WHAT DID GOD KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT:

On Gay Circuit, the Party Never Ends (JANELLE BROWN, 4/30/04, NY Times)

IT was one in the morning on Easter Sunday. Inside the Palm Springs, Calif., convention center, which had been transformed into an elfish forest, with chiffon drapery and cherry blossoms, 4,500 men dressed — partially at least — in white were dancing to ear-shattering techno. Suddenly, the D.J. stopped the music, and the curtain on the stage rose to reveal a symphony orchestra playing a dance version of Annie Lennox's "Into the West" from "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." A silver-painted drag queen in a 20-foot headdress lip-synched the song from a dais while a small troupe of modern ballet dancers pirouetted onstage.

When the song ended, the ceiling exploded with silver confetti. Watching the spectacle, Gary Steinberg beamed. "It makes me proud to be a gay man," he said.

Mr. Steinberg; his boyfriend, Steve Ceplenski; 10 of their friends; and nearly 20,000 other gay men had converged on Palm Springs for the 15th annual White Party. Each April this resort town erupts in a weekend of round-the-clock revelry: pool parties, carnivals, dance extravaganzas, elaborate performances and after-hours celebrations. Palm Canyon Drive, the town's main street, is suddenly populated by gay men (and a sprinkling of their female friends) walking shirtless, hand in hand. All day and night the sound of techno echoes.

In the gay community, the White Party is what is known as a "circuit party," and it is just one of a hundred such events that take place around the country (and hundreds more around the globe) all year-round, including the Cherry 9 in Washington this weekend. There is also the Black Party in New York, the Black & Blue Festival in Montreal, Mardi Gras in Sydney, the White Party and the Winter Party in Miami, the Fireball in Chicago or Gay Days in Orlando. You can dance all night at gay ski weeks, gay river-rafting trips and aboard ships on gay cruises. Weekend after weekend, gay men fly around the world to dance, dress in costume and get as little sleep as possible.

Everywhere you look at these events there are men, men and more men. As Rudy Coblentz, a 32-year-old film accountant, said: "When I told my mother I was gay, she said, `It's a very lonely life.' If she only knew, she'd be floored."

To outsiders — and some attendees — circuit parties are all about drugs, sex and spectacle. To the travel industry, they represent a profit-making opportunity.

Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea on Rise: CDC Suggests Change in Treatment for Gay, Bisexual Men (Rob Stein, April 30, 2004, Washington Post)

The number of gay and bisexual men who are getting infected with gonorrhea that cannot be cured by the most commonly used antibiotics is increasing rapidly, federal health officials said yesterday.

Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea more than doubled between 2002 and 2003, primarily because of a jump from a rate of 1.8 percent to 4.9 percent among gay and bisexual men, according to preliminary data collected at sexually transmitted disease clinics in 23 cities, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Massachusetts and New York City have reported similar findings.

As a result, the federal health agency recommended that doctors stop using antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, which had been the first line of defense against gonorrhea, and switch to other more costly, less convenient drugs when treating gay and bisexual men with gonorrhea. Most alternative drugs must be given by injection; the standard antibiotics are in pill form.

The increase in gonorrhea is alarming, officials said, because it provides more evidence that gay men in the United States may be relaxing the safe sex practices that have slowed the spread of the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases. Syphilis has also been increasing among gay and bisexual men, along with indications that the number being infected with HIV may also be rising.

Uganda Sees Stunning Decline in AIDS Cases (Randy Dotinga, April 30, 2004, HealthDayNews)

Adding a new perspective to the ongoing debate over the best way to prevent AIDS in Africa, two British researchers say statistics prove a national emphasis on less casual sex, not more condom use, explains the stunning decline in cases in Uganda.

Their findings, published in the April 30 issue of Science, won't end the ongoing battle over the roles of abstinence, monogamy and safer sex in AIDS prevention in Africa and elsewhere. In fact, one critic says the research makes large leaps of faith. But study co-author Daniel Low-Beer hopes his work will help spread the details of Uganda's success story. [...]

According to the researchers, Uganda's approach to AIDS prevention was unusual. Instead of being limited to the media, anti-AIDS campaigns worked their way into communities through "local networks of village meetings, chiefs, musicians, churches and care groups," Low-Beer said. "The population was mobilized directly to confront AIDS and avoid risk, and must take much of the credit."

Ugandans also emphasized abstinence and monogamy. The approach seemed to work -- surveys suggest that casual sex dropped by 60 percent between 1989 and 1995.

"They avoided AIDS in the best way they could, by reducing casual sex," Low-Beer said. The decline in casual sex, he contends, led to lower HIV rates. "This turned out to be an African success equivalent to a highly effective vaccine."

The researchers found HIV rates remained high in countries that weren't able to reduce casual sex rates, even if they emphasized condom use.

Abstinence, heterosexuality, and monogamy--they were explained to us some time ago.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 1, 2004 7:17 AM