying, and then us crying again when the results came back negative.

And I remember thinking I would never be self-destructive in that way again.

I must admit, however, that the lure of boys and booze to fill a void still lingers, to gain instant gratification to temporarily replace constant feelings of illegitimacy.

And while this could, in truth, be the story of anyone of any race, I find that my existence as a gay man of color has rarely been validated; how I felt as a little colored boy looking to the media for validation still resounds today as a grown colored man.

Aside from a slew of big black men in pretty dresses (RuPaul, Tyler Perry, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Jamie Foxx, and Flip Wilson, all of whom I admire, but almost all of whom aren't gay) and some admirable attempts by a few noted filmmakers (Patrick Ian Polk, Maurice Jamal, and Roger Omeus, to name a few), there has not been a constant presence of gay men of color in mainstream media or popular culture.

Coupled with negative societal perspectives on homosexuality, the diminished presence of black-themed entertainment that was so pervasive in the '80s and '90s, and the Euro-centric focus of most gay entertainment and advertising, it's not so surprising that self-destructive actions among young gay black men are on the rise, with the CDC reporting that new infections among said demographic saw a dramatic increase of 48 percent in recent years, with 59 percent of those carrying the disease unaware of their status.


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When Condoms Aint Enuf...

via TheBody, by Allen Kwabena Frimpong and Michael Terry Everett

"I also want to mention that we are increasingly becoming better at incorporating conversations about 'harm reduction' into the realms of substance use (needle exchanges, safe injection sites, pill testing, etc.), but we often fail to adequately translate this model when speaking of communicating risk reduction in sex (strategic positioning, sero-sorting, viral load suppression, etc.). My question back to the group then is, how do we more effectively communicate to young people the abstract concept of 'harm reduction' for sex within the context of a sex phobic society?"

This was a question posed by Jamie Forrest of Vancouver, Canada in the North America, Western Europe, and Caribbean CrowdOutAIDS Open Forum on Facebook. CrowdOutAIDS is UNAIDS new collaborative online youth-led project.

He posed this question to the group after people were discussing what they considered to be the main reasons for HIV infection among young people.

Reading the responses on Facebook gave us one of those jolted reactions.

The dominant message about sexual health in relation to HIV prevention has been focusing on condom usage. Jamie's question was one that I saw as challenging; given the propaganda that the HIV/AIDS field has been pushing around what it means to have safer sex.

My colleague at the Harm Reduction Coalition, Michael T. Everett, was also raising this same question especially among young men who have sex with men (YMSM) of color given that their rates of infection have been steadily increasing while rates of infection among injection drug users has been on the decline.

The question for us became what (besides the exchange of needles) was accounting for the decrease in transmission of HIV among injection drug users, and how could we use what works in harm reduction messaging and education when it comes to drug use (if anything) for other high-risk populations greatly affected by the epidemic through sexual transmission.

We considered this in light of the following:

1. We cannot exchange condoms like we do syringes.
2. We know people are not using condoms all the time, and the possibilities of HIV and other STI's has not scared enough people into doing so, and so ...
3. If people have been harboring condom use as the dominant end all be all harm reduction response- well then something is terribly wrong with this picture.

The place to begin the conversation around the idea of prevention of at-risk behaviors like having unprotected sex is a great place to start.

We need to engage an intentional conversation concerning the reality that the message of safe-sex, by way of condom usage, may not resonate with people because it is limited and does not allow one to ponder the spectrum of other possible harm reduction practices.

The point is: we want people to still live a healthy life without causing further harm to themselves and others. The spectrum of harm reduction practices includes everything from prevention to helping those who are most affected by the collateral consequences of their at-risk behavior.

The spectrum does not begin or end with condom usage only.


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Black and Latino MSM Identity and HIV Risk

via Poz, by Trenton Straube

New research uncovers mistaken assumptions fueling HIV rates among black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM).

The belief that having sex with someone of your own race lowers your risk of contracting HIV is a misperception that needs to be addressed among black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM).

What’s more, health care workers are missing opportunities to test this population for HIV—even when the men are engaged in care and disclose their sexuality to their doctors.

These are just two findings of research looking at black and Latino MSM who are HIV positive but unaware of their status. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 53 percent of new HIV cases in the United States are among MSM and that 54 percent of these MSM are black and Latino.

In addition, HIV-positive black and Latino MSM are less likely than their white counterparts to know their status—which is one factor that amplifies HIV rates among these populations.

To explore these dynamics, researchers led by Gregorio A. Millett, MPH, the CDC/HHS Liaison to the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP), analyzed data from 1,208 MSM (597 black and 611 Latino) who participated in studies in Los Angeles, New York City and Philadelphia.

Eleven percent of them (18 percent black, 5 percent Latino) turned out to be HIV positive but unaware of their status (referred to as “HIV-positive unaware”).

Researchers found that certain variables were more common among the MSM in this group.

For example:

Black HIV-positive unaware MSM were associated with:

•Gay identity
•Earning a moderately higher income
•Having health insurance
•Disclosing sexuality to current health care provider
•Fewer than three lifetime HIV tests
•High perceived risk of testing HIV positive
•Belief that sex with other black men reduces HIV risk

Latino HIV-positive unaware MSM were associated with:

•Nongay identity
•High perceived risk of currently being HIV positive
•Belief that sex with other Latino men reduces HIV risk


POZ spoke with Millett, who arrived at ONAP via the CDC, about the implications of these findings, which were printed in the September Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes in an article titled “Mistaken Assumptions and Missed Opportunities: Correlates of Undiagnosed HIV Infection Among Black and Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men.”

We also asked Millett how his team in DC might use the data as they implement the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.


Read the rest

Not Just a Preference

via fabmagazine, by Alex Rowlson

We’ve all been there.

You visit a hookup or dating website, cruise somebody’s profile and are confronted with the list: no fats; no femmes; no Asians; no blacks; masc only; my age or younger; str8-acting, you be too; non-scene; and on and on. What we find is a lot of hate when all we want is head.

“Gay men have forgotten how to have sex,” says Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, editor of the forthcoming anthology Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? “For so long that was supposed to be something gay men were good at, but I’m not so sure anymore.

 They might be good at the technique but not the openness. Sex should be about opening possibilities, not closing them off.”

The negative language so prevalent on Craigslist and Grindr seems to signal that the culture of sexual liberation has been replaced by sexual segregation.

Gay sexual oppression is catalogued painfully on the Douchebags of Grindr blog, which sorts prejudiced profiles based on everything from racism and sexism to self-hating homophobia.

But even though we see it everywhere, most people are as willing to admit to the exclusionary aspects of their desires as Lindsay Lohan is to submit to drug testing — statements are qualified by “Sorry, that’s just what I’m into” or “No hard feelings, it’s just my preference.”

Sycamore says that while people have the right to say what they’re attracted to, they have a responsibility to watch how they say it.

“On the one hand, people are stating their preference, but on the other, these are not neutral terms. If we were living in a culture where everything was the same, it wouldn’t be a problem. But when sexual preference reinforces dominant systems of power in an unquestioning way, that’s when it becomes problematic.”

Michael J Faris, co-author of the essay “Fucking with Fucking Online: Advocating for Indiscriminate Promiscuity,” believes that sexual oppression too often is unexamined.

“Desiring one thing more than another I don’t see as a bad thing,” he says. “When you say, ‘I won’t date a black person or won’t sleep with a black person,’ that’s what I see as being racist. If you can’t interrogate your desire, that’s a problem.”

Sociologist Adam Isaiah Green, a faculty member at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto, believes “the concept of sexual racism is too strong and too intentional.

Our liberation movement worked to remove shame from sexual desire, and I think we should take a lesson from it in terms of how we deal with the topic of racialized desires.

Sensitizing ourselves to the connections between our most inner sexual desires and the sociopolitical landscape we are immersed in also seems like a good way to go.”


Read the rest

 

Racism in the LGBTQ Community

via HuffingtonPost, by Rev. Patrick S. Cheng, Ph.D.

Gay people love to talk about the diversity of our "community." But sometimes our actions fail to measure up to our words.

Recently, the queer Asian community in New York City was outraged by plans for a new gay party to be called "Mr. Wong's Dong Emporium."

The event, conceived by Joey Izrael and the gay rapper Cazwell, was advertised using highly offensive language and stereotypes about Asian Americans, including a "Sum Hung Boys erotic dance troupe" and a "Happy Ending massage den."

To add insult to injury, when members of the queer Asian community spoke up and objected to this party, many non-Asian gay men dismissed these concerns by saying that it was just campy fun and that we needed to "lighten up."

Fortunately, the Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY) refused to be silent. GAPIMNY published an open letter to the party promoters explaining why this party was so offensive to the queer Asian community.

To their credit, the promoters apologized and changed the name and theme of the party. Whether or not this becomes a teaching moment for the broader LGBT community remains to be seen, however.

As an openly gay Asian-American man, I often feel like a stranger in my own queer nation. A number of news articles in recent years have documented the widespread racism against Asians in the gay party scene, as well as in gay cyberspace.

The "Dong Emporium" incident is just one of many racist incidents that have angered the queer Asian community over the years. Twenty years ago, in the spring of 1991, the queer Asian community protested a New York City fundraiser by Lambda Legal that was held at the Broadway musical Miss Saigon, which had used white people in yellowface to play Asian roles.

In 2000, queer Asians were enraged by a Hotlanta circuit party that featured a "Year of the Dragon" theme and used offensive Asian stereotypes like a "china doll" pageant competition, a "fried rice" dance party, and an "ancient Chinese secret: boxers or briefs" event.


Read the rest

Reversing the Alarming HIV Increase Among Black Gay Men, Part 2

via BlackVoiceNews, by Rod McCullom

The second of a two-part series examining the high rates of new HIV infection among Black gay and bisexual men.

 Part 1 described the new data detailing the dramatic increases in new infections, examined some of the reasons driving the numbers and described the CDC's new social-marketing initiative, designed to encourage testing among Black MSM.

In light of the persistent increase in new infections among MSM (men who have sex with men)--and despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new testing initiative--a consensus has emerged among prominent Black gay men who have leadership positions in HIV/AIDS policy, prevention and public health: A larger investment is needed from public and private sources, as well as a more "holistic" approach to Black gay men's sexual health.

"It's a question of dollars," says A. Cornelius Baker, senior policy adviser of the Washington, D.C.-based National Black Gay Men's Advocacy Coalition (NBGMAC), which delivered a forceful set of recommendations in response to the CDC's incidence report.

 Across the federal bureaucracy, "there is not a sufficient investment in line with the scope of the epidemic in Black and Latino gay populations," he says.

"The CDC must increase funding to organizations providing services to young MSM and transgender [people] of color from $9 million to $14 million," says Baker, who is also board chair of the Black AIDS Institute.

 "Five years after its initial commitment, the numbers are worse, and their investment remains at $9 million. That makes no sense."

Among NBGMAC's additional recommendations: increased funding, capacity building in Black gay organizations, continuing HIV education for medical professionals, high-level consultations with Black gay men and research on how to lower the viral load in MSM communities of color.

Read the rest

VIDEO: Coming out in a Cuban Family

via Towleroad, by Nathan Manske

On the Tour, I especially loved hearing stories where I learn even a little about new cultures. That's why I was excited when Nicholas, who grew up in Little Havana in Miami, wanted to share his story.

With Nicholas's story, I never knew where it was going until the very end. The way he sets up Cuban culture, the workplace discrimination, then finally the moment when he tells his parents...you're waiting to find out if it ends happily or not right up until the last bit of his story.

Courtesy of Towleroad

Odds for Detecting HIV Varies By Method, New Study Finds

via At a Glance

The odds for effectively detecting HIV in African-American men vary by method, researchers have found. The study, which appears in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, suggests that HIV-prevention efforts must be multi-faceted, taking into account differences in within this demographic.

To do so, they examined three different avenues for testing among African American MSM in New York City and looked at which methods showed the highest rates of positive HIV tests. By linking a method for getting tested with positive HIV results, the researchers could then better understand which methods were most likely to identify new HIV cases.

The three approaches for HIV testing included the following:

·         Partner services, which involves identifying, locating, and interviewing HIV-infected persons to provide names and contact information of their sex and needle-sharing partners, notifying partners of their exposure to HIV, and providing HIV counseling, testing, and referral services to those partners;

·         Alternative venue testing, in which rapid HIV testing is conducted in bars, churches, or mobile units;

·         The social networks strategy, where HIV testers engage either HIV-positive individuals or those at high risk of seroconversion to become “recruiters.” Through active enlistment and coaching processes, staff build relationships and help recruiters engage people in their social circles into HIV testing.


Read more.

How is Quincy Greene healthy?

[LifeLube would like to encourage YOU to reflect on your own healthy choices and make video to provide tips to others on LifeLube! Be YOU ! Be Healthy! Live Long! LifeLube!Send your video link or written post to lifelube@gmail.com.]



How are you healthy?
Please join the hundreds who have shared their tips.
Tell us HERE. Send a pic to the same place.
And we'll blog it, right here on LifeLube.
Gay men and all allies welcome to participate.
Read past posts.
Learn more about the campaign

HIV Epidemic Growing Fastest Among Black Gay and Bisexual Men

via Colorlines, By Kai Wright

Young black gay and bisexual men are the only population in the U.S. in which the pace of HIV’s spread is increasing, according to a startling study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday.

CDC researchers looked at new infections between 2006 and 2009 and discovered that, as expected, we’re still logging roughly 50,000 new infections overall each year in the U.S. We’ve been at that level for several years. The study also re-confirmed that African Americans are a wildly disproportionate number of those new infections.

Blacks accounted for 44 percent of new infections, despite being just about 12 percent of the overall U.S. population in the 2010 Census.But CDC noted with alarm that, unlike all other subpopulations in the U.S., black gay and bisexual men between the age of 18 and 29 saw a dramatic increase in infections: up by 48 percent in the three-year span of the study.

“We are deeply concerned by the alarming rise in new HIV infections in young, black gay and bisexual men and the continued impact of HIV among young gay and bisexual men of all races,” CDC’s HIV prevention director Jonathan Mermin declared in a statement. “We cannot allow the health of a new generation of gay men to be lost to a preventable disease. It’s time to renew the focus on HIV among gay men and confront the homophobia and stigma that all too often accompany this disease.”

Read more.

Prevention Revolution or Magical Thinking?Feast of Fun podcasts LifeLube's forum on Pre-exposure Prophylaxis- Listen

via feast of Fun

June 15, 2011, from the Center on Halsted in Chicago, LifeLube hosted a live community forum on Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). World renowned LGBT podcasters, Feast of Fun, moderated the discussion as panelists and guests were engaged on one of the most exciting developments in the fight against HIV.

 The conversation was joined by:

 Dr. Bob Grant, the protocol chair for the groundbreaking study, iPrEx.

 Keith Green of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, who is a consultant for Project PrEPare, which explores the acceptability and feasibility of the trial among men who have sex with other men.

Rico Herrera, a Chicago gay youth currently participating in the trial via Project PrEPare.

Plus- live questions from the audience.

The forum went off without a hitch thanks to the help of our community partners:
Association of Latin Men for Action
Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus
Communities of Color Collaborative
Project CRYSP
Feast of Fun

Click for the podcast

New York's First Gay Marriage?

via Living Out Loud with Darian

This is absolutely amazing! This couple was not only clever, but very lucky..

This story is one for the books. The New York Post is reporting the marriage of Hakim "Kimah" Nelson (pictured right) and his husband Jason Stenson(pictured left) who were married on May 26, 2009.

The couple managed to obtain a legal marriage license in a state that doesn't allow gay couples to wed. A marriage equality bill is currently waiting to be brought to the floor for a vote in the New York Senate.


The New York Post:


The plucky couple filled out their marriage application online at the Apple Store on 14th Street in May. A few days later, they went to the City Clerk's Office on Worth Street to complete the form and get their marriage license.


Nelson -- who goes by the name "Kimah" and hopes to one day have surgery to become a "full female" -- wore an orange dress and white leggings, his straight, brown hair falling to his shoulders.


The gullible clerk didn't seem to notice that both Nelson, 18, and Stenson, 21, have male first names.


They both had to present identification to obtain the license. Stenson used his state ID card, and Nelson gave a state Benefit Card, which he uses to collect food stamps.


By a fluke, Nelson's ID card has an "F" for female on it, because the official who issued it in April assumed from his appearance that he was a woman.


But Nelson couldn't believe the license clerk didn't ask for better identification.


"I was scared. I thought they would ask for more paperwork from me because I have a male name," Nelson said.


Ten days after obtaining their license, the wedding crashers returned to the office for the ceremony. They were clutching their license and a pair of $10 silver wedding rings they had bought in the West Village. Nelson was in the same orange dress.

Read more.

Thirty Years of HIV/AIDS: A New Challenge Is on the Horizon

via The White House Blog by Ron Simmons, Ph.D.

Dr. Ron Simmons has made such a tremendous impact on the work I do for Black men who have sex with men (MSM).His service over the years stands as a framework for what it really means to work for the  betterment of  your community. Read his words...

When I reflect on the 30th anniversary of the HIV epidemic, I am simply amazed. Amazed that I am still alive after living with AIDS for over 20 years and that there is an effective treatment for HIV that is one pill a day. I remember the early days of AIDS, there was no name for it—only fear.

Doctors were afraid to touch you. Nurses were afraid to feed you. And your friends that tried to give you encouragement to not feel hopeless, died themselves from the disease. Today HIV/AIDS is a preventable and treatable disease. There is a lot least stigma and fear. The President of the United States speaks openly and affirmatively about ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In many jurisdictions, government funded programs provide a safety net of health care and support for people with the disease. So much has changed in 30 years, yet new challenges appear on the horizon.

One of the most serious challenges is the “paradigm shift” in HIV infection among Black men who have sex with men (MSM). Studies have found that the traditional paradigm, the theoretical model of a positive correlation between high HIV risk behavior and high HIV infection, may not be true for Black MSM. Such a paradigm shift would have a profound impact on the effectiveness of prevention efforts targeting Black MSM in the United States.

Read more.