The erotic experience of viewing famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe stunning, homoerotic and widely unseen Polaroids currently on display at the Whitney Museum in New York turns flaccid as the gallery room fills with the nasally obnoxious sounds of a middle-aged woman from upstate New York attempting to remind her deaf mother that she had been a classmate of Mapplethorpe, “Remember I told you about him” she yells. “He was the HO-MO-SEXUAL in my class when I was at Pratt.”
In the audience of her one sided conversation, the evocative images of men in various states of undress mixed with measured shots of objects like matchbooks and curtains, all captured as high art by an artist early his career, become pedestrian, boring. The woman’s voice breaks the bond between viewer and the work, making everything in the room too accessible, public, obvious and mundane. Suddenly it is her and not the pictures on the wall that becomes the art—a performance piece/reality show about a failed artist living with her mother attempting to justify her art school tuition all these years later based on her momentary proximity to greatness.
Later, upstairs in the galleries housing the Whitney’s permanent collection, I sit on a bench to write my thoughts and people watch. A handsome youngish man comes rushing towards the bench and sits down looking slightly bewildered and emotionally distressed. Within a second another man around the same age is standing nearly on top of him. Maybe it’s the gaypri pants or the talking with hands but without even hearing them I can tell that they are gay Europeans in the middle of an argument. After a few furious minutes of frenetic whispering the second one to arrive sits down and they are lulled into a state of silent brinkmanship.
With so much colour and shape in the room no one but me seems to notice the two moody men on the bench and the security guard who is so entranced he looks like he is watching a soap opera.
While in New York City it has been the security guards that have often provided the highlight of museum and art gallery experiences. Their unimpressed attitude towards the art is a refreshing change from the at-times pretentious conversations and faces I encounter. I always wonder if the guards, in between slyly picking their nose, telling people not to take photos and directing people to the washroom, learn more about art or gain an increased appreciation for it. I look forward to the day when I open up the paper to read that the world’s most successful art dealer, gallery curator or art critic started as a security guard.
The first boyfriend gets up off the bench and begins to pace. Both the security guard and I look at him to see what is going on. He catches us and for the first time remembers that they are not alone. He says something to his boyfriend and now as if reunited against the nosy security guard and me they walk together towards the doorway. They get about three feet before they start disagreeing again. The first boyfriend wants to keep looking at the permanent collection whereas the other boyfriend wants to go downstairs to look at the Mapplethorpe Polaroids. They end up going downstairs. I smile and look over to the security guard hoping that we will share the moment; instead I am met with a blank stare and him with his finger up his nose.
I stay on the bench to keep writing. I enjoyed watching the two men have a disagreement. It seemed so healthy and normal and foreign. I feel that in Edmonton it is rare to see two guys obviously on a date together, let alone comfortable enough to have a lovers quarrel in public.
Later on at the Whitney I end up in the same elevator as the boyfriends and a redheaded family. The first boyfriend is still kind of sulking. The second boyfriend has obviously tired of it all and stares off at the ceiling during the elevator ride. The doors open at the second floor. The first boyfriend is quick to almost get out. His boyfriend catches him in before he leaves and points at the lit-up number two above the door. This act of assertion changes something between the two boyfriends The sulking boyfriend moves closer to his boyfriend and begins talking close in his ear as he gestures with wincing movements to his back. The second boyfriend’s face goes from impatience to concern.
As the doors open for the ground floor we all leave the elevator. I trail behind to see the second boyfriend rub the small of his boyfriend’s back. The family that was in the elevator doesn’t blink an eye nor does anyone else in the busy lobby as they make their way to the door. Their unselfconscious display of affection is moving and of course erotic in its own way. In that moment I realize that in some places homosexuality is pedestrian and boring. It is a freeing yet slightly anti-climactic feeling.
With his eye on his boyfriend the second boyfriend goes out into the street and hails a cab. After they have both gotten in but before I loose sight of them into the sea of yellow cabs that makes up Madison Avenue I see the first boyfriend take his boyfriend’s hand and kiss it. It makes me wish I had my camera.
Showing posts with label new york. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new york. Show all posts
Friday, June 27, 2008
QUEERMONTON - LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S SAFE SEX!Week of June 12, 2008
Living in Hell’s Kitchen, New York’s newest gay village, for a month, I find myself never more than a few feet away from an attractive gay man and never more than a few beats away from thinking about sex. That, combined with the heat wave that is currently gripping the city, made me decide that a great and safe way to spend a Saturday afternoon would be at the movies.
I naïvely thought that when I purchased my ticket for Sex Positive, a film being screened as part of New York’s newest LGBT film festival, I would be treated to two air-conditioned hours learning about the joys of safe sex and the history behind it. Instead I was met with a 96-minute warm slap in the face about the early, heady days of AIDS in New York and the origins of safe sex.
Directed by Daryl Wein, the film profiles Richard Berkowitz, a writer, activist and one time S/M hustler who should be known for his primary role in the creation of safe sex, an idea we now take for granted, but is instead a footnote in history due to his wrong and sadly misguided view back in the ‘80s that AIDS is not caused by a single virus like HIV but caused by multifactorial causes.
In 1982, he co-authored an article called “We Know Who We Are” with singer and celebrated AIDS activist Michael Callen, which bore the additional tag line from their editor, “Two Gay Men Declare War on Promiscuity”: the article not only shared the unpopular multifactorial view but also called for gay men to consider their sexual habits and how it might be endangering them. Hugely unpopular, the article caused an uproar, as it was seen as an inside attack on the gay lifestyle.
Using vintage porn and photos from Berkowitz’s own private collection, the filmmaker illustrates that at the heart of the outrage was the war that was being waged within the gay community. For many, engaging in uninhibited sex was at the core of gay liberation, and they weren’t going to stop because authorities were telling them to. Others felt that promiscuity was killing homosexuals. Stemming from the article and through work with his mentor Dr Sonnabend, Berkowitz worked towards a third way of seeing things, which we now know of as safe sex.
Based on his experience as an S/M top and ideas around disease interruption, safe sex was conceived as interventions during sex to prevent bodily fluids from entering the body. Wein, with his purposely unsteady camera work and moody lighting, lets the telling of the historic moments unfold not in a documentary style but more in the same way a new friend would tell the stories of their life.
As Berkowitz tells it, with the urging of Sonnabend, in 1982/83 he wrote “How To Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach,” a booklet that used a risk-reduction approach when discussing sex. Its aim was to remind people that “Sex doesn’t make you sick—diseases do.” Among the suggestions in the booklet is the then-revolutionary idea of gay men using a condom for anal sex. You can see he is proud of the accomplishment and speaks of it like a victory which was too quickly over.
Watching the film, I wondered why I have never heard of this guy, a scene echoed when people being interviewed in the film are asked if they have ever heard of Richard Berkowitz, only to apologize and admit that they hadn’t.
Because of his once-held beliefs and, as we find out later in the film, his battle with drugs, Berkowitz is an almost forgotten piece of gay men’s response to the HIV legacy. Before the screening, director Daryl Wein came out into the audience to remind us that this was just his film telling the story of one man. He is right that it’s not a comprehensive study of the history of safe sex. As someone who didn’t set out to make an AIDS film, Wien has created a small yet layered document that reminds people that we are still living with HIV/AIDS that also serves as an unwavering portrait of a man whose complex and unforgiving life can serve as a reminder and metaphor for HIV/AIDS.
At the end of the screening I left the theatre. On my way out I saw the real Berkowitz in the lobby. (This is something that makes New York amazing—access.) He looks as he did in the movie—handsome, antsy and frustrated. I didn’t stop to talk to him. I was two steps away from the theatre when I turned around and go back. By this time Berkowitz was in the theatre with Wein and the festival director taking part in a Q&A.
A young man in the audience disclosed his HIV+ status and asked Berkowitz where he could go for help, an elderly lady shared her story of being a retired dominatrix who, having never contracted HIV herself (unlike most of her friends), is now part of a small group of friends who call themselves survivors. Another man asked the festival director if more people were at the first screening of the film; the answer was no. The man who asked the question was angered by this and verbalized how insulted he is that in the city of New York people can’t fill a movie theatre for this important movie when films of far less calibre and social relevance are well attended. The festival director agreed, and Berkowitz lost the crowd as he began to talk about conspiracy theories about him and why people won’t see the film.
Walking back along the streets of Manhattan, I thought about Berkowitz and his endurance. He deserves better than to be forgotten. Because of him I—and all the gay men I crush on while walking—am able to be a part of the same club as the elderly dominatrix: we are all survivors.
RICHARD BERKOWITZ RESPONDS:
Ted Kerr writes a vivid, thoughtful account (June 12, 2008, Issue #660) of the June 7 Manhattan film festival screening of SEX POSITIVE, Daryl Wein's new documentary about my role in the invention of safe sex. Amazingly, not a single review appeared anywhere in the New York press--gay, straight or alternative--so I'm thrilled that a Canadian reporter found it a worthy topic. The absence of any coverage of SEX POSITIVE in New York may also help explain why, as Kerr noted, the audience was small. But there's another reason that may have eluded Kerr: some in the gay community are deeply uncomfortable with a public figure like me who has refused to be closeted about my past history with sex work, S/M and addiction. I wish it were a "conspiracy" rather than a fact, but there are a few activists who'd rather hide me than accept that my hyper-sexual history actually makes me an effective spokesperson to promote safe sex to those who need it most.
In a city like New York where syphilis and HIV infection rates are rising, worst of all among 13 to 19 year olds, it's sad that a film that can offer solutions to safe sex gets overlooked because concerns about the gay image supersede the promotion of life-saving information.
As Kerr reported, SEX POSITIVE offers a wonderful surprise from what some assume it will be. New York City has lots to offer, but when it comes to what's new in safe sex, Edmonton readers have us beat and Kerr is the man to thank.
I naïvely thought that when I purchased my ticket for Sex Positive, a film being screened as part of New York’s newest LGBT film festival, I would be treated to two air-conditioned hours learning about the joys of safe sex and the history behind it. Instead I was met with a 96-minute warm slap in the face about the early, heady days of AIDS in New York and the origins of safe sex.
Directed by Daryl Wein, the film profiles Richard Berkowitz, a writer, activist and one time S/M hustler who should be known for his primary role in the creation of safe sex, an idea we now take for granted, but is instead a footnote in history due to his wrong and sadly misguided view back in the ‘80s that AIDS is not caused by a single virus like HIV but caused by multifactorial causes.
In 1982, he co-authored an article called “We Know Who We Are” with singer and celebrated AIDS activist Michael Callen, which bore the additional tag line from their editor, “Two Gay Men Declare War on Promiscuity”: the article not only shared the unpopular multifactorial view but also called for gay men to consider their sexual habits and how it might be endangering them. Hugely unpopular, the article caused an uproar, as it was seen as an inside attack on the gay lifestyle.
Using vintage porn and photos from Berkowitz’s own private collection, the filmmaker illustrates that at the heart of the outrage was the war that was being waged within the gay community. For many, engaging in uninhibited sex was at the core of gay liberation, and they weren’t going to stop because authorities were telling them to. Others felt that promiscuity was killing homosexuals. Stemming from the article and through work with his mentor Dr Sonnabend, Berkowitz worked towards a third way of seeing things, which we now know of as safe sex.
Based on his experience as an S/M top and ideas around disease interruption, safe sex was conceived as interventions during sex to prevent bodily fluids from entering the body. Wein, with his purposely unsteady camera work and moody lighting, lets the telling of the historic moments unfold not in a documentary style but more in the same way a new friend would tell the stories of their life.
As Berkowitz tells it, with the urging of Sonnabend, in 1982/83 he wrote “How To Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach,” a booklet that used a risk-reduction approach when discussing sex. Its aim was to remind people that “Sex doesn’t make you sick—diseases do.” Among the suggestions in the booklet is the then-revolutionary idea of gay men using a condom for anal sex. You can see he is proud of the accomplishment and speaks of it like a victory which was too quickly over.
Watching the film, I wondered why I have never heard of this guy, a scene echoed when people being interviewed in the film are asked if they have ever heard of Richard Berkowitz, only to apologize and admit that they hadn’t.
Because of his once-held beliefs and, as we find out later in the film, his battle with drugs, Berkowitz is an almost forgotten piece of gay men’s response to the HIV legacy. Before the screening, director Daryl Wein came out into the audience to remind us that this was just his film telling the story of one man. He is right that it’s not a comprehensive study of the history of safe sex. As someone who didn’t set out to make an AIDS film, Wien has created a small yet layered document that reminds people that we are still living with HIV/AIDS that also serves as an unwavering portrait of a man whose complex and unforgiving life can serve as a reminder and metaphor for HIV/AIDS.
At the end of the screening I left the theatre. On my way out I saw the real Berkowitz in the lobby. (This is something that makes New York amazing—access.) He looks as he did in the movie—handsome, antsy and frustrated. I didn’t stop to talk to him. I was two steps away from the theatre when I turned around and go back. By this time Berkowitz was in the theatre with Wein and the festival director taking part in a Q&A.
A young man in the audience disclosed his HIV+ status and asked Berkowitz where he could go for help, an elderly lady shared her story of being a retired dominatrix who, having never contracted HIV herself (unlike most of her friends), is now part of a small group of friends who call themselves survivors. Another man asked the festival director if more people were at the first screening of the film; the answer was no. The man who asked the question was angered by this and verbalized how insulted he is that in the city of New York people can’t fill a movie theatre for this important movie when films of far less calibre and social relevance are well attended. The festival director agreed, and Berkowitz lost the crowd as he began to talk about conspiracy theories about him and why people won’t see the film.
Walking back along the streets of Manhattan, I thought about Berkowitz and his endurance. He deserves better than to be forgotten. Because of him I—and all the gay men I crush on while walking—am able to be a part of the same club as the elderly dominatrix: we are all survivors.
RICHARD BERKOWITZ RESPONDS:
Ted Kerr writes a vivid, thoughtful account (June 12, 2008, Issue #660) of the June 7 Manhattan film festival screening of SEX POSITIVE, Daryl Wein's new documentary about my role in the invention of safe sex. Amazingly, not a single review appeared anywhere in the New York press--gay, straight or alternative--so I'm thrilled that a Canadian reporter found it a worthy topic. The absence of any coverage of SEX POSITIVE in New York may also help explain why, as Kerr noted, the audience was small. But there's another reason that may have eluded Kerr: some in the gay community are deeply uncomfortable with a public figure like me who has refused to be closeted about my past history with sex work, S/M and addiction. I wish it were a "conspiracy" rather than a fact, but there are a few activists who'd rather hide me than accept that my hyper-sexual history actually makes me an effective spokesperson to promote safe sex to those who need it most.
In a city like New York where syphilis and HIV infection rates are rising, worst of all among 13 to 19 year olds, it's sad that a film that can offer solutions to safe sex gets overlooked because concerns about the gay image supersede the promotion of life-saving information.
As Kerr reported, SEX POSITIVE offers a wonderful surprise from what some assume it will be. New York City has lots to offer, but when it comes to what's new in safe sex, Edmonton readers have us beat and Kerr is the man to thank.
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