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 or generations, discovery, let alone living, as a gay man was to risk church-inspired rejection by family, friends, employers, government and community. Few have suffered the pain and suffering, inflicted by so many, for so long by the church. For too long the Cross has been a symbol of oppression, not liberation, of judgment, not acceptance, of hate, not love.
Every chapter in the history of gay and lesbian liberation carries the mark of those who have used the Cross, the Scriptures and the name of Jesus Christ to justify their bigotry. Anita Bryant in Florida and John Briggs in California exploited the Cross to finance and energize movements of discrimination that collapsed under the hatred they generated. The Religious Right continues to use homosexuality as a frontal issue to fuel their divisive campaigns, define their narrow views of family values and build their coffers.
However, the modern Gay Rights movement is challenging traditional religious theology – not only Christian, but others as well. The increasing presence of openly gay/lesbian clergy and lay people worshipping God and professing their Christian faith has caused most church denominations to re-examine their stands – an often wrenching, divisive process. Some denominations have reaffirmed their positions of exclusion for homosexuals and others are extending a welcome acceptance or at least urging greater tolerance, love and understanding. Within intolerant denominations, there are individual churches and clergy that are breaking ranks and choosing an inclusive theology that recognizes and embraces human diversity.
In his 1997 crusade in San Francisco, the first sentence the Rev Billy Graham delivered to his audience was “Whatever your background, whatever your sexual orientation, we welcome you here tonight.” Earlier in the day he had clarified his position to the San Francisco Chronicle saying, “What I want to preach about in San Francisco is the love of God. People need to know that God loves them no matter what their ethnic background or sexual orientation. I have so many gay friends, and we remain friends.”
Earlier in 1997, the US Bishops of the Catholic Church also took a strong stand urging parents to love their lesbian daughters and gay sons. The statement also recognized that sexual orientation may be inherent and not an individual choice.
People of alternate sexual orientations are continually buffeted by the contradictions of traditional church teachings. Intolerance towards homosexuality and damnation are preached, and at the same time we are taught that God is a loving God and that all of us are made in God’s image. Our thoughts and experience, increasingly backed by science, lead us to believe that our sexual orientation stems from genetics and is established at a very young age – it is not a matter of choice. Obviously questions arise. Would a loving God create a creature in God’s image with a condition that it is condemned? Would God create an inherent condition that must forever be denied in order to achieve lasting forgiveness and redemption? Is the God of the traditional Christian Church really a loving, forgiving God? Isn’t it ironic that because of the bigotry of churches, it’s easier today for a gay person to be openly ‘Out’ in society than to be openly Christian?
These contradictions force each gay person to take some stand – consciously and unconsciously. Some try to ignore the problem or put spiritual decisions on hold. Some deny God since they assume through church teachings that God has rejected them. Many, fortunately, form or follow their own set of beliefs, allowing them to embrace fully a loving relationship with God.
Ultimately, a person’s relationship with God is a one-on-one experience. No human being is in a position of sufficient knowledge or understanding to judge it, or to dictate interpretations of the absolute right and wrong of it. Each person has the right to follow his own spiritual path to achieve a state of peace and joy in relationship with God.
God gave us words in scripture, but above all, we were endowed with a Soul to communicate with God. Feelings and thoughts are the primary languages of the Soul, and God talks to us through our Souls at the time. Our Soul lets us now what is true and right. It is a matter of personal discernment as to which feelings and thoughts are of God in reflecting joy, truth and love.
Much of our Western culture’s homophobia finds its basis in the Judeo-Christian heritage with the Bible often quoted to justify this bigotry. Fortunately, there is a growing belief that homophobia is less based in scripture than previously thought. The Bible was written within a cultural and historical context. There are numerous prohibited activities with the holiness code specified in Leviticus. Many were based on desires for population growth, disease control and misunderstanding of physiology. Because of the redemptive spirit of the New Testament through the teachings of Jesus, the Leviticus holiness code is no longer kept by Christian churches. If it were, most Christians today would be excommunicated or executed. Yet, is it not interesting that Christians justify their homophobia by selectively focusing on certain prohibitions of the Leviticus code while at the same time routinely violating other prohibitions themselves (e.g., eating pork, intercourse during menstruation).
In fact, the Bible says very little about homosexuality. Jesus said nothing about it, but was emphatic and passionate about many other personal and ‘family values’ including greed, judgment, pride, hypocrites and being uncaring. Above all, Jesus preached ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ and ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.
The Bible does not address the notion of people being homosexual as a psycho-sexual orientation. Biblical references and stories therefore concern homosexual acts performed by heterosexuals in presumable non-consensual situations (i.e., rape) towards other heterosexual or acts of same-sex prostitution.
Homophobic biblical interpretations are subject to translation errors or cultural biases by scholars. While homosexual love is not addressed in the Bible, love between people of the same sex is valued. Examples are David’s love for Jonathan which exceeded his love for women, and Ruth’s deep, long lasting love for Naomi.
Reference: www.mccsf.org.
David Akinsanya is gay — but now he wants to reverse his sexuality. Why? Natasha Courtney-Smith meets a man on a quest for fulfillment
 avid Akinsanya is looking for love. He’s good-looking, has an engaging manner and a career as a BBC current affairs journalist, so he shouldn’t lack for suitors. But there is one problem: he can’t decide whether he wants a boyfriend, or a girlfriend.
After 24 years of living as a gay man, Akinsanya is becoming deeply perturbed by what he sees as the constraints of his sexuality. He wants children, and he doesn’t want them by any of the methods open to him, which he perceives to be both compromising and contrived. What Akinsanya yearns for is heterosexuality with all its implications, especially a wife and family.
To go from gay to straight is something many would deem impossible. Yet over the past year, Akinsanya has embarked on an extraordinary mission – both to understand why he is gay and to determine whether his sexuality can be reversed. As part of his quest, he has traveled to the United States to attend a program claiming to achieve reversions of sexuality, and he has undergone a battery of tests to determine such aspects as the predominant gender of his brain on a male to female spectrum.
It is something he had to do, he says. “There’s this perception that it’s great fun to be gay. But I’m tired of the lifestyle and have been single for years. I don’t want to sound ridiculous, but I simply don’t want to be gay any more. And it’s not as though I don’t fancy women at all – I do find them attractive – but just think I’ve got this habit of dealing with men.”
I meet Akinsanya on his barge moored at Mill Meadows-on-Thames. He comments wryly on his ‘gay leopard-skin patterned slippers’ and the glorious bunches of lilies in every nook of the barge. There are dozens of snapshots on the walls of his friends’ children, as well as those teenagers for whom he is a respite foster-career.
On the floor, a jumble of books about sexuality and the nature/nurture debate highlight his inner turmoil. “I know I’ll come under fire from members of the gay community, but if there is any way I can change my sexuality, I would like to do so,” he says. “I’ve never felt ashamed of being gay, but what I long for is a nuclear family – wife, kids, the lot, I just want to be normal.”
“In my present way of being, no one relies on me, no one depends on me and I, myself, have no one to rely on. When you have a wife and child, they’re yours and you are theirs. There are gay couples who have children, but I don’t want to be one of them, as I don’t think it’s fair on the child. I will not bring a child into a situation where he or she may be ridiculed, whether that’s the politically correct thing to say or not. The only way it would feel right for me to have a child is if I’m in love with their mother.”
Akinsanya is not alone in his confusion. In the United States and in Australia, attempts to go from gay to straight are increasingly common. The religious ministries that run such courses claim that 400,000 people requested information last year. The country’s largest organization, Exodus International, was formed in 1976 to help 62 people affected by ‘unwanted sexuality’; it now has 125 ministries. In July 2005, 1,000 people turned up to its annual ‘Freedom Conference’.
But both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have repeatedly condemned so-called ‘Reparative Therapy’ which seeks to change sexual orientation as ineffective and harmful to those who try it, resulting in depression and confusion. The movement was dealt a huge blow in 2000 when its most famous graduate, a former drag-queen called John Paulk, whose success with Exodus had been featured on the cover of Newsweek, was photographed by paparazzi apparently enjoying the delights of a gay bar.
Recently, the contentious issue of Reparative Therapy was again in the spotlight, with a debate sparked by a gay Tennessee teenager, Zack Stark. Stark had recorded his suicidal feelings in his online diary after his parents forced him to attend ‘Love in Action’, an organization affiliated to Exodus.
In spite of such controversies, Akinsanya remains resolute. “One of the reasons I want my own family is because I never had one as a child,” he says. “I was born in 1965 when mixed-race relationships were frowned upon, and my mother, who is white, split from my Nigerian father before my birth.”
“She had me in secret and, hours after I was born, I was taken from the hospital to the children’s home. I don’t believe I was necessarily born gay – I think it’s more likely to be something I learnt growing up in that strange environment. It wasn’t desperately unhappy, but it certainly wasn’t a normal childhood. We were cared for by one very dominating woman and I’m aware some studies show a link between a matriarchal mother figure and homosexuality.”
“My first sexual experience also took place in that house – usually playing doctors and nurses with older boys. Also, I idolized my father, a university lecturer. His visits were irregular and when I knew he was coming, I would sit on the front doorstep waiting for him. As a result, I believe I grew up craving male attention.”
By the time he was 16, Akinsanya was describing himself as bisexual. Since the age of 19, when he moved from Essex to London, his relationships have been exclusively with men. Akinsanya had two long-term relationships, which he described as ‘very fulfilling’ and ‘definitely love’, but he has been single for the past seven years.
In 2003, he began to question whether he would ever find long-term happiness as a gay man. “The doubts that led to this fundamental transition in my thinking started when I was away filming. A colleague observed how great it must be to be gay because I didn’t have to phone home and I could pursue my career without worrying about a family,” says Akinsanya. “I went back to my hotel room and sat there with no one to phone and I thought, ‘Being gay is not that bloody great.’”
“I don’t like one-night stands because I’ve never enjoyed sex without love. I find a lot of gay men shallow – once they’ve had sex, they’re not really interested in you as a person.”
Akinsanya discovered an abundance of sexuality courses run by religious ministries in America. “The courses aren’t cheap – about £400 (AU$800) a week – but I was prepared to try anything. I wasn’t sure how God could make you straight. As I’m not religious, it might seem a far-fetched method to consider, but I wanted to see whether or not what they offered actually worked. I don’t think I truly thought that I could be converted from gay to straight after a few days on some religious course, but at least there I wouldn’t feel that my desire to be straight was bizarre.”
Akinsanya traveled to ‘Love in Action's’ headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. The workshops advocates the hypothesis that homosexuality is a result of damaged childhood relationships. “I couldn’t see how prayer would change my sexual preference, but I went in with an open mind,” Akinsanya says. “But the course was very difficult for me because I did have a troubled childhood, and going over everything in a group therapy situation felt like hauling myself over the coals.”
“At one stage, we were told to draw time lines of the positive and negative things in our lives, and present them to the rest of the group. When I saw how negative my life appeared I cried. I didn't expect it to be so emotionally draining. And I found it difficult to understand some of the organization’s rules. I had to remove all of my personal items such as jewellery, and shave off my beard. We were completely cut off from the outside world and couldn’t even do a simple task like take the rubbish out without an escort.”
Four days into the course, Akinsanya walked out, realizing that without the religious conviction of the other participants, he could go no further. “Even the course organizers, who claim to have been converted, admitted they still struggle with homosexual feelings,” he says. “They seemed to be in some strange no-man’s land.”
But he says his time there wasn’t wasted. “I have more control over the choices I make. I feel empowered to choose celibacy as a result of the course, at least for the time being. Added to which, although I forgave my father six years ago and have had a good relationship with him ever since, the importance of that bond has really hit home. Growing up, I never knew whether he loved me or not, but now that I know he does, I’ve felt a reduced desire for physical contact with other men.”
Once back from the United States, Akinsanya pursued another line of investigation: that his sexuality was determined before he was born and that the unusual events of his childhood were incidental. He attended the laboratory of Dr. Qazi Rahman at the University of East London, whose work on foetal development and testosterone levels is renowned. Akinsanya underwent a number of tests, including measurement of his response to sudden loud noises and assessment of such spatial heterosexual and homosexual skills as his ability to rotate cubes conceptually. Both types of test differentiate strongly between heterosexual and homosexual subjects. Akinsanya says he came out as ‘Gay, gay, gay!’ in every test.
For the time being, Akinsanya has accepted that changing his sexuality may be impossible, but is open-minded and optimistic about the future. “It will be a real sadness if I don’t have a child. But I have to accept that you can’t have everything in life.”
“The whole journey I’ve been on has led me to think that sexuality can and does change over time. I can’t necessarily force a change at the very moment I would like it to happen, but I’m not unhappy about taking a break from sex and relationships while I wait for the right person to come along. Whether that’s Mr. Right or Mrs. Right, I’ve yet to discover.”
By Jonathan Young
 rends in unsafe-sex practices and its impact on the community.
The discussion of barebacking, or unsafe anal sex between two gay men, is a taboo topic that you’ll find few guys willing to talk about openly. However, due to the increase in unsafe-sex practices within the GLBT community, this discussion is starting to gain a voice. On one side of the dialogue are the sexual revolutionaries that advocate reclaiming our gay sexuality. On the other side are the health educators and social organizations that warn of a new AIDS epidemic that could overshadow the first wave – and then there is everyone in between.
Defining a Taboo
Unprotected sex between two men has many titles – skin on skin, raw, natural – yet the most common is barebacking. However, the term barebacking has different meanings to different people. To say that barebacking is ‘sex without a condom’ is too broad a definition.
To accurately identify what barebacking is, the sexual activities between gay men need to be divided into several categories. First, there are the guys that use condoms every time they engage in sexual activity. The second are those that make a conscious and deliberate decision not to use a condom. Most people would agree this category of people would be called true ‘barebackers.’
“Barebacking is not just defined by not using a condom. It’s a trend of people who have information and knowledge and are making a decision to have unprotected sex,” said Jim Zians, project manager for UCSD’s Edge Research Study. “I would like to think that most men [that do not use a condom] are not part of that group. They are struggling with condom use.”
The third category, those men struggling with condom use, is a little vague because it is the gray group in the middle of the first two. They use condoms most of the time, but not all of the time, or depending on your perspective, they bareback most of the time, but not all of the time. Are they barebackers?
“Is barebacking a struggle around condom choices or is barebacking a decision not to use condoms?” Zians asked. “I think both things are going on.”
“Barebacking scares people because there’s a whole community of people that will do it and a whole community that will not do it, and there’s a whole community in between,” said Michael Scarce, an HIV prevention activist, in the 2002 documentary ‘Our Brothers, Our Sons’.
Not knowing the size of each of these barebacking communities is what scares people the most. It’s difficult to track sexual practices, and the surveys that do ask questions about sexual safety differ in their results. Yet every indication shows an increase in barebacking activity.
“What we are seeing now is about 60% of the population practicing safe sex most of the time, and about 40% of the population are barebacking or not practicing safe sex,” Zians said.
These figures are down from the late 90’s when 80% practiced safe sex, and even down from 70% just a few years ago. Factors contributing to the condomless numbers include a larger number of young gay men not hearing or relating to the safe-sex message, a surprising older population of guys abandoning condom use due to safe-sex fatigue, and a new epidemic among IV drug users.
Creating a New Gay Terminology
Up until the 1970s, barebacking wasn’t an issue and the terminology wasn’t a well-known phrase. Sex without a condom was the norm. Condoms were used within the heterosexual community as a contraceptive measure, but rarely discussed in gay culture.
All that changed in the 1980s with the devastation by the HIV/AIDS virus. By the end of the decade more than 117,000 infected people had died, according to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. (In Australia. from 1981 to December 2005 there were 6,594 AIDS-related deaths).
The mode of transmission was attributed to sexual activity, and the gay community quickly adopted a safe-sex mantra. Condom sales skyrocketed: the greatest increase – 120% – occurred in 1987.
“Safe sex was introduced to gay men. It was sold to gay men as a stop-gap measure,” says Scarce. “We were told just wear a condom in the meantime. We’re not quite sure what’s going on.”
Out of fear of death and paranoia of this unknown ‘gay cancer’, condom use became the accepted norm. Sex without a condom – still not clearly recognized as the term barebacking at that time – became taboo.
Yet even though HIV/AIDS cases continued to rise in the early 1990s, an underground movement of men practicing unsafe sex began.
“Barebacking as a phenomenon started to emerge somewhere around mid 1993. It was largely facilitated by the more popular use of the Internet where men who had these secret stigmatized fantasies about fucking or getting fucked without rubbers began to seek one another out,” Scarce said.
Porn star Scott O’Hara is credited as the first to publicly advocate barebacking. In a 1995 edition of ‘Steam’, his self-published journal devoted to sex in public places, he wrote, “I’m tired of using condoms, and I won’t …and I don’t feel the need to encourage negatives to stay negative.”
A few years later the terminology became more recognizable in both gay and mainstream communities with a series of events. In September 1997 the term barebacking hit the mainstream news when Newsweek published the feature story, ‘A Deadly Dance.’ Former Miss America, Kate Shindle , authored a commentary entitled ‘Barebacking? Brainless!’ in the February issue of The Advocate. Vice President Al Gore used the term barebacking with the AIDS Advisory Council. Barebacking was even the focus of the storyline in a 1998 television episode of ‘ER’.
As the awareness of barebacking increased, the death and infection rate of HIV/AIDS decreased. The CDC reports the annual rate of death due to AIDS peaked in 1994/95 decreased rapidly through 1997 and nearly leveled off after 1998. But by 1998, as the HIV/AIDS epidemic was becoming less of a threat, a genuine barebacking subculture had established itself. In New South Wales since 1981 there has been a noticeable decrease in AIDS-related deaths. From NSW Health Department data, AIDS-related deaths in NSW in the period 1981–2000 totaled 3,445 with a significant drop in the period 2000–2005 to just 240 deaths. In 2004 there were 32 AIDS-related deaths, and in 2005, only two.
The risqué movement gained additional momentum in August 1998 at the National Lesbian & Gay Health Conference. Barebacking became a hot topic when Scarce and Tony Valenzuela presented a workshop entitled ‘Reducing the Risk of Doing It Raw: Strategies for Barebacking Harm Education.’ The conversation focused on how health providers and activists could assist barebackers in reducing their risk of acquiring HIV.
“AIDS prevention efforts have written off barebackers, demonizing them as the poster boys of unsafe sex. We need a concrete and specific harm reduction approach that might not always include condom use,” Scaree said at the conference as reported by the Web site, ‘Gay Today’.
“We wanted to move past moral judgments of bareback sex,” Valenzuela added, “and provide supportive and useful information to meet these gay men who bareback where they are at.”
Scaree and Valenzuela continued to make headlines a few months later when POZ published its ‘Boys Who Bareback’ issue in February 1999. Not only did Valenzuela appear naked on the cover riding a horse bareback, but the controversial issue also featured Scaree’s groundbreaking ‘A Ride on the Wild Side’, where the author went ‘through the latex looking glass to discover who’s doing it raw and why.’ In the Issue, both negative and positive gay men expressed their condom fatigue, their intense need to connect and share cum, their HIV-meds complacency and the so-called bug-chasers (men seeking our HIV-positive partners in order to purposefully become infected.).
Barebacking emerged in the mainstream news again in the February 2003 edition of Rolling Stone magazine. In a feature called ‘In Search of Death’, the magazine asserted that 25% of all new HIV infections in gay men were from barebacking bug chasers. Critics have called the Rolling Stone article ‘grossly sensationalistic reporting’ and health officials said the information ‘is spurious, is unfounded and is untrue.’ Despite the alleged inaccuracies, the article did initiate a positive debate: who are the barebackers?
Bareback Demographics
As the barebacking numbers increase, safe-sex educators are attempting to identify the demographics of their community. The more they know about barebackers’ ages, ethnicities and locations, for example, the better they can tailor a safe-sex message. Again, gathering this information is speculative and somewhat limiting, because few surveys have been conducted that ask about sexual practices.
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Continued from previous column
On a national level, AIDS affects more than just the gay community. Although 65.8% of all current AIDS cases in New South Wales are in the gay/bisexual community, with heterosexuals being the minority with 13.2%, there is another undetermined group of 15.8%.
There is a clear generational gap within the gay community when it comes to barebackers, creating three distinct age categories. There is the older generation of 45 years and older, the Baby Boomers that survived the HIV/AIDS epidemic; a middle-age generation between 30 and 45 years old, a generation that matured during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis; and the younger generation of men younger than 30, the Generation X population that did not grow up with the fear of AIDS. (These age ranges differ among various studies.)
The younger generation is taking a lot of the blame for the increase in barebacking. The increased barebacking trends in men younger than 30 can be attributed to a lack of awareness and education, and not perceiving HIV/AIDS as a life-threatening disease. Their friends are not dying at an alarming rate, and they see many positive men living long, healthy lives.
The trend of targeting the younger generation began in the late 1990s. “It was my generation who was being scapegoated for barebacking,” Valenzuela said in the ‘Our Brothers; Our Sons’ documentary. “A lot of what came down soon after this scapegoating of not just me but who I represented – which was my generation of gay men who didn’t care about AIDS and didn’t care about gay politics and didn’t care about the things my older brothers built for our community. What it brought to light was there was this enormous generation gap.”
Some young gay men – the ones that identify themselves as true barebackers &ndsh; have been informed about the health issues and have heard the safe-sex message.
“The message – which I’ve heard in so many words, many times – is ‘We didn’t fight so hard so you can do this’. My response is ‘Yes, you did,’” said Wayne Hoffman, author and sex advocate. “You fought this hard so we could know all the facts and make our decision. They might not be the decisions you like, but that’s not yours to control.”
The trend to target and blame the young might have been justified using the data at the time. That information, however, is outdated. Current stats show the largest age demographic that is barebacking is the 30- to 45-year-old community. Men 30–40 years old comprise 45% of the new HIV/AIDS cases – the highest number.
What is happening, and this is all speculation, is that barrebacking is going on more in the men who have sex with men in the 35–45 range, rather than the 25–35 range. The speculation is that the older men who have sex with men are just tired of three decades of AIDS and safe-sex.
“There are some [barebacking] trends among the men who are getting older. They are finding they have worn condoms for a while and now they not wearing them,” Zians added. Barebacking is also on the rise in the older populations, the retiring Baby Boomers. “One of the challenges in people 45 and older is the mistaken belief that they are not at risk,” said Dr Robert D. Jannsen, director of CDC’s division of HIV/AIDS prevention. Jannsen warned that older patients, raised before the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, are less likely to see the importance of using condoms. Stereotypes and lack of awareness about the older generations’ sexual activity is another challenge.
While it is difficult or almost impossible to estimate which group has a higher percentage of barebackers, all experts can testify that barebacking is on the rise among all age groups.
POZatives and Negatives
There are many explanations that support barebacking trends and rationalize, if not support, sex without a condom. There are an equal amount of arguments against it, advocating a safer approach to sex. True barebackers use these points to justify their actions, while safe-sex educators counter with health-related facts and figures.
There is a fairly significant population out there, whether you want to call them barebackers or not, who have made informed decisions not to use condoms as part of their regular sex practice. At the same time, community organizations and government health agencies continue to stress the message, ‘Use a condom every time’. Inevitably, there’s this ‘Good guy, Bad guy’ routine that gets played out in public.
In a HIV Behaviour Change Campaign survey in 2004, one of the questions asked of gay men was their reasons for not using a condom when having anal sex. These were the top answers:
- Being in a committed relationship
Most men used this reason as their answer. “There’s a whole idea of when people are in a relationship – or what’s called ‘negotiated safety’, where you are negotiating with a regular partner – that you will not use condoms with each other, but you will [with] everyone else,” explains Zians. “Health experts have difficulty with that because there are still health risks involved. Because you get people who are switching back and forth from using a condom to not using a condom, they struggle with condom use.”
- I am a Top
The number two answer for barebacking was ‘I’m a Top’, or guys that fuck. According to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis Wsbsite: ‘For the guy who is penetrating (the Top), it’s more difficult to get HIV because of two factors. One, the Top would have to have contact with blood from the Bottom’s anus, which may or may not happen. The second factor is that the urethra is a small opening, so it’s harder to get your partner’s blood into your bloodstream through the hole. For these reasons, it’s more difficult for the Top to get HIV than for the Bottom, but it does happen.’
- Already HIV positive
The HIV-positive group stated that many men who are HIV-positive only have sex with other men who are HIV-positive, and, therefore, are less concerned about using condoms. Barebacking between two people who are positive is still a high-risk activity, because of different strains of HIV. Not only HIV but other STIs (sexually transmitted infections). Anyone who is HIV infected and engages in unprotected anal intercourse is opening themselves up to the potential of contracting a whole array of diseases because their immune system is less functional than someone who does not have HIV.
It’s important to point out that not all positive men bareback. Some negative men are practicing unsafe sex, many of them are practicing safe sex; as with the HIV-positive, some of them are and some of them are not.
- Condoms reduce sensation
Condoms reduce the intimacy of skin-to-skin contact it’s often said. “Back in the 80s, the prevention specialists said, ‘Sex is just as good with condoms.’ You can’t give messages that aren’t true,”, Zians said. “You can learn to have satisfying sex using condoms. People who have difficulty with a condom should use one all the time. Over time, you will adjust to the condom and you will have more and more satisfying sex. The benefits are enormous.”
- Drug use
A story about barebacking would not be complete without discussing crystal meth. Although drug use in the gay community is a story itself there are direct connections to the barebacking phenomenon. Alcohol and other drug use is often a factor in unsafe sexual behavior. The ‘other drug’ used is crystal methamphetamine.
‘The Link Between Methamphetamine Use and Sexual Risk Behavior’, a study released in January 2005, concludes that meth use is consistently associated with unprotected anal sex among gay men. More than 80% of meth users are barebacking according to this study.
“We know that if you use methampheetaimines, you have twice the rate of HIV sero-conversion than non methamphetamine users among men who have sex with men,” Zians said. “There is the theory that the drugs impair your judgment, and therefore, it is because of the drugs that people aren’t using condoms.”
- Reclaiming Sexual Identity
There is a recurring theme among the true barebackers that sex without a condom is a reclaiming of their sexual identity. Scott O’Hara was one of these first outspoken advocates of taking back what HIV/AIDS had taken away. There are books that have been written about how gay men have to reclaim their sexuality because that’s a defining marker of who they are. That’s fine, but be sexual responsibly. If anyone is preaching anything other than that they are asking people to put their lives at risk. No orgasm is worth putting your life at risk.
- AIDS is livable
Another reason cited among those that bareback is that HIV/AIDS is a livable disease. Before 1990, men who tested positive for AIDS had a 95% fatality rate. That is not the case these days.
Barebackers also cite the number of community organizations and government agencies that offer support – from medication funding, housing assistance and job placements to free services like haircuts, massages and laundry. As new cases have leveled since the late 1990s there is an unspoken, politically correct movement to present HIV/AIDS as a mainstream disease. Since it is no longer the epidemic it was a decade ago, politicians are less likely to fund government support agencies.
In addition, backlash against the bareback movement is giving community organizations – individuals, at least – a chance to question their support of a disease that is preventable. That sentiment was first heard when Scaree and Valenzuela conducted their barebacking workshop in 1998.
Continuing the Safe-Sex Message
Those communicating the safe-sex message have a challenging job. They have to counter the bareback advocates, teach a new generation about the risks involved in unsafe sex while holding onto the current generation’s attention, and constantly evolve their message to avoid falling victim to safe-sex message fatigue.
“It’s very difficult to educate people and get them to use condoms. The education involves being ready, willing and able; feel like you are at risk, and you are ready to do this,” said Zians.
“If we change one person’s behavior so they don’t get infected, so they don’t have to go through the psychological, emotional, physical and societal ramifications of having this disease, then we’ve saved a life. We save a lot of lives all the time by telling people to get tests so they know they are positive or they are negative. We save lives by educating people who are negative how to stay negative. We save lives by telling people who are positive that life is worth living and how to have a good quality life and be respectful of your partner. I see people who are not listening. It’s difficult to see, but sometimes that message gets through. I think that makes it worth it.”
 aving several older brothers increases the likelihood of a man being gay, a finding researchers say adds weight to the idea that there is a biological basis for sexual orientation.
“It's likely to be a prenatal effect,” said Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada, “This and other studies suggest that there is probably a biological basis for” homosexuality.
S. Marc Breedlove of Michigan State University said the finding “absolutely” confirms a physical basis.
“Anybody's first guess would have been that the older brothers were having an effect socially, but this data doesn't support that,” Breedlove said in a telephone interview.
“The only link between the brothers is the mother and so the effect has to be through the mother, especially since stepbrothers didn't have the effect,” said Breedlove, who was not part of the research.
Bogaert studied four groups of Canadian men, a total of 944 people, analyzing the number of brothers and sisters each had, whether or not they lived with those siblings and whether the siblings were related by blood or adopted.
He reports in a paper appearing in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that having several biological older brothers increased the chance of a man being gay.
“It's an effect that can be detected with one older brother and becomes stronger with three or four or more,” Bogaert said in a telephone interview.
“But,” he added, “this needs to be looked at in context of the overall rate of homosexuality in men, which he suggested is about three percent. With several older brothers the rate may increase from three percent to five percent,” he said, “but that still means 95% of men with several older brothers are heterosexual.”
The effect of birth order on male homosexuality has been reported previously, but Bogaert's work is the first designed to rule out social or environmental effects.
Bogaert said he concluded the effect was biological by comparing men with biological brothers to those with brothers to whom they were not biologically related.
“The increase in the likelihood of being gay was seen only in those whose brothers had the same mothers, whether they were raised together or not,” he said.
Men raised with several older step– or adopted brothers do not have an increased chance of being gay.
“So what that means is that the environment a person is raised in really makes not much difference,” he said.
“What makes a difference,” he said, “is having older brothers who shared the same womb and gestational experience, suggesting the difference is because of some sort of prenatal factor.”
“One possibility,” he suggests, “is a maternal immune response to succeeding male fetuses. The mother may react to a male fetus as foreign but not to a female fetus because the mother is also female.”
It might be like the maternal immune response that can occur when a mother has Rh-negative blood but her fetus has Rh-positive blood. Without treatment, the mother can develop antibodies that may attack the fetus during future pregnancies.
“Whether that's what is happening remains to be seen, but it is a provocative hypothesis,” said a commentary by Breedlove, David A. Puts and Cynthia L. Jordan, all of Michigan State.
The research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Source: Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
By Guy Finley
 ex… and lots of it. Aussies are getting more than ever before – and it’s still not enough.
Australian are having sex more often with more people but for more than 40 per cent of us that’s still not enough. We have sex on average 108 times a year or once every three days according to the 2005 Durex Global Sex Survey.
But Aussies take serious risks with unsafe sex.
Sixty-one per cent of those surveyed admitted having unprotected sex without knowing their partner’s sexual history.
“It’s alarming,” Durex marketing manager, Carla McCarthy said. “With the amount of people contracting sexually transmitted infections on the increase, it is vital that we embark on effective sexual education campaigns.”
On the lighter side, Australians are keen on the great outdoors. Seventy-three per cent admitted to making love in their car, 54 per cent in the park and 43 percent on the beach. Twenty-eight per cent admitted to having an office affair.
James Durie was voted Australian’ sexiest TV presenter by 53% of those surveyed. Australians also found their politicians sexy.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
By Joe Kort, MA, MSW, ACSW
 t often seems that when you’re gay, you can face relentless pressure from all sides. Out in general society, the conservative right wants to call you an abomination, make you a second-class citizen, send you off to an ex-gay camp or hope you just dissapear althogether.
Treating other gay men with such contempt is like becoming the very people who mistreated us in the first place.
In the gay community, it at times doesn’t seem a whole lot better. There’s often social pressure to be bigger and better than everyone else, whether it’s via your looks, physique, career, or even your penis size. This often leads to extreme competitiveness with – and even mistreatment of &ndash each other.
We talked to psychotherapist and author Joe Kort about finding ways to soothe the overly-competitive beast within and heal wounds inflicted by a homophobic society.
What is the biggest emotional hurdle facing gay men these days?
Integrity – being real and authentic with one’s self and others – is the biggest hurdle we face. We tend to have so much internalized homophobia and shame from our youths that we show a false self to the world and keep our real selves hidden inside. As a result, we often enter into gay culture without the interpersonal skills to interact and connect to one another in a healthy way.
This often results in the lies and sexual games that go on between gay men – which is often the result of the unresolved shame we still carry from our pasts. As a result, we tend to take this past abuse out on each other.
What are some of the ways you see gay men abusing each other?
We can abuse each other by being overly competitive in business, social standing, and sexual attractiveness. We have to have the best career, the best body and the best boyfriend, so we can regain some of the power that a heterosexual society has taken from us.
Romantically, there is a lot of competition for Mr. Right. I notice that gay men will often avoid introducing their friends to other people out of fear of losing a potential boyfriends or being rejected. As a result, they often avoid connecting their friends with others and stay with their small cliques instead.
In addition, far too many insults are directed at those who are more effeminate, overweight, or have small dicks. It may feel empowering to do to other gay men what society has been doing to us, but that doesn’t make it right. Treating other gay men with such contempt is like becoming the very people who mistreat us in the first place.
What can people do to feel less competitive and heal these wounds?
Here are a few steps you can take:
- Find a Role Model
Find a gay man whom you admire and tell him so; make yourself vulnerable by reaching our to – and being authentic with – someone who’s living their life with courage and grace.
- Face the Threat
Feeling threatened by someone? Make that person feel valuable by letting him know what you admire about him. Call, write or even take him to lunch, and you’ll likely feel that nagging insecurity lessens dramatically.
- Reach Out and Touch
Feeling overly competitive with someone professionally? Reach out to that person and discuss ways that you can both benefit and grow each other’s businesses or careers.
- Make a List
Identify at least three specific things – behaviors, personality traits, etc. – that you dislike most about this gay man or business you’re feeling overly competitive with. Then honestly list the ways that you are sometimes just like that. As the saying goes, ‘If you spot it, you got it’.
Source: gayhealth.com
 ho does what to whom? That’s the basis of the distinction between Tops and Bottoms but it’s a distinction that can obscure as much as it enlightens.
When it comes to good old anal sex, the difference between Top and Bottom is pretty obvious – the Top is the one who screws, the Bottom is the one who gets screwed. But when it comes to blowjobs, matters get cloudy. To be consistent, the Top should be the insertive partner, right? Yet often he’s the guy who kicks back, semi-passive except for moans and squirming, while the other guy does the work. It’s the difference between humping face and getting sucked, this question of who’s in control.
S&M defines Top and Bottom rather differently: the Top is the one who has the power to dish it out, whatever it is. But that’s when things start to get ambiguous. Experienced players know that submissive Bottoms are often the ones who are really in charge of a scene. If a Bottom just loves to be spanked and gets a Top to spank him till his hand hurts, which one is really in control? And if a Top ties a man down and rides the bound guy’s erection, who’s the Bottom then?
Maybe this really doesn’t matter, but the cliché is that Tops are more masculine, Bottoms more feminine. You’ll find guys describing themselves proudly as Total Tops, as though there were some sort of superiority involved. And some of the adjectives used to describe Bottoms, such as pushy or greedy, are unflattering ways to imply that there’s something wrong with trying to get what you want out of sex. It’s as though those who want to be screwed should know their (presumably inferior) place, some of this is disturbingly reminiscent of women’s traditional roles in bed.
Frequent disjuctions between what sex looks like and what’s really happening have led to some interesting self-definitions. Guys who love to take charge and get screwed describe themselves as Aggressive Bottoms, for example, thought you’ll have to look hard for men calling themselves Passive Tops.
As understandable as mankind’s fondness for either/or definitions can be, when it comes to sex, these simple binary distinctions can hurt more than help. There’s nothing inferior about enjoying the intense pleasure of getting boned; thinking that there is can be a barrier to enjoying it fully. Neither is there anything wrong with a Top, whether vanilla or kinky, feeling tenderness and vulnerability. It doesn’t make him less of a man, just by where his organ is going doesn’t make him more of one.
Variety is the spice of life for sure, whether over the course of a relationship or during a single sex session. ‘I don’t do that because I’m a Top (or Bottom)’, just puts whole big chunks of possible pleasure off limits. It might be better all around to approach the Top–Bottom thing as a sliding scale, with Total Top and Absolute Bottom as the endpoints – most of us falling somewhere in the middle – and with the whole Top–Bottom dichotomy taken with a grain of salt. After all, those of us who know the pleasures of getting our faces humped hard wouldn’t say it’s an inferior thing to do, and those of us who have to get it up and keep it there while screwing know the grave responsibilities and hard work taken on by the poor, hardworking Top. (Maybe, that’s why it often seems that there are so many more Bottoms than Tops out there.)
So whether Top, Bottom, both, neither, or some mismatch that defies definition, maybe we should all admit that sex a complex, wonderful, dirty job…but someone has to do it.
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