In the Middle of a War

By Gerald Clarke

"You watch yourself so closely," says Frank Folino, a legal secretary who has seen many of his friends in Chicago die of AIDS. "If you find a little spot that may just be a bruise, or if you get a cold, you wonder: Is this it?" For gay men, it is not just a question they ask themselves. For most of them, even that large conservative percentage that never enjoyed fast-track, promiscuous sex, it is the overriding issue of their lives. They are in the middle of a war, fighting not only the disease but also their fear of it and what they perceive as a growing homophobia in the rest of the country.

There is, in fact, no parallel to the anguish now being endured by America's gay men, who live in every town and city in the U.S. and total perhaps 12 million, as many as the combined population of all eight Mountain States. The desperation may be best reflected by a morbid joke that is being repeated in San Francisco: A son walks up to his mother and says, "Mom, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I'm gay." Distraught, the mother asks for the good news. He answers: "I'm also dying."

Along with pervasive fear, the AIDS crisis has caused a drastic change in the life-styles of those homosexuals who were accustomed to multiple partners. Most of them have altered their sexual habits to a degree that would have seemed inconceivable five years ago, significantly reducing the number of their sexual companions. A study at the University of California, San Francisco, showed, for example, that the average number of partners per month dropped from 5.9 in October 1982 to 2.5 during the same period in 1984. "It's just not cool to be promiscuous," says Los Angeles Art Director Jeff Kerns. Karl Clark, an activist member of Fort Lauderdale's homosexual community, maintains that most people are "no longer willing to play Russian roulette. Safer sex and monogamous relationships have taken root. Unfortunately, it took a long time."

In fact, safe sex has become the byword in gay communities. The cover of the last issue of the Advocate, the national gay newsmagazine, was emblazoned with the headline SAFE SEX GUIDELINES THAT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE. Following those guidelines, many gays are for the first time using condoms and avoiding the exchange of body fluids, the most likely way that the virus can be passed from one person to another. Condom machines, once considered almost laughable among homosexuals, have been installed in the rest rooms of many gay bars and restaurants. "Straights learned about birth control, and gays have to learn about safe sex," says Jim Brennan, an AIDS social worker in Washington.

Nearly every big city has counseling classes for those who want information on how to avoid the disease and for those who have trouble dealing with their fear, or "AIDS anxiety," as it is now called. Washington's AIDS Education Fund, for instance, offers seminars for the "worried well," who are sometimes so terrified that they can no longer function normally in everyday life. The worry has even led some gays to change their appearance. Because rapid weight loss is one of the symptoms of AIDS, some homosexuals think it is not fashionable any more to be thin. "In Los Angeles it is almost a sign of health among gays to be too fat," says Kerns, who has recently put on 10 Ibs. "People now smile at me on the street."

But not all gays are smiling about their self-imposed curbs on sex. "It's like having a third party hi the room, warning you not to do this or that," says one Boston man. "It makes the sex stilted and clinical." Others see some benefits. Gays who could never before commit themselves are being propelled into long-term relationships; they are being pushed into deeper emotional involvements. "I think there has been a tremendously constructive response to AIDS by the gay community," says Susan Tross, a psychologist at New York City's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who has studied 233 gay men. "They are dating more. They are having monogamous relationships."

Others have made even more radical decisions. "I'd say that one-third of the men in our workshops say they've had no sex due to fear of AIDS," says Michael Wilson, president of Houston's KS-AIDS Foundation. Instead, some apparently release their sexual energies through masturbation, pornography, and sex by phone. The Advocate classifieds list several numbers that offer a seductive voice on the other end of the wire, payment to be made by credit card. "Horny? Call Your Adonis," says one ad. Sales of gay porn have risen, and video cassette recorders have never been so popular. "The party's over," said one New York gay as he was about to attend a memorial service for yet another casualty. "You just stop having sex. I now make love to my VCR."

Some have chosen to ignore the AIDS threat altogether, indulging still in the casual, promiscuous sex that initially followed gay liberation. A few are fatalistic. "I figure we've all been infected by now," says Corey Willis, a waiter in a San Francisco restaurant. "Either you're going to get it or you aren't. And worrying isn't going to do any good."

By one estimate, as many as 20% of homosexuals still practice the riskiest sexual behavior, which is the taking of multiple partners; some still patronize bathhouses for brief, anonymous encounters. "Quite honestly, I'm dismayed," says Miami's Dr. Allan J. Stein, a family physician whose patient load is 30% gay. "I've been trying for three years to talk to these people. I wonder: Am 'I doing my job right? Maybe I should have yelled." Says Jeremy Landau, project coordinator of a counseling center in San Francisco: "Let's face it. Some people just don't find safe sex exciting."

Still, the majority of gays have recognized the menace of AIDS, have mobilized against it, and sense in their unity an opportunity to become a more effective force in their communities and in the nation. Men who were previously aloof are now becoming involved in the gay movement. "AIDS has been a dramatic political education for a lot of gay men who never understood why we were bothering with activism," says Jeff Levi, political director of the National Gay Task Force. "We will emerge from this strengthened, even if weakened in numbers." --By Gerald Clarke. Reported by Jon D. Hull/San Francisco and Arturo Yanez/New York

With reporting by Reported by Jon D. Hull/San Francisco, Arturo Yanez/New York