As HIV/AIDS infection rates see a new increase among gay men, an article in GQ looks at condom usage, sero-sorting, pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis as prevention methods:
“Gay men say they feel cheated out of the full pleasure and intimacy of sex, and many have come to perceive condoms as emblems of a still hostile world, imposed on them by a culture that continues to stigmatize gay sex. ‘To use a condom every time you have sex, for the rest of your life?' says Daniel Siconolfi, of New York University's HIV-prevention think tank, the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies. ‘That's a very, very big burden. That's a lot to ask of somebody. And it's not being asked of anybody other than gay men.' Hearing young gay men talk this way confuses and even angers, to say the least, gay men of my generation, who watched AIDS decimate the people we loved. It's true that for the new patients who get diagnosed early and who faithfully take their medications, life with HIV can seem nearly normal now. But AIDS is still a killer. Around 15,000 Americans die every year of the disease, and every new death is a preventable tragedy, every new transmission an inexcusable failure, especially to those for whom the bad old days are not yet ancient history.”
