While "gay men's health" as a concept -- aging, mental health, relationships, physical fitness -- tried mightily to get some respect at the 2010 Gay Men's Health Summit in Ft Lauderdale, HIV continued to dominate much of the workshops and discussions. The evergreen...
HIV Stigma (and my lover Jack) at USCA
At the United States Conference on AIDS in Orlando, I've learned that HIV stigma is alive and well. Providers report that client will travel to distant counties to get services just so they aren't recognized -- and that's if they bother getting tested in the first...
Sex while HIV Positive: The New Criminals
As you and I relax here surfing the internet, an HIV positive man is sitting in a Texas prison, serving a 35 year sentence for spitting on someone. In Michigan, an HIV positive man was charged for not disclosing his status under a bio-terrorism statute. And just weeks...
I am the man my father built.
Never in my short life had I been camping. I hated the grit of dirt and leaves, bugs, peeing outdoors, and the looming prospect of sleeping amongst it all. The woods looked like the terrarium for my pet alligator, and from what I could tell, Wally didn't sleep all...
Does the Gay Men’s Health Summit make me look fat?
I took more time than usual choosing an outfit this morning, because of two terribly conflicting forces. First, I was on my way to the first day of the National Gay Men's Health Summit and, diametrically opposed to this fact, I went shopping for pants yesterday and...
A Dance to an Atlanta Night
Stephanie's feet are bare, and she is on a sidewalk, and she is dancing. And everything in the world is exactly as it is supposed to be. We've already been hanging out with each other all evening, our group of a dozen or so. I'm visiting Atlanta for the weekend and...
AIDS 2010 Opening Day: Sex, Drugs, and Annie Lennox
Wendy Knerr from The Pleasure Project really, really wants me to put a female condom inside my rectum. She keeps coaxing me, as if I'll go running to the men's room to try one on like a Ralph Lauren pullover. But her enthusiasm for the device is charming, and...
The Magic (and Gay Turks) of Istanbul!
My partner Ben and I are in Istanbul for five days. We're vacationing here until we move on to AIDS2010, the international AIDS conference in Vienna beginning on the 17th. I'll be producing daily video blogs from there as a correspondent for TheBody.com. In the...
The Man That AIDS Forgot: Safe Sex Architect Richard Berkowitz
The New York City of 1979 shown during the opening minutes of Sex Positive, the documentary now available on DVD, is awash in gay sexual liberation. Male couples strut their stuff arm in arm, sporting biker jackets and cocky mustaches and bulges in their denim that...
An AIDS Golden Oldie, Spinning Again
We can turn it around in our minds, trying various reasons on for size, but nothing ever fits. In the end, it doesn't matter how much he was adored by his friends or whether he ignored his better judgment or if he secretly hated himself. Steven is, simply and...
