April 2010 Archives

Former bareback porn star Brent Corrigan (real name Sean Lockhart) has shot a series of safer sex public service announcements for the Washington, DC-based group Fuk !t, which promotes safer sex for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

Although he's only 23 years old, Corrigan is a porn veteran. He's also a controversial figure in the porn industry. He claims that he falsified his IDs to get porn work and was underage when he starred in his first films.

Because Corrigan no longer participates in bareback porn, Fuk !t decided that he was an ideal person to deliver safer sex messaging to young gay men.

The Advocate interviewed Fuk !t cofounder Terry Gerace, MD, about Corrigan:

The Advocate: Why did you approach Brent Corrigan, who is known for shooting a number of bareback porn videos early in his career, to come full circle and do this PSA for proper condom use?

Terry Gerace, M.D.: It wasn't so much about him having done bareback porn, it was that he's made this change from doing it to not doing it. He hasn't done those sorts of films for at least four years. He's stayed in the industry, and now only does safer sex porns. It was really about it being someone who learned from their behavior and made a change, which I think represents most young people. They'll start out doing something high-risk, and if they're lucky, they'll survive it and make a change. That's what he did, so I think in a lot of ways, he represents your average person.

Fuk !t has gained attention in no small part due to their use of sexually graphic materials. So it's no surprise that the series of PSAs they did with Corrigan are explicit (and definitely NSFW, not suitable for work).

To watch the first video on Corrigan's NSFW blog, click here.

I'm far from being a prude, but I do admit that I was a bit uncomfortable watching the video--not for my own sake, but for what others might think about gay men and gay sex.

That said, I am all for any HIV prevention messaging that will resonate with gay men, especially young gay men. So if it takes explicit PSAs, then so be it.

For more about Fuk !t, click here (also NSFW).


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"Super Xclusivo" is a popular TV gossip show in Puerto Rico. Recently while discussing on air Ricky Martin coming out as gay, the hosts of the show (a man and his female puppet) called him a "pato" (a derogatory term in Spanish for a gay man akin to "queer").

While some people inside and outside the LGBT community will argue that "pato" is either not truly derogatory or not as derogatory as "maricon" (which most people would agree is equivalent to "faggot"), there were many people that were offended.

A quick response was mounted by LGBT Latinos and friends, including GLAAD, local New York area politicians and the Latino Commission on AIDS. Fellow LGBT Latino blogger Andres Duque on his blog Blabbeando has all the details.

The Latino Commission on AIDS reports that the TV station has apologized and the hosts of the show made an on-air apology. Click here for more details from the Latino Commission on AIDS, including links to the letters of apology and to video of the on-air apology in Spanish.

An obvious and direct connection to HIV/AIDS occurred in the aftermath of the gay slur airing. The human host of the show insulted Pedro-Julio Serrano, a well-known Puerto Rican LGBT and HIV/AIDS advocate, for his criticisms by referencing Serrano's HIV status and sexual orientation. (Blabbeando promises more details about this aspect, I'll pass along details).

A less obvious but no less direct connection to HIV/AIDS is fighting homophobia because defeating it lessens the risk for HIV infection among LGBT people. Not everyone gets that, so I commend the involvement of the Latino Commission on AIDS in righting this wrong.

Guillermo Chacon, the president of the Latino Commission on AIDS, definitely gets it. I recently interviewed him and here are excerpts related to this topic:

What are the challenges facing Latinos in fighting the virus?  

There is still a denial in our community. It's easy to avoid tough issues, especially issues that challenge your belief system or your comfort level.  

We need to begin with our own families, challenge the level of homophobia, discrimination or stigma we have against communities affected [by HIV/AIDS]. After we acknowledge that, we can begin to take specific actions. 

Can you speak about your experience being a straight ally?  

People sometimes will say, "Oh, Guillermo is a nice gay man." I take it as a compliment. Then some people will say, "He is one of the most willing straight men to connect with different people."  

Everything has to start with your own family and with you as an individual. I don't like when people try to challenge others [without being] willing to challenge themselves.

Click here to read the complete interview. 


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AIDS Walk New York commemorates its 25th anniversary on Sunday, May 16.

POZ will be sponsoring a fundraiser for the walk on Wednesday, May 12.

Check out the details and join us!




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The media are sometimes taken to task by critics (myself included) for a lack of coverage of HIV/AIDS in general or for unfair and/or inaccurate HIV/AIDS coverage in particular.

So it's nice to be able to point out good examples of HIV/AIDS coverage when they occur.

The New York Times did an excellent job recently with an article by Katie Thomas about Darren Chiacchia.

Until a few months ago, he was mostly known as an equestrian from Ocala, Florida, and an Olympic bronze medalist.

Now, he also is known for being a gay HIV-positive man who was charged with exposing a sexual partner to HIV, which is a felony in Florida.

Here's an excerpt:

In late January, however, Mr. Chiacchia made headlines of a different sort. He was arrested by the Marion County Sheriff's Office after a former sexual partner accused Mr. Chiacchia of exposing him to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

Mr. Chiacchia, who pleaded not guilty in February, faces up to 30 years in prison under a Florida law passed in 1997 that makes it a felony for people with H.I.V. to have sexual intercourse without informing their partners of their condition. His trial is scheduled to begin in June, his lawyer said.

Florida is one of at least 32 states nationwide that have criminal statutes specific to H.I.V., many of which date to the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, when fear of spreading the disease was at its peak. As the science and treatment of H.I.V. and AIDS have changed considerably in the ensuing decades, fear of infection has subsided. However, the laws remain on the books, and prosecutors continue to enforce them.

In Pennsylvania and Louisiana, people with H.I.V. can be sentenced to as much as 10 years in prison for spitting at or biting another person, even though scientists have long concluded that transmitting the virus through saliva is virtually impossible. In Missouri, people can be sentenced to life in prison if they infect others without their knowledge.

Although many of the laws were created in the wake of highly publicized cases in which people exposed dozens of sexual partners, the statutes make little distinction between such extreme situations and more nuanced recent cases like Mr. Chiacchia's, which involved a consensual relationship.

Not only is the preferred phrase "people with HIV" used (as opposed to, say, "HIV-infected people"), but the article consistently uses nonjudgmental language and descriptions of a case that in other hands might have easily been saddled with sensationalism.

HIV criminalization is a scary subject for those us living with the virus. Nonetheless, we need to be informed about it. I took no pleasure in reading the details of this case (Chiacchia and his sexual partner have conflicting stories), but I was pleased that this article provided fair and accurate coverage.

The article does use the phrases "infecting" and "people who are infected" later in the piece. Any alternatives such as "transmitting" or "people who have HIV" would have been better, but the article as a whole still works for me.

This article also scores bonus LGBT points. Not until the 11th paragraph--yes, the 11th paragraph--do we find out Chiacchia's sexual orientation:

Mr. Chiacchia, 45, and his former partner met on a gay-oriented Web site and began dating in February 2009, according to a statement the partner made to investigators. The relationship ended in June, after his partner said he came across medical documents in Mr. Chiacchia's home and discovered that Mr. Chiacchia was H.I.V. positive. The man filed a complaint with the Sheriff's Office in August.

They followed the rule that sexual orientation or gender identity (or any other characteristic like, say, race) should only be included if relevant--and then, only when relevant.

It certainly would have been juicier to include the fact that Chiacchia is gay sooner (like in the first paragraph), so I give them credit for showing such restraint.

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The 8th annual National LGBT Health Awareness Week is this week from March 28 to April 3. Sponsored by the National Coalition for LGBT Health, "Closing the Gap" is this year's theme.

Here's how they explain this year's theme:

"The LGBT community has, on average, worse health outcomes and less access to the care we need than the straight community. We cannot afford to ignore the gap anymore. We need to educate ourselves and our health care providers about our unique health needs as well as our health risks. We need to commit to closing the gap, because everyone deserves good health!"

Topics such as access to health care, certain kinds of cancer, mental health, sexual health (including HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections), smoking, substance abuse and transgender health are all areas of concern for LGBT people.

If you're LGBT, please take a moment this week to consider how these issues affect your health--and consult with your health care provider.


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