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    LordBurleighRich Juzwiak
    12/29/15 4:00pm

    There’s stigma that says being a slut is bad, or that taking PrEP means your moral fiber is frayed.

    One thing I’ve noticed increasingly in the last year or so is just how deeply introjected anti-sex stigma is within the gay community (if we can use that phrase in the singular). PrEP highlighted this for me, both in online discussion and in my personal life. I’ve had good friends suggest that PrEP is not only bad epidemiologically but also, implicitly, morally because it might accelerate the mutation of antibiotics-resistant syphilis and other STIs. This implies that safer sex practices are a political responsibility particularly shouldered by MSM rather than just a good idea. That it’s morally wrong not to have safer sex.

    I can kind of see this argument; it doesn’t seem wrong to me, exactly, just wrong-headed. In my estimation, it’s largely a very convincing-sounding way to sex-shame people from within the gay community, and—after thinking about this for awhile—I say: it’s bullshit.

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      bleachonceLordBurleigh
      12/29/15 4:32pm

      I’ve had good friends suggest that PrEP is not only bad epidemiologically but also, implicitly, morally because it might accelerate the mutation of antibiotics-resistant syphilis and other STIs. This implies that safer sex practices are a politicalresponsibility particularly shouldered by MSM rather than just a good idea. That it’s morally wrong not to have safer sex.

      Actually, what your good friends and others like them are doing is asking important questions about this prevention strategy. STI’s like syphilis and drug-resistant gonorrhea are on the rise in the gay community, and while PrEP is not the sole cause of this, it certainly didn’t help the situation.

      To be honest. everyone has a political responsibility to have safer sex from a public health perspective. Stereotypes regarding gay men and our sexuality make the rest of the world believe that we’re the most sexually active, so they will automatically assume we’re the ones with the most responsibility. Times are changing, and with all the AshleyMadison/AFF crap this year, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that heterosexuals are just as active as homosexuals.

      I can kind of see this argument; it doesn’t seem wrong to me, exactly, just wrong-headed. In my estimation, it’s largely a very convincing-sounding way to sex-shame people from within the gay community, and—after thinking about this for awhile—I say: it’s bullshit.

      If we could all agree to let the whole “add the word ‘shaming’ to other words when we don’t like what people say”-thing in 2015, I’d die a happy man. If we become a culture that can’t handle any kind of criticism, we’re all going to be even more miserable than we are now. “Slut-shaming”, “Sex-shaming”, “Meat-eating-shaming”, “Shame-shaming”; it all sounds like made up concepts for people who can’t deal with other people criticizing them.

      There are some people that think being a slut is bad. There are people that think being a slut is good. I don’t really give a fuck. Some people think sex is a private thing between people that should be special and sacred. Some people think sex is like a handshake. Again, I don’t give a fuck. If I’m a slut and someone says “Sluts are slutty, you can’t trust them,” I’d be offended, but if someone is judging my trustworthiness based on how many d’s I catch, I actually think that person is less trustworthy themselves for having such a stupid criteria for trust, so who gives a fuck? Why is everything a slogan? If you’re a slapper, slag, ho-bag, cum dumpster, blow job queen, lot lizard, party bottom, or useless fuckhole, good for you. That’s fucking great, but guess what, I don’t have to like it or think it’s a good idea, and I don’t have to act like I do.

      PrEP is a great idea in theory; a pill to “cure HIV”. There are legitimate epidemiological concerns that no amount of shouting “Slut-shaming” at the top of one’s lungs can drown out or refute. HIV is highly mutable and we have no idea how this virus will change in response to the usage of this drug as a preventative. If we look back at the epidemic, we know one thing: having unprotected sex with multiple partners increases the odds of infection with a disease. That’s not slut-shaming, it’s math. The thing I find disappointing about PrEP is that it’s clear that we have ultimately learned nothing from the epidemic. We want a quick fix and a promise so we can fuck raw with no consequences. And that’s a very human response to something like this, but what we are dealing with is not human, it’s a virus. Viruses don’t give a fuck if culture thinks bareback pnp parties are just “sexual exploration”. Viruses want to infect and replicate and repeat. Until we find a way to deal with our feelings around sex and our own compulsions, we will just be watching the clock until the next big virus surfaces. All of this has happened before and it will happen again.

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      LordBurleighbleachonce
      12/29/15 4:40pm

      I should clarify: these friends I’m referring to use this as a justification for making PrEP unavailable to the public. Would you agree with that conclusion? (Genuine question.)

      I’m also not saying that it’s cultural or “shaming” or whatever to say that a higher number of sexual partners correlates to a higher potential of STI infection. I’m saying that the assumption that avoiding STI infection is a moral responsibility is sex-shaming in that it’s actually motivated by shame rather than genuine concern for health. And, in fact, your last paragraph about the nature of viruses is, in my view, evidence of this: STIs are gonna happen. They just are. A multi-pronged sex-positive approach seems the only realistic one to me—unlike, say, Larry Kramer’s approach which is to try to induce shame in gay men to prevent them from having unprotected sex.

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    Masshole JamesRich Juzwiak
    12/29/15 3:57pm

    Can we add the Attorney General of Missouri to the The Year in Gay? He’s straight, allegedly, and started pushing more of that religious-freedom nonsense a couple days ago. Nothing odd for a Republican except, he’s got major gay face and he’s setting many of our alarms off. I predict another fantastic Republican sex scandal in the new year.

    http://www.joemygod.com/2015/12/28/mis…

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      puncha yo bunsMasshole James
      12/29/15 4:10pm

      Wait...isn’t Chris Koster the Attorney General? And this guy’s just a candidate?

      Also this doesn’t exactly scream gay face to me, but it does scream “why do all these young Republican bigoted assholes have to be decently good-looking!” :(

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      Burn After ReadingMasshole James
      12/29/15 4:10pm

      Hawley isn’t the Attorney General yet, he’s just one of several candidates for next November’s election. The current AG in Missouri is a democrat.

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    Jerry-NetherlandRich Juzwiak
    12/29/15 4:23pm

    Surprisingly not covered by Gawker this year: In its continuingly worsening treatment of gay people, Russia’s parliament is presently debating criminalizing merely coming out of the closet. More here:

    http://www.towleroad.com/2015/10/crimin…

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      ThrumbolioJerry-Netherland
      12/29/15 4:29pm

      “In the biological sense, not reproducing is the same as death and in that sense homosexuality is a lethal threat for the whole of humankind.”

      If the gays don’t produce children, WHO WILL!?

      I mean ASIDE from the (many, MANY) people who decide to fuck and have kids, but we’re not talking about them.

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      obtusegooseThrumbolio
      12/29/15 5:50pm

      Yet they don’t criminalize straight couples that don’t have children. Weird, huh? One would rightfully assume that Russia is going to ban marriages between elderly straight couples (and infertile couples) since they’re unable to repopulate the species. I’m sure we’ll hear the announcement any day now.
      *crickets*

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    ConvictNotInmateRich Juzwiak
    12/29/15 4:10pm

    Well, I guess it isn’t surprising that you’re still dying on the Tiger Mandingo hill. At least your defense of scumbags is consistent.

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      boaboaboatengtengtengConvictNotInmate
      12/29/15 4:36pm

      I’ll bet you a shiny new dime that the majority of the coverage of Tiger Mandingo would be different if he was an average, schlubby-looking guy with a spare tire instead of a current/former NCAA wrestler.

      (The most egregious was Steven W. Thrasher, whose pieces about it for Buzzfeed, while very well-written and all that, were so thirsty that if comments were allowed half of them would be pictures of bottled water.)

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    2DollarzRich Juzwiak
    12/29/15 3:58pm

    2015: My parents stopped asking awkward questions about my gay friends and realized they are my best friends. They went from raising an eyebrow to embracing our humanity.

    Orwell was right. Baby steps.

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      Two turntables and a microphoneRich Juzwiak
      12/29/15 3:51pm

      Location has so much to do with it.

      Where I live in Oklahoma there’s this really weird mix where the typically millennial and hip parts of town are for the most part accepting and think nothing of it but there’s this really weird large group of “hipsters” who are progressive in dress only and frequent the television mega churches as often as they do the hip part of towns. For every art show you go to where people can talk about progressive subjects free of most of the redneck mouth breathers there also someone still trying to draw an abstract embodiment of the Holy Ghost.

      It’s all created one of the weirdest and interesting city environments I’ve seen. Idk if this is city specific or if every other Midwest/South city has the same thing going on.

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        opiumsmabytchTwo turntables and a microphone
        12/29/15 4:30pm

        but there’s this really weird large group of “hipsters” who are progressive in dress only and frequent the television mega churches as often as they do the hip part of towns.

        Wow, that’s some serious poser-ing.

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      MuscatoRich Juzwiak
      12/29/15 4:14pm

      They will prioritize vague, poorly reasoned principles over actual human lives, whether it’s because they’re stupid or selfish. They are entirely ignoble in their endeavor.

      Nice to find something this sage in something as usually pro forma as a year-end roundup. In two sentences, as good a description of the Huckabee-Davis-Barber-Gallaghers of the world as I’ve read. Heck, in two words: “entirely ignoble.”

      Thanks, Rich.

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        KeisertrollRich Juzwiak
        12/29/15 4:07pm

        2015 was the year the Supreme Court decision only underscored my loneliness, and I realized just how far I needed to go after ten years of being “out” to fully embrace who I am.

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          ThrumbolioRich Juzwiak
          12/29/15 5:05pm

          SIDEBAR: Reading the grays reminds me that some people engage with the concept of “identity politics,” while others prefer to snort giant lines of it and then cock their rifles like fucking Scarface.

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            YupILiveInDCRich Juzwiak
            12/29/15 3:47pm

            Also this year in gay: Gawker was fucking douchebags. But that’s kinda every year.

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