There’s (Still) No Gay Gene | Harvard Magaze

Contents:

• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• THE UNTY WHERE NO ONE’S GAY
• 10 COUNTRI THAT COMPLETELY HATE GAY PEOPLE

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

Lt we fet the potential ser nsequenc of havg sex whout ndoms, I clu the latt rmatn about the health risks of ndomls sex, discsg the relative safety of HIV-posive men who bareback wh other fected Men Are Takg Sexual RisksThere are abundant theori but no five answers about why gay men take sexual risks. After more than three s of safer sex msag agast the backdrop of gay men sickeng horribly and then dyg, new medil treatments have stemmed the ti of the panmic and offered real hope for longer-term survival to people wh HIV. Queer theorist Tim Dean (2000) wr: "In view of statistics on new seronversns, some AIDS tors have begun to acknowledge that, unlikely though may seem, remag HIV-negative fact pos signifint psychologil challeng to gay men" (p.

To those who have not been workg the gay men's muny for the past 25 years, this statement might seem absurd, but is te that HIV-negative gay men face unique challeng that make seem almost easier to Francis Bay area psychologist Walt Ots (1995) was one of the first mental health profsnals to qutn why gay men who had th far ped beg fected wh HIV were placg themselv at risk for beg so. Ots scribed HIV-negative men who stggled a world and gay muny that, however untentnally, nsired their difficulti nsequential as pared to those of men who were fightg for their liv. The unfected men's growg visibily triggered old childhood feelgs of beg an outsir, and for some, ntributed to an acute psychologil crisis that often created a nfluence of behavrs and thought patterns that placed them at risk for ntractg have suggted that durg the '80s, gay men unnscly llud wh the general public's equatn of a gay inty wh an AIDS inty (Ots, 1995; Rof, 1996).

THE UNTY WHERE NO ONE’S GAY

New York social worker Steve Ball (1998) scrib how durg the height of the AIDS epimic HIV-negative gay men often found themselv the role of regiver, mourner/widower, or outsir, due to their not beg fected wh HIV. The dynamics scribed by Ots and Ball are part of the munal and psychosocial reali that early the epimic played a role ntributg to the spread of 1988, I wrote about how fear was one large ponent of what propelled gay men to change how they were havg sex (Shernoff & Jimenez, 1988). Gay men who were recently surveyed about their failure to e ndoms durg anal sex repeatedly told rearchers that current AIDS preventn msag do not feel relevant to them and do not nvey an urgency about why ndom e is important (Halkis, Parsons, & Wilton, 2003; Carballo-Dieguez & L, 2003; Mor et al., 2003).

Brish psychologist and rearcher Michelle Crossley (2001, 2002) wr that one factor might be a crease the effectivens of the "health promotn" mpaign to change gay men's sexual behavr.

Crossley suggts that is impossible to evaluate the efficy of safer-sex msag and of themselv sce ncurrent to when they first began appearg, gay men were overwhelmed by the terror that they might be fected by the then-new disease that was rapidly killg their iends and lovers. They reported beg thrilled to be able to participate a procs that helped them reclaim the joy and fun of gay sex amidst all of the sex-negativy and sex-equalg-ath msag that were undatg them. The clu:Negative attus toward ndom e (Ots, 1994; Flowers, Smh, Sheeran, & Beail, 1997; Hays, Kegel, & Coat, 1997; Kelly & Kalichman, 1998; Van Ven et al., 1998a; b; Appleby, Miller, & Rothspan, 1999)How beg a mted pared to a nonmted uple relatnship affects whether a ndom is ed (Elford Boldg McGuire & Sher, 2001; Vcke, Bolton, & DeVlechouwer, 2001)Strongly intifyg wh or feelg alienated om the gay muny (Hospers & Kok, 1995; Hays et al., 1997; Seal et al., 2000)Internalized homophobia (Meyer & Dean, 1998; Can, Dolci, & Adler, 1999)A sense of the evabily of beg fected wh HIV as a gay man (Kelly et al., 1990; Kalichman, Kelly, & Rompa, 1997)The effects of substance e (Stall, McKick, Wiley, Coat, & Ostrow, 1986; Stall, Pl, Barrett, Crosby, & Be, 1991; Leigh & Stall, 1993; Stall & Leigh, 1994; Hospers & Kok, 1995; Woody et al., 1999; Royce, Sena, Cat, & Cohen, 1997; Chney, Barrett, & Stall, 1998; Ostrow & Shelby, 2000; Halkis, Parsons, & Stirratt, 2001, Halkis et al., 2003; Halkis & Parsons, 2002; Kalichman & Wehardt, 2001) are probably a multu of other issu at play as well.

10 COUNTRI THAT COMPLETELY HATE GAY PEOPLE

As psychologist and former rearcher at the CDC Ron Stall was quoted as sayg an article the Manhattan gay newspaper Gay Cy News, "There are studi that monstrate a variety of psychosocial health issu, cludg prsn, antigay vlence, childhood sexual abe, or substance abe, n lead gay men to have unsafe sex" (Stall, quoted Osborne, 2002, p. In my own practice, I have intified several factors that appear to lead to sexual risk-takg: lonels, beg HIV-posive, havg unmet timacy needs, feelg alienated om the gay muny, beg love, and a cravg for eper timacy and San Francis, Mor and lleagu (2003) intified a number of issu that ntributed to the cisns gay men make to bareback. In Toby's se, his barebackg was not related to a sire to feel closer to a beloved partner but rather his sire to nnect sexually and socially wh other gay men and to feel unhibed and ee.

Even when gay men posss a sophistited unrstandg of how HIV is transmted and accurate perceptns of how dangero risky sex n be, many gay men unrtimate their vulnerabily to HIV fectn (McKick, Horstman, & Coat, 1985; Bman & Siegel, 1987; Richard et al., 1988) (2003) also discs a tegory of barebackers that he labels irratnal risk takers. Suarez and Miller (2001) feel that many gay youth who bareback fall to the tegory of irratnal risk takers sce they may have never known anyone wh HIV and hold psimistic attus about the future largely related to their beg gay.