Storytelling is a crucial part of our culture, and not simply for entertainment value. Sharing our stories can heal our pain, educate others, and help us relive our happiest triumphs. This video is quite simple, really. One man explains to you what happened to him,...
Why Are We Still Haunted by the Boys in the Band?
When I was 15 years old, I couldn't wait to attend a local community theater production of The Boys in the Band. I was intrigued by the play's dark and mysterious reputation, and had heard that it included a lot of homosexuality (funny how that word isn't used much...
The Dirty Little Secret of Gay Men and Meth
How addiction to crystal methamphetamine is threatening the gay community's long struggle to turn a corner on the AIDS epidemic. I really shouldn't be trusted. That's the problem with drug addicts like me. We've protected our addiction through a myriad of lies and...
Hiding from the “AIDS at 30” media storm.
I shuttered myself from most of the hoopla surrounding the "AIDS at 30" milestone (we seem to have agreed on June 5, 1981, when an item in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reported deaths among gay men). The trauma of those early years is tough for me to...
My Surprising Lack of Gay Pride
For most of my life I've been judgmental and a little impatient with gay people who didn't just come out. Are the risks really that dire? I suspected they were just chicken shit, or unwilling to stand up to their family or to whatever screwed up religious upbringing...
Calling HIV Negative Gay Men: This is Your Time
This is directed to HIV negative gay men. Listen carefully. This is your time. I've lived with HIV more than half my life, and people often praise me far more than I deserve, simply for surviving. They use words like brave and courageous. You know what takes courage?...
Can I blame gay culture for my drug addiction, please?
After a lifetime of sporadic, recreational drug use, I became a full-blown crystal meth addict ten years ago, and then eventually got clean and sober in January of 2009. But why would I, or anyone as engaged in life as I was, morph into a drug addict? It seemed an...
Trying to put away childish, damaging things.
When I became a man, I put away childish things. -- 1 Corinthians 13:11 We're on a dirt road in the cotton fields, sitting in the back of his Plymouth. It had been my idea to stop and look at the sky, and it doesn't come off like a sneaky move now, because the moon is...
My sad and trivial night with Rock Hudson
(This essay appears in my collection of essays, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor, available now at online outlets or your local bookstore.) Over and over, footage of Rock Hudson standing next to Doris Day was playing on television, and he looked...
Walmart Gets Better.
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. -- Andy Warhol Yesterday I had a conference call with Walmart public relations manager Ravi Jariwala, and Crosby Cromwell, a manager for constituent relations. We discussed the fact...
