Why do gay men have higher rates of substance abuse, depression, suicide, smoking and sexually transmitted disease — creating a subgroup that is less happy and healthy than the general population?
The Institute of Medicine's "The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding," a 2011 review of numerous major studies, noted that heavy drug or alcohol use — common in the gay culture preceding sex — is a risk factor for HIV transmissions.
PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN
James Brandon, actor and co-founder of I Am Love: Being abused as a child "was an easy way to ... not take responsibility for myself."
PHOTO BY ANNE FISHBEIN
Andrew Extein, of Silver Lake, finds West Hollywood's gay mecca "not very life-affirming."
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Simply put, people who get too high lose their judgment and have unprotected sex, known in gay culture as "barebacking."
The panel also mentions Meyer's minority stress model, citing societal discrimination as an explanation for mental health problems among gay men. Meyer, when asked if gay men themselves play a role in their mental and physical health troubles, responds, "I don't like to put it that way." He avoids discussing the notion that decades of focus among gays on their victimization by the outside world might be a piece of the problem.
From the late 1970s to the early '90s, Buffalo State College sociology professor Thomas S. Weinberg conducted a longitudinal study on the drinking habits of gay men in Southern California. Compared with today, it was an era of heightened homophobia. At the study's end, Weinberg rejected the widely promoted idea that a homophobic society was driving gay men to excessive drink. Instead, he found, abuse of alcohol was far more affected by a man's own choice — the friends he kept.
"It's basically a subcultural thing," Weinberg says, "and so much of gay culture is steeped in alcohol."
His longitudinal findings, after tracking people for more than a decade, made Weinberg a strong proponent of "reference group theory," which says that our close friends and associates become strong reference points for how we should conduct our lives.
If a 28-year-old gay man hangs out with heavy drinkers, for example, over time there's a good chance he'll mimic his friends. Conversely, if the 28-year-old socializes with people who don't emphasize drinking, there's a good chance he'll drink moderately over the years, if at all.
Beverly Hills psychologist Alan Downs, in his well-received book The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World, which offers ways for gay men to live more authentic and healthier lives, urges gay men to "carefully guard and assess those individuals you allow into your inner circle of intimacy. Their influence is monumental."
Young guys who run with a promiscuous crowd in Los Angeles or West Hollywood and who engage in barebacking — two high-risk factors for getting HIV — are setting a norm for themselves and others, although they may not realize it. Weinberg argues that, as long as they choose that crowd, chances are good that these young men will act like their peers — dramatically upping the chances they will become HIV-positive.
And once that happens, life alters dramatically. AIDS Healthcare's Weinstein notes that HIV treatment is "serious chemotherapy" and not "just a matter of popping a pill, and I don't know anyone who got infected who just said, 'It's nothing.' There are a lot of psychological effects in which people ask, 'Will anyone love me?' 'What will I tell my mother?' 'What will I tell my friends?' 'What do I tell a date?' 'Do I want to have a relationship with someone who's [HIV]-negative?' "
Weinstein and Weinberg are relatively rare voices. But as Weinberg explains, "Choice is very important. We choose our friends and relationships."
On a hot, bright day in Studio City, James Brandon sits in the shade outside the Aroma Café with friend Nic Arnzen. For six years, Brandon and Arnzen have been touring the world with Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi, which posits Jesus as a gay man living in modern-day Texas. Arnzen is the director and a cast member. Brandon plays Jesus.
Arnzen lives with a partner and their two adopted children, and Brandon lives in an American midcentury home with his boyfriend in Sherman Oaks. The two are editing a documentary about the play's world-tour experiences, titled Corpus Christi: Playing With Redemption, while preparing to open the play in the Midwest. Amidst this, they are launching the "self-empowerment" campaign I Am Love.
The two men exemplify friends whose influence upon one other has been positive. Through their play, their documentary and their new campaign, they hope to reduce homophobia in the religious world, and perhaps improve life a bit for all.
Over the years, Brandon and Arnzen began noticing that McNally's play was having an emotional, even spiritual, effect on cast members and some in the heavily LGBT audiences. After the play, people openly discussed love, self-acceptance and forgiveness — messages heard from Jesus' character in the play.
Brandon and Arnzen wanted the larger gay community to benefit from such healing and spiritual concepts, but knew that religious leaders' decades of attacks on gays had driven many of them away from forms of spirituality. They decided to confront anti-gay religious attitudes with love, not antagonism.
