Is gay sex our superpower? The editors of this new anthology about PrEP and promiscuity think so!

Gay sex remains a taboo subject for serious analysis and discussion for many people, including some members of the LGBTQ+ community. For this reason alone, A Pill for Promiscuity: Gay Sex in an Age of Pharmaceuticals is a refreshing read.

It’s one of three books launched to mark the birth of the new publishing house Q+Public, an offshoot of Rutgers University Press. It aims to curate semi-academic and cultural LGBTQ+ collections from leading thinkers, writers and artists.

The book is edited by Andrew R. Spieldenner and the late Jeffrey Escoffier. In a Zoom call from San Francisco, Spieldenner explains how the book came about.

“I was talking with Jeffery and I thought, no one’s really talking about this,” he tells Queerty. “About how there are all these kinds of medications in our lives as gay men. We’re not really talking about these pills that everyone’s taking to engage in sexual activities.”

He’s talking chiefly about PrEP and pills for erectile dysfunction. Spieldenner is HIV-positive, so also takes antiretroviral medication to remain undetectable. He and Escoffier decided that a collection of essays and articles on the topic was worth pursuing.

“We thought let’s bring really interesting and cool people together who have a political point of view about sex, and let them play and see what kind of conversations happen.”

Sex and shame

Contributors include “Mister Pam”, a porn creator, and the cartoonist Steve MacIsaac. Australia’s Kane Race talks about the initial reluctance expressed by many gay men when PrEP first appeared on the scene. And Lore/tta LeMaster discusses sex, pleasure and gender.

As the editors say in their forward, “As gay, bi, queer and trans people, we have been shamed for our desire.” It’s a theme that runs through the book: The shame we feel and how that manifests itself.

One of the writers in the collection suggests advocates so amplified the “love wins” message and embraced “respectability politics” that queer sex was swept under the carpet, replaced instead by the “domestication of homosexual eroticism.”

We sometimes judge other queer men harshly if they appear to live without shame. Afraid of how enjoying too much sex may make us look to others, some men deny themselves opportunities for sexual pleasure.

We also receive no formal gay sex education and often have to pick it up as we go along. Or from pornography.

It all makes for a thought-provoking read.

Related: HIV-negative men with HIV-positive partners talk love, sex and stigma

From the arrival of AIDS to a post-PrEP world

I was surprised the collection began with an old essay from 1988 by Andrew Holleran, who used to write essays for Christopher Street magazine. This particular one, published at the height of the AIDS epidemic, is about promiscuity.

It actually proves to be the perfect starting point, looking back at the wildly promiscuous times of the late 1970s, and the dramatic shift that gay men faced in their sexual behavior. Many of his observations about promiscuity are just as relevant today.

I’m old enough to remember those times and the fear of HIV/AIDS. I remember having a one-night stand with a fellow university student circa 1990. Such was his deep fear of the virus, he was happy to kiss and masturbate, but nothing more.

How far we have come since then.

And yet, still, some gay men judge others for being on PrEP. Or  for choosing not to use condoms and who trust the science of U=U (Undetectable=Untransmittable). Spieldenner is familiar with such attitudes.

Related: This Texas lawyer wants to cut off access to PrEP because it “enables homosexual behavior”

He says he was “surprised given all the work we’ve done in our community about being pro-sex, trying to liberate our sex lives” about the “conservative backlash” from within the community to PrEP when it first appeared in the early 2010s.

Sex, stigma and hookup apps

Spieldenner adds that the whole “Truvada Whore” label has subsided in the last decade. However, a similar disdain can be shown to those who engage in sex work or have an OnlyFans. He himself has been open in the past about using sex workers.

“And when I published it, people have been very shocked that I’ve published it. I just had a piece published yesterday on it, and one of the reviewers was like, ‘You shouldn’t publish this article’,” he laughs.

“Slut-shaming” persists, even though the way in which we find our sexual partners has changed enormously. Spieldenner remembers cruising in bars and on the street. Nowadays, it’s mainly via apps like Grindr and Scruff.

We both agree that younger gay men today seem to be clearer about what they want to do, sexually. Perhaps it’s a by-product of the fact we now often write it down in bios. It becomes more a part of our identity. Maybe it’s the easier accessibility of porn.

Perhaps they just feel less shame than older generations, and emboldened by the medications they’re on.

I suggest to Spieldenner that with rimming scenes in The White Lotus, and Lil Nas X making out with other men in his videos, gay sex is entering the mainstream. He demurs, saying that the situation in other parts of the world suggests otherwise.

He highlights draconian anti-gay laws in Iran, Russia and Indonesia. As the Executive Director of the non-profit organization MPact: Global Action for Gay Health & Rights, he says that getting doctors at an LGBTQ+ clinic in Vietnam to talk openly about queer sex has proved a challenge. Despite working in health, the conversations remain awkward.

Access to PrEP

Closer to home, A Pill For Promiscuity also highlights health inequalities within the US. One chapter illustrates one young, gay Black student’s challenges in accessing PrEP. It’s why Spieldenner thinks the White House’s plan to end HIV transmission by 2030 is “not feasible.”

“The health disparities are too extreme,” he suggests. “The way the health system is structured, those health disparities are kind of baked into the way medicine does its work in the US.”

Despite these ongoing challenges and somber notes, I also found A Pill For Promiscuity life-affirming. Writer Alex Garner argues that “gay sex is our superpower” that unites men and fosters their ability to build communities and networks.

One line that jumped out at me was that “Sex is healing.” Having spent decades being warned of the dangers of sex, it knocked me sideways. It was simply something no one had ever suggested to me when I was younger.

“It’s amazingly healing,” concurs Spieldenner. “I think touch and the ability to be with somebody else, or even masturbation, can be incredibly healing.”

Jeffrey Escoffier

Sadly, Spieldenner’s co-editor, Jeffrey Escoffier (“one of my closest friends and an incredibly important intellectual figure and mentor”), died after the book was completed. As we bring our chat to an end, he fondly remembers his late friend and tries to explain why this subject was so close to his heart.

“For Jeff, the miracle of queerness and the miracle of queer sex was the ways in which we express ourselves, find ourselves, and find community through it,” he says. “Queers and gay men in particular are able to build community out of sexual contact, and I think that is evident in the book.”

“Jeff would want everyone to be in a bar, reading this book and laughing about it. Or being uncomfortable and talking about it in some way.”

A Pill for Promiscuity: Gay Sex in an Age of Pharmaceuticals is out now.