Moo to Muhammad
(Source: youtube.com)
Christopher Street Pier, West Village, New York
Priority #1 - duck, duck, duck, duck, goose
I have said before that I feel like the men of my generation who sleep with men (to borrow the technical phrase) have too-easily forgotten the hard lessons learned by the generation that immediately preceded us. And here seems to be some evidence.
The CDC report released today states that 1 in 5 men in urban areas is infected with HIV. Almost half of those infected are unaware that they carry the disease. I’ve known the statistics have been on the rise, but the figures released today I found particularly unsettling. I will pass 5 gay men on my walk through the West Village from my office to the train this evening. I will stand behind 5 gay men in the line for the bathroom at the Metropolitan. I could have 5 gay friends over to my house for dinner tomorrow night.
It is a dangerous game of Duck Duck Goose our generation is playing right now. And I choose this analogy over, say, Russian Roulette, because the participants all come across as so naïvely innocent. In my own sexual experience, I have encountered a handful of men desirous, willing or emphatically demanding to have sex without protection. All have been outwardly healthy, college-educated, sexy. It astounded me that they could be so willing to chance the rest of their lives for one night of fun with a relative stranger. And yet they seemed surprised at my level of outrage when I kicked them out of my bedroom. Perhaps they’ll see these statistics and finally feel a bit of outrage themselves. And if not outrage, perhaps fear at the very least. We can’t be scared straight, but maybe they can be scared smart.
J
Cheep cheep
I’ve been sitting on this blog and keeping it warm for many months now. Today it has finally hatched. Welcome to FaggaPlease, a site for intelligent discourse of the queer world by intelligent queers and their friends. How will this blog be different? Well, I don’t know just yet. I read many gay blogs daily and though I often find much to do with sex, style, sex, irony and sex, the issues of greatest consequence to our community are somehow lost in the background.
I’m not looking to become a pedagogue, a wet blanket or a moralist. In fact I hope sex, style and humor come through as second nature on this blog. But I want to suggest a re-prioritization (and reiteration) of a few points on the gay agenda, both in the political world and in our day-to-day lives. Let’s see how it goes.
