It seems like an odd question but after years of living (sexing) and working in nonprofits that specifically cater to populations that have high HIV infection rates, I have worked out how I personally have stayed Negative.
Awareness I
In my teens, as I came out my mother had a close gay friend, Walter in Alcoholics Anonymous. So she leaned on him for advice about how to counsel me and he and another gay AA dude loaded me down with books and open invitations to discussions. They pointedly brought up things like safe sex. In the 1990s this was unusual in the sense that it hadn’t quite made it to my school, high school as a training program—-so they were explaining something new to me.
Then in my high school I had a counselor, Tracey, who talked directly about sexuality and even started a small support group for students who were not entirely straight. That was also unique and revolutionary.
In my Senior year Tracey gave me a referral to a Youth Group in Manhattan (I lived in Brooklyn) that I could travel to on weekends and while they had activities and such they were at a large Gay and Lesbian Center so there was lots of pointed discussions about safe and available supplies of condoms and lubricants.
There were a few years from the end of high school to entering college where I was essentially a legal adult, with a little bit of money and freedom. I went to a lot of parties. A lot. But I didn’t drink then and I’ve never done drugs. Though I was experimenting, trying things out sexually—-I was always safe—-making it an INTJ project to purchase the right Magnum XL condoms, finding the free NYC ones too small. I didn’t think anything of this personal choice but a decade or so later working at a non-profit, we grappled with the real truth of men of color, Black and Latino, often having longer and girthier penises so the free and abundant NYC Condoms built for White men would tear or were abandoned as too tight—-thereby facilitating unsafe sex.
That hitch pretty much saved my life because it created such an issue that I simply didn’t Bottom, seeing it as too complicated/potentially painful, and I was always prepared, and had the tools, to Top. So topping became my norm due to resources and ease.
I’ll point out here that among Blacks and Latinos resources/social class has a lot to do with HIV infection.
I was working full time, paying into the mortgage at home, living a reasonably normal, mundane life and then on my way to college. Where I worked, paid for school myself and attended classes. My sophomore year I came back to Manhattan, to the Center and all of my youth cohorts were gone, scattered to the wind. Later I would learn many of them were HIV infected or had worked into full blown AIDS. Which honestly blew my mind.
Full Adulthood/After College
Finished college, come back to the city as a corporate dude. Still pretty normal, still making more than most of my racial cohorts at my age so I could honestly date—-by date I mean go out for a meal and activity and everyone goes home to their respective homes—-I didn’t have the pressure or no or low resources to seeking gratification where I could get it, because I could plan it. Or plan not to get it. When you have your own apartment and money and don’t need to be sexual for shelter or resources at a young age, it changes the dynamic of power and self choice as to when and when you won’t have sex.
Also I was highly educated, so I understood the entire spectrum of HIV infection and risks. Insanely at my going away party for college my parents insisted I let them watch a gay porno film so that they would understand what to advise me about. It never occurred to me that they couldn’t it out but afterwards our discussions were much more frank and honest. That level of parental honesty also meant I was exposed to an adult honesty and adult maturity about my sexuality. Another unusual check in my favor.
Awareness II
Eventually I did five years in corporate America and switched over to non-profits and then for a decade or so I was both volunteering and then working full time in gay titled (Gay Men’s Health Crisis, etc.) spaces. Unfortunately, a lot of the programmatic funding comes from the CDC, to incorporate HIV training-so that means that when I had Citi Bank come in and give my youth/adults free checking accounts and a discussion about checking and savings…….I tagged it along to how resources could assist in lessening HIV infections.
Or when Visiting Nurse Services brought in MetroCards and BBQ gift cards to facilitate their discussion about depression in youth—we tagged that to how depression could lead to unsafe sex and here’s how you did preventative safe sex. You get the idea.
But what this did for me, as a coordinator/teacher, throughout all of these non-profits and thousands of hours of sex, sexuality, relationship, financial, mental health, motivational, vocational, and even, tax workshops I created/taught and did as a participant, was I got HIV training up the whazoo.
Amazingly, the NY Dept. of Health came in to do a staff in-service training and explained the highest career/job position for increased HIV infection were people working in programs that were gay/HIV related.
The psychological play out was:
- that you would see perhaps hundreds of clients a week, like I did.
- And they would all be rather reasonably normal. I had maybe 1 direct HIV death a year from 400–800 clients.
Now that may have been because of social/health care and better resources, particularly up North—-where the lifespan rate is 27+ years (it’s 5 years in Charlotte) from initial HIV infection.
However as the coordinator looking at that—-we would “normalize” HIV, we would see that you “could live with it”. Even though you were constantly spewing safe sex, safe sex, safe sex, instead of thinking NEVER-you start thinking “It Wouldn’t Be So Bad If….”.
I looked at my coworkers. At one place, 9 of the 14 staff members, men, were all HIV+. There was even a bias at the place because of it. Another place, the staff was more flexible, but still 50% of them were HIV+, and then, at a third place—-25% were out about being HIV+, and at least 200 of the 225 clients in my direct contact were HIV+.
I realized I was surrounded.
And yes, I’d normalized it because I’d normalized the people around me. But I have personally decided to not normalize becoming HIV+, to not normalize HIV/AIDS or STIs. I would argue that the CDC projection of 50% of MSM who are Black and Latino becoming HIV+ in their lifetime, as an expectation, is woefully under what the reality will become. But I have made a concerted effort, changing my relationships, my friendships, even my professional associations, to avoid the sea of such a mentality.
But that consciousness has changed my own understanding of how I have to live my life, how I have to pay attention to my own moods and desires and relationships, and yes, even frustrations and sadness. That I can’t use sex, drugs, alcohol as a salve—-nor should I lean into risky behaviors to invigorate my life. It is important to have a Life Purpose beyond one’s sexuality so as to have a counter-force/gird to ones down times, desires and adventurous spirit. Too many men, particularly men of color, make wild sex, unsafe sex, extremely crazy sex, as a form of living a high life/risky sexual activities rather than creating something, being artistic, being innovative.
Because when you do those things, you value life, your own life, the lives of others, having children, deepening relationships, and yes, having wonderous sexual adventures that do not impact negatively upon their bodies.
That’s what I’ve used to stay HIV-, that consciousness.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
