Responsibility: It's Not Just for Breeders

SOULFULLY GAY

By Joe Perez

Last year Bill Cosby made controversial public comments railing against low-income individuals for not taking personal responsibility for their lives. Lately I've been asking myself: where are the Bill Cosbys who are willing to speak just as courageously about the problems of the gay community?

Many were outraged by Cosby's suggestion that personal failures, and not merely external factors such as racism, are behind the problems facing low-income Americans. The popular entertainer took so much heat for his speech, it's no wonder more people don't step into the fire.

Although I feel Cosby could have spoken with greater thoughtfulness, I agree with much that he said. Turning to the problems facing the gay community, my own view is that we must confront them with a balanced approach that looks at both systemic problems (such as homophobia and public policy) and greater responsibility.

Some political theorists have suggested that liberals and conservatives see most problems in fundamentally different ways. They say that liberals see human nature as fundamentally good and say that problems arise from bad social structures, whereas conservatives see human nature as bad and say that problems arise from the lack of personal responsibility. Isn't it obvious that there is truth on both sides?

You aren't likely to find the liberal leadership of gay human rights organizations speaking out in favor of personal responsibility any time soon. When you hear the call to integrity at all, it often comes from spiritual activists within the gay community.

In an interview with OutSmart magazine, gay author and mystic Andrew Harvey applauded the importance of spirituality and integrity in the lives of gays. "That is so important to the gay movement, isn’t it? It can’t all be poppers and sex parties, can it? There must be other things. The Bacchic revelry can only last for so long."

As I see it, there's no greater crisis facing the gay community than the alarming rise in HIV/AIDS infections. In the 1990s, deaths from AIDS stabilized at 16,000 per year and new HIV infections stabilized at 40,000 per year. But now the disease is showing signs of a comeback, especially among gay and bisexual men.

A federal report last month told us that in many states, HIV infection rates rose by 11 percent between 2000 and 2003 among men who have sex with men. Another recent study reported that 15 percent of young gay men in a South Florida neighborhood have tested HIV positive.

The most common route for new HIV infections in our community is through risky sex. And studies have continued to find that many gay men continually put themselves at risk for infection with HIV and other STDs.

When so many people are aware of the dangers, why does unsafe sex happen? Liberals tend to blame external causes: they say there's institutionalized homophobia, not enough sex education, not enough money for condom distribution, and so forth. And conservatives say that gays are having too much sex, with the wrong people, and not using rubbers every time. But is truth really on just one side?

HIV prevention efforts in public health have recently begun to recognize the importance of encouraging responsibility. The idea is to place the responsibility for the health of gay men squarely on their own shoulders. And these efforts seek to encourage HIV positive men to take care not to spread the disease to others.

"We treat one another as disposable sex objects, not as people," said Phil Pelino of Seattle, when asked by a reporter from The Seattle Times to explain the rising tide of infections in his city. Pelino helped write a document stressing the importance for gays of not playing the victim.

Pelino's document is called "Community Manifesto: A New Response to HIV and STDs" (homohealth.org). It includes slogans like "Accept that your actions have consequences," and (most controversially) "transmitting HIV knowingly is an act of violence."

Among those who supported the gay community manifesto is Dan Savage, the syndicated sex columnist. Savage told a Times reporter: "Gay men today don't need AIDS organizations saying, 'Go for it!' … There are times when you need to tap on the brakes, slow down, have less sex."

It's too soon to tell what changes will come out of Seattle. But the community manifesto has already been criticized from some quarters of the gay community as harshly as Cosby's remarks were panned by some blacks.

These critics say that the best way to stop AIDS is to nurture a gay man's self-esteem, rather than joining forces with those who rebuke us. They say that messages such as "transmitting HIV knowingly is an act of violence" are shaming and hurtful. They want no moral judgments cast against gay sex.

In short, these critics want to focus exclusively on external causes of the problem and ignore the inner causes. They refuse to see the perils of encouraging an "anything goes" culture. Sex is certainly a wonderful source of pleasure, but as adults we must be mature or face the consequences.

Transmitting HIV knowingly is an act of violence, and no amount of soft peddling can change that. As a man living with AIDS who isn't perfect (and who is), I can speak from first-hand experience about growing up or facing the consequences.
When it comes to AIDS prevention, it makes no sense to merely urge greater individual responsibility while ignoring the underlying social structures, and vice versa. Both are vitally important.

What our community needs now are leaders willing to step courageously into the fire of criticism like that endured by Bill Cosby. We need leaders who will speak the truth: gay men should treat each other as sacred, not merely as disposable sex objects.

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Joe Perez is a Seattle-based writer who pens Soulfully Gay, a bi-weekly column that explores spirituality and religion from a gay man’s perspective. Contact him by e-mail at joe@writingwolf.com, and read more at www.joe-perez.com.

Comments

[bls]

Nice article. Particularly this: "gay men should treat each other as sacred, not merely as disposable sex objects."

[John Ballew]

Well put, Joe.

The critics' concern about the self-esteem of gay men is interesting to me. Self-esteem is a byproduct of living life in accordance with one's values and seeing one's self as having power in the world. Responsibility itself increases self-esteem.

[NancyP]

The above article seems very 1980s to me. History is repeating itself. The "sexual outlaw" philosophy is seeing a war with the supposed "anti-sex" majority, and failing to see a middle way.

FWIW, there was an interesting article in the most recent issue of Gay and Lesbian Review surveying why men "bareback". Intimacy and trust ranked high among the reasons. To an outsider, it seems there is something to work with here, a man giving that reason might respond well to an argument that using condom can be considered an act of love and respect in the appropriate setting.

[Bo]

"Lately I've been asking myself: where are the Bill Cosbys who are willing to speak just as courageously about the problems of the gay community?"

You know, Larry Kramer is quite the vocal critic of the "gay community" as is Andrew Sullivan and Camille Paglia is, well, very often angry at everyone. There seems to be many writers willing to deconstruct us and our motives at every turn. You can look in journals of science, psychology and even liberal theology and find article after article explaining how and why we need to "get our act together," "become less combative politically," and how to "focus more on our personal health and well-being."

Personally, I don't think the gay community has too few commentators about us-- I think we have too many. Honestly, whenever I go to PlanetOut or get their daily digest emails, I am struck by the articles about how sexually promiscous we are, how their is a new disease that we're responsible for spreading, or what new law has been inacted to prevent us from enjoying a quality of life afforded heterosexuals.

I'd like to see PlanetOut and other writers say something more affirming once in awhile. This month's Advocate cover talks about how Oklahoma Gay and Lesbians are "winning their neighbor's hearts and minds." I like that, and being from Oklahoma myself, I found it very encouraging to read.

I met David Nimmons, author of "Soul Beneath the Skin" a few months back at a discussion group where I thanked him for his contribution in his book lifting up the good that we fabulous homosexuals do and have done to each other and ourselves. Have you read his book? It's amazingly supportive and encouraging. We need more authors like Nimmon's once a while reminding us that we're not all sick pervs ('not that there is anything wrong with pervs,' in my best Seinfeld impersonation).

I would like to see less critique and more constructive criticism as well as some fun-loving affirmations thrown in to remind others and me how truly fabulous we all are.

[Marc]

I believe that the gay community's high level of sexual activity, much like its propensity for alcohol and drug use, is merely a symptom of deeper issues, rather than the route problem itself. Certainly, societal homophobia plays an important part in reinforcing those underlying issues. We need to continue to work toward societal acceptance. That being said, ultimately, the individual must decide to treat themselves with love and respect. Increased moralizing, however, won't get you there. Rather, it only serves to reinforce the shame that the larger society heaps upon us.

What's the alternative, then? We need to focus on creating healthy alternatives in our community -- where people can get support and guidance we need, interact in a safe space, develop meaningful relationships, etc. In short, we need to move beyond the gay community being a collection of bars into more of a real community.

[Joe Perez]

Bo -

I actually agree with you that there are plenty of commentators who are quick to attack or condemn "negative" aspects of gay culture. I don't think we need much more of that. My point is that almost always these attacks come from a perspective that simply advocates more individual responsibility without also simultaneously acknowledging the complex social and political dimensions of our community's problems. For instance, preaching against unsafe sex while refusing to see the need for public health funding for empowerment groups for gay men, condom distribution, interventions in bathhouses, and so forth. That's merely moralizing, and I don't think more moralizing is going to do any good.

Where there is clearly a void that I see is in folks taking a balanced perspective. In other words, we need more leaders who can encourage more complex perspectives, depth of analysis, and higher and deeper morality ... but without moralistic preaching. A tough order, for sure.

Joe

[darryl]

I wonder why it is so hard to avoid moralising and instead embrace spirit?

"Avoidance" is a figment of the imaginations of great men whose, work can take us as far backwards as it can take us forwards. Psychological concepts have their uses and misuses.

To me there is meaning in the utter unavoidability of responsbility. On the onther hand to imply volition in avoidance is to construct a moralistic framework.

Responsibility is what is. To suggest it may be avoided is to contruct a myth of the dimensions of the original sin myth, and about as helpful.

For me embracing the reality of responsbility is a life task, not a moral choice or a series of such choices, that bring us into line with some myopic vision of "betterness", no matter how well it is dressed in the language of balance.

I don't mean to be negative Joe but I suggest moralism may very well be a strong North American cultural thing which I must admit I find very hard to understand. My Australian culture has it too but we also have a very strong anti-wowser streak which I think gets tickled with these kinds of discussions.

The wedding banquet is everyone's calling and the clothes and the cleanliness are unimportant. The wedding banquet joins us with each other and with the all in all, it doesn't make any of us better, more mature, adult or any of those clothing related concepts. The banquet merges us into our responsbilities and as we participate we merge into each other.

I'm neither liberal nor conservative. In fact I'm not too sure what the hell I am but I know that I cannot feel free from moralism just because I seek some balance point between them. If you start with a moralistic dimension you end up with one, no matter where you put yourself on the imagined continuum.

Thank you for your work, you really make me think.

Darryl