Volttage: A Dating and Hook Up Site for POZitively Sexy People

Back in late April-ish, my Facebook wall was bombarded by several of my loved ones that posted a call for HIV positive models to participate in a new project that Jack Mackenroth, the HIV positive gay man of Project Runway fame and with a boogina that makes me think of sin and putting on a bib. FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Oops sorry...that was my outside voice.

Anywho, several of my friends encouraged me to send Jack some of my pictures for this project. He was looking for HIV positive models, and my first response to my friends was....ummm 1) I am not a model, 2) You are asking me to send half naked pictures, sober, not on a sex site, with the possibility that I could end up half naked on a website for the entire world to see, 3) do you EVEN know me.

I love rejection just about as much as I love failure. Rejection, which is a main component of the impact of stigma on people living with HIV, becomes more than just a "shitty" moment for those of us living with the red rider. Rejection becomes the default for many of our interactions with folks in the community in whom we may have interest. Show me a poz man that hasn't experienced at at least half a dozen instances of shocking and hurtful ignorance when disclosing his status, and I will show you the magical leprechaun that I keep chained in my pantry making Lucky Charms whenever I have a hankering.

So, imagine, then submitting your pictures to a famous stud with no body fat and asking him to MAKE A judgment on your attractiveness.

Yeah...ummm...while I have a healthy and sometimes overly healthy ego, the one place that breaks down is around my body, but...BUT....I thought what the Hell, and I sent the pictures along. Nothing special, just some shots I took with Photo Booth on my Mac.

I don't think it even took five minutes for Jack to respond booking me for the shoot.

Besides my ego there was a very specific reason that I made the choice to submit my photos. The project Jack was working on was a well developed, sexy, fun dating and hook up site and app for HIV positive queer men. In the light of my personal and political work over the last year or so, and recalling the times when I failed to disclose and the shame, guilt, and holy Hell that created, I decided to put my own body image shit aside to be a part of this project.

A hook up site with financial backing that is aimed at eliminating stigma and supporting the HIV positive community...AND...here is the critical piece...holding up and recognizing that HIV positive people GET to be sexual beings, GET to be human, GET to be loved, GET to objects of desire, and GET to look in the mirror and feel wanted.

You see, it's a rare HIV positive person that doesn't get their diagnosis and spend a little time or the rest of their lives reduced to their disease. And...AND...unlike any other communicable and potential life threatening disease (HPV, Hepatitis C, and so many others) HIV is the ONLY one that is criminalized, and it is the only one where all of the public health strategies are aimed at one thing: stopping HIV positive people from having sex or putting so much fear and shame into positive folks that they have sex rarely and furtively. Well, we all know just how much that has worked out. All the scientific data has shown that FEAR is never an effective tool for prevention. And criminalizing a virus  aka a basic identity of a person living with the virus is exactly the same as criminalizing religion, race, creed, etc. And before anyone out there opens their mouth to say, "HEY...but you can't infect someone with "blackness." Well, guess what...until 30 odd years ago, miscegenation laws existed EXACTLY because white folks viewed the mixing of the races as "infecting" white folks with blackness.

Yes, there is an obligation to disclose your HIV status. But an obligation to disclose does NOT absolve YOU from making a sexual choice that you later regret. Except the cases of rape or incest or maybe an intentionally needle stick, the transmission of HIV should play absolutely no factor in the criminal legal system. In fact, it is has been shown to keep people from getting tested.

Smooth move straight folks. Bigotry wins again.

But, again, I digress.

So, about a month later, I showed up to an apartment in Brooklyn where Jack asked me to strip down to my underwear (I wasn't wearing any), and then he said, "No problem," and pulled out a stack of maybe 60 pairs.

Fashion gays are out of control.

In the end, the photos turned out ABSOLUTELY amazing. And two days ago the site went live. On the first day 500 people signed up for it. This really will be a game changer. The first step to building power in any community is first claiming your own empowered space. Thank you to Jack for helping the community take it first steps at reclaiming our pozitively sexiness!

Much love. Check it out: www.vol++age.com.

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.

Sex, Shirtless Pictures, Desire, HIV, and Leadership

Today, I changed my profile picture on Facebook. Like most of my pictures, it is one of me throwing a little bit of attitude at the camera, unlike several recent pictures, I happen to have my shirt on. Shortly after changing my profile picture, I received a very respectful email from someone that is not one of my FB friends but must follow me in some way, and he wrote:

Thank god your new profile photo finally has a shirt on. The ED of an amazing nonprofilt should not be shirtless.

I say this not because I am not sex positive (I am, and I am glad QEJ is too), but because shirtless photos look narcassistic. Which is fine for an individual, but not when that individual is suddenly the public face of the greatest queer organization around. ( I mean, there's lots of narcissism to be found on my profile, but i am not representing an organization ...)

Good luck in the newish position, sexy.

I wrote back to him this:

Thank you, [name deleted] for your note. I will take that into consideration in the context of my work.

Chances are though the pictures will continue to pop up. In the context of living loud and proud, reclaiming sex and sensuality for HIV positive bodies, challenging assumptions of leadership, redefining desire in the work and resexualizing the movement...with intention, integrity and joy, I will, without a doubt continue to do my work in the framework in which I presented my bid for leadership. Yes, narcissism exists but do not mistake me, my choices, especially when it comes to social networking sites are always and very intentional.

And ps I investigated your pictures, and I share back the sexy . Best to you.

That was the sum of the conversation, but, as many conversations do, it inspired me to write out my thoughts a little bit further, since if one person has had this thought, others must have as well. Let me begin by saying I am dedicated wholly to my job. From the time I get up until the time I go to bed, chances are I am spending at least part of every waking hour dealing with something related to QEJ, that's how you roll in a small radical nonprofit. Yes, I work on the weekends. Yes, I will be working this weekend. But, as much time as I spend working at QEJ, QEJ is my job it is not my work.

(In fact...it's 7pm, and I just got off a conference call....talk to me about office hours...shoot).

Let me explain. I do my work at my job but my job is not my work and not all of my work is done at my job. My work, in this world, is to be writer. It is to talk about the things that others sometimes can't. It is to bring desire and sex and joy back into movement building. It is to celebrate bodies in all their shapes and sizes and encourage folks to love themselves where they are and move themselves to where they want to be and be PROUD and share that work as they move along. It's why I stated my Sexy Positive Bodies photo project, to document the intentional change in my body

My work is also to hurt, love, fuck, cry, ask for help, give strength, accept strength given, sing, dance, and love some more. Because as a man I've been taught not to do those things, and if I do, not to do them openly...as I fuck up sexism by being an openly butch bodied femme boy that is afraid to be vulnerable and powerful and does it any damn way.

But most of all lately is that I have found my work falling in two places: desiring, sexualizing, and making folks hot as fuck for an HIV positive body, and bringing to light, space, and center other poz folks that are also fly as fuck (in all their shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities).  And opening space through my own process and being PUBLIC about being POSITIVE and through an clear, intentional sensualization and sometimes sexualization of my work and leadership (not lewdness but an intentional desiring of work and community and leadership). And the other space, that goes hand in hand with that, is intentionally putting sex BACK into sexual orientation and our movement for SEXUAL LIBERATION. Get in it folks.

I know how to play the game. I have been engaged in politics longer than folks twice my age from straight up electoral politics (and being recruited to be staff on campaigns) to at 28 being named a Young Wonk to Watch by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, I know my work. As my beloved Amber Hollibaugh, the woman who literally wrote the book on desire (My Dangerous Desires) once said, "Brandon has been groomed to be an executive director." And that shit is true. But groomed and guided as I have been, and loved and supported in this trajectory, I made my own decision that if I were going to do this work and do this work well, I was going to do it as me. Could I, if I put my shirt on and learned how to tie a tie position myself to be Executive Director of the Task Force and follow in the footsteps of friends and mentors Russell Roybal and Rea Carey...absolutely. But their work is different than mine. My work isn't at the Task Force. It's not at GLSEN. It's not at the helm of GLAAD. Where I go next after QEJ is anyone's guess, but I do know that when I move forward, it will be with a clear identity as a movement "leader," that expresses a particular politic that includes a sexual politic and ethic.

Don't get me wrong, I slap on a suit and tie and look really pretty when I need to do so. I am, mostly, clothed in the office (sometimes I do go barefooted), and my colleagues, interns, and community respect me....shirtless pictures and all. I am intentional in how I am building my leadership. I fully understand that there are those that may not agree with it. But I came to my position transparently and with plenty-o-shirtless pictures (along with a narrative of why they exist) to my interviews and right up to my hiring. Do I love this fabulous new body of mine, yes, but I love my work more, and I will do anything for my work and for QEJ...but the gift of leadership is that you get to define what that means and have a platform to uplift other ways of being, living, and loving that have just as much integrity as a corporate, suit and tie aesthetic...which I will not and have never desired to have.

And it's all about desire.

Reproductive Justice and HIV: Comments at the 26th Annual CLPP Conference From Abortion Rights to Social Justice

Let me begin by saying that being a bio boy that grew up with a penis and male privilege, that I have one and only comment to make about abortion: as a man, I fully respect the autonomy and sovereignty of women over their own bodies and my only legitimate opinion on abortion is that I am required, by the privilege of being male, to use that privilege to protect in anyway and every way possible the right of a woman to choose.

Any bio male that says otherwise is entitled to have his opinion validated just as soon as he figures out how to give birth through his penis.

But this amazing and brilliant conference, From Abortion Rights to Social Justice is centered in a reproductive justice framework, and you can't talk about reproductive justice without talking about sex, and you sure as hell can't talk about sex without talking about HIV, prevention justice, and justice for people living and thriving with HIV and AIDS.

And I am hella qualified to talk about HIV....and sex. Considering I have both.

Yesterday, I was blessed, and I mean truly blessed to sit on a panel moderated by Alice Welbourn, and with Sonia Rastogi, and Jennifer Marshall. If you don't know these women, let me be emphatic in saying that you should. You should know them. You should know their work. And you should know why they are critical to truly creating a reproductive justice movement that is inclusive of folks living with HIV as well as HIV prevention: these women are working and sometimes living at the intersections of HIV and reproductive justice, and whether or not you have been personally touched by this virus YOU as members of the reproductive justice movement have an obligation to live at this particular intersection as well.

The right to live full, happy, sexy lives without or WITH families is the right of every person living with HIV. The right to have mind blowing, wild, out of pocket, hang from the rafters, and clap your hands sex is the RIGHT of every person living and thriving with HIV. And incorporating sex positive, desire uplifting, radical and righteous analysis and messages about sex, love, and HIV are critical and core to any movement for justice and even more so for a movement on reproductive justice.

In a conference with 1,000 attendees, it was telling that there were less than 10 conference goers sitting in that workshop yesterday with Alice, Sonia, and Jennifer. That can not and must not happen again at this conference. Ever.

Let me be clear. HIV isn't over. It is relevant to your work. It is relevant to your lives. It is not just a disease that affects white gay men. It isn't a disease that impacts only men of color on the down low, in fact, it isn't a disease that impacts only men. Women, and specifically women of color, and even more specifically African-American and Latina women are the fastest growing population of people living with HIV, and with 300,000 women living with HIV in the United States and women representing more than 50% of HIV cases around the world, you can not in justice or in faith remove issues of HIV from reproductive justice.

I challenge each and every one of you as allies, as conference attendees, and as conference organizers to make HIV more than a side note at this conference and in the places you center your work. Ain't nobody coming to lift the burden and stigma from HIV from us, and doing work around HIV is about so much more than handing out condoms and old, tired, worn out ineffective admonishments and moralizing that haven't done shit but make a lot of old white men at Pharmaceutical companies over the last 30 years very very very rich.

It's about creating and building a world that strips the stigma out of HIV, that strips the stigma out of just and healthy choices about reproductive health, and it is about loving, uplifting, and holding high every person that has had to make a difficult choice about her body or had to hear the words, “your test came back positive.”

Thank you for sharing this space with me and giving me the honor to share some thoughts with you today.

Aries Birthdays!

Good lord almighty. Nine months ago this weekend, about 2/3rds of my friend's parents were knocking boots and making babies. Last night I had five birthday party invitations and I knew of seven birthday parties taking place in various spots in New York City. The ungodly reality of the subway in New York on the weekend is that at any given time about half of the trains aren't running due to "track and service upgrades," so for any party not taking place in Manhattan, I was able to decline and blame it on the MTA. In fact, one party that I am really sad to have missed, my friend and co-NYAC board member Tanya Paperny's, sounded like it was going to be an amazing artistic and debaucherous romp of an evening. Unfortunately, it was going to be an hour both ways to and from the party, and with a number of parties taking place last night, I just couldn't do it. Or, to be more realistic, if I took my ass on an hour train ride to the outskirts of Brooklyn there was no way in Hell that I was coming back in time for anything except to take my ass to bed.

By luck and great fortune, three groups of my friends, all independent of one another, converged for post-birthday party cocktails at G Lounge in Chelsea. Though there are nearly 9 million people living in New York (exactly 4,783,1232 of them are queer), it is a small city sometimes. After hitting up my gal pal Briana's super fab 30th shin dig at Bourbon Street near my apartment, I joined the group convergence down at G Lounge.

It was pretty much my most fun evening out since moving to New York. I got to see some amazing good people (Kirk, La Marr, Barbie, and Tim to name a few!) and I met a number of other great folks between the two spots. Not going to lie, I made out with a couple of folks last night....and I was glad to have done it. The energy was amazing, and it was one of those moments in life when good people intersect with you, and the chemistry was such that a little lip action was a celebration of the spirit of the moment (as well as being pure carnal deliciousness). In fact, I am super excited to get to know better a couple of the folks I met last night.

I was supposed to meet up with my friend Kenyon and his people in town from New Orleans, but time got away from me, and I knew that if I hit another club, I would be in rough shape today. I stuck to wine last night, and I also made sure to eat and pace myself. Even with all of that, I woke up this morning saying, "John Dillinger tote bags!" After which I projectile vomited the combination of two pizza slices and a bowl of Basic Four with soy milk that I ate right before going to bed. It was the food and not a hangover that caused the vomitaring, but it wasn't cute. And now I really have to do laundry ;-)

Anywho...all's quiet on the Westside this afternoon. David and Mimzy are in Connecticut so that Mimzy can have her follow up cooter examination at the vet, and I am indulging my new addiction: Pocket Frogs. Thanks for an awesome evening last night New York City.

Bareback Sex: Human Need vrs Condoms

I think about sex quite often. Even before testing positive for HIV, I thought about sex, well, almost constantly. Whether it was the politics of sex, teaching my peers about sex positivity, deconstructing sex, looking for sex or having sex, I was (and still am) thinking about the various ways that sex impacts my life and our lives as humans.

As humans as the key part of that statement, as more often than not we attempt, or others attempt, to separate sex from our basic humanity and the fundamental connection that sex provides between two (or more) human beings.

Today, I received an email from a good friend (and super smokin' hot friend) of mine from Minneapolis. He has been positive for two decades, and he is one of the people I know that lives, and fucks, beautifully with HIV. When I have struggled and needed someone to share emotional vomit, angst, shame, or fear around HIV, and particularly being an HIV positive man that refuses to walk away from his sexuality, this friend is the person to whom I have turned.

Today he turned to me. His note to me wasn't about sex per se but was more about at times realizing there are things that he can't do and limitations he has because of being immuno-compromised. I won't go into too many details, but because of his upcoming travel, he won't be able to visit some family because of their geography and the risk of some nasty health complications due to the make up of the natural environment where they live. This triggered for him some personal regret around decisions he made as a young gay man coming up in the 1980s around sex. Those decisions lead to him testing positive.

Please, please please note the realness of his regret. He isn't angry at the person that infected him. He isn't blaming the other. He regrets the decisions HE made around HIS sexual choices in the 1980s. In this age of over information with regards to the risks of unprotected sex, it is down right ludicrous, except in very discrete situations around sexual assault and rape, that an adult that contracts HIV from consensual unprotected sex should place the burden of his or her choice on someone else.

This man has been HIV positive since the mid-80s when the White House wouldn't acknowledge the existence of the HIV virus, there were few prevention programs, and people were dying left and right while also marching in the streets demanding that Congress pay attention (God Bless ACT-UP). He could blame a whole lot of people, particularly our elected officials, and rightfully so. But he doesn't. He is also clear that this, for him, comes up every five years or so...he sees it...holds it...looks at it...and then lets it go.

I wrote back to him this message:

You know you can emotionally upchuck here any old time. We all need to do it. All of us. I used to not do it, and that is why I ended up with these three letters attached to my identity...I didn't know how to externalize the damage and the pain, and so I found other ways to make it go away...temporarily.

And, I believe this with all of my heart, condoms save lives but there is also a biological imperative to feel that basic connection with another person that happens through sex. Because we don't talk about that, because we believe it doesn't exist, because it is shamed as something purely psychological, we don't really teach ourselves, our children, or each other how to make the best decisions concerning when to have that experience that all of us need...and that some of us may never get again or think we never will. It is a loss. We don't talk about that shit either.

Let me be clear. I am talking about having unprotected aka bareback sex in the note that I sent back to him. Because of the fear and shame that was created around HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, because the virus was so virulent and people were dying, and because the evolution of the messaging was so retarded by the lack of information available, the message came out that any sex but sex with a condom under any circumstances unless you are married (meaning a man and a woman) is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Meanwhile, HIV and STD rates continued to climb, and they are climbing again. Why? Do all of us having a fundamental death wish? Does no one anywhere care about his or her own sexual health? While there is a woeful lack of education in certain quarters over what types of sex can transmit HIV (please note that a study in NC in 2000 of high school students found that 80% of high school students in that abstinence only education state thought that unprotected anal sex was abstinent behavior), the general messaging about how to protect oneself is out there and most folks know the basics of it now.

Let me suggest what others that are smarter and wiser than I am have suggested: in addition to the psychological damage reasons why a human being may disregard their sexual health, there is a psychological need (and a healthy need) to want to physically connect with another human being without any barriers.

Anyone, and I mean anyone, that tells you that sex with a condom is just the same as sex without a condom is telling you a goddamn lie.

But, because it is not PC to talk about unprotected sex openly. Because we don't talk about both the need to connect with someone else without barriers nor how to do it in a healthy way or in a way that reduces risk of contracting HIV or an STD, as a community we walk around, many of us pretending like we are condom commandos and are always safe all of the time, and that is just a comforting lie we allow ourselves so that we can look down, shame, and wag our figures at other people...all the while bending over and taking it raw again and again and again.

And let me be clear, I am not talking just about queer folks here. Very recently, in the last few days, a straight person close to me told me that she is on the pill because the person she is sleeping with hates condoms and won't use them. Now, I have fucked or known one too many of my friends that have taken a supposedly straight man for the pony ride of his life, to even have to talk about why that is not the smartest sexual move. And, also, HIV can be transmitted from penis/vaginal intercourse between a man and a woman. It is less likely, but it does happen. But the assumption that the only risk from unprotected penis/vaginal intercourse is pregnancy is one of the reasons why women of color are the fastest rising population of people being infected with the HIV virus.

Yet, for many of my highly educated straight sisters, having unprotected vaginal intercourse while using chemical contraceptives is so common as to quite often be the norm. These women know all about dudes on the down low. These women know all about high risk transmission rates, yet they still participate, and most of them happily, in straight bareback sex.

I thought we learned long ago that the thing that we do not talk about is usually the thing that is most likely to kill us. There is a reason why the HIV prevention slogan from the 1980s was SILENCE=DEATH.

If HIV infection is the symptom of unprotected sex, then why aren't we having a frank, non-shaming, and healthy discussion about bareback sex? Haven't we learned, and don't I know from personal experience, that by creating shame, risk, and danger about bareback sex, we actually heighten the desire for it in unhealthy ways? In the same way that we drive fast cars, go bungee jumping, and slather ourselves in fish blood and then go diving in a cage in a great white shark spawning ground, the forbidden factor/the danger/the excitement of bareback sex is, in my honest opinion, part of what makes it so appealing to so many people: gay and straight.

Why aren't we talking about the intensely erotic and often deep, if only temporary, connection that occurs from bareback sex. People aren't just having bareback sex because of the riskiness of it. People are having it because humans are biologically/mentally/spiritually designed to have sex.

Please note I am not advocating in any way for people to throw out their condoms and blame it on biology. We are also biologically predisposed to solving problems through physical violence, yet we don't go around whacking people in the head that get on our nerves. If that were the case, I would have the biggest biceps on the East Coast.

Instead of criminalizing people living with HIV (which, btw, does nothing for prevention, disregards personal responsibility for negative people, heaps more shame on people living with HIV, and keeps people from getting tested), instead of pretending that everyone uses condoms, instead of reacting high and mighty when a friend talks openly about bareback sex and then going out and starring in an Xtube video ass up in a sling with cum dripping out of your ass, and instead of denying that there is a need and something that can be truly beautiful about connecting with another human being, consensually, without a condom, why don't we actually talk openly about bareback sex? Why don't we look at new HIV prevention models that focuses on a whole person healthy view of sex that includes risk reduction and strategies for how, when, and under what circumstances to have unprotected sex? How about stripping the fear and shame out of sex education and injecting positive sexuality as the core of sex ed? Condoms are one strategy, and it is a strategy that is not working effectively. We still have idiots that believe that abstinence is the only answer while denying that it doesn't work and in the absence of any kind of education, STI and HIV infection rates among youth continue to rise.

Let's have a revolution in the way we think and talk about sex. Let's have a revolution in the way that we have sex. No one, positive or negative, should have to walk away from bareback sex, nor should it be reserved to straight married couples that are trying to procreate. Nor should we believe that it is only wildly idiotic irresponsible queer men that are having it. What we need to do is talk about sex (thank you Salt-n-Pepa), and talk about it without shame, without guilt, and with a realness that honors our physical and emotional need to connect to one another as part of our fundamental humanity.

POZitively Struggling with Sex

Living with HIV is a constant fucking struggle. It's a struggle against yourself and the internal tapes associated with being positive. It is a struggle to deal with stigma perceived or otherwise. It is a struggle to master fear and fear of rejection. It is a struggle to just live your life like any other human being does or gets to do.

I have been trying to do some serious work integrating HIV and acceptance of it into who I am. Yesterday, I taped a video interview talking about that process for TheBody.com. Since May, I have been writing for TheBody.com, and I have received some really amazing support and love from other poz folks in the world struggling with the same shit that I am attempting to deal with, and that has been truly a wonderful experience.

But, translating these thoughts, experiences, and feelings into daily actions is sometimes very hard to do.

All of this is complicated by semi-attempts to try and venture back out into the world and enjoy the benefit of being in an open relationship, to make connections with people (sexual and otherwise), to enjoy those possibilities, and to navigate what it means to be a positive individual while doing so.

The paranoia and fear around situations, even ones in which there has been no responsibility to disclose, has me at a spiritual and mental tipping point.

Then, on top of all that, add to the mix that I am a recovering meth addict. One of the loveliest and most fun long term impacts of meth use is a syndrome called PAWS (Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome), which is basically the fun experience of having, from time to time, bouts of mild paranoia that can come on suddenly. This lovely by product of meth use can last for up to three years after use has stopped.

Hands down the only times that I have experienced PAWS has been when I have been worried about a failure to disclose (whether or not it was necessary to disclose) or some other circumstance where, to use a recent example, where I connected with someone, there wasn't a need to disclose, but he chose not to continue in communication.

Now, for most people, someone not calling you back after having a minor hook up with some heavy petting, would simply mean that it was a one night stand or dude decided after all that he wasn't interested. For me, my mind and spirit immediately jump to a place where he Googled my name, found my blogs, and is now waging a silent war against me for being HIV positive and not telling him. Even knowing when there has been absolutely no risk of transmission, I still end up in this place.

That is some fucked up shit.

And it really doesn't matter. I could hook up with a dude that never asks about my status, doesn't care, and has an entire collection of photos and video tapes of all the men that he has hooked up with and practiced unsafe sex, and I will still feel the responsibility of the world coming down on my shoulders for his choices and mine. I repeat HIS choices and mine.

I need to have my own conspiracy theory show. Because, really, this shit is better than anything on the Spike Channel or Lifetime.

So, being a Virgo and thinking logically, and also never wanting to go through another PAWS experience in my life (I can avoid PAWS experiences...for the most part....I will never be able to avoid poz experiences...that's just my reality), and knowing that most often my PAWS experiences are triggered by hook up situations or even just plain old dating situations where no one has lied to anyone about anything, but I don't know the other person's status, and they don't know mine...I have come to the conclusion that the only way to avoid PAWS situations caused by a poz situation is to make a commitment to only date and/or hook up with other HIV positive guys from now on.

At this point in my journey into integrating my identity as an HIV positive man, I haven't found a way, yet, to bring up casually while negotiating a blow job from a hot guy at a party that I am HIV positive. And since not having found the strength or whatever it takes to disclose in a situation like that or any other random hook up moment, the best thing I can do is avoid them altogether until I can find a way to do so without having a complete and total breakdown.

And walking down the street sober and believing that there is a queer mafia out there watching your every move and judging you or somehow monitoring your computer usage or cloning your cell phone to read your text messages is not worth it. It just really isn't worth it. And, truly, I don't want to end up pushing a cart full of old cat bones up and down 10th Avenue talking to my invisible friend Buttons and singing the Star Spangled Banner every time a car alarm goes off.

Yes people, I am on medication. Zoloft is my bestest friend ever.

It doesn't really matter that this moments are rare. It doesn't matter that 99.8% of the time, I go about my life, eating, shitting, talking, praying, laughing, and loving. One single evening, like tonight, where the issues converge by a chance moment and grow into something so unwieldy, uncomfortable, and avoidable, is so not worth it.

Maybe six months or a year from now, I will have done enough internal work that I can once again open myself up to deeper physical connections with negative folks. Perhaps I will get over whatever it is in my life that will not allow me to see, own, and be responsible for just my actions and not the actions of folks with whom I have connected, but that day is not today.

But I also refuse to walk away from being a sexual being. That is what so many would have us do, stripping an integral part of our humanity away from ourselves or boxing in our choices for us. Also, it is what so many of us living with HIV do to ourselves, denying that we are inherently sexual beings and that having a sex life is critical to being a healthy person.

Dealing with the mental health impacts of meth use is no joke people. Struggling with addiction is no joke people. And living with HIV isn't either.

And, just to answer a question that has been asked by more than one person, "Why/How do you write about some of the things you write about so openly," and the answer is so simple: I am not the only person that is going through this in the world.

We hide anything to do with mental health. We pretend it doesn't exist. We judge and look down on anyone that openly acknowledges that they are living with a mental health diagnosis. I don't have to tell you that addicts are dehumanized (and we won't talk about the fact that 75% of all queer people are either active or recovering addicts or alcoholics). We do the same thing to people living with HIV.

And, because of the work I have done or the way people perceive me or the way I project myself or the education I have or the opportunities I have had, when I talk about my struggles as openly and candidly as I can, it puts a different mental image in peoples heads about who it is that lives and works and even thrives living with addiction, HIV, and mental health diagnosis (temporary or otherwise). It also lets people know that living is work and growing is work and sometimes it is hard work.

So I try to struggle openly. I try to share what I've attempted and how it turned out...whether it is a recipe gone wrong or a date gone wrong. Just like with queer folks, the more of us that are living with HIV, addiction, and mental health diagnosis come out of our closest, the easier it will be for those that come after us to live better, healthier, and less stigmatized lives.

Working Through It

So, after Friday nights exchange with my teammate, whose name I shall not use as he asked oh so politely that I not do so. And even though I would be completely justified in ignoring a request that was made so lovingly, I will go ahead and respect the request boxed inside the venom.

I have been struggling hard core since Friday night. Today, I finally came to the astounding conclusion that the voice that I keep hearing, in Dolby Digital Stereo Surround Sound repeating that I am a piece of shit isn't my teammate's voice, it's my own.

Frankly, I have no power over the opinion that someone else has of me. I suppose if I lived my life in a cubicle and never made any mistakes, small or fucking huge as I have done, then I suppose, controlling for all that, I could influence someones opinion of me. But change it? Nope...that's not a power I have.

But I can interrupt those tapes inside of me that are determined to keep me kicking my own ass until my motherfuckin' foot falls off or gets wedged somewhere in my colon.

Colostomy, table of one, please.

Now...considering the voice that has declared that I am a piece of shit is, in fact, a part of my own psyche, which means, technically, I do have control over it, one would assume that one could just flip the off switch and away it would go. Unfortunately, to get to the off switch you have to wade hip deep in the Bog of Eternal Stench, with giant leeches the size of Rush Limbaugh's ass trying to suck the life out of you, as you have to do a back hand spring through a mine field covered in old syringes filled with nitroglycerin and all piled on top of a nuclear warhead that goes by the nick name of Bubbles and is on a hair trigger held by a 98 year old man with cerebral palsy and the DTs.

But if you can get through all of that, well, by all means, turn that switch right off...and...while you're at it...cure AIDS, homelessness, and cold fusion.

So, since I am not Mary Lou Retton inside of a cybertronic Voltron-on-steroids intergalactic gymnastics suit, I get to sit with the mother fucking feelings until I can get a handle enough on them to step outside of my front door.

This weekend I did a lot of isolating and a lot of hiding. I didn't go to the gym. I skipped my softball games, and it took a supreme act of will and effort to go to the BBQ and Hummus parties that I attended. It took all of my energy to put on my happy face and go play well adjusted and normal for several hours at a stretch.

But that's just it...I'm not normal. No matter how much I want to be, I am not normal. I am a recovering meth addict that is HIV positive. No matter how much I want those two things to be different. They won't be. Not in this lifetime. No matter how much I want to be just like everyone else (well, ok...even if I were not a positive addict, I am too fuckin' weird to be just like everyone else), but no matter how drunk I get or high I get to permission myself to act like a self-absorbed person just looking for a little human contact without any barriers, I don't get to be that person anymore. This fucking (these fucking) disease have taken that away. And though it is fucked up, foul, wrong, unjust, uncool, and just plain oppressive that people living with HIV are held to a higher, different standard of behavior (ie....if a straight guy and girl fuck without a condom and the girl gets pregnant, no one gets called a piece of shit...if two dudes are on a three day meth binge with needles in every vein but neither of them IS or KNOWS that they are HIV positive...they might get called stupid but they aren't a piece of shit...if two guys get drunk and fuck without a condom...and one is unsure of his status or both are and neither knows for sure...they aren't a piece of shit......get the picture?) but positive folks...that fuck up just like every other sexually active person FUCKS UP does so....we (I) are moral reprobates, intentional bastards, pieces of shit, fucked up, inhuman, demonic (let's pretend this is a MadLib..insert your favorite negative dehumanizing adjective here), etc. ad infinitum.

There is ill intent assigned to what we were doing instead of asking...what....other than a demonic and devilish desire to cause harm...could possibly motivate someone to get drunk and/or high and have unprotected sex even when they know that they are HIV positive, or worse, lie about their status? Hmmmm...asking that question forces people to look to damn closely at their own desperate desire to fit in, be loved, be, dare I say, normal.

I mean, I can't imagine why someone would do such a dastardly thing. I mean....our society loves, values, and in no way stigmatizes HIV positive people, does it? I mean, I have never been in a club and heard folks talking about this or that person that is positive and how they can't believe anyone would sleep with them? I mean, I have never been interested in someone, disclosed my status, and watched their face shut down and despite their insistence that it doesn't really matter, they never call back? I mean, I don't see imagery on TV and in the media about how FAGS deserve AIDS and deserve to die. I mean, I didn't grow up with Fred Phelps telling me that I got what I deserved. I mean, I didn't learn messages that it was ok to have HIV if you got it through a blood transfusion or through a surgical accident (which meant you were to be pitied instead of reviled) but if you got it through consensual, even if stupid, unprotected sex then you got what you deserved. I mean, on top of racism and homophobia, adding being HIV positive to the mix of ones life isn't too fucking much so that sometimes you are willing to do anything and go to any lengths JUST TO FEEL THE WAY THAT EVERYONE ELSE GETS TO FEEL ALL THE TIME...AKA wanted, desired, loved, valued, beautiful, caring, cared for, and cherished----even if all those things are found only in a 30 minute hook up with someone, somewhere...that you never see again....

Silly silly me. Feeling untouched, unwanted, and completely disconnected from everyone around you while walking the streets in a city of almost 9 million people is normal. Right?

But, guess what, I get to change that too. I can't change what I've done. I've said that before. But I can change what I am going to do. I can't change what other people think of me, but I am changing the way that I think and feel about myself.

And I will tell you one damn thing, I am NOT running away. Not this time, not every again. So, I sent an email to my softball team letting them know that I will be showing up this weekend for the games. And I will show up the next week and the week after. It is going to be, for me, awkward as fuck showing up at our meeting spot for this weekend's games. But I am going. Because if I don't go...it isn't my vitriolic teammate that wins, it's the voice in my head telling me that I am a piece of shit that wins.

And that motherfucker has won quite enough thank you. It's MY turn now.

Lessons Learned

The last couple of days are ones which I would never like to repeat. Ever. The great thing is that I can control whether or not I will have to relive this kind of experience. Of course, anytime I believe that I have control over anything, the universe has a direct and sometimes cruel way of dispelling that illusion. This list of lessons is by no means exhaustive, but it is what I have learned so far.

1) There is an ugly price to pay for fear. Much of this could have been avoided. If I had been sober, if I had been honest from the gate, if, after the first incident I had disclosed, if I hadn't lied, if after the second incident I had disclosed, if I had disclosed within the first four days, if I would have disclosed before being directly confronted, all of these would have made this experience less hurtful, less painful, less shameful, and less complicated. Each day that I failed to confront my own fear and shame made matters worse. If I had the mind and spirit to be brave, this would have been a better situation all around. I can control the impact of fear on me, I can be brave, because, frankly, facing my fear from the gate, despite the circumstances, would have been better than anything that has happened thus far.

2) I am only responsible for myself. Over the last couple of days, I have struggled to think my way through my responsibility instead of feeling my way through it. The more that I lost myself in my head, replayed the events, replayed the conversations after being confronted, the less able I was to see, clearly, where I was at fault and where my responsibility ended. The itty bitty shitty committee in my head, and the Great Judge that sits at the head of that committee were trying their best to rip me apart and lay the entire experience on my shoulders. Last night, I stopped thinking and started feeling. I asked my spirit if I thought I had done absolutely everything I could to handle the fall out of this situation up to this point. I have. My head needs to shut the fuck up. I am listening to my spirit from this point forward. The truth is that in the absence of rape or assault the responsibility is split evenly down the middle no matter the substances involved or the fact that I lied about my status after our first encounter. I have to live with the fact that I created a false sense of trust in another person and that person acted on the trust. In the end, the choice to act was taken by both of us. The responsibility falls on both of us.

3) I get to be a a human with flaws. I made a mistake. It was a huge and terrible mistake. It could have far reaching consequences. But there was no maliciousness. There was no intention to do harm. I can and will learn from this. I have learned from this. And I get to be flawed. I will not be held to a higher standard or responsibility because of HIV status than any other person having consensual sex. Every day people make stupid ass mistakes involving sex. People make even more stupid mistakes when drugs and alcohol are involved. Yet, the fact remains that mistakes happen. There are consequences that can come from them. But I am NOT a bad person for making a mistake. I am human. It comes with the fucking package.

4) The outcome is now out of my hands. I have spent hours trying to deal with my emotional baggage from this and the rage and hurt of the other party. The truth is that until the test results come out, there is a limit to the comfort that either of us can receive. I spent an hour at the SGI Buddhist Center last night chanting and asking the Universe to create healing from this and to limit the impact of my mistake and his. As a person of faith, I now have to believe that no matter the outcome, there will be healing to this, though the timeline for that healing may be outside of my control. By being active in my faith, I can send out the healing energy that I hope to get back. I will be returning to pray tonight.

I will not lie and say that I am at peace with what has happened. That would be a huge fucking lie, and I am done with lying out of shame, fear, or as a way to comfort myself. Its a false comfort. There remains active work that I can do to create learning from this. Last night, I was contacted by a health educator in San Francisco that trains youth to be HIV, STI and Sexual Health Advocates. He asked if he could use my last blog as an education/discussion tool for the youth with which he works. I consented. Ultimately, I write about my life experiences in the desperate hope that someone, somewhere will learn from my experience and not repeat my mistakes. I don't believe what I have written about is an act of bravery. It is an act of community preservation. I know that I am not the only person that has had this experience. I know I am not the only person in New York City that is having this exact same experience right now. But we all walk around in a cloud of self-delusion thinking that good people don't make bad choices. We believe that making a bad choice makes us a bad person (that's the difference between guilt and shame...guilt says I made a bad choice, shame says I am a bad choice). We walk around believing that we are the only one going through what we are going through, and so we keep out stories to ourselves. We don't admit our mistakes or our own responsibility when responsibility for mistakes are shared. We don't talk openly about sex and our own bad choices. We, and I include myself in all of these, start with trying to blame/shame/point the finger at everyone but ourselves. We try to demonize, hurt, break down, and otherwise spiritual crush the object of our anger. We also run away from our own responsibility and hope and pray that everything works out for the best when honesty, up front, is the way to guarantee that it will all work out for the best. We take refuge in our own sense of self or sense of shame.

I know my responsibility. I know my culpability. I am no longer willing to feel ashamed. I feel the guilt as a tool to help me remember the possible tragic outcomes and the real emotional toll when I make a mistake. I am human. I am a good person. I make mistakes. I am loved. Thank you to all of you that have been real with me over the last few days, given me love when I have been deep in my own pain and shame, and pointed out that I remain a good person and that my contributions to this world and my community far outnumber the mistakes I've made. Thank you for reminding me that I do have a responsibility here but that doesn't include tearing myself apart nor to allow myself to be torn apart in order to mitigate the pain of anyone else. .

The Being of Facebook

There was a time when I felt that I was surrounded by brilliant individuals, and I wondered how it was that they came up with the ideas, thoughts, and reflections that I heard them speaking. I was once a member of a group called Visions Collective, which was a multi-racial/multi-gender/age diverse/sexuality diverse cohort of organizers/artists/academics. Some of the most brilliant people from the Twin Cities made up this group, and for almost four years we met on a regular basis, struggling together on a range of issues that began with the Israel/Palestine conflict and covered everything from war to sexuality. One of the most beautiful things about that group was that we permissioned ourselves to let the journey and the discussion be the outcome without requiring any tangible product. Growth, challenge, synthesis, confrontation, and conflict were the products and they were valued. But, even as a core member of that group, I felt like a fraud. The rest of the folks in the group seemed as if they thought deep thoughts and spent their waking hours dreaming up a better world. It seemed that their brains were always at work behind their eyelids.

I have never been a great thinker. I have always been a feeler and have let my emotions guide my tongue. Often I didn't know what I believed until I heard others espouse their beliefs. I would let their statements feed my emotions and based on my reactions to what others were saying, I came to an understanding of whether or not I agreed or disagreed. And my thought process started when I opened my mouth. And though others found value in what I was saying, I always felt like a charlatan. I didn't sit at home and think about the issues of the day. I didn't and rarely do now, ponder anything. But I am always feeling, there are always shifting morphing tides inside of me that, from time to time, erupt into a thought or idea that I spill out onto this blog, into an editorial, an article or in some other written format. Now and again I find myself in spaces that I once thrived in, those groups of great thinkers that are still trying to figure this world out and make it a better place, and in those places I am given the gift of being able to think out loud.

I have come to understand, though, that now adays my regular engagement with thinkers and philosophers, artists and academics is through the medium of Facebook. Folks like Staceyann Chin often pose questions that provoke long "conversations," artist like Isauro Cairo post photographs that stimulate everything from inquiry to outrage to lust and force me to rethink myself as a man, as queer, as an artist and my relationship to my body, masculinity, and desire.

And I don't feel as if I am a charlatan anymore.

I feel as if I am constantly surrounded by people that think deep thoughts and feel deep feelings, and I have come to understand that I think through feelings. Like an ant, which uses a complicated set of scents to communicate information and ideas, my body mass produces layers and layers of feelings that, in my own internal language, translate themselves into ideas and positions on myself and the world around me. And the world around me and myself seem to become more and more connected.

I find myself drawn, without judgment or expectation, to amazing new and exciting people from my partner David to my colleague Bill Martin, and all through a medium that allows me to engage with the little cues and stories that they tell, sometimes with intention and other times subconsciously, through the things that they post and the glimpses that they share into their lives, likes, dislikes, pains, discomforts, art, and celebrations. And I find myself, on a daily basis, falling in desire, lust, intellectual rapport, extreme distaste, hate, and downright rejection with people that I often do not know or only know through a small picture through a tiny window made up of fancy coding and ones and zeros on a commercial networking site.

But I know that so often the connections I have made in the real world are deepened through the online interactions, and I have made significant and meaningful connections that began as online admiration (or down right flirting) and transformed into real life friends and lovers. And throughout it all I have come to learn more about myself as a thinker and feeler, more about myself as an artist, and more about the world in which we live and the people that are also out there trying to make sense of it all.

Interview with a Man Who Tells The Damn Truth: Kenyon Farrow

In 2006, I received a phone call from my best friend RJ. He told me that he had a friend in NYC that was touring the country promoting a new anthology: Letters from Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out. The man was Kenyon Farrow. A few weeks later he walked into my my studio and my life. The friendship and the association has been one where I have found myself constantly and urgently challenged through the honest way in which Kenyon lives, works, writes, and struggles. Kenyon has enough manic energy that there are times I want to stick a plug in his ass and power my apartment. ConEdison better watch out. He is brilliant and passionate; anyone that had a chance to hear his speech at Creating Change in Denver last February on the realities of HIV/AIDS and the black community, will know that when Kenyon tells the damn truth people jump up and say amen. This Midwestern brother from another mother of mine is someone that I honor, that honors my community, and that lives the shit he talks about.

Months ago, Kenyon was featured in Out Magazine as one of 2008's Out 100. At that time, I asked him if he would be willing to be interviewed for my blog. He said yes. Now, 3/4 of a year later, I finally got him the interview questions. Know Kenyon. Listen to Kenyon. You will be a better human being for it.

1.) In 2008, Out Magazine named you one of the Out 100. You were one of a very few people of color on that list. What did that "honor" mean to you? What does it mean that there were so few people that looked like you on that list?

KF: Well I was honored by the Out 100 nomination precisely because it was people of color who told the editors at Out that I should be nominated, so it was definitely nice to be recognized by other people of color who think highly of my work. I guess in terms of the lack of representation of Black people or other people of color on the list, is simply reflective of gay magazines in general, so I guess I had low expectations in that department to begin with. Sometimes I do those kinds of publications or engage more mainstream outlets because I think about those black gay boys like me, in places like Ohio, who may only have access to these mainstream publications, or who may not have black gay activists or spaces that have a certain political vision I have. So for me, it is important to me to reach them, the same way I found Barbara Smith's work in a cheesy gay bookstore in Columbus, OH. I would not have had access to that kind of political work in Ohio otherwise. I sometimes worry about people critiquing me for making that choice, or calling me a media whore or something, but the reality is not everyone who has an interest in certain kinds of political discussions or ideas reads some underground zine or even a progressive magazine. My family is super-politically engaged and some of the most politically astute people I know, but they do not, and never have read The Nation, let alone something even smaller. So I sometimes engage mainstream stuff to get my work out to people that are not "The Left".

2.) You have been a tireless advocate, researcher, and speaker on issues relating to HIV and queer people of color, specifically youth and African-Americans. I was at the speech you gave at Creating Change this year. Whooo child. In an America that believes itself post-AIDS, how is your work different than HIV/AIDS Advocacy, say, in the early 90s?

KF: Thanks for the compliment on that speech. I am really humbled by the impression it (and the rest of my co-panelists) left on the attendees (Editor's Note: Bishop Yvette Flunder also let us all have it). In any case, I think that my work on HIV/AIDS in some respects looks more like some of the work in the 1980's and early 1990's, that really understood the AIDS epidemic in the US as a manifestation of other kinds of injustice, as opposed to a manifestation of problematic behaviors that we need to teach "certain" people to curb. Other than that, I think that my work is not only about drawing together the issues that are driving the epidemic among black gay/bi men and black trans women, but also to just actually remind people that the epidemic didn't go anywhere. I am beginning to hear a lot of gay organizations saying that they "don't do AIDS" anymore, and I think we need to call them out on that shit too.

3.) You are HIV-, what does it mean to do significant work in the black queer positive community while both being a part of and being distinct from that community? How do you integrate and organize around economic justice issues as a negative person while supporting the positive community?

or

You are HIV+, how does your HIV status inform your work both as an advocate but also an organizer for social and economic justice?

KF: I am actually glad you asked my HIV status to some extent. I think it is something I struggle with how to talk about as an AIDS activist. I am HIV negative, but I don't know how to talk about that in a way that doesn't seem like I am trying to let everybody know, I don't have it. Kinda like when straight allies to queers always have to remind people that they're straight. How dreadful. The fact remains, that though I do not have HIV, I am personally impacted by the epidemic in that several family members have died of AIDS, and probably half of my black gay/bi men and transwomen friends are positive. Not having HIV does not mean that it doesn't impact my life in some very dramatic ways on a daily basis. As consistent as I am with practicing safe sex and whatnot, I am beginning to feel the need to begin to talk and write more publicly about feeling like condoms as the only real strategy I have is not something I don't know that I can maintain for the rest of my natural born life. I am almost 35, and have been having sex with men for about 15 years. And if I am lucky I have another 50+ years, and I plan to have sex for as much of that time, as often as I can. LOL!!! Am I supposed to wear condoms all the time for the next 50 years? It makes no fucking sense, but that's all we got right now. And I am tired. And given the HIV rates among gay men in general, and certainly among Black men, the idea that I can sero-sort my way through it for the next 50 years is just fucking ridiculous. And I am almost afraid to say that, but fuck it. It's the truth and people need to hear it. As much stigma as there is for HIV+ black gay men, there is no space for negative men to say any of this. We're treated like we ought to be fucking glad to not have it. But the odds are so against us and we're so traumatized by the spectre of contracting HIV, or having witnessed the death of friends and family and nobody being able to talk about it, or people being ostracized, negative men are carrying the weight of this too. And if that's the case, being negative doesn't seem like much to fucking celebrate--the impact of the virus and what it means is kicking your natural ass anyway. And that's the truth that is so scary to say out loud. But as you can tell, I am tired of holding this. And I think it is this kind of frank discussions about sex and sexuality for Black gay men as it pertains to HIV is where I want to go with my work--ground my political writing about AIDS in my own sex life. We can sometimes cloak ourselves in "the issues" and not be brave enough to tell our own truths for fear of being judged often in our professional spaces, and by people we can't fucking stand anyway.. Well, I am about to throw caution to the goddam wind.

4. In addition to being a tireless advocate for health issues, you are also known (and worshipped) as a leader in the economic justice movement and its intersection within and throughout queer communities...talk about how you frame issues of HIV/AIDS in the context of economic justice?

KF: Well there was a study that recently came out, where they interviewed 1,115 Black and Latino men who have sex with men in Philly and NYC about how they identify-gay, bi, down-low or some other term. 35% of them made less than $5,000 a year. Now they used money incentives to recruit people, so that skewed the number of poor men who participated in the study very high, and also the number of HIV+ men who already knew they're status high. But that should tell you something about where the epidemic is--among poor black and Latino gay men. Or the impact of getting and HIV diagnosis actually increases one's likelihood of becoming poor if you weren't already. If that diagnosis means you are socially isolated from family or communities of origin, who do you rely on to get needs met in times of hardship? What if you can't afford treatment if you have no health insurance? If you're working in a low-wage job with little benefits or with no sick days or vacation, how do you take time off for doctor's appointments without raising the suspicion of co-workers or your boss? Medicaid is the largest insurer of people with HIV. If you're transgender woman or just a gay man who like to press your hair or wear nails, where do they even get work in the overground economy anyway--performing drag, or maybe working the MAC counter at the local mall, or maybe in a beauty salon. Those are your options and not everybody can or wants to to that kind of work. To me, there are some very clear reasons that HIV is an economic justice issue, and yet, no economic justice organizations that I know of even mention it. But QEJ is going to be at least putting this kind of analysis out in the world soon.

5.)You are also a brilliant writer...if folks want to read more about you, your work, and what you are doing, how can they find out more about you?

KF: Well, the tension I have now is that the activism, and the demands of working at QEJ which is a full plate on top of the other work I do, is taking me more and more away from my writing, and is keeping me from actually working on my own book project, which I am really desperately trying to do. But folks should check my blog, www.kenyonfarrow.com and I am also writing for this new site called TheGrio.com pretty regularly, so check me out there as well. Lastly, I am co-editing a book that should be out next year called A New Queer Agenda on NYU Press. It's a project of QEJ--a collection of writing critiquing the mainstream LGBT movement, as well as pieces about how other racial and economic justice issues impact the lives of queers. I co-authored a piece in the book about the "War on Drugs" and queer communities with gabriel o. sayegh, who works with the Drug Policy Alliance.

Book Review: Emanuel Xavier's Christ Like

In early fall 2007, I received a phone call from legendary poet, and my friend, Bao Phi asking me if I would be interested in performing at the October Equilibrium show. I would be opening for a dynamic queer spoken word artist from New York by the name of Emanuel Xavier. Now, if Bao Phi asked me to walk on water for him while carrying a vat of bubbling acid, I would try my best to do it. He has been an immense supporter of my poetry. Also, the Equilibrium series at the Loft Literary Center is the “it” place for spoken word artists in the Twin Cities. The series celebrates the best of the best of local and national spoken word artists of color, the crowd is always live, and it is my poetic home.

I, of course, said yes to Bao’s request. Though I had not met Emanuel Xavier, I knew who he was. I knew him from his poetry, and we both had selections in the anthology Queer Codex: Chile Love. We have an ex-boyfriend in common (shout out to Joe Jimenez of Corpus Christi). I also knew him from the movie “Ski Trip,” where he played a water-downed version of the character Mikey X in his novel, reviewed here, Christ Like. I also knew him from the brutal gay bashing he survived, and I, like many of my community, were pissed off and saddened by the attack.

Emanuel came to town with his best friend and manager, Leo Toro, and we quickly became friends. We went out that night, toured the underbelly of the Minneapolis club scene, and got a little wasted. Since that time, I have been honored to perform with Emanuel, to have been featured in his anthology Mariposas, and to call him a friend y comadre.

Last weekend, I saw Emanuel and Leo for the first time in about a year. They came through my birthday party, and Emanuel gave me, as a gift, a copy of his newly re-released novel: Christ Like.

I finished the book about ten minutes ago, and I decided to review it for you, my readers, here at My Feet Only Walk Forward.

A Review of Emanuel Xavier's Christ Like


As a club kid wannabe that remembers the flash bulb end of Limelight, aka The Sanctuary in Emanuel Xavier’s novel, the opening salvo of Christ Like grabbed me by the throat and dragged me into a ride into the Hell mouth of my own twisted personal history.

From the gate, the sex, drugs, rape, brutality, and vibrancy of this novel lets the reader know that the writer isn’t taking any prisoners. The semi-autobiographical nature of the story adds an extra punch to the groin and leaves you feeling ripped open and exposed to the early morning Sunday sunlight after a night of drugged out partying. Been there, done that, relived it all with this novel.

There are times when the novel comes up for air and the writing becomes rapid fire and surface level. It is clear that the story could use the help of an editor with a keen eye that would give the author a chance to dig deeper in some places, leave some places on the cutting room floor, and give the novel more space to breath and the story to develop.

But the truth is that I finished this book in record time, consumed it in large mouthfuls, and sometimes forgot to swallow before shoving the next bit in. The hard core reality presented and the conscious honoring of the sweet and ugly truth of being queer, homeless, fierce, powerful, terrified, abused, alone, loved, ashamed, and celebrated all at the same time, communicated a stark and beautiful reality. The realness and beauty of it excused the sometimes poor editing and skin-deep storytelling, and left this reader wanting to know what happens next to Mikey X.

Sex, Drugs, HIV

I am HIV positive.

Since 2005, I have been largely open about my HIV status. While I do not generally wear a t-shirt that declares my status nor do I have a bio-hazard sign tattooed on my body, if you know me, if you have read any of my work, if you Google my name on the Internet, then you will be aware of that fact.

I haven't always been open about my status. When I was first diagnosed, I went into a deep and shameful self-hate spiral. Before long, I was half strung out on crystal meth. I have often wondered why I found meth so exciting and so addictive. As a college student I had tried most popular party drugs: X, GHB, ketamine, and pot. I hated weed, and the rest I enjoyed but I could take or leave for long periods of time and never had any “cravings” for them.

Then I tested positive.

I had never tried crystal meth on its own before, it had always been in a mix with other party drugs. So I had no idea its potency or its effect. I could walk away from all of its effects but one: it made me feel touchable and desirable for the first time since testing positive.

When I first tested positive, I became asexual. I refused to have sex with my boyfriend at the time. I went into a deep depression, and I was completely lacking in a conscious awareness of what was going on. I eventually broke up with my boyfriend, I was unemployed, and I gained a tremendous amount of weight. I told two people about my status, both of whom lived more than 2000 miles away from me. Not even my best friend, who lived across the hallway from me, had any idea of what was going on in my life.

I can't remember the first time that I tried crystal meth by itself. I don't remember who I was with or what I was doing. But I do remember that something changed, and I felt wanted and desired and touchable. I turned to the online cruising sites: Manhunt, Gay.com, and Adam4Adam. I began spending almost every weekend on meth binges and having sex.

And in that world where everyone is high and everyone is looking to have wild sexual adventures, no one ever asked about your status and no one ever used a condom.

Eventually the guilt and shame at having rampant unprotected sex and putting my community at risk gave way to a mind crushing guilt, and I had a snap with reality. On a plane ride from Albuquerque to Minneapolis, I believed that the FBI were out to arrest me and were going to arrest me specifically for having unprotected sex. I spent a week as a guest of the Fairview Riverside Hospital, where every day, I literally looked out of the window and could see my university. I wondered how, in just a few years, I had gone from being a star student with invitations to parties at the university president's home at one of the largest and best colleges in the United States to sitting staring out of a mental ward window just trying to make it through another day.

Since that time I have been sober and I have relapsed. I have dealt with massive guilt and shame at risky sexual behaviors. I am not proud of myself for my behavior during addiction, and I am not happy about the risks that I took with my life and the lives of others. I apologize to my community for what I have done.

Having said that, I am pissed off.

I am pissed off because not only have I had to deal with the outrageous stigma attached to being HIV positive. Not only do I have to live with the guilt and the shame of my own behavior during my times of drug abuse, but also I am expected to carry the burden of the sexual health of others as if somehow by being positive I am also responsible for making choices for others.

Let me be clear, it is my duty and responsibility to inform sex partners of my HIV status. BUT that does not now or ever abrogate the responsibility of another person to take necessary precautions to protect themselves. Also...and this is directed towards the negative folks in the community...if we have not HAD sex...if all we have done is made out or fooled around and no orifices were penetrated, then I have absolutely no obligation to disclose anything to you. CHECK yourself and your prejudicial stigma. THINK about how your reaction to a friend or a potential sex partner is going to land when you find out that he or she is positive. This is 2009, there is NO excuse for ANYONE, especially a queer person, living in the United States to have any kind of fucked up ass backwards response or reaction to an HIV positive person. Period. And if you do...if you have the NERVE to treat positive people how YOU were treated in high school gym class or when the neighborhood kids suspected that you were gay...then YOU need some serious fucking help.

I have NEVER raped anyone. All of my sexual partners have been fully willing. I will no longer bear the burden of the choices they made or did not make. I have enough guilt and shame to deal with that is linked to my own behavior and my own fucked up choices. I don't and won't carry the guilt and consequences of your choices anymore.

Even if your partner smiles at you prettily and bats his eyelashes and tells you that you are wonderful and swears that he is negative...if you choose to have sex without protection the ultimate burden of your sexual health is on YOUR shoulders.

This doesn't lessen my own culpability for the choices I have made, but I am tired of reading rants in the media or on the chat sites about men who go out and WILLINGLY look for bareback sex....and then blast the positive community for continuing to have unprotected sex. Log into Manhunt or Craigslist...peruse the ads there...and you will see ad after ad after ad after ad of “Bareback bottom looking for Negative Top.” All that says to me is that is another person attempting to put the burden for his sexual health on the shoulders of another person. So if the top that comes over swears that he is negative, and fucks you, and isn't...and you test positive, who is at greater fault? The asshole that lied? Or the asshole that opened up and took an uncovered dick and let a stranger ejaculate inside of him?

If you have unprotected sex, whether you are high or whether you are sober, and if that sex was not coerced through the use of force, then your sexual health is YOUR responsibility.

I am deeply sorry for the actions that I have taken during periods of drug use. No one in the world can even approach a level of anger with me that I have had and continue to have with myself. But if you think that somehow the positive community is responsible for your sexual choices, then you have a twisted sense of privilege akin to white privilege and gender privilege and like all privilege the only way to maintain it is through oppression. Fuck that.

Rippin' Gender and Writin' Sex: An Interview with Rosalind Lloyd

At the end of June, I was honored to be one of a fantastic line up of readers at Charlie Vazquez's Double Pride Panic reading series at Nowhere Bar in the East Village. One of the reader's that completely blew my mind (and whose story made me harder than a porn star on viagra) was writer Rosalind Lloyd.

After Facebook stalking Rosalind, I asked her if she would agree to an interview about her writing, and she graciously agreed. Let me tell you folks that this interview is going to blow your mind. Rosalind's work not only engages gender, race, and sexuality...but also makes them have sex with each other and give birth to new ways of being and celebrating multiple layers of identity. She does all of this in a context of joyful, hot, sensuality that proudly embraces humanity as inherently sexual beings. In an age that is beginning to make the 1950s look like a giant swinger play party, Rosalind's writing and subject matter is a just the dildo to our collective orifices that we need to jolt us back to an awareness of ourselves that includes a fierce sexuality without shame or condemnation.

Lord I done made my own self hot just thinking about this woman's writing.

Here's the amazing interview with Rosalind. And, please go to Amazon or to her website and buy her work.

When I met you, you read from a hot and steamy story about a tranny that I would love to meet in a dark alley. Why choose a transgender protagonist? How does the gender and sexuality of your character mirror your own?

I LOVE that Patti Smith quote – “As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag.” I’ve always been fascinated by gender identity – particularly within the “community.” I feel we’ve not really freely explored the fluidity of gender because in ways we feel on a base level it conjures up stereotypes, plus, it so easily coincides with sexual identity. It’s still sort of a taboo area – fucking around with gender – refusing to go beyond, to dig deeper than drag queens, drag kings and transgenderism. Many of us are so linear in our thinking because as gay folks, we’ve been persecuted for so long. But delving into our gender and sexual queerness just gives us even more layers and more diversity and that’s a beautiful thing. I knew this person about 15 years ago, a beautiful boi. She would only hang out with gay men and she looked just like one of them – tall, tight hair cut, and rocking the hottest designer fashions for men – I mean gorgeous. She never paid women any attention – she just wasn’t interested. And so the whispers started that she was actually interested in and actually having sex with gay men – although this was never really verified. Naturally a lot of dykes who knew her were sort of disgusted by this and questioned her sexuality – but I found her totally fascinating.

The main character in the piece I read, Troi, – does her gender and sexuality mirror my own? In her queerness – yes – because she is totally left of center. Troi is a dom and I’m not necessarily - but there is a fluidity with respect to her sexuality that can’t be denied and I wanted that reflected in the piece. In fact, I would go as far as saying that Troi might not even be a hot tranny as you’ve described him. If you remember, there is a scene where Troi is discreetly cruising the young brothers at that club – the ones with their jeans hanging low, all that rough swagger. She could have been peeping them on the low. Although she hooks up with this incredibly sexy young lady, why not look at the more ambiguous target (the young brothers) as a possibility? This would actually make Troi queergendered. But I didn’t want to push it that far.


In person, you present as very femme, yet, the character in your story is the epitome of masculinity. How does your perceived gender and the way you write gender intersect?

There is a huge intersection there. If a feminine woman straps on – does that make her any less a woman? If a dominant woman wants to be penetrated, does that make her any less a dom? Same question for men, regardless of their sexual and gender identity. I’m a strong believer that gender – just like sexuality - is fluid. Writing about dildos is not necessarily an overwhelmingly receptive topic for many lesbians because anything male identified, anything with a masculine identity, any phallic symbols are highly problematic not only because it’s male, but for some, it also challenges our sexual identity as women. I felt it was necessary to challenge that notion in my writing. Looking at this another way – I know this “straight” married couple. Very hot. She’s a beautiful, high fem and her husband is this tall, strapping, manly-man. One Valentine’s Day, she dressed up in a corset and strap on and he was totally into his wife making love to him like this. To me, that’s hot. What’s unfortunate is that there are segments of society that might have a problem with people expressing themselves in this way. Some might want to push this type of desire in little boxes – in closets. That’s a shame.

Often times, women with a powerful and overt sexuality are both objectified and reviled. How does your work address stereotypes of women and sexuality?

Well, I don’t feel like I’m addressing gender stereotypes in the heteronormative sense. But in a queer sense, I feel that female gender shifting – gender questioning, aggressive women, butch/dominant women are never revered. Yes, hot fems continue to be more socially and politically acceptable as popular culture finds feminine girl-on-girl action sexy and accessible while feeling threatened by strong, masculine, dominant women whether straight or otherwise. The same goes for bisexual women in a smaller sense because they straddle a certain divide – not really being accepted anywhere completely. Women who can openly declare their bisexuality gets major props from me. It’s well known that lesbians don’t find them attractive targets (and some men think they find bi-girls attractive until that 3-some doesn’t go in their favor). Anyway, to be emboldened by your ‘queerness’ is sexy to me. Women wonder why many bi or bi curious women lie about their sexuality? Because some lesbians feel overly threatened by the maleness of their competition and their male sexuality and identity. Same goes for gender questioning/gender transitioning women. Many lesbians I know say they would never date a gender diverse person. There’s that visceral response to maleness. When transgendered Thomas Beattie (who gave birth to his second child just last month) was mentioned - the press wasn’t above making its share of insensitive comments relating to his gender and sexuality. There is SO much power in this man giving birth – in the 21st century – the actual power in his femaleness AND his maleness - it made America take an honest look at how complex gender really is and how gender and sexuality intersects no matter how much conservatism wants to sanitize it. Gender, anatomy, sexuality – all delicious ingredients that makes us who we are and how we identify. We should learn to fully embrace that freedom without restrictions.

You ain't white...and in Amerikkka that means your racial identity is front and center whether or not that is where you want it. How does your racial identity come out in your writing?

In my piece Cop-Out, racial identity is obvious due to the hip hop element, Troi’s dark fudge skin, using terms like red-bone, etc. But actually in many of my other works, although the subject is usually an attractive black woman, I intentionally write the story from a 1st person perspective where the reader - of any race – of any gender/sexual identity can actually place herself/himself as the protagonist. When I first came out, most of what I saw in the erotica section were works involving non-people of color. I remember what that felt like and I wanted to make sure that I, a woman of color, was reflected so that a sister growing up in middle-of the-country-America could pick up an anthology and find a little of herself in it. Also – I wanted it to be okay for a white girl, or an Asian girl, a Latina, a native American, a mixed race or a gender-questioning person to pick up an anthology with a story I’ve written in it and say to themselves, yes, this black woman is hot, she’s beautiful, she’s desirable – and its perfectly fine to feel this way about her.

Your writing is fierce and joyful in its realness. When you write, what is your main goal, what do you want a reader to walk away with when they read a Rosalind Lloyd piece?

To be open. To free yourself from the restrictions of gender and sexuality. To explore yourself and your desires and not to be blinded or intimidated by stereotypes and the boxes people sometimes like to push themselves and others in. Let’s enjoy that aspect of our lives to the fullest.

Where can folks that want to check out your work or you and your work find you?

First I would like to note that I should be searched under Rosalind Christine Lloyd. There is another Rosalind Lloyd out there is cyberspace and – we ain’t the same person….LOL!

There’s my blog: Scribevibe – www.rosalindchristinelloyd.blogspot.com
I’m also on Facebook and Twitter so please “friend” and “follow” me. “Cop-out,” the piece I did at the reading is in three anthologies and I just got word it is coming out again, in a fourth release in Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica edited by Tristan Taormino and published by Cleis Press coming out in 2010 – but you can find it in Best Lesbian Erotica and Best Lesbian Bondage. My Blog will have more info on it. Lately, my work in anthologies has been centered around spanking. In August, I have a piece called “Soror Sister,” in Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories, published also by Cleis and edited by Rachel Kramer Bussell. But you can also go to Amazon and search under Rosalind Christine Lloyd for some of my earlier work.

Well spank me Ms. Lloyd cuz you are a fierce woman, and it was a pleasure to hear you read and to meet you. Thank you so much for your work and for agreeing to this interview.

Rosalind Christine Lloyd is a contemporary fiction and erotica writer (and occasional poet) whose work has appeared in over fifteen anthologies including the Best Lesbian Erotica and Best American Erotica series. She has worked with some of the most prominent names in women’s erotic-lit like Tristan Taormino and Rachel Kramer Bussel. Her latest piece was published last year in Spanked: Red Cheek Erotica and another slated for release late this summer in Bottom’s Up, both edited by Kramer Bussel. Rosalind has two novels in progress, one of which she hopes to publish as an e-book. She’s also compiling a collection of her published short fiction and has one completed screenplay. She lives downtown with her queer version of a nuclear family.

If You Live In Houston, You Are Probably A Bottom

Oh my god. I was sent this today by one of my teammates from the Rookies. I had to repost it on my blog. This is awesome. If you click on the title of the article below, it will take you to the originating site

If You Live In Houston, You're Probably a Bottom

By Richard Lawson

So say statistics, anyway! Gayblog TheSword recently compiled some Craigslist data, and figured out that when men are looking online to do sex with other men, certain cities trend heavily toward the receiving end. Chief among them is Houston—where 70% of folks are looking to fill the void.




Yes of the ten cities surveyed, only three, in fact, had a higher ratio of tops to bottoms, and even then the numbers were almost even. But Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, and (surprise surprise) San Francisco, all seem rife with untended bottoms all reaching out across the cyber tundra, hoping to find some fleeting relief.
New York, of course, had the highest percentage of tops seeking companionship, because it's just that kinda town, I guess.