Merchants of Death?

Perspective, July 2001

Over the course of the last few months I have been sensing an undercurrent of disdain directed toward me by some of the local Phoenix bartenders. I thought perhaps it was my imagination, but my concerns were confirmed not too long ago by a bar employee whom I have known as a friend for nearly a decade, when I confronted him after receiving the cold shoulder for a couple of weeks. He replied by hissing these words at me:

"You're selling unsafe sex!"

Not that that was any kind of recent or startling revelation. He's known about barebackjack.com since the beginning, nearly three years now. I can understand how he and other bartenders may have learned to develop somewhat of a negative attitude toward barebacking. Many people in the gay community have. Our community bar owners, bartenders and other bar staff have been instrumental over the last two decades in holding AIDS fundraisers and handing out rubbers like candy. They have been taught that bareback is bad and safe sex is good.

Still, this bullshit of acquaintances and friends in the bar business pretending I don't exist, or glowering at me as if I were the villain in this picture has me incredibly miffed. They are in effect suggesting that I'm marketing death via the internet. I don't see it that way. I'm not selling sex. I'm pushing porn. There is a tremendous difference. Sex (real sex) requires another physical body to have sex with. Or, a watermelon with a hole in it. Porn requires only imagination. Were I selling sex itself, I'd be hauled off to the big house on charges of international prostitution on the web.

Nonetheless, the truly maddening thing is the gall these bartenders, these Primadonnas of Pabst, have in accusing me of marketing death when they are more than guilty of doing that exact thing at an alarmingly high rate. It's the stuff they are selling that should be concerning society.

According to figures posted on the websites of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Surgeon General of the United States, and the BBC in London, alcohol and tobacco products account for the death of over 500,000 Americans each year. AIDS, by contrast, has taken just under 450,000 lives in its entire twenty-year history. In other words, the products that my bartender friends are pushing to their patrons have more than twenty times the potential for causing death than HIV. Put a simpler way, alcohol and tobacco kill over TWENTY TIMES more Americans than HIV.

So now, my bartender friends, which of us is more accurately the Merchant of Death?

While these dedicated bar folk host AIDS fundraisers, and donate their tips to the cause, they are simultaneously serving up endless bottles and glasses of proven toxins to the very people they are claiming to be interested in "protecting". With this knowledge, there is something fundamentally and morally wrong in handing a patron a condom instead of taking away his car keys after soliciting him cocktails... or even in serving the drinks to begin with. And their pointing fingers and showing disdain for those of us who openly enjoy barebacking while ignoring their part in increasing the mortality rate in this country is clearly hypocritical.

When it comes to barebacking, I'm admittedly guilty of never using rubbers in my personal sexual encounters. But when it comes to what I purvey, this website and its content...well, I think it is safe to say that no-one has ever died from fantasy poisoning, or cancer of the imagination...or even from an overdose of masturbation for that matter.

Oh, how our fears have been misdirected, and how easily we have come to embrace death by the glass! Our society enjoys its love affair with booze and cigarettes to the point of ignoring the inherent danger that comes as a result of putting the glass or the filter tip to the lips... especially when something as simple as the natural act of having unprotected sex can be vilified instead. There is so much fear in our community and society at large regarding HIV and AIDS. It's sad, though, how many gay men drown their anxiety over HIV in bottle after bottle of booze, unaware of how much more dangerous it is to them to drink their cocktails than to screw without rubbers.

It is also interesting to note that the companies who manufacture protease inhibitors, and the doctors who prescribe them, refer to these drug combination programs as "cocktails". And what do these drug "cocktails" do but poison the system in minute doses? It is not hard to see that (the exceptions perhaps being shrimp or fruit cocktails) the word "cocktail" has come to mean "poison".

So, if I understand the general consensus, having sex without a condom is a death wish, but going out to a bar and tossing down a few beers is keeping the party going? Tell that to the 500,000+ people who will die this year of any number of complications brought about by the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. HIV is a manageable disease, and current projections predict the average HIV positive person can survive a reasonably healthy life for twenty years following infection. But how many can survive that long without their liver or a lung?

There's another little hidden twist in here, too. We all know how a person can become infected with HIV. But how many new infections come as a direct result of using substances like alcohol or other drugs? After all, alcohol has the wonderful ability to compromise your immune system, impair your judgement, and heighten your libido all in the same bottle. How many men, following a night of downing enough alcohol to be more than legally drunk, will go home with a complete stranger (or to some other trysting place), ditch the clothes, lie about their HIV status or avoid the subject altogether in order to get laid, and then agree to fuck or get fucked without condoms because of their alcohol-induced drop in reasoning power, only to wake up the next morning carrying the burden of fear over possibly having been exposed to HIV?

It happens. A lot.

One has to ask... was the act of barebacking under these fairly common circumstances agreed to with forethought and level-headedness or in a "sperm-of-the-moment" decision made in the heat of passion while under the influence of alcohol? Most states will not let you enter into a contractual agreement (ie: buying a house) or vote in an election while under the influence of alcohol. Yet we can sure fuck with our lives and flirt with death after tying one on. Can't we? So why not take personal responsibility (or lack thereof) out of the picture and just blame the guy with the website for all the new cases of HIV?

It should be remembered that alcohol and drugs can and do contribute more to the spread of HIV and other STD's than barebacking while sober can. By comparison, barebacking doesn't spread alcoholism or increase your potential for suffering from cancers of the lung, throat, mouth and esophagus, or sclerosis of the liver.

In light of this information, how is it that we barebackers are the bad guys?

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At the risk of never being served anything by a gay bartender ever again, I present to you the statistics from the CDC, BBC and Surgeon General:

Assuming these figures have remained relatively constant over the last 2 decades, AIDS has claimed under 5 percent the number of lives that have been claimed by alcohol and tobacco.

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So, you see, it is possible that you could follow all the safe sex guidelines, never drink a drop of alcohol, and never smoke a cigarette or cigar, or chew tobacco, and yet just by the act of going to a bar (California excluded) you could run the risk of acquiring lung cancer from the atmosphere of second-hand smoke and consequently die.

Hell, you wouldn't even have to be near a bar to be killed by a drunk driver.

Allow me to suggest some more practical uses for condoms:

(this is not a product endorsement)

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I am a firm believer that harmony in our society comes in a large part from sharing information. Therefore I should clarify that I am not presenting this information in order to create any new hysteria or start a pissing match between myself and the nightclub industry. Nor am I attempting to generate a worldwide boycott on businesses that sell liquor or tobacco products. I am only trying to remind those in the bar/tavern industry of their place in the chain of death. If they want to alienate patrons who are known to have sex without condoms, or those like me who work to educate people about the joys and risks of barebacking, they should also take a really hard look in the mirror and find that the more prevalent merchants of death might just be themselves.

If there are fingers to be pointed, I'll take my due on the receiving end... but I am certainly not about to be shamed into feeling guilty or remorseful about portraying images, stories, and opinions about unprotected sex when the finger-pointer is someone whose occupation causes so much more proven potential to kill the same public.

In closing, let me be clear on one thing. I am not casting any sort of condemnation against the countless fine, upstanding and socially-concerned bartenders in our community. Nor am I rallying against the ATF or any liquor production or distribution company for producing the stuff. I like my beer as well as the next guy. I am simply chastising those people who serve liquor and tobacco, and then have the hypocrisy to speak out or develop biases against those who openly admit they bareback. And I am presenting documented information that will hopefully put things back into perspective and lessen the hysteria aimed at those of us who would rather keep it natural.

If, however, your local bar employees or patrons ever give you flak and treat you as though you are evil incarnate because you have sex without condoms, simply remind them it's not their place to judge you on how you have sex or with whom (unless, of course it's their husband), nor are they obliged to agree with your decision about barebacking. Then remind them of the facts surrounding their industry. It's entertaining to watch them having to eat the very crow they had planned on serving you.

Be brave. Be strong. Know your shit.

Here's to your health!
Bareback Jack

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