New Gay CIty News article

I'm enrolling a group for young gay men with HIV+. Contact me if you know someone who might be interested. Thanks!






Young and, Now, HIV-Positive as Well
By: CHRISTOPHER MURRAY
04/30/2009

A hundred and thirty years ago, when I was 21, I moved to New York to seek my fortune, and along the way quite quickly contracted HIV disease. It was in 1989, still a plenty scary time, but I managed to survive by dint of good luck, a hefty dose of healthy denial, and some truly caring friends. Back then, when a young queer came up positive, one either joined a peer-led support group at Body Positive and talked about your feelings - as I did - or went to the LGBT Community Center to be simply angry and cruise hot guys in leather jackets at ACT UP meetings.

But these days, Body Positive's doors are long-shuttered and ACT-UP ain't what it was. In my work as a therapist, it's not uncommon for me to meet and counsel young gay guys after their doctor, one of the city's STD clinics, or the great counseling and testing programs at places like Gay Men's Health Crisis (gmhc.org) or the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (apicha.org) tells them the still shocking news of their diagnosis. But what they quickly find is that there are precious few places to go to talk about their situation, and the incomprehension and rejection that sometimes awaits them from their uninfected peers. How is a 20-something with HIV supposed to manage?

One of the things that's plenty weird about 2009 as opposed to back in day when I was diagnosed is that we are deep into the third decade of HIV in the world, yet it's kind of gone underground, at least in these United States of Queer. Sure, advocates and organizations are still out there doing good work, but HIV doesn't get mentioned much at brunch these days, and somehow it's even considered a little declasse to bring it up, like a turd in a punch bowl as my pal Emmett likes to say. And don't let's even start about porno and the huge barebacking fetish moment that everyone is in right now. It's all cum, cum, cum, everywhere and anywhere, which is fine, I guess, as long as people are making informed decisions about their behavior in conjunction with good information about their own health status and no illusions about a partner's potential health status.

But today's young guys, no matter how cute and cool and self-confident, are still - let's be fair - figuring out who they are and what they want to do with their lives; they remain in a kind of late-adolescence, finishing-up-coming-out sort of place. And in that slightly fuzzy zone, they may have made some iffy decisions from time to time about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Where can they find support?

This was the question asked of me by two different young guys who I met a couple of weeks ago. Both felt basically okay, having stabilized after the initial shock of finding out they had HIV and talking with their doctor about what they needed to do medically. "Bart," not his real name, acknowledged that he had put himself in some questionable sexual situations and wanted to talk that out, but was really concerned about how he would date and if he'd be able to find other guys his age with HIV. "Davis" had gotten sorta carried away with crystal meth - which hasn't gone anywhere any more than HIV itself, even if we aren't talking about that at brunch either. He felt a ton of shame about having gotten "caught" with HIV as he put it, and wanted to know where he could talk with other HIV-positive guys trying to stay away from terrible tina.

I was glad that both Bart and Davis had found their way to me, because they didn't have the first idea how to find other poz guys their age, and I hoped I could help steer them in the right direction a little. I let Bart know about Strength in Numbers, the nationwide social networking group for HIV-positive gay guys founded by sweet San Franciscan Bryan Levinson (sinhq.xbuild.com) and its very active New York chapter run by the super-gregarious David Llewellyn (health.groups.yahoo.com/group/SINNewYorkCity). I also let him know about the two drop-in groups for HIV-positive gay men run by the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (acria.org) that take place at the LGBT Community Center (gaycenter.org) on Thursday and Friday nights at 6:30 p.m. The LGBT Center also has groups for recently diagnosed gay men.

For Davis, I told him about Crystal Meth Anonymous (nycma.org), which is largely gay and has a couple of dozen meetings a week in New York, including the large HIV-positive meeting every Friday night at 6:15 p.m. at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center (callen-lorde.org) in Chelsea.

Finally, I told them that they weren't alone, that there are plenty of guys with HIV, young and old, who are managing well and living full and rich lives. I acknowledged that it is indeed a weird time to be young and find out you're positive, that it can lead to isolation that can cause a guy to feel the stigma that unfortunately is still out there. But I stressed that many people will extend a loving, knowledgeable, and sympathetic hand to them, and those who don't should be pitied for their ignorance and for letting themselves be ruled by fear. And that even with totally reasonable apprehension about working through issues related to confidentiality, disclosure to friends and family, and negotiating sex and romance as a young HIV-positive guy, they still can blaze the fabulous path they were put on this earth to create.

Christopher Murray, LCSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan and can be reached via christophermurray.org. He talked about young gay men with HIV recently on blogtalkradio.com/poziam.


©GayCityNews 2009

Mannequins of Mexico City

Here are some of my favorite mannequins in Mexico City, these from a uniform store on Insurgentes Sur in La Condesa. They are so sexy, if a little motheaten, (but that's my type, really).

My Margaret Dumont poem

Margaret Dumont

Dowager queen of loose-necked flesh, glide
across the foyer to greet your kooky guests.

They are hanging like monkeys
from the chandeliers, pissing down
on the invited guests and cackling.

Remember to smile and never waver, well-bred
and resolute as you take your medicine.

Come Harpo, you satyr, and Groucho,

make fun of my weight. Here is the thick-
accented one, selling tuttsi fruitsi from a cart

and lingering over the rump of my favorite
maid. So she's yours, you deliberate jackal,

take her and fuck her, while I am forced to hear
and stay awake in the room next door. I think
you all are charming boys. I relish your hump

and pant and fart and spit and slap and frequently
violent approach to my hospitality. Come again,

you males, deride my pearls and my hem. I will
stand here majestic like Liberty or Truth
or Justice or your wife and take it, take it, take it.

"My Diva" on bookshelves now!

I'm thrilled to announce the publication of "My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them," edited by Michael Montlack. The book looks beautiful and I'm very proud to be a part of this wonderful celebration of women by some of the gay men who love them.

Here's my essay on Margaret Dumont, but please go here and buy the whole book, it's terrific!

Margaret Dumont: Duchess of Dignity

Margaret Dumont was called "the fifth Marx Brother" by Groucho, appearing in seven of their films. In each, she played the comic foil: a stately society matron who was a perfect target for the boys' insults and jibs. Unlike some of the other divas, she was not a subject of adulation, but rather has become someone for whom I have empathy. She played the role of an often-oblivious woman whose only purpose was to be made fun of. This is a lesser known kind of diva, but an important one. As much as gay men identify with the glamour of a screen siren or a disco diva, we also have always been drawn to tragic figures of ridicule. Monica Lewinsky is a recent inheritor of this mantle, a society woman who becomes a target for widespread sexualized derision. It takes the special perspective of the homosexual male to rescue her, to reverse the prevailing attitude, and to put her on a pedestal as a survivor, a person worthy of dignity.

Dumont was also the still center around which comic chaos revolved. Without her, the Marx Brothers' madness had no form, no structure. I imagine the never-seen internal experience of her character and a growing rage toward her tormentors. This parallels the gay man's anger a being a target of bullies and demagogues. Certainly, she was ridiculous: pompous, hefty, and self-important. Her flaws rationalize the enmity directed at her, but don't excuse it. The viciousness of humor operates in opposition to the human necessity for tolerance and understanding. In our fantasies, like our comedies, we take delight in behaviors that wouldn't be acceptable in our real lives. The sadism shown toward Dumont is the sublimation of those darker impulses toward misogyny and even rape in the deepest reaches of the male psyche. Dumont is punished by the Marx Brothers for no longer being sexually attractive and for representing the power found in social position and money. For this, she must undergo humiliation. If she isn't destroyed, she may become the castrator.

This weak stab at Freudian interpretation aside, my attempt to imagine Dumont's pain is analogous to any gay man's attempt to connect with the glamour and emotional freedom of a more conventional diva. In fact, my groping toward empathy for Dumont embodies that creative leap from observation to identification that is the hallmark of the gay man's love of his diva. That it can be applied not only to the victorious siren and femme fatale, but to the forlorn, forgotten, fat, and fatuous as well, is, to me, moving and transformative.

I never thought the Marx Brothers were all that funny. They were barbarians and bullies, stupid and self-aggrandizing. But something in me responded to their cruelty. When I was in the fourth grade, with my parents involved in a bitter separation, I took my confusion and hurt to the schoolyard. There by the tree next to the swing set, I became one of the Marx clan and mercilessly teased and taunted an outcast, a boy named Mark with a round face and funny square glasses who spoke in a stilted, strangled voice. I made him my bitch, calling him names and pushing him in the dirt. I relished making him cry, tears drawing a path down his face towards his mouth open in a round howl of surprise and pain.

My favorite teacher, Mrs. Brady, witnessed my torture of Mark, and I'll never forget her confusion and dismay as she asked me why, why had I targeted this poor boy with such ferocity? And then I felt flooded with shame, felt it rising in my own throat like bile. It was my first and maybe still my most intense experience of being ashamed, greater than any based on my latent sexuality. I had become my disapproving father, my rough brother. After that, I know somehow that I couldn't live my life managing my own pain and fear by transforming into an aggressor. It felt too terrible to have a person I admired like Mrs. Brady show me to myself as a bully.

Eventually, I tried to make amends to Mark, befriended him. At first he was wary and uncertain, but after a while I learned his solitary games, began to share his complex inner world of dreams and fantasies. For the rest of my life, I would carry with a special sympathy for the underdog, the misunderstood and the maligned. I make no claims to perfection in this; I'm still too aware of the seductive pleasure of sadism, the glee and sexual thrilled of kicking someone when he's down, but I know I am unable to sustain that mode of being in the world.

Gay men get a lot of labels and proclivities slapped on them. At worst we are vain, shallow, obsessed with image and externals, sex-crazed drug addicts. At best, we are image-makers, czars of style, and wielders of wickedly delightful wit. But in my personal experience, we are most often alternating between a trio of roles: the outcast feeling fat and excluded by the cool disdainful beauties, the tormentor who cackles "Get her!" and points toward the frump sitting on the barstool across the room, and the rescuer who recognizes the beauty and dignity of the maligned.

It's so hard not to keep seeing other gay men as a united front of unapproachable, shirtless clones. The challenge us to reach into that swirling mass of bodies and recognize a person who you can cultivate as an individual with his own secret history of pain and resilience. At best, gay men are ultimately kind because they understand derision firsthand and know at their core what it is like to be excluded. Margaret Dumont wore her ridicule on her face for all of us to see, with only bemusement and faked obliviousness as her protection.

There was a myth about Dumont, promulgated by Groucho, that she never even got all the jokes and insults targeted toward her. That was a fib. "I'm a straight lady, the best in Hollywood," she later said. "There's an art to playing the straight role. You must build up your man but never top him, never steal the laughs." Dumont played the dupe, but it was an act, a role that showed us the power of punny punctures that the Marx Brother's used to deflate pomposity. But for me she will always remain a duchess of dignity in the face of ridicule, only her eyes secretly communicating the diva's ultimate message, "I will survive."