Only in Santa Fe: Having sex without condoms is a careless death wish

Bareback sex — sex without condoms — has redefined AIDS. It’s a careless death wish that sweeps together the innocent with the culpable as antiretrovirals have assuaged the fear of dying from the virus. This is especially true among a younger generation of gay men who have not known the anguish of watching friends wither away and die of the disease.

“What we’re seeing both here in Santa Fe as well as in other parts of the gay community is this concept that it doesn’t matter too much if you get infected,” said Trevor Hawkins, medical director of the Southwest CARE Center, the medical facility that administers medical care for the HIV/AIDS community in Northern New Mexico.

“People are going to parties and having unprotected sex. It’s a feeling of don’t ask (if you are negative) and don’t tell (if you are positive),” he said.

So where does this behavior take place? You’d be surprised. We’re not talking flea-bag motels; nor are we talking about spur-of-the-moment sexual encounters.

“We’ve heard from many of our patients about these parties in Denver and Phoenix, but also, people rent (upscale Santa Fe) hotel rooms where everyone chips in for the cost of a room,” Hawkins said.

“Our attempts to suggest that this is largely unsafe falls on deaf ears,” said Hawkins, who has worked in the Santa Fe AIDS community for 22 years. “Taking risks is exciting because of the danger.”

A few months ago, the fear of a super strain of the AIDS virus hit the news.

It was the hot topic on the street. “Is there?” “Isn’t there” “What if?”

“We expect diseases to mutate,” Hawkins said. “But we have no idea if that’s what is happening now. This is certainly not the first time we have found a drug resistant to AIDS treatment. It happens in 5 (percent) to 15 percent of the cases.

“This man (who was the subject of news stories) had shown multiple drug resistance and so have other people,” Hawkins said.

“There’s a new drug out — T20 enfurvitide. It’s a subcutaneous injectable under the skin twice a day.”

Hawkins cautions: “It’s not fun.”

The names of some of the medications read like a litany of poisons: Viramune, Epivir, Crixivan, Norvir, Zerit. Living with AIDS is not life as usual.

“You have to take three meds a day. That’s every single day. Miss a few doses on the weekend and by Monday you are drug resistant. After you run through about three sets of the available drugs, there’s nothing left on the market.”

In 98 percent of the cases, HIV leads to AIDS. It usually takes the HIV virus 10 years to mutate into AIDS. The 40-year-old man whose case caused such an uproar in the media progressed from HIV to AIDS in four months.

The Centers for Disease Control reports at least one-half of all new HIV infections occur in people under 25, with the largest subset of that group being gay men.

The same is true in Santa Fe, with the second-largest group being women of color, according to Hawkins.

“Our epidemic in Santa Fe is probably 80 percent gay men and 20 percent women of color,” he said.

The question of why so many young gay men act so recklessly is one that begs to be asked.

Part of it is the mistaken invincibility of youth.

An appalling aspect is the thrill of having sex with the fetid breath of death breathing in your ear.

Partly it is an unwillingness to accept restriction about sexual behavior.

We’re also looking at issues of low self-esteem, which sometimes issue from the physical and emotional abuse of childhood.

“We’ve found the more abuse a child suffers, the more likely they are to engage in risky sexual behavior,” Hawkins said. “One of the key factors in sexual addiction is a sense of unworthiness.”

And then there’s the lure of crystal methamphetamine, which Hawkins said has become associated with casual sex for some men.

“Methamphetamine may also increase a person’s susceptibility to infection by suppressing immune function,” he said.

“The whole epidemic of crystal meth started in the Southwest because it’s relatively cheap.”

Crystal meth is an addictive stimulant.

On the streets in Santa Fe and elsewhere in America it’s called “Tina.” Short for Christina. Like the name you would give to an old friend.

It’s readily available on the street.

But so is death.

Sometimes it takes only one unprotected encounter to have AIDS enter your blood stream. One encounter and your life becomes disposable.

Sing a song of sad you men/

All the news is bad again/

Kiss your dreams goodbye/

All the sad young men choking on your youth/

Trying to be brave running from the truth

— Song lyrics by Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman

Denise Kusel’s columns run Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Call her at 490-0180, or e-mail dkusel@sfnewmexican.com.