Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - January 4, 2002
Tanya Pampalone, Of The Examiner Staff
What is not obscene, the staff will tell you, are workshops like "Booty Call," Blow by Blow," "Leatherf**k" and "Great Sex."
When the federal government disagreed, the group set out to clear its name with full-page ads in local gay publications, the Bay Area Reporter and San Francisco Frontiers, to raise funds and let the community know that it was being "censored."
It's not that the group blushes at the label, but the definition could cost it $600,000 in funding, since federal guidelines prohibit funding projects that are obscene or encourage sexual activity.
The Stop AIDS Project, which provides HIV-prevention education for gay and bisexual men, says such out of context scrutiny of its programs set a dangerous precedent that threatens the health of queer men.
The workshops, it says, are not designed for just anybody, but for members of the high-risk community.
According to the Department of Public Health, 78 percent of HIV-infected people in San Francisco are gay and bisexual men and one in every three gay and bisexual men are HIV positive -- men who very likely contracted HIV through unprotected anal intercourse.
The "Booty Call" workshop, which discusses anal sex, was specifically named in the HHS report as violating the CDC guidelines.
"How can we talk about HIV transmission and not talk about anal sex?" program director Steve Gibson asked.
Gibson said the curriculum and the titles of the workshops are necessarily provocative. They are trying to reach people who could either attend an HIV-prevention class or go to a dance club or sex club for the night.
Workshops like Leatherf**k, a program to educate the leather community on HIV prevention, are designed in conjunction with the community, said Darlene Weide, Stop AIDS Project's incoming executive director.
"One size does not fit all," said Weide. "We want to make sure that the people who come to our workshops are not only people who are trying to maintain safe behaviors but also people who are risk takers."
But Roland Foster, a congressional aide on the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug policy and Human Resources, questioned just how far to push the provocative in the name of HIV prevention.
"Do they have to have live S&M to do that?" he asked. "Do they have to have fisting forums? How many people who came to 'Booty Call' didn't know that you use a condom or abstain from sex to prevent HIV infection?"
Foster was notified of the workshop content by Michael Petrelis, the independent AIDS activist who is now sitting in San Francisco County Jail on $500,000 bail, facing eight felonies and 11 misdemeanors for allegedly harassing and stalking AIDS researchers, public health officials and San Francisco Chronicle reporters. He forwarded the information to subcommittee head, conservative Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who asked the Health & Human Services to investigate.
Foster questioned the effectiveness of the workshops, pointing to the doubling of HIV infection rates in the gay population in the past few years.
"If their program is so effective, where is the proof?" he asked. But Steven Teirney, director of HIV prevention with the Department of Public Health, is satisfied with the group's internal reviews. He oversees the local materials review panel, which approves CDC-funded HIV/AIDS promotional material and related curriculum.
He said the workshops were designed by and for the local gay community, and admits they are not for everyone.
"(The programs) are not designed for rank and file San Franciscans ... or the people in Washington, D.C., that evaluated them," Tierney said.
With the support of the Center for Disease Control, DPH and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-S.F., -- who sent a letter in December to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson in support of the group -- the group has a strong base of defense. They will need it.
The outcome of the HHS investigation will reverberate across the AIDS nonprofit community, as Thompson has directed the HHS do a comprehensive review of all CDC-funded HIV/AIDS programs across the country.
The message is clear to Gibson.
"If Stop AIDS can be attacked and challenged in terms of whether we can do effective prevention, it's a dangerous precedent for gay agencies across the country," he said.
E-mail Tanya Pampalone at tpampalone@sfexaminer.com
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