From: rlm@surfcty.com (Robert McMillin)
Newsgroups: ca.politics
Subject: Speaking ill
Keywords: AIDS gay
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 93 19:21:58 PST
Distribution: ca
Organization: Surf City Software, Orange, Calfornia - DUDE!

mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas) writes:

> In article <Ti3wwB1w165w@surfcty.com>, rlm@surfcty.com (Robert McMillin) writes:
> > mike@gordian.com writes:
> > >   How libertarian of you :-) Why the qualifier on "the act" though?
> > 
> > Because where I stand, there are quite a few gays who still view gayness
> > as interlocked with multiple-partner sex.  This is part of the "return
> > to the 1970's" to which I refer later. 
> 
>   As do many heterosexuals. I don't see why you are so intent on
> painting this is a "gay" thing. When the moral censure of heterosexuals
> about their sexual proclivities has any real teeth I might have some
> sympathy for this argument. It, however, does not. Thus this is
> rather hypocritical in my mind.

You confuse my criticism of homosexual political cant with moral
censure.  It is not.

> > Of course; I do not deny that heterosexuals as well as homosexuals
> > engaged in very promiscuous sex during the 1970's. However, as Randy
> > Shilts pointed out in his excellent book, {And The Band Played On}, with
> > gays, promiscuity became part and parcel of gayness.  To deny the one
> > denied the other.  And, this became a basic political tenet of the gay
> > liberation movement.  No equivalent politicization occured among
> > heterosexuals. Defense of this indefensible tenet continued even after
> > AIDS had started to kill gays in large numbers, and to some degree, it
> > continues today.
> 
>   I'm not very convinced of your reading of this. Clearly, the sexual
> revolution which happened within the 70's had promiscuity as one
> of its highlights. This was not, as I mentioned earlier, anything
> unique to the homosexual community. It does so happen that these
> two, essentially distinct events coincided and were very intertwined.
> However, to say as Shilts does, that they are _inseperable_ is 
> nonsense. There are *many* *many* gay people who are monogamous.

Yes, and I know some; at no time do I suggest that all gay men subscribe
to the radical politics of the Gay Revolution movement that started in
1969.  I have in another post quoted a recent article in {The American
Spectator}, which itself quotes Shilts' book; the connection between
the Gay Revolution and promiscuous gay sex as its chief ideal was rather
well documented there.  No less an authority than Larry Kramer caught
hell from the gay press of the day when in the early days of AIDS he
wrote that monogamy was the only way to stave off utter destruction of
all homosexual men.  My point in raising this issue is that there remain
a number of people, active in AIDS issues, who want to bring back a
return to the pre-AIDS ways.  For the reasons I have outlined, I don't
think it can be done.

>   The only correlation I have seen is that growing up and finding
> your sexuality, which in the case of gay people is generally
> repressed which adds other factors not associated with het
> society, is that it mimics the times it is in. Since the 
> age of AIDS, homosexuals have demonstrably cut down on 
> the average number partners, much in line (if not more) 
> with the general population. 

No doubt that's why HIV infection rates among male homosexuals have
dropped.

>   Also, you have conveniently dismissed lesbians which have, 
> in general, many fewer partners. This in itself says that
> there is possibly something biological going on. Although
> socialization undoubtably has something to do with it, much
> research has show that there are real differences in "attitude"
> (for lack of a better word) between the way that males and
> females socialize (This from a recent Scientific American 
> article). This is hardly an earth shattering revelation,
> but it does suggest that given for public health we should be
> monogamous, all  women would be better off as lesbians;
> a conclusion which I'm not sure you'd be comfortable with :-)

Of course!  (By the way, there are some feminist theorists who agree
with that sentiment for other reasons...) As an aside, I tend to think
that there's something to the recent studies showing a (admittedly, at
this time, nebulous) link between gayness and biology.  I don't believe
that the people at the Human Genome Project will one day leap out of
their chairs because they've discovered the sequence that causes
homosexuality, but I do think they will find genes that push people one
way or the other.  The religious right will be in for a shock: God made
gay men, for the writing is on the DNA!

>   My point here is that the field of human nature is not
> set in stone, and there is still *much* to be learned. 
> Naive, restrictive views about what is proper in sex
> qua man is doomed to lead to situations like I illustrated
> above. Also, since many of these strictures are based
> upon religious dogma, many people who either reject or
> question that dogma are not willing to pass ultimate
> judgement until more facts are known.

Granted.

>   About your problems with the politicization of the issue,
> may I ask what need heterosexuals had with this? Most of the
> politicization had been done in the 60's (ie the free-love
> movement et al) The 70's had no such need since they had
> in effect won that argument in the 60's. The Gay Liberation
> movement, starting with Stonewall could certainly claim no
> such victory; it had only just begun. As such, it had to
> contend with *all* of the baggage which comes along with
> a political movement which heterosexaul society had
> conveniently swept under the carpet while they were fucking
> like bunnies.
>   I'm not necessarily defending the conclusions gay activists
> drew, I am just stating that it is quite understandable/inevitable
> that they took *some* stand on these, by now sub-surface issues,
> in het society. In fact, their conclusions where generally
> based on tolerance and inclusion (generally by use of moral
> relativism) -- a feature which is to some degree necessary
> in any political movement. 

Actually, the authors of Gay Liberation as a political movement stamped
it from much the same mold as Marxism.  Tolerance for other ideas was
not one of the hallmarks of either Marxism (especially as Stalin viewed
it) or of Gay Liberation, as Larry Kramer discovered.  Numerous public
health officials found out just how intolerant Gay Liberation
politicians could be when these officials just mentioned -- privately --
the idea that it might be a good idea to shut down bath houses after
they had been shown to be the root of the AIDS problem in large cities.
Gay Liberationists simply could not find "monogamy" in their
dictionaries.  Belatedly, they did -- after thousands had died.  But, I
still see much of that kind of thinking in the "Safer Sex Guide".

>  [much elided]
> 
> > than of being struck by lightning.  They are unwilling to restrict
> > their sexual options in the face of such low odds, especially since
> >                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > this plays into the anti-sex agenda of moral conservatives.  When
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > people are told to restrict most of their favorite activities, they
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > may ignore safer sex advice altogether.  Given the low or
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > indeterminate risk of many activities, some AIDS organizations and
> > activists have decided to just emphasize avoiding the most risky ones.
> > Many European and some American AIDS agencies, for example, no longer
> > recommend against oral sex.
> 
>   I'm don't see why this bothers you

It flows from the intolerant, revolutionary sentiment that killed so
many people so needlessly, that's why.

>   Consider what this would feel like if the edidemic were on the
> other shoe, so to speak, which it in the past has most certainly
> been on several times (eg syphilis). If a health agency were to
> flat out state that people should stop penile/vagina intercourse
> since there is a risk do you honestly think that people would
> heed that advice?

This is kind of a straw man. I recommend monogamy, not abstention.  If
the shoe were indeed on the other foot, I would complain just as loudly.
Gay Liberationists, though, have some 'fessing up to do.  They have
purposefully confused homosexual activity with promiscuity, as
heterosexuals (and now a large number of gays) do not.

> > That is to say, do what you like,
> > with as many people as you like, and don't let the facts confuse you;
> > anyone saying differently is trying to restrict you politically.  Now,
> > of course, the author wishes to have it both ways: that is, to appear to
> > be doing something about AIDS by recommending people use barriers, while
> > at the same time suggesting that the old orgiastic order can continue.
> 
>   Just like allowing people freedom of speech to giving a free moral
> check to say any demeaning, obnoxious, hateful oratory? I don't buy
> that. Freedom to act does not imply anything about the morality of
> how one acts.

Sorry, but I believe in the First Amendment, even so far as to let my
critics have their day, and even to letting people who have "demeaning,
obnoxious, hateful" things to say.  Who knows but that I may someday be
viewed as saying things that others may describe thus, and find myself
censored.

> > Sex for money adds a still more gruesome twist.  Both the prostitute and
> > the john have to assume that each has some disease and in theory both
> > would want to use protection.  However, if you're on the side that's
> > accepting money for sexual favors, you're in a weak position: your john
> > can always go somewhere else if he wants to be suicidal (or homocidal
> > if he has AIDS already) and have unprotected sex.  This is scarcely
> > moralism talking.  I think what we have here is a failure to think
> > clearly, motivated by gay liberation politics.
> 
>   Um, I don't see where that conclusion is necessitated by that
> argument. Again, presenting the facts of risk is not tantamount
> to endorsing the practice -- a common thread of your misunderstanding
> I think. Also, you miss the point: going to a hooker does not 
> necessarily mean that you have to perform insertive sex. Taken
> in this light, it could indeed be perfectly safe to go to a 
> hooker, have him/her perform bondage, for example, and "get off"
> in a safe manner (such as mastrubation).

Possible, but again: where is the money coming from?  And why go to a
hooker if not for insertive sex?  I find it hard to believe that a john
would go to a hooker for just a hand job or a bondage fantasy (though I
don't believe it beyond the realm of possibility).

> > If heterosexuals aren't personally worried about AIDS, it's because
> > they're not nearly as much at risk as gays.  The myth that heterosexuals
> > will start getting AIDS in large numbers any day now is either wishful
> > thinking or scare tactics.  Sans the mitigating factors present in
> > Africa -- surgical re-creation of the hymen, lots of promiscuity, poor
> > health care leading to advanced cases of syphilis and other genital
> > sore-causing diseases -- we won't see heterosexual AIDS case rates go
> > ballistic in the United States or Canada.  I do see a prospect for
> > people who have sex with prostitutes to start getting AIDS in large
> > numbers if we also have (as I think we surely will) sexually transmitted
> > diseases that cause vaginal sores which are completely resistant to the
> > present battery of antibiotics.  But in no case do heterosexuals, in the
> > main, have anywhere near the risk that is presented in most of the
> > media.
> 
>   And this is where you are completely wrong. I guarantee you that
> nature will always have a ready supply of things which are transmitted
> sexually -- it's just to easy an infection route. Heterosexuals are
> absolutely not immune to this. Until biology can cure any microbe
> in a few days time, we will never be safe from natures various
> scourges. It does little good to moralize about how awful STD's
> are because we as humans are sexual creatures *by our nature*.
> We will always have risk in this domain and it is up to each 
> individual to determine whether the risk/reward ratio is great
> enough. This is no different in essense then the risk one assumes
> driving to work in the morning.

Heterosexual men are, in general, at a much lower risk for contracting
AIDS (and HIV) than homosexual men.  The blood isn't there in the vagina
-- unless something's wrong with the woman's health.  AIDS has been
around for over ten years.  If there were large increases in HIV
infection, it would have shown up already.