From: mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas)
Subject: Re: Speaking ill
Keywords: AIDS gay HIV
Organization: Gordian; Costa Mesa, CA
Distribution: ca
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 22:35:30 GMT

In article <wqa5wB1w165w@surfcty.com>, rlm@surfcty.com (Robert McMillin) writes:
> mike@gordian.com writes:
> > > 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".
> > 
> >   I think that part of your problem is that you are trying to find
> > a monolithic entity which is the "Gay Liberation political movement".
> > There isn't one.
> 
> Let me clear the air here: I do not believe in a monolithic Gay
> Liberation movement.  There is simply no way that such a movement could
> speak for every homosexual person, just as Jesse Jackson (or Louis
> Farrakhan, etc.) could speak for every black person.  I know gays from
> many different ends of the political spectrum -- liberal Democrats,
> centrist Republicans, and third party adherents.  However, I do believe
> that based on their actions, a large number of gays agreed with the
> stances of Gay Liberation.  Many of these are now dead.  To that end, it
> matters little whether gays led their leaders or the leaders led gay
> followers.

> 
> > If you think that gay people were listening to their
> > fearless leaders for validation or something like that, you are
> > seriously deluded.

You say this:
 
> I strongly disagree with this statement, however.  In the early days,
> politically influential gay men -- who ran the 100 million dollar a year
> bath house industry -- worked to prevent health officials from shutting
> them down.  These bath house owners didn't have to work very hard,
> either, for the mere mention of the political clout that the Castro had
> at the time was enough to scare off the timid appointees running SF's
> public health agency.  If, as you say, gays were NOT listening to their
> leaders for validation, then they surely agreed with them when they said
> that "fucking like bunnies" was a political right.

And then you say this:

> A few things: I think the general relaxation of social mores was a good
> thing.  I have strong libertarian leanings, and so cannot see clear to
> wasting public monies policing people's bedrooms.  

  Which is it? Politically, if the state doesn't have an interest in
people's consentual lives then by extention it should not have an
interest in any consentual transactions that may bring about. Are
you implying that "fucking like bunnies" is not a political right?
I'd have to ask you elaborate on that one.
  In any case I think you answer your own question. It was the 
popularity, and hence a constituency, that enabled these folks 
to get the state to back down -- not the other way around. 

> San Francisco, and the Castro district in particular, became in the
> 1970's a gay haven.  People came there from everywhere, many looking for
> respite from a world that denounced and in many cases, despised them for
> their gayness.  In San Francisco, it was possible to be gay and to be
> accepted.  To say that those people were not looking for validation is
> ridiculous; to say that they avoided the common currency of validation,
> in those days, promiscuous sex, flies in the face of the facts.

  And here I think you are fitting this into one convenient, procrustean
argument. Sex, though important, was not the only reason why people 
flocked to SF etc. If there were any defining attribute, I think it would
be the openness, the freedom from ridicule and moralizing censure that
was the most important attribute. Unless you've lived this, I just
don't think that you can understand the importance of this aspect.
  Being told from an early age on that a fundamental part of your makeup
is evil, unnatural, aberrant and disgusting is quite a psychological
blow. Finding a place which not only condones but *celebrates* your
identity is a mighty heady experience. Certainly sex was part of this
since it was the item of repression, but to say that it was *the* 
*reason* that people moved is ludicrous. Most people, in my experience, 
were of the same serial-monogamous "batchelor" kind of mindset that 
most hets at the time were. Moving to a gay mecca was about not
having to pretend; about being in a place where you could easily 
find relationships and, yes, sex. It was about not having to
worry about talking about your lover at work. It was about being
able to "normal" things with your lover and not being singled out
as faggots (or giving a damn even if you were).
  The problem is that the infection vector for HIV is ideally set
for a setup where a smallish minority interacts with a serial-monogamous
majority. Where brief bouts of sluttiness is followed by much longer
periods of chastity or a relationship. If HIV penetrated the vagina
as easily as it does the anus, there is no question in my mind that
it would be a serious epidemic in the heterosexual world as well. 
It does not take "bathhouses" to do it's deed. The scenario I outlined
would be fully sufficient.

  Similar
> situations occured in New York, and to some degree, in Los Angeles.  Of
> course, these men could have simply decided not to be promiscuous -- and
> certainly, some did.  But the majority who went to the bath houses
> continued until they died, or the houses were effectively shut down.

  Wrong. How would you know how many went to bathhouses? I don't
even know that and I'll say that I'm in a much better to position
to know than you. Even if you are talking about gay city dwellers
I would be suspicious of your pronouncement, but to apply that to
the majority is *very* dubious.

> > The only real upshot of Stonewall was that
> > at *last* gay people were freer to go and fuck like bunnies 
> > just like the het community.
> 
> Just a minute!  The 'het community' never set itself up with organized
> sexual encounter places to the magnitude of that which gay men did, and
> never adopted promiscuity as a fundamental right. Even Randy Shilts
> commented on how the lack of women as a moderating influence added to
> the frenetic pace at which men went from partner to partner.

  It had no need to. Remember, just because Stonewall came along did
not mean that to the outside world that being gay was hunky-dory. What
you mistake here is the centralization of gay sexual activity which
was necessitated by moralizing, and repressive communities like here
in OC. There wasn't this sort of need in the het community; you didn't
have to beg and plead to startup a straight "pickup" place like, say,
TGIFriday's or something of that nature. It was all above board, and
on the up and up. 

> Other commentators have noted the element of teen-age rebellion in the
> Gay Liberation movement.  Apparently, gay men learned by dying.

  Well, how nice of you. I hope you'll remember that when you have
to give the car keys to your teenager.

> >   Just out of curiosity, do you find anything redeeming that
> > can out of the sexaul revolution in the 60's and 70's? Promiscuity
> > was not the only thing you know.
> 
> A few things: I think the general relaxation of social mores was a good
> thing.  I have strong libertarian leanings, and so cannot see clear to
> wasting public monies policing people's bedrooms.  I do have problems
> with some of the ways that socialism has gotten tangled up in the
> sexual changes -- the "I'm not getting married, I'm gonna have a baby,
> and the state's gonna pay for it" attitude evinced by a number of young
> women. 

  This was part of the sexual revolution? Gad, ignorant as am of het
culture, I had thought that most people of that mindset were against
having children because it was too confining or mimiced _Ozzie and Harriet_
to closely. I really don't recall much in the way of "I'm going to
have a baby and the states going to pay for it." I wouldn't say that 
this is an artifact of the sexual revolution but of the other social
thing that was going on at the time: the rise of the welfare statist
state. The sexual revolution, though intertwined with much statist
rhetoric was actually quite libertarian despite protestations to the
contrary.

> Monogamy is a practical answer to horrific STD's.  That this latter is
> part of the Christion moral code whose practitioners frequently condemn
> homosexuality does not make them any less desirable for gays -- or
> straights.

  Whether safety against STD's was the end goal of the Churches 
proscriptions against promiscuity is really neither here nor there.
The rebellion was against mores which were divinated from some
stupid 2000+ year old book. It is not to say that some of these
teachings weren't right, but the *reasons* are all important too.
When the only reason that somebody can come up with is "well God
says NO", people of reason, including our founding fathers, are
not going to be too plussed by such "reasons". It is not too suprising
that when such a feeble reason gets overthrown finally that much
experimentation is going to happen to find out the *real* reasons
why certain elements of human nature imply certain sets of behavior.
This was the 70's sexual revolution; one whose questions it awoke
are *far* from being comfortably answered today. HIV has only
brought one aspect of that revolution into a tangible focus: sex
is not without risk.

> Re-reading this, I think I misinterpreted what you originally wrote.
> Here's what I should have written: Morality doesn't enter the equation;
> statistics do.  Multiple partner sex, even using barriers, is still an
> accident waiting to happen.

  As is serial monogamy. As is driving a car. The question is what
risk at what gain. This is a profoundly personal question and is
very much intertwined with your own set of values. I don't think
you can answer that question for me any more than I can answer it
for you (even if we share an identical morality). This is not 
necessarily moral relativism, but it does take into account that
I don't have your complete context nor you mine. 
  From a public health standpoint this is really the proper level
of deference: let people know the risks and allow them to make
decisions within their own context. I don't see how this is radically
different from, say, smoking.

> >   Heh. But that was the point of the report, right? If you take
> > these precautions and only do these safe(r) activities, even a 
> > visit to a prostitute could be safe(r). I think that was the
> > only point of the report. If you consider this advice in terms
> > of multiple partners, this becomes far more understandable and
> > believable.
> 
> Remember, the report mentioned "sex for money", not visiting a
> prostitute.

  What is the difference wrt to your complaint?

  First of all, the risks involved in the activities
> mentioned are higher, and I believe, understated for political reasons,
> than the authors are willing to let on.  Second, it doesn't negate the
> problems encountered on the hooking side of the equasion.

  Huh? The report didn't give absolute numbers it gave relative risks.
How could that possibly be understated? It's up to you to base that
relative scale into an absolute one; one that would undoubtably take
into account the quality of the actual encounter (even though,
conservatively, it ought *not*).

> Not really.  Heterosexual AIDS continues to be a red herring issued by
> people with a specific axe to grind -- researchers who need dollars, and
> absolutely cannot let on that AIDS in fact is largely a disease confined
> to gay men, IV drug users, some blood products users, and
> third-worlders. If straight people are going to get the disease any day
> now (which they have been for years), they won't question all the
> dollars spent on it.  

  Look, if it's the tax dollars you are talking about I am just as
angry and annoyed about having to pay for all of the damn perks that
het people get. We don't get AFDC. We don't get public schools. We 
don't get family planning. If you are bitching about your tax dollars
being spent in the wrong place, I suggest that gay people are on the
absolute losing end of that proposition. If gay people were allowed
to apportion their tax dollars in a way that made sense from their
life perspective, I guarantee you that AIDS funding would probably 
be at 100 times the level it is today. Instead, we get our pockets
picked by the do-gooders from het society, which could give a flying
fuck about faggots and their problems. And then go on to tell us
that it was all our fault anyway while we are being robbed blind.
  Thanks a lump.

> The people issuing this "Safer Sex Guide" also,
> it seems, have a specific axe to grind -- a politically motivated return
> to unsafe practices, or failing that, to practices that appear to
> sacrifice little other than the use of condoms.

  Speaking of axes to grind. I just don't see how you can conclude
that telling people the relative risks of various activities is
tantamount to a green light on all of the above. I think that if
you were to tell that to one of the authors faces they would laugh
at you. 
-- 

		Michael Thomas	(mike@gordian.com)
	"I don't think Bambi Eyes will get you that flame thrower..."  
		-- Hobbes to Calvin
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