Thursday, February 8, 2007

We Love You Whoopi!

I’m posting here two posts I made in the last few days to the Gay Men’s Health Summit listserv. There is a big discussion about current ads featuring Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Amanda Peat and Rosie Perez that lovingly admonish the gay community for using crystal meth and barebacking. Some men on the list criticized the ad campaign as ineffectual and offensive – rich straight (?) female actors telling gay men how to live. Others thought it useful that celebrities with some credentials in the gay community publicly expressed their concern about continued HIV transmission.

Post 1:

In several settings I've been in over the past year (perhaps starting at the MSM and HIV pre-conference summit in Toronto this summer) it seems we're at another crossroads of sorts. The holistic camp (of which this listserv was birthed) says we need to affirm gay culture, provide healthy outlets, nurture discussion and support the development of a Zeitgeist that values gay men, and gives them hope and reason to take care of themselves and each other. The public health camp (where I work, if not reside) continues to stress the complicated interaction of risk factors - the putative pandemic of childhood sexual abuse, depression, and substance use disorders - that may fuel risky behavior. The former group finds solutions in institution building and messages of reassurance and affirmation and the latter group continues to see specific intervention - on the Internet, through individual and group counseling, and other psycho-educational interventions that will succeed given the "intervening factors" affecting people's ability to hear the message.

The struggle between the two camps seems to focus on resources - the groups have very different ideas on how best to spend money. But perhaps even more so there seems to be a bit of antipathy between the two groups regarding the fundamental view of gay male culture and whether it is "sick" or not. Ironically, a lot of us, including me to some extent, who have argued for a holistic, gay male health approach to HIV, now find ourselves in a somewhat contrarian position - wondering who these folks are who are suddenly expressing this public concern about the gay community. It is true that Whoopi and Susan have been allies for a long time, but there is something peculiar in the way they are not standing next to us and advocating for us to the straight community but have "turned around" and are now facing us and speaking directly to us, publicly, and telling us to get our act together. It's unnerving - like we collectively as gay men have been caught with our pants down by a caring maternal/big sister figure. Literally.

I'm not sure where we go from here, except that I would guess that, despite the odes to the goodness of this fine campaign as shared in the Gay City News article, these ads will have about as much impact on the rate of HIV transmission as President Bush's "surge" will bring calm to Bagdad. I think perhaps the greatest challenge will be at the local institution level, where many gay community centers and health centers are struggling to make holistic models work, while more targeted interventions - with their high cost and the inherent difficulty in finding those of us most at the margins and most at risk - fall by the wayside.

Post 2:

After excoriating celebrity worship somewhat, I remembered last night that for many years, one of the things that put a cap on my drug use was hearing Katherine Hepburn many years ago (on Dick Cavett maybe?) talking about why she was against drugs. She said in her very Kate way, "When I speak to someone I want them fully there, right in front of me, looking me square in the eye and completely cognizant of what I'm saying." Whoa!

So why do I still think it's right to be skeptical of this campaign? Kate's remarks were spontaneous (I assume) and not paid messages intended to preach to anyone in particular. It was just hearing an interesting perspective from someone who, at the time, I respected a lot. I think we have a responsibility to think critically about each campaign because there are limited funds to do this, so if these messages help 3 people, it's not okay, it's a waste of resources. However, who knows for sure? They may help more than I think and perhaps more among younger folks. It will be interesting to see the evaluation results.

In any case, I keep coming back to the same point in my mind. Those of us working in HIV prevention are engaged in really hard work. Most gay men avoid cum in their ass. A few don't give a fuck about it. And some on the margin let it happen - but they mostly do so because they are on the margin for a variety of reasons and not easy to find, reach and, ultimately, prevent the fateful moment. HIV transmission is a rare occurrence, relatively speaking. There are just lots and lots and lots of sex acts that create too many opportunities for this transmission to occur. My hat really goes off to Jim Pickett and others who have worked like crazy to get anal microbicides funded, researched, and on the shelf so gay men would have another tool to use to reduce that risk even further.

In loving brotherhood,

Stewart Landers

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