There’s an ad campaign running at the moment by Gay Men Fighting AIDS in the English gay weeklies. Ostensibly, it is advertising three different courses for gay men: Online Cruising, how to build an online profile and learn the lingo, Sauna Cruising, how to refuse unwanted “advances” and how to make moves on the men you fancy, and Backroom Cruising, how to cruise in the dark, and to know what you want in a backroom encounter. But it also works to provoke thought, as a consciousness-raising exercise.

I have two very different responses to this, reflecting my own split on matters sexual. The first (an old, familiar position) is akin to dismay, and is related to a sense of idealism. Is this what gay liberation was all about? Have we as a gay community “advanced” to such a stage that, having gained equality and freedom from oppressive laws and beliefs, we are now actively promoting sleazy anonymous sex as a valid lifestyle option? Are we not confirming the worst suspicions of the puritan reactionaries, that, once sexual permissiveness takes hold, anarchic licentiousness is the inevitable result? Have we abandoned all self-respect as gay men, in the year when gay civil partnerships become legal in the UK, with Ireland not too far behind, that we explicitly condone promiscuity, and offer courses in how to have orgies in the dark? Has the long political struggle against discrimination been only to allow us to treat each other like pieces of meat for consumption? Or, perhaps, more like gum: chew it and spit it out when it loses its flavour.
My second response is one that is less obviously idealistic, and rooted firmly in the unsentimental pragmatism that is necessary when dealing with sexual health matters. Before triple combination therapy became available, the grim reaper did the job that many political activists had been advocating since Stonewall, it outed those men who had been sexually active with other men in a way that was a tragic eye-opener to many. Since then, of course, HIV has spread (without prejudice, as viruses do) in such a way that it suggests no such proclivity in those who carry it.
But, despite the epidemic, a significant minority of gay men have a lot of sex with different people. (I suspect that is true for a similar minority of all men, but that’s less easy to prove. Gay men are more likely to be open about their sexual habits to researchers, but although a huge prostitution industry and singles scene undoubtedly exists for heterosexuals, statistics are much harder to come by.) Recent research shows that, in England and Wales, about a quarter of gay men are monogamous, and half of us have sex with between 2 and 12 different people a year. In London, unsurprisingly, as I’m sure is true of all metropolises, the figure for those who have lots of sex with different men is higher. 20% of us have sex with different men more than once a fortnight, on average. Interestingly, those of us in our thirties or forties are more promiscuous than those who are younger, although it’s not easy to draw a conclusion from that - either it’s a question of different generational attitudes, or it’s a feature of aging itself. It’s not what I would have guessed; I thought that perhaps we’d tend to settle down as we got older. But perhaps that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
The sad truth is that, every year, in London alone, 1,000 gay men get infected with HIV. Given that HIV is, by all medical accounts, a difficult virus to catch, this reveals a stunning quasi-suicidal level of repetitive risky sexual activity between men. Although it only takes one slip to seroconvert, so many men a year getting infected implies a reckless culture of risky behaviour. Alarmingly, about 40 men every year get infected in the UK through oral sex alone, which is news to me, and rattles my own complacency, as this has been my route to pleasure, in the main, for many a year now.
But what's to be done about it? We’re curiously squeamish about governmental interference in sexual matters now, in the UK anyway - there are new saunas and pubs with backrooms opening up all the time. Would it make a difference to HIV infection rates if such places were outlawed? The only answer has to be yes, it probably would. Men would have to go back to the parks to cruise (not that they ever really left) and that isn’t an appealing prospect for many, for even for the most risk-attracted; bad weather and risk of attack or mugging makes it much less pleasant. Undoubtedly, less risky sex would be happening, due to less opportunity. And, in time, disease rates would diminish.
But there’s a curious collusion going on between club and sauna owners and those who have bareback sex on their premises; a sort of limp laissez-faire attitude. And if the staff don’t care, why should the punters? Contrast this with a recent attempt by an event promoter in my local night club to hold a “fight night” for those into rough sex, scrapping, boxing and martial arts. (Although the guy runs a skinhead night there, this Bootboy hasn’t yet been to savour the delights of those men’s boots; the middle-class in me, I suppose.) He had to cancel the proposed monthly night, due to the landlord not being able to get insurance. Of course he couldn’t; a club full of randy hyped up men with lager and testosterone flowing? Recipe for disaster.
Or would it be? Probably the worst thing that would happen on a night like that is someone getting a bump or a black eye. Men having sex together is, generally, a painstakingly cordial business. Bruises fade, but the potential impact of condomless fucking is far, far worse. If we as gay men took our sexual health seriously, collectively, we would insist that clubs and saunas don’t permit condomless fucks. We don’t permit people to drive or to parachute or to box without training and licences, and no one thinks that’s odd. No gay man, as far as I can ascertain, has sued a club for getting infected there; it’s seen to be his responsibility alone for fucking without a condom in a backroom playing the sport of sex, whereas if someone gets hurt in a sporting fight, it’s the landlord’s responsibility to pay out compensation. It doesn’t make sense.
In the meantime, before the culture changes, (and I hope someday it does), ad campaigns that get men to make informed choices about their sex lives, encouraging a sense of responsibility when having fun, helping those of us who see sex as recreation to play by sporting rules, are a good thing in my book.
The only way to real change is to accept how things are in the first place.

Gay Men Fighting AIDS: www.metromate.org.uk
Fight Night: www.ma1club.com/ma1fightnite.htm