What the AIDS crisis stole from Black gay men

"Sex scares me. As a , at a time when most young men were starting to physically connect with their new, exciting, primal sexual desires, the blood in my body was flowing through my veins just as fast. There was nothing unusual about puberty. Except that my desires were for other men. I had no references, images, or examples. No place to go, and no one to talk to about these feelings."

"My resources included a pamphlet from my godmother on men's bodies. I clung to a passage in it on how common it was for teenage males to have sexual desires for other males, but it was usually a phase, and you grow out of it. Then there was my mother's copy of , hidden in the right bottom drawer under negligees and lingerie, and a funny plastic disc which I later discovered was a diaphragm."

"Then there were the homoerotic shoots of beautiful, hypersexual models in the pages of And Greg Louganis at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. His Adonis-like body, wearing a tight red bikini brief, is standing on the diving board, preparing to dive in. And there was Gene Anthony Ray on , whose incredible dancing prowess was only matched by his swagger bursting out of his muscular body."

"My earliest thoughts about sex were nestled between puberty, promiscuity, and "the plague." All fueled by respectability politics and the silence, stigma, and shame fostered in the Black church. The U.S. government had also been largely silent about HIV and AIDS. It wasn't until 1987, near the end of his second term, that Ronald Reagan finally addressed AIDS as "public health enemy number one." In 1985, I was a freshman at Hampton University when Rock Hudson died of AIDS complications. He was 59."

Sexual awakening occurred during normal puberty, but desires were for other men. No references, images, or examples existed, and there was no one to talk to about those feelings. A pamphlet from a godmother suggested same-sex desires in teenage males were common but usually a phase. A hidden copy in a drawer and a diaphragm were discovered. Homoerotic images and figures like Greg Louganis and Gene Anthony Ray provided rare models. Headlines labeled AIDS "the plague" or "the gay cancer." Respectability politics, silence, stigma, and shame in the Black church compounded fear. Government silence delayed acknowledgment until 1987; Rock Hudson's 1985 death intensified terror.

Read at Advocate.com