Late Night Sex Talk

Last night, I was hanging out with my old friend Insomnia,  and I gave a shout out to Facebook and found that I was in abundant good company. A friend of mine popped up on my chat and asked me if he could ask a question. This young man is a HIV negative but an HIV scholar and knows his stuff. But as have almost all of us, positive and negative, he made a choice recently to have unprotected sex with a twink that said he was HIV negative. My friend topped him bareback, and decided that he was going to go in and get an HIV test. But he had a question about risk if, in fact, the individual turned out to have been HIV positive.

It's not an uncommon question though it is one that folks rarely ask. In fact, I know many men that always top without a condom whether or not their sex partner is negative or positive. Their is a misconception that tops can't get HIV by topping. And, unfortunately, the model for prevention in this country would have you believe that topping without a condom will not only instantly give you AIDS but your right nut will fall off. The answer to that particular question is that yes there is a risk. Period---but you won't get the dropsies just because you stuck it in without a rubber. But the level of risk involved depends on numerous factors. The internal health of the bottom, lube usage, the health of the penis of the top, the size of the top's urethra, the viral load of the bottom, and I am sure there are other variables that a doctor would be able to add into the mix.

 I shared with my friend that in my adult relationships, I have mostly dated men that are negative and for those that were tops they rarely used a condom. This was an informed decision based on medical facts, and if, for example, one of the variables mentioned above happened to be off for a time, then we wrapped it up. The point was that based on the available scientific/medical data, personal preference and risk tolerance, the particular men I am talking about made a choice around the risk they wanted to take. And I kept them informed of any issue that would impact that risk choice. I have also, with one negative boyfriend in particular, topped without a condom with his consent, considering all the risk factors, eliminating internal ejaculation (and I am not a pre-cummer but if it happened to be one of those rare times when I was...then it was condom time), and again that was a mutual decision based on medical information.

And remember this number: 96%. A person with an undetectable viral load has less than a 4% chance of transmitting HIV. There have been NO DOCUMENTED CASES of a person with an undetectable viral load transmitting HIV. The fact is that there is a risk to a negative bottom, but again the science and medical data is way ahead of a prevention messaging that still puts the onus on poz folks and shames consensual sexual choices regarding condom usage between consenting adults.

But the part of the conversation that was most important was that my friend was taking responsibility for his own sexual health. Yes the twink said he was negative. Yes he could have lied. Yes that would have been wrong (and any poz person that has been living with HIV for any significant amount of time and says that they have a 100% disclosure rating is either a leprechaun or lying). But in the end, my friend realized that he made the ultimate choice for himself to top this kid without a condom.

The analogy that I used was that he could tell me that Jesus himself was slinging beers down at the local Irish Pub, but if I hauled my ass down to the pub and it turned out that Jesus wasn't there, my friend may have told me a story that got me to jump in my car....but I am in fact that one that climbed in, turned the key, and headed down to get some water-to-wine action. That does not absolve anyone from knowing their status and disclosing it when necessary, but HIV positive people are not responsible for anyone else's sex choices.

I commended my friend on doing what was best for him and taking care of his health. Based on actual facts and data, I was able to suggest that his risk factor in this situation was low. The more we can all engage with our sex choices, understand we are going to make mistakes, and try and remove the HIV related stigma from sex, we will move a long way forward into the fight to eliminate HIV.

Towards a Black Male Feminism

There are any number of arguments why the practice of active feminism is an obligation of men. I have opined in the past that a woman, just as she has a choice whether or not to ever consider abortion or have one, also has a choice of whether or not to be a feminist. Her liberation or how she defines her liberation needs to be defined as she wills it and it may shift, change, and morph based on locale, history, religion, race, color, and belief. The debate on the necessity of an articulated feminism for women is a debate for women to hold and define.  But let me be clear that feminism is not monolithic and white feminism and the racism its practice has sometimes entailed as practiced historically has caused some powerful harm, which is why the Combahee River Collective's statement on Black Feminism and Barbara Smith's essay Towards a Black Feminist Criticism are so critical.

But the debate on feminism and what that means from a female point of view is not for a man to decide. But the power of feminism is that contrary to how it is often presented it is not the same as sexism. Sexism is the practice of power plus privilege and its use to oppress women while holding up the institutions of male power and privilege. Feminism is the mindful deconstruction of that system for both men and women. In short, feminism is the key to the liberation of men as it is, in my opinion, the basis for the liberation of women. How feminism is practiced, though, and what it means for men and women and their path to liberation is, necessarily different.  And what it means for black men in particular is very simply about survival.

To begin, 72% of all black households in the United States are led by single mothers. The reasons for this are plentiful including rates of teen pregnancy, school to prison pipeline, drug laws, poverty, and any other number of factors that are geared towards removing a particular type of black man, which happens to be the majority of us, from our homes and into the new articulations of modern slave labor or, as has happened during the recession, the removal of us and our labor from the economy completely to make room for the recovery of the white community.  The unemployment rate of black men with college degrees is almost twice that of white men with college degrees, and while the overall unemployment rate for the black community is around 13%, 8.3% of black men over 25 with a college degree are unemployed. Though critical to understanding the ways in which power pushes black men out of the "legitimate" means earning system and into survival economies that make black men vulnerable to power and easily eliminated at the ease or pleasure of the state, particularly in a time of increased private prisons and the shifting of so much small manufacturing labor to prisons where fair wage laws and other Constitutional and legal guarantees do not apply, these are all symptoms that lead to towards a black male feminism and its necessity.

Feminism at its root means that both men and women get to express their full humanity without oppression, without prescribed ways of being that are rigidly policed and socially/politically/often physically punished when deviated from the norm, and allow both men and women the full range and expression of their vitality and spirit without taking away from the other. Indeed, feminism is, at its root, the negation of gender roles and the full expression of human experience as in a liberation framework---ie...you get to be all of you, and I get to be all of me, and together we are committed to building each other to our full potential.

For black men this becomes about survival. Black men are taught from the gate to be tough, hard, in control, "macho", independent, players, victims, and that our potential is circumscribed by history, circumstance, and ability--not to be punks, to be virile, the mandigo syndrome...and these ideals images and thoughts are reinforced through our own communities, often, media--too often--, and what we consume from mainstream dominant ideology. We resemble what we are presented by others as ourselves. We become charicatures because so many of those that would be our own role models are dead, absent, or in prison. We are socialized internally and externally, and unless somoene or something intervenes to break the cycle of history, legacy, and socialization we often become what we were never born to be. We become angry, and turn that anger inwards and towards our own community. And as a wise woman once told me, there is a place for angry black men: jail.

The truth or untruth of these socializations are related to our relativity to power, history, presentation, and ability to conform or not (willingly or not, consciously or not) to a paradigm that requires us to set our skin aside and adopt a way of being that imitates the master consciousness. This too is an ultimate expression of sexism and must be rejected through conscious practice. Further, I would argue it is sexism and a lack of feminist ideals and thoughts that are at the root of the pandemic of the single parent home, which, in and of itself, keeps the community widely struggling with poverty and in cycles of poverty.

To be clear, I grew up with a single white mother that, like most mothers, worked hard to give us a better opportunity than she had, but the fact remains that a loving two parent house hold would have afforded better opportunity, education, and emotional support. The key word being loving.

So what is the solution? The solution is for men in general, and black men in particular to adopt feminist ideals. To reject prescribed notions of masculinity and dominance, to reject heterosexism and homophobia, to see women and gender non conforming individuals are partners in liberation, to ask for help and support, to love our partners and to see each other as family instead of objects to be desired and dominated, to understand that materialism and consumerism as status are socializations again that have been offered up on a dish that we have swallowed whole by white folks that could care less about the strength of our community and only want the power our dollars give them. It means to love women and to use whatever power and privilege we have to open up the space so that they can be full and powerful partners with us, since it was a woman and most likely a single woman that raised us. It means investing in the power and strength of black women that have sacrificed to give us life and have loved us both in our own realities and broadly as a male community when we didn't deserve it.

There are structural reasons why black men often fail to survive or end up in cycles of poverty but while power owes us a Hell of a lot, the mentality that one is owed will do nothing but keep us in the same cycles of destruction, despair, and subjugation. By starting at the point of undoing our own sexism and claiming identities and practice as feminist, we heal the rift that has existed between black men and women and begin with a unity that power will not be able to undo. It is for all of our survival that black men must move towards an articulated black feminism, accountable to black women, and responsible for ourselves.

Queers for Economic Justice and the Forum Project Need Your Help!

Dear Friends and Family,

My organization, Queers for Economic Justice, is currently fighting to win a $5000 grant and WE NEED YOUR VOTE!

The Forum Project (TFP) and Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ) are teaming up to develop a performance series with and by queer shelter residents of New York City using Theatre of the Oppressed. A disproportionate number of New York City's homeless identify as queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or gender-nonconforming, and yet many face overwhelming discrimination, neglect and abuse at the hands of the systems that claim to support homeless people. Queer homeless need effective resources to combat the oppression that impacts their lives. http://goodart.maker.good.is/projects/queerhomelessonstage

Our budgets are extremely lean, and so we really need this grant to be able to launch this program and support this underresourced community. And it's so easy to help.

• VOTE! We're in the top ten but we need to be #1 to win. Please take a moment to vote. 

• SHARE! Please post the following on your Facebook page or Twitter!

Please VOTE NOW to help give $5000 to launch this program to develop theatre by homeless people in NYC! http://goodart.maker.good.is/projects/queerhomelessonstage

• FORWARD! Please send this blog to your colleagues, friends and family to spread the word.

Help us spread the word and win!

Love,
Brandon and the QEJ and Forum Project Family!

PS VOTING ENDS IN TWO DAYS! VOTE NOW!

 

An American Pandemic: The Murder of Black Trans Women

We all know that in this country, the value of a Black life as measured by the institutions that prop up and run this nation is measured only in meager labor. Slavery may have ended in 1865 (I use the date of Juneteenth to mark that ocassion), but we know that real wage slavery still exists even as the overt trappings of slavery and Jim Crow have been dismantled. We like our oppression to look neat and pretty, so Black folks that don't tow the line and keep in their place are placed in prison now. Much easier to lock them up than lynch us on a regular basis. And as my former boss and life mentor Paula Austin once told me, "You have to think and act smart. There is a place for angry black men in this world. It's called jail."

There is also a place for black bodies, over and over again, and that is six feet under at the hands of power, ignorance, and violence.  And in no community of black folks is that threat and reality more present than amongst Black transgender and gender nonconforming women.

There are a number of lists that honor the murdered dead by remember their names and sharing them with the community. There is one such list on Wikipedia. The same article suggests that according to global statistics, a transgender person is murdered every three days just on the basis of their gender identity. And the European based Trans Murder Monitoring Project has tracked 800 transgender murders globally in the last four years. As of March 2012, the United States has the fourth highest rate of transgender murders in the world (52 in the last four years), only slightly behind Mexico and Columbia, though distantly behind Brazil, which has had more than 300 murders of trans individuals in the last four year.

Just a quick Google search of transgender murders in 2012 offered up the names of these black women that were either killed in 2012 or their killers were acquitted or got off without justice: Brandy Martell (Oakland, CA), Paige Clay (Chicago, IL), Victoria Carmen White (Newark, NJ), an identified yet unnamed black transwoman was found murdered in Detroit last Monday morning (the police refuse to offer up a name), and I am sure there are more. Today we add another name to that list: Tiffany Gooden, 19 years old, Chicago, found not two blocks from where Paige Clay was killed earlier this year. Tiffany was stabbed and left in an abandoned building on the Westside.

I didn't know Tiffany. Until this afternoon when the article concerning her death was posted on my Facebook wall, I didn't know she existed. I promise you, however, that I will never forget her. Or any of the faces and names of trans folks from my community in NYC or my community globally that have been brought to my attention. Nor will I forget CeCe McDonald, who is serving prison time for killing an attacker that would have gladly added the name of that innocent black woman to the list of those taken down by hate, racism, sexism, and transphobia. 

And like every other non-white queer or trans person that is murdered, Tiffany's death will occupy precious little column space. She may get a quick mention on the evening news once or twice. But power doesn't care about black bodies. Power  most certainly does not care about black transgender bodies that are often classed, raced, and gendered out of the workforce and so therefore have no value to the power structure. Tifany will be forgotten along with so many others, unless we make an effort to remember her. To speak her name in our holy places, in our gathering places, in our places of community, at Trans Day of Action, in the offices of Queers for Economic Justice, in the Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Justice, which is named in part for a black trans woman elder and a gender non-conforming white super butch and houses the Audre Lorde Project, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, FIERCE, and QEJ.

We know from experience that most of our own national organizations could actually care less about these lives lost as well. Even the best of them, the Task Force, is preciously weak on issues related to trans people of color. Apathy and disinterest is as much a factor in creating an environment where these deaths are permissible as is the structural oppression and hate that results in the physical destruction of the lives of our trans brothers and sisters.

And so to is the silence of black mainstream organizations. The NAACP and other black institutions are culpable as well for ignoring, silencing and closeting these most vulnerable members of our family. Our silence has never protected us from anything.

So today, I am remembering Tiffany and holding up her name in light. I hope she has found in the next life what was denied to her in this one: justice, dignity, honor, love, and the right to grow up.

Rest in peace Tiffany, while the rest of us rage.

At Times Like These: A Love Blog for Nico

It's at times like these, these moments when I am feeling full of love...those moments when it's been a decent week....when I have done what I set out to do (for the most part), did the best I could do on a given day....had the strength to ask for help and support and love from my family and community...had conflict and resolved it....had trouble and overcame it....dreamed a little bit...cried a little bit...said some goodbyes....made some new friends...and loved myself just a bit more....that I miss him the most.

You see...I fell in love with a man. Not just any man....but a Frenchman (ouhlala)....by the name of Nico.

Let me tell you something about Nico....unexpectedness....and the quirky twists of fate of a universe gone un poquito loco. He is the best friend of someone that I still love dearly and that I once dated.

I shall not name any names but there are some blogs (some good and some...ahem...rough)....on this blog about his best friend and the firestorm of emotions that existed/still exist/have been banked....between us. That was a crazy love...a conflagration that was explosive. I am sure there is some alien species somewhere that saw us meet for the first time and was like..."Fuck...I think the Earth just blew the Hell up!"

I met Nico through the other one. When I met him I thought he was a smooooooth operator. Tall. Fancy. French. Works for the UN. Suave.....very...umm....welll....ouhlala. He was a married man. Like...legally and stuff....and he spent most of his night talking to our friend Ben in Frenchy talk. He maintains to this day that I ignored him that night. I didn't ignore him. I was perfectly engaging....I just happened to have my attention focused elsewhere.

Proof that I am right and he was smoking that stuff is that shortly after meeting, we developed our own friendship that intensified as he and his former partner split up.

For two months, we spoke often, communicated often, and as the unnamed one and I went from a twin star galaxy to supernovae, Nico and my friendship deepened.

Then for reasons that were both valid (feelings wise) and super duper extra regrettable (actions wise), first the other one and then I were sent into Siberia as my chou (cabbage aka Nico) calls it.

Fast forward some six months later. The ex and I are again close and friends. We go out for Nico's birthday. I hadn't seen him (Nico) in almost seven months. By the end of the night, we were kissing, and I asked him out on a date.

When I went to bed that night and thought back on the evening, my eyes were as big as a lemur's and all I could do was blink and say..."what the fuc....."

And one date turned into nights spent together, laughing, talking, walking, singing, ummmm playing...uhhh twister, eating, cooking, and it was all and has been so easy. Not easy as in...no hard moments or no difficult times where he or I haven't had to say....No no Mischa...not tonight. And a couple of times, I've had to go all Ghost on him...."Molly...you in danger girl!" Of course, I have been a perfect angel full of Christ's love and have never made him raise his eyebrows and get all Franco-Germanic Valkyrie on me....no...not me...no way man!

He sees me and loves me and holds me...and the things I think of as flaws and detriments...the HIV....the slight tendency towards crazy (I have more than a little Madea in my soul)....the wounds that I carry and am trying to heal....he just kisses me and lets me be....and I like to believe that for those things that he carries...I have been able to do the same.

The man loves me in that slow, steady insistent way that you hear about sometimes in stories. Not the pyrotechnical oh shit we blew up the universe way and then burned down to a cinder...but in that slow, steady, warm, glowy, constant way that just keeps burning and sparking and warming without flickering.

Yeah it's only been a couple-o-months...but it's been something vastly different than this...ummm...very experienced human being has known. And what's even better is that everyone around us sees it. In pictures. In person. Folks comment on the light that is there when we are together.

Which is why I wanted to jump up and down on his forehead when my beloved man up and moved to Togo for two months.

Yes yes, I am cursed to have a successful man that works for the UN doing disarmament that was recently promoted to a fabulous post in NYC and asked to go back to Africa to be the Interim Director of the center in West Africa that runs the disarmament program for the entire damn continent. WOOOOOOEEEEEE IS ME.

At least he bought me some jewelry before he left. He knows what a lady likes.

In the end....I am so proud to be his man. I am proud of the work he is doing. The world of modern technology lets us see and talk to each other every day....but on nights like this...after days like this....Skype is lovely...but it doesn't replace his kiss, his skin, or my arms around him.

He'll be home soon. Until then.....it's love letters and a list of some acrobatic gymnastic twister games in a spreadsheet to be played that grows longer by the day. 

Ungowa Queer Black (and Brown) Power!

So, this last weekend, thanks in large part to the generosity of a lovely friend of mine, I was able to attend, for the first, time the Fire Island Black Out Party (FIBO). For all y'all that don't know, Fire Island is off the coast of Long Island and is a miles and miles long sand bar in the bay (or it might be the sound...lord if I know and I am too lazy to Google it). The island has been famous for nearly fifty years for being THE Mecca for the queer community. P-Town is Miss Congeniality but The Pines and Cherry Grove take first and second on that particular list. The Pines is generally where the boys hang out and has magnificent mansions and you can smell the ducats in the air. The Grove est une pue demurre in comparison but is still stunning with more than one dyke with dollars prancing about in this or that.

On one weekend each year, which up until this year coincided with Black Pride in NYC, FIBO takes place in Cherry Grove and quite literally thousands and thousands of largely black and Latin@ folks from all across the country descend on this little piece of sand in the water for three days of sun, sand, dancing and shenanigans.

The things I saw on the beach liked to make be howl. (for example...technically it was a nude beach but the one person that exercised the full nude option was this not-so-lovely white man that would then walk up to groups of black men and get an erection...I was like....if you can't control it...PUT IT AWAY!). Then there was the black twink that had a bathing suit with a mesh bubble in the crotch for his dick and balls while covering the rest of him...that was even worse than Le Nude Whitey.

But other than the now and again moments of utter insanity, the weekend was one of laughter with new and old friends, so much joy, and so much pride in the beauty, diversity, power, and love of the Black and Latin@ community, especially with all of us all together celebrating our sexuality, our cultural expressions, and our love for our fellow queer folks.

And like in many queer settings the men and women (and trans folks) were together. I can't remember, and so I won't attribute exactly the paraphrase but one of the black women elder lesbians said (might of been Barbara Smith, might have been Mandy Carter, but I can't remember at the moment), "we as women of color can't afford to leave men of color behind."

This weekend, to be with an entire group of stunning and powerful women of color (shout out to Jaael, Sondra, Selena, Arti, Sam, and Nadia  (with a guest appearance by our token white girl Di), and to find so many other groups of friends, queer/trans men and women together, gave me some hope for our community---particularly as people of color doing the work and struggling together---that feminism is going to will out and the recognition of our survival is contingent on the dismantling of the barriers that sexism has created between our family. Women of color would have been justified in leaving their men behind and going on and being the bright candles that they are...but they chose to reach out and drag us along...sometimes by smacking us upside the head the entire way.

FIBO for me was not about the partying as much as it was about being in community, meeting the black neurosurgeon from Columbia Presbyterian, the chief legal advisor to the Detroit City Council--also a black man--the investment banker women, the British Indian actor (what what Arti), the school teacher, the dancer, a banker that finances public housing projects, and so on and so forth. We gonna be alright.

But not to dismiss the party; what better way to build community than butt shaking throw downs that bring folk together to share in the bright diversity of our music, language, and joy?

Thanks for the love and good times my FIBO crew and here's to next year!

POEM: A Very Sappy Love Poem aka The Chou

The Chou

He is to me the stuff that dreams are made of

brilliant bursts of color that

throw shade at the rainbow

give side eye to a prisms glow

French diplomat freak in the sheets realness

the category is

Love
New Style

soft and gentle

smooth and subtle

it isn't the explosive passion that has moved my foundations

in the past

it was the Fourth of July and Krakatoa

but this......

this is a broad river

with a powerful undertow

slowly making its mark

through the stoic earth

inexorable it feels like truth

his distance feels like the reach

from river source to its delta

But I can feel him though he is not cerca

verdad the source and the delta are the same river

I meant to give him a lingering goodbye

but life got in the way (I had a grant due that day)

so it was a swift kiss and into a taxi

left me

wanting

that long goodbye

instead

it will be a Hell of a Hello

And anyone that says two months ain't a long time

hasn't been in love before

Two days is a long time when you crave waking up in his arms

despite the snores

that sound like a Silverback banging on its chest

somewhere deep in his neck

he growls in his sleep

keeps his arms around me

except when my arms are around him

sometimes he doesn't let me go

in that way he is just like his best friend

(Yes, I also dated him).

But if this is the beginning

there can only be a happy ending

because once upon a time I fell in love with a Frenchman

who was first my friend

and those are the types of bedtime stories

that never ever end.

-Brandon Lacy Campos

-New York, NY

-August 7, 2012

What Do Justice for People with HIV, the Working Poor, People of Color and Women Have to Do With Christine Quinn? Absolutely Nothing.

Queers For Economic Justice Asks Quinn To Support Paid Sick Days Now!

By Amber Hollibaugh and Brandon Lacy Campos

While many in the LGBTQ community take paid sick days for granted, half of all workers in New York City — and two-thirds of low-wage workers — get no paid sick time. Many of these workers are LGBTQ. These workers don't have the luxury of putting their health first.  When they get sick, instead of focusing on getting better, they are forced to choose between going to work sick to make rent at the end of the month or sacrificing their days’ wages and/or getting fired.  No one should be forced to make this choice.

Last week, Queers for Economic Justice returned from the International AIDS Conference to New York City, where a debate over whether employers should be required to give their workers paid sick days has become a leading issue in City Hall and in the media. Lack of paid sick days is a significant problem for New Yorkers living and working with HIV/AIDS, who don’t have the privilege of taking sickness lightly, and must prioritize their health above all else when sick.  This could mean staying home in bed to get needed rest or scheduling an emergency visit to the doctor’s office. Without the ability to take paid sick time, the health and economic security of people living with HIV/AIDS are jeopardized.

There is legislation pending in the NYC Council that would alleviate this problem by requiring most businesses to give a modest number of paid sick days to their workers to use for themselves or to care for a sick family member. 

The legislation enjoys broad public support as well as a veto-proof majority of support in the City Council.  If passed, the legislation would lift a serious burden off the nearly 1.5 million workers in NYC who currently don’t get a single paid sick day.  This is especially true for immigrant workers, people of color, and people with low-wage jobs, who are among the least likely to get paid sick days.

Paid sick days also play an important public health role.  When sick workers go to work, they increase the spread of illness.  Nobody wants to be served by a sick waiter at a restaurant.  For people living with HIV/AIDS, the risk of complications from influenza and other communicable illnesses make the public health importance of paid sick days particularly vital.

Considering how important this issue is to LGBTQ workers and our brothers and sisters living with HIV/AIDS, it’s disturbing that some of the most prominent and powerful opponents of the legislation come from within the LGBTQ community.

The openly gay Speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, is the single person standing in the way of the legislation’s passage.  If she allowed the bill to the floor for a vote, it would fly through the City Council.

Backing Speaker Quinn is Tony Juliano, the general manager of the gay bar XES Lounge in Chelsea, who recently claimed that despite considering his workers to be family, he opposes giving them five paid sick days per year.  Almost ninety percent of restaurant and bar workers don’t get paid sick days – most go to work sick for fear of losing their jobs, and many actually do lose their jobs when they call in sick.

At Queers for Economic Justice, we have an initiative called Poverty and HIV/AIDS Stop Together. Through this project, we are highlighting how issues like paid sick days connect anti-poverty work and HIV/AIDS Activism. We are also launching a Queer Survival Economics initiative, which seeks to make visible the impact of the recession on LGBTQ communities. In today’s economy, workers are struggling to stay employed and provide for those closest to them, and they need paid sick days more than ever.

It’s time for the LGBTQ community to come together to support this safe, sane, and sensible policy.

Amber Hollibaugh and Brandon Lacy Campos are Co-Directors of Queers for Economic Justice.