There is nothing quite so gratifyingly funny as the spectacle of a big, bold barroom atheist scolding you over talking naughty about sex. As if being a Christian meant pretending such things don't exist. If only I'd realized I would want to have copied it to post today. It could have been as useful to have, in my own modest way, as Donald Trump's written answers to Robert Mueller are speculated to be, to Muller. I love that Trump and his stable of legal studs insistence on writing the answers instead of him babbling his lies to Mueller might be the actual perjury trap which those idiots set, themselves.
That someone who is deeply skeptical about many aspects of sexual libertarianism as a matter of life, as opposed to the law*, could be opposed to the practice of anal sex was the center of the argument. Something which I was reminded of twice, yesterday because, first, I listened to this episode of The Bible For Normal People a discussion of The Bible and gay sex with Matthew Vines. It wasn't much of anything that would surprise most people. He said he thought that the prohibition of male same-sex relations was, specifically a prohibition of anal sex, though not a prohibition on other forms of same-sex sex, something which I believe is somewhat widely held to be true by Masorti Jews and which I find quite persuasive. Vines points out that male rape was a frequently engaged in way of shaming males defeated in battle or an expression of upper-class, upper-caste male supremacy over men of lower financial and social status. He noted the same is used in prisons today, something which some especially evil prison establishments use as a means of control and punishment and, I am convinced, edification of the people who run prisons.
I never practiced anal sex because I knew it was extremely unhygenic, an excellent way to give and contract infections and illness I knew that when the illness foremost on that list was hepatitis. And that was apart from the dynamics of dominance and submissiveness which are an enduring aspect of, especially, that form of sex, both gay and heterosexual. That, along with my refusal to engage in promiscuous sex in the swinging 70s, was probably why I'm alive now.
I have pointed out before that every gay man I knew who lived in New York City in the 70s died of AIDS, all of them I know of contracted the infection through anal sex, all of them were either men who engaged in promiscuous, often anonymous sex or were the partners of men who did. I believe the last one I knew who died contracted it from his long time companion who worked as a male nude model and in porn of the time. The youngest of those men whose age I knew would have been in their 60s now some would have been in their 80s.
I have pointed out before that every gay man I knew who lived in New York City in the 70s died of AIDS, all of them I know of contracted the infection through anal sex, all of them were either men who engaged in promiscuous, often anonymous sex or were the partners of men who did. I believe the last one I knew who died contracted it from his long time companion who worked as a male nude model and in porn of the time. The youngest of those men whose age I knew would have been in their 60s now some would have been in their 80s.
The other reason I am writing this is because I found a section of the New York Times I had set aside and just found again, dated October 15, 2017, the Arts & Leisure* section The title is 'Brilliant' 41, And Lost To Aids: The Theater World Asks Why.
It was about the death of the youngish musical theater composer-lyricist Michael Friedman who had died the previous September of AIDS nine-weeks after he was diagnosed. I will point out that to put "brilliant" in even single quotes strikes me as kind of dickish. And I say that having, since, listened to his stuff and finding it rather pedestrian and predictable though I will say his heart was entirely more in the right place than not.
But this isn't a critique of his music and lyrics. He was diagnosed with AIDS thirty-six years after its origin in the HIV virus was announced, he would have been about eight when that was announced. The cause of AIDS was known for his entire adult life and adolescence and puberty, its means of transmission either known or suspected from the time he was six, for gay men who contracted the virus, that unprotected anal sex was the most common way they got it. I would guess that's as true for "the theater world" which the NYTimes is saying is asking themselves a question the answer to which has been known their entire adulthood.
Since I slammed the product of elite Catholic schools yesterday (which the estimable Charles Pierce pointed out is far different from the diminishing number of blue-collar Catholic schools) I'm going to ask why someone with Friedman's education, The well known Germantown Friend's School and Harvard, wouldn't have understood that the HIV virus, AIDS is contracted through easily avoided means, the exchange of bodily fluids with someone who might carry the virus (in practical terms, anyone) through sharing needles in drug use, through unprotected sex, especially unprotected anal sex. And, given those, that the more people you share needles with or have unprotected sex with the higher your likely your chances of being infected. Of course, you can just be unlucky and share a needle or have sex with someone who is extremely promiscuous or who was, like yourself, merely unlucky in who they had had sex with.
Before reading the article, I'd only known of Michael Friedman through having watched a discussion between him and Tony Kuschner and found him to be an attractive and more interesting than average guy from the world of musical theater, so I was predisposed to think well of him. I listened to some of his music and was not impressed with it, it's typical Bway stuff of the "message" variety in which I might agree with the message to start with so I didn't need the musical to instruct me about it. I wonder what the percentage of people who have had their minds significantly changed by watching a message musical was. I wonder what percentage of their audience wasn't convinced of it to start with, paying for the privilege of being the choir so preached at.
But his theater work was anything from harmless to maybe helpful maybe entertaining. I still think I'd have liked him, I think I'd have encouraged him to put his talent to something less facile and more subtle. He well may have had the potential for theatrical brilliance in his future which he, as so many others like him, didn't get to have.
However, I'm sorry to have to tell you, there is nothing brilliant about someone with his intelligence and educational opportunities doing those things which are the only ways in which to become infected with HIV . Certainly not in the years after the means of being infected were universally known among people of his education and opportunities. I thought that more than two decades ago when I found out that the scummy, slimy Andrew Sullivan declared in 1996 "The Plague Ends" when the first effective treatments to temporarily suppress the virus was discovered. I thought that when he was exposed as advertising for anonymous sex partners online, knowing he was HIV positive. It was something he reiterated (with whining about the criticism he received a decade earlier) in 2007. I'll bet even that was earlier than Michael Friedman was infected. I can't imagine he, as politically astute as he was, as much a guy of the gay left he was, didn't know about all of that as he was infected.
As a gay man who lived through the "plague" that Sullivan declared over, as a person who lived through it and watched scores of people I knew and knew of millions I didn't die of AIDS, I am at a complete loss to understand how someone like Michael Friedman didn't avoid the ways of contracting AIDS that he certainly knew could give him what, with treatment, can be a devastatingly awful illness to live with, something he could have infected someone else with in the same way he got it, and which he was smart enough to know, does still kill even people who are receiving treatment for it.
I am at a loss for how the New York theater world, which lost so many thousands and thousands of members to AIDS could be asking "Why?" when they've known that answer better than most other identifiable communities for going on four decades, as they put on play after play*** for decades which took up that theme. I wonder if he'd seen Angels In America before he was infected.
But this isn't a critique of his music and lyrics. He was diagnosed with AIDS thirty-six years after its origin in the HIV virus was announced, he would have been about eight when that was announced. The cause of AIDS was known for his entire adult life and adolescence and puberty, its means of transmission either known or suspected from the time he was six, for gay men who contracted the virus, that unprotected anal sex was the most common way they got it. I would guess that's as true for "the theater world" which the NYTimes is saying is asking themselves a question the answer to which has been known their entire adulthood.
Since I slammed the product of elite Catholic schools yesterday (which the estimable Charles Pierce pointed out is far different from the diminishing number of blue-collar Catholic schools) I'm going to ask why someone with Friedman's education, The well known Germantown Friend's School and Harvard, wouldn't have understood that the HIV virus, AIDS is contracted through easily avoided means, the exchange of bodily fluids with someone who might carry the virus (in practical terms, anyone) through sharing needles in drug use, through unprotected sex, especially unprotected anal sex. And, given those, that the more people you share needles with or have unprotected sex with the higher your likely your chances of being infected. Of course, you can just be unlucky and share a needle or have sex with someone who is extremely promiscuous or who was, like yourself, merely unlucky in who they had had sex with.
Before reading the article, I'd only known of Michael Friedman through having watched a discussion between him and Tony Kuschner and found him to be an attractive and more interesting than average guy from the world of musical theater, so I was predisposed to think well of him. I listened to some of his music and was not impressed with it, it's typical Bway stuff of the "message" variety in which I might agree with the message to start with so I didn't need the musical to instruct me about it. I wonder what the percentage of people who have had their minds significantly changed by watching a message musical was. I wonder what percentage of their audience wasn't convinced of it to start with, paying for the privilege of being the choir so preached at.
But his theater work was anything from harmless to maybe helpful maybe entertaining. I still think I'd have liked him, I think I'd have encouraged him to put his talent to something less facile and more subtle. He well may have had the potential for theatrical brilliance in his future which he, as so many others like him, didn't get to have.
However, I'm sorry to have to tell you, there is nothing brilliant about someone with his intelligence and educational opportunities doing those things which are the only ways in which to become infected with HIV . Certainly not in the years after the means of being infected were universally known among people of his education and opportunities. I thought that more than two decades ago when I found out that the scummy, slimy Andrew Sullivan declared in 1996 "The Plague Ends" when the first effective treatments to temporarily suppress the virus was discovered. I thought that when he was exposed as advertising for anonymous sex partners online, knowing he was HIV positive. It was something he reiterated (with whining about the criticism he received a decade earlier) in 2007. I'll bet even that was earlier than Michael Friedman was infected. I can't imagine he, as politically astute as he was, as much a guy of the gay left he was, didn't know about all of that as he was infected.
As a gay man who lived through the "plague" that Sullivan declared over, as a person who lived through it and watched scores of people I knew and knew of millions I didn't die of AIDS, I am at a complete loss to understand how someone like Michael Friedman didn't avoid the ways of contracting AIDS that he certainly knew could give him what, with treatment, can be a devastatingly awful illness to live with, something he could have infected someone else with in the same way he got it, and which he was smart enough to know, does still kill even people who are receiving treatment for it.
I am at a loss for how the New York theater world, which lost so many thousands and thousands of members to AIDS could be asking "Why?" when they've known that answer better than most other identifiable communities for going on four decades, as they put on play after play*** for decades which took up that theme. I wonder if he'd seen Angels In America before he was infected.
* There's a world of difference between thinking private sexual behavior is immoral and people shouldn't do it and holding that it should be a felony that will get you jail time. That should hinge on whether or not there is bodily harm or coercion or force that violates consent. Of course, if someone is not old enough or mentally competent to give consent, that's rape and it should be severely punished.
** As someone who works in the arts, whoever called it that can go fuck themselves.
*** For crying out loud, Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart opened 33 years ago.
I found out while looking up the citations for this post, I'm not the only one who has pointed out how the arts, so ravaged and decimated by AIDS has not seemed to teach the world how to change our behavior to avoid it. I never had any use for Robert Mapplethorp's staged photo presentation of some of the most negative of stereotypical images, reinforcing racism as well as gay-bashing but that's for another post. It taught the methods of contracting the virus that ended up killing the picture snapper, but even that taught his audience nothing.
*** For crying out loud, Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart opened 33 years ago.
I found out while looking up the citations for this post, I'm not the only one who has pointed out how the arts, so ravaged and decimated by AIDS has not seemed to teach the world how to change our behavior to avoid it. I never had any use for Robert Mapplethorp's staged photo presentation of some of the most negative of stereotypical images, reinforcing racism as well as gay-bashing but that's for another post. It taught the methods of contracting the virus that ended up killing the picture snapper, but even that taught his audience nothing.
Vines points out that male rape was a frequently engaged in way of shaming males defeated in battle or an expression of upper-class, upper-caste male supremacy over men of lower financial and social status. He noted the same is used in prisons today, something which some especially evil prison establishments use as a means of control and punishment and, I am convinced, edification of the people who run prisons.
ReplyDeleteTo this day, "f*ck you" is the worst thing one male can say to another (worn down by usage though it is). Which says more than is commonly realized about attitudes toward sex. Me Too is just the tip of that particular iceberg.
Not that this has much to do with your insightful discussion of AIDS, but it's all I've got at the moment.