Going in for a HIV/STI screen should be as normal and as easy as walking into the local deli for a carton of milk.
So, why do so many guys feel that it is more like walking into a sex shop for the first time – filled with anxiety, shame and embarrassment? The answer lay in the myth that ‘good gays’ shouldn’t need a sexual health screen.
After a number of online sexual behaviour surveys into gay men’s activities, the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society social researchers have noted there is an interesting phenomenon arising out of a post-HIV world – the ‘good gay/bad gay’ dichotomy.
A ‘good gay’, apparently, stays at home with his partner (who is also a ‘good gay’), believing neither of them need a sexual health screen because they don’t have sex with other guys, so of course they would never have an STI.
‘Bad gays’, conversely, have loads of sexual partners and go for STI screens- sometimes proudly, and sometimes with a sense of shame. It’s even worse if they have an STI, God forbid!
The social researchers received lots of ‘good gay’ responses to their surveys, but had a hell of a time finding those happy to admit to a robust sex life. This skewed the data and just didn’t gel with the level of STI notifications nationwide. How could so many claim to be ‘good gays’ and yet we have increasing levels of Chlamydia, Gonorrhoea and Syphilis?
One theory is gay men are hesitant to be honest with themselves and their partners about their activities. For fear of being branded a ‘bad gay’, many guys will also resist getting a regular STI screen. When anxious sexual partners ask that irksome question, ‘are you clean?’ they can, in all good conscience and within their knowledge, answer honestly, ‘yes’. But without testing how can they really know?
For many years, gay men have been finger-wagged into submission about promiscuity. Claiming sex as fun and pleasurable, albeit doing it safely, is a difficult renaissance. Increases in HIV/STI notifications shows that at least some of these devoted ‘good gays’ are, on the odd occasion, dabbling in the darker side of things – unprepared, under-resourced and unknowledgeable. Therein lays the danger.
The message is simple, really. A regular STI screen is a socially responsible act. It doesn’t make you a bad gay.
For more information about STI’s, HIV and testing, contact the WA AIDS Council on 9482 0000 or waac@waaids.com
Project X team
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