~ Sex-Positive Sexual Ethics ~
By John R. Ballew, M.S.
Copyright 2005 all rights reserved
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Our North A dear friend -- bright, loving, sexy and sophisticated -- informed me the other day that he
had recently had unprotected anal sex with a stranger. A client told me the same thing later that day.
In fact, several clients have told me the same thing over the past several months. These are not
stupid men. They were not seeking out “bareback” sex. Rather, they found themselves in an erotic
encounter with someone who turned them on and decided not to stop it.
A former safer sex educator in Atlanta recently charged that gay men care more about their next
orgasm than about their own lives. He expressed deep frustration over his lack of success in
“educating” men to make other choices. Is he right? Are there things we gay men don’t know about
safer sex? Are we such pleasure-seekers that we lose sight of our own well-being in the process?
Organized religion, God knows, has been of no help whatsoever in helping gay men cultivate a
workable sexual ethic. Worse than that: it has been a destructive force that has often sought to keep
our sexuality criminalized and our relationships unsupported. Small wonder that conversation about
sexuality and ethics or morality makes many gay men highly defensive.
A crisis is in bloom within our community. Call it the confluence of protease inhibitors, internalized
homophobia and unclear thinking about responsibility. After years of safer sex education, infection
rates may actually be going up in our community. We’ve not had much conversation about this. We
fear seeming judgmental. It is hard to admit that we are sometimes confused. Yet it is increasingly
costly to let our anger at traditional moralists keep us from reflecting on our lives.
My experience is that few of the men having unprotected sex are “barebackers” in the sense that they
have gone out specifically to have no-condom sex with a partner. (Of course, others do seek no-
condom sex.) More often the decision to use or not use a condom seems a small decision in the heat
of the moment.
Take the messages from years of homophobic indoctrination that the lives of gay men are not worth
much. Add in naive optimism about the complex realities of life with HIV. Toss in some denial and a
generous heaping of horniness. Stir and serve. The result of this “cocktail” is risky sex and more HIV.
In the twenty-first century, most men know how to use a condom properly. (If you don’t, please don’t
be embarrassed. Contact an AIDS service organization and find out.) The issue here is not education.
The issue is: what do we truly believe about ourselves and about our brothers?
Masculine sexiness is often divorced from intimacy in our culture. Emotional sophistication and the
capacity to nurture are not highly valued in men. Fashion ads and gay porn, two agents which define
our community’s sense of what is hot, portray the combination of physical beauty and a certain
aloofness as the model of the sexy man.
Think about how this plays out in conversations (non-conversations, really) about safer sex. To avoid
shame about sexuality or about our uncertainties, some men turn to crystal, ecstasy and other drugs
which turn up the volume of sensation while dampening the voices that cause us to second-guess the
erotic encounter. Or we simply try to avoid making sexual decisions, hoping the other person will take
the initiative. If he doesn’t, we’re too distracted by the conversations in our head to do so ourselves.
Thus is created much wishful thinking. One HIV-negative friend told me, “He was such a sweet guy. So
caring. We didn’t talk about it, but I knew that he must be negative or he would never have fucked me
without a condom.” Another friend, this one positive, told me about a similar encounter: “I knew the
guy I was boinking had to be positive. I mean, it was a sex club! We didn’t even have to talk about it;
he just wanted it.” In the absence of conversation, we imagine whatever supports that which we want
to do anyway.
We are accustomed to hearing ethics and morality connected with sexuality only in terms of “Thou
shalt nots.” We need a sexual ethic that guides us instead toward having good sex. Good sex is sex
that you feel good about while you are having it, and good about afterwards. Gay men deserve good
sex. Unfortunately, many of us don’t believe that. We have grown up in a culture which beats into us --
sometimes literally -- that we are worth less than non-gay men, that our sexuality is an abomination
(and often a felony), that our lives are destined to be unhappy and that disease is our lot in life. Our
relationships are trivialized and recognition of them outlawed. This takes its toll. Most of us don’t buy
into this nonsense consciously, but it is difficult to avoid picking up foul odors when we are living in a
sewer of homophobia.
Imagine a gay sexual ethic that starts with the premise, “It is morally good to love yourself.” It builds on
this notion: loving yourself is good, affirming yourself as a gay man is good. It is good -- that is moral,
ethical -- to act in ways which expand your love and care for yourself, other gay men and our gay
community.
Sexuality is powerful, but it is neither good nor bad in and of itself. It can be a fabulous way of
enjoying one’s body, perhaps connecting with another person, or it can manifest pain through abuse,
rape or betrayal.
What if the level of our consciousness in our sexual connections rather than the context became the
way we assessed whether they were right or wrong for us? Good sex can be part of a committed
relationship or outside of it, but sex is sufficiently powerful that it is always relational. Perhaps you
and I just met on the dance floor and we are now headed back to my place. Imagine a sexual ethic
which acknowledges that because we are both men who love men, any sex we have is taking
place in that context. I will not treat you thoughtlessly. I will do my best to treat you as a sacred
being, and will do my best to allow no harm to come either to you or to myself.
This is very different from models of morality presented by either the American church (“Sex is
immoral if it doesn’t take place in the context of marriage”) or the prevailing gay male model (“Sexual
morality is a private matter and not that important.”) In this new ethic, I acknowledge that I am not only
attracted to your physicality, but also to the way in which you are a reflection of myself. I like what I
see when I look at you, and I would be devastated at the thought of bringing harm into your life or my
own.
Loving men is good, and being gay is good. We need to make our community more gay by learning to
treat one another with concern and to place the other’s welfare on a par with our own. It is possible to
speak our pain and concern without condemning our brothers. We need to stop being silent in the
face of behavior that objectifies other men or reinforces they idea that the lives of gay men are not
worth all that much.
John R. Ballew, M.S., is a licensed professional counselor in private practice in Atlanta. He specializes in issues related to coming out,
sexuality and relationships, spirituality and career. He can be reached via the web at www.bodymindsoul.org or at (404) 874-8536.
© Copyright 2005 John R. Ballew, M.S. All rights reserved.
The BRC extends thanks to John R. Ballew for his gracious consent to display and archive his contributions on this site. Any duplication
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