| Anonymous 2004-12-17, 5:45 pm |
| http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=6953
The men begin parking along the quiet residential street in Redford
around 9 on Saturday nights — and the last leave around 6 Sunday
mornings. In the intervening hours, some 40 to 85 men pay $12 to engage
in orgy-style sex in the basement and ground-floor rooms of the
ranch-style home. There are few rules. "Don’t ask, don’t tell" is the
typical approach to the question of HIV status. And condoms are rarely
used.
That’s the point at a "bareback" party.
The practice is seen as one of the reasons for a resurgence in HIV
infections among gay men. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control
reported that among gay men, the number of new infections in 2002 was
17 percent higher than it had been in 1999.
Although hard data is scant, parties like the one in Redford are seen
as a particularly troubling aspect of barebacking, which rejects the
safe-sex campaigns that have been central to combating the spread of
HIV since its emergence in the 1980s.
The parties, which began in the ’90s, are now "entrenched in gay
culture," says Dr. Perry N. Halkitis, a New York-based expert on the
spread and prevention of HIV in the gay community.
A professor of applied psychology at New York University, Halkitis
noted in a 2001 paper for The Journal of Men’s Studies that for some
gay men barebacking — which he defined as "intentional unprotected anal
intercourse" — is "an affirmation of life."
The practice, he wrote then, was on the rise for gay men, especially
those already infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. But, in
addition to HIV-positive men, "such risky behaviors have been noted
across all sectors of the gay community throughout the last several
years."
For those who engage in the practice, Halkitis says during an interview
with Metro Times, "It’s a big part of how they define themselves. And
it’s not just positive guys anymore; it’s negative guys taking on this
mentality too."
The party scene, he says, only magnifies the risks of uninfected men
contracting infections, and the risks of already infected men to
contract new strains of HIV. "If you’re going to a party and getting
penetrated by 20 guys, the probability increases" for infection,
Halkitis says. "That’s just a mathematical fact.
"I think the AIDS epidemic and trends travel fast because people
travel. I imagine parties will proliferate in cities like Detroit."
From the evidence on Web sites and conversations with men who frequent
parties in metro Detroit, the proliferation is already happening.
Several men who describe themselves as current or former regulars at
bareback parties tell Metro Times that they can find a party like the
one in Redford any night of the week in the Detroit area.
"Sexual adventurism"
In the clinical language of "An Exploration of Perceptions of
Masculinity Among Gay Men Living with HIV," Halkitis explored the
perceptions and feelings of 22 HIV-positive men recruited through the
Internet:
"Sexual adventurism and frequent sexual contacts were suggested as
mechanisms by which one could affirm masculinity and ultimately one’s
desirability and virility, even while living with HIV infection. For
some of the participants, the need for unprotected sex was a means of
asserting their masculinity and also a mechanism by which they could
achieve a social and emotional contact" with other HIV-positive men.
Those words parallel the account of Kurt, a 50-year-old Oakland County
man, who asks that his last name not be used. In his 40s, he says, he
ended a 16-year marriage after realizing he was gay. He contracted HIV
during his first gay sexual encounter — after his partner for the night
assured him there was no need for a condom. Feeling inadequate and
dejected, he attended his first bareback party in 1997 at the Redford
home at the urging of a friend. He found camaraderie and, for a time,
became a regular at bareback parties throughout metro Detroit
"Humans have an innate need to be held and touched, and that’s what
makes this so difficult," Kurt says. "I know that’s what my problem
was. I was willing to risk my life just to have that intimate contact
with someone, and I think that’s what it comes down to with a lot of
people."
He would "never knowingly bareback a negative guy," he says. But since
the norm was not to discuss HIV status, he may have. And even for
HIV-positive men, unprotected sex runs the risk of reinfection with new
strains of the virus.
Kevin, a 32-year-old Wayne County man who asks that his real name not
be used, describes the excitement of the parties like the ones in
Redford, which he has been attending for about a year. There’s
uninhibited sex in the dingy rooms, some completely dark, some dimly
lit. Booze and a variety of illegal drugs are consumed. (So-called club
drugs, such as meth, ecstasy and GHB, are a major element to the
bareback party scene, according to one of Halkitis’ studies.)
"You feel like you have a lot of people wanting to hook up with you,"
Kevin says. "It’s a lot of attention, and you like that. When you’re
not used to attention, it just feels real good."
And those connections are stronger, he says, when there’s no condom
involved.
At a recent party, he says, he had sex with eight men. Not knowing
their HIV status added to the thrill. If anyone were to ask his, he
wouldn’t be able to say. He hasn’t been tested recently.
Dangerous complacency
From the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the early ’80s through the
mid-’90s, the virus was a virtual death sentence. The development of
anti-AIDS drug cocktails changed that. But, ironically, that’s made the
fight against AIDS seem less pressing — which, in turn, has contributed
to infection rates that are again rising.
And although the HIV infection is spreading in troubling ways among a
number of groups — the rise for black heterosexual women, for instance,
came up during the recent vice presidential debate — the majority of
HIV-positive individuals continue to be gay and bisexual men. As of
July, the Michigan Department of Community Health counted 10,940 cases
of HIV infection in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties — up nearly 4
percent from a year earlier.
"We’ve kind of made it OK to have HIV," Kurt says. He is currently on a
disability leave from his job because of the progress of his infection.
"It’s almost like HIV has become another diabetes, a very livable
disease. The urgency to do anything isn’t there anymore. There seems to
be this whole complacency thing with unsafe sex."
And beyond complacency, there seems to be backlash against the safe sex
campaigns that have been aimed at the gay community for years. The old
campaigns seem to be "stuck in the 1980s," Halkitis says.
Meanwhile, Web sites and some porn movie companies champion
barebacking. "Our guys XXXX and suck without any barriers, lectures or
bullshit," a blurb at bareback.com reads. The site, and others like it,
helps barebackers connect with one another for one-on-one encounters,
groups and parties.
Jeff Montgomery, executive director of the Triangle Foundation, a gay
advocacy organization in Detroit, says that some men turn to
barebacking parties to get away from the safe-sex message they get at
bathhouses. "It was like going to school to get educated on sex," he
says, describing the way some gay men perceive the bathhouses.
Still, Montgomery says, the only way to deal with barebacking is to
educate gay men about safe sex and the dangers of unsafe sex.
Joe Kort, a Royal Oak-based psychotherapist and gay author, says he
works with many men who frequent bareback parties. He sees the parties
as "a very angry phenomenon" where men act out "internalized hatred."
"A big part of why men go is for a sense of belonging, because we don’t
get that as gay men, especially growing up in a straight culture," Kort
says. "But a lot of men who come to me don’t understand they are
putting themselves and others at risk. They don’t take responsibility
for what they are doing. We’ve become the bullies that bullied us as
kids, and we don’t even see it."
Kort says that AIDS organizations should do more to deter gay men from
barebacking — at parties and otherwise.
And Halkitis says research into the barebacking is urgently needed to
head off a possible "second wave of the HIV epidemic."
Kurt says the party scene has changed over the past couple of years,
attracting a "broader crowd" of both HIV-positive and HIV-negative men.
He no longer goes to them, he says.
And he worries about those who do.
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