San Francisco Chronicle - October 6, 2004
Suzanne Herel, sherel@sfchronicle.com

They're the newest way for gay men diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease to tell their sex partners about their condition.

The program is called InSPOT -- an acronym for Internet Notification Service for Partners or Tricks -- and it premieres today, paid for by the San Francisco Department of Public Health STD Services and run by a local group called Internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS).

Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, who directs the city's STD Prevention Section, says the service is the first of its kind. Though it's not new for health officials to e-mail people exposed to a sexual disease using a list provided by the patient, InSPOT allows the person carrying the infection to make the notification.

"This goes beyond ... by empowering a community member to take the responsibility of informing partners themselves, and at the same time protecting individuals' privacy," he said.

The service is in response to a recent increase in STDs in gay men, Klausner said, with chlamydia being the most prevalent ailment.

A common way for gay men to meet casual sexual partners -- also called "tricks" -- is on the Internet, where the only identification they may glean is a screen name or e-mail address, so the service makes sense, Klausner says . He notes that more than half of the local cases of syphilis stem from meetings arranged online.

"STDs are an unfortunate consequence of sexual behavior the same way other infections may be a result of hiking, kayaking or contact sports," Klausner said. "If someone gets an STD, he should not be stigmatized."

Tom Kennedy, a gay man himself, was on the community advisory board that helped design the cards. "It took a lot of time to come up with language that didn't seem accusatory," said Kennedy, who now is program director of ISIS.

The group devised six pithy slogans, including: "It's not what you brought to the party, it's what you left with," "You're too hot to be out of action" and "I got screwed while screwing; you might have, too."

Deb Levine, executive director of ISIS, said: "The bottom line was they wanted fun. They wanted something that also speaks to the gay culture and gay lifestyle -- something you would find in a store in the Castro, not in a Hallmark store in the mall.

"We wanted to lighten up the issue a bit," she said. "It doesn't have to be all serious, fear-based and shameful."

Kennedy agrees. "How awkward are those phone calls, 'Hey remember me?' I hope this service will be less threatening."

The cards can be sent to as many as six e-mail addresses at a time and may be signed or anonymous. A drop-down menu of STDs lists eight diseases, from chlamydia to syphilis, but does not include being HIV-positive. Kennedy says the designers feared that spammers might use that attribute to scare people.

And while the service was designed with gay men in mind, it is available to anyone with a computer and Internet connection.

As for critics who may contend that the city's resources should go toward preventing STDs rather than creating edgy notification cards, Levine says that InSPOT is just another tool to try to attack the transmission of STDs.

"STDs will not be eradicated despite our best effort. As long as they're there, let's try to slow the transmission," she said. "What we heard from the advisory board loud and clear is that most men notify their (steady) partners, but they don't usually take the time to track down their sex buddies. While there may be a gnawing feeling in the back of their head, there just hasn't been a way to do it. This will give them a chance to be responsible."

Klausner says it will cost less than $20,000 annually to maintain the site, and another $20,000 will be spent on marketing, including a new billboard at Castro and Market streets.

Levine says that the only aspects of the Web site that will be monitored will be impersonal statistics, such as how often a particular card is used, and how many visitors the site receives.

"We are not collecting any personal information," she said.

The site, www.inspot.org, carries a request that visitors respect the service and use it responsibly.

"We'll just have to count on the good-natured side of humanity," Klausner said. "If there are abuses, we might have to consider shutting it down."

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