As made evident by Jeff and Martin, the individual gay man cannot unconditionally rely on the empathy of the men who share his erotic lifestyle. When the stigmatizing misfortune befalls the unprepared gay man, he is left alone, segregated by his own people. As suggested by Simmel: “The purpose of secrecy is, above all, protection” (1969 [1908]: 345).
Martin continued to complain about the habits of gay men who also conceal their specific sexual preferences. In particular, they would not admit they were “bottoms” (in the sexual act). Instead, they would usually claim they were “flexible” on the ladder of sexual orientation between the extremes (from full bottoms to full tops), depending on the partner they met. Martin was somewhat unusual in his openness, admitting he was a “100% bottom” despite originating from a masculine, macho, small-town in Texas. However, he stressed, it was stigmatizing to admit being a bottom, even though it was so much a part of gay sexuality. The stigma of HIV, he claimed, was also associated with the assumption that its victims were mostly bottoms.
At this moment of intimate revelations, Jeff repeated in detail the history of his health condition and the side effects of the medication regime he had experienced in the foregoing ten years. I could now comprehend the source of the ailments I knew already, the periods of depression, and the role of the therapist Jeff so admired.
Martin could not stay for dinner, which allowed Jeff and me to discuss other personal issues. I also learned, as in past meetings, the story of his current relationship with Martin, which had started as a wild sexual encounter at a party in the country residence Martin shared with his partner of many years. It developed into a complex though difficult threesome. For a long time, Martin had had no sexual relations with his partner who continued to dominate him due to his superior financial position in their comfortable home economics. Jeff, who was afraid of remaining alone, expressed his wish to work out a full conjugal relationship with Martin. But for Martin, to separate from his partner would entail a severe loss of his affluent lifestyle. So we were back at our usual intimate communication, as I also contributed from my own life and work experiences.
On my next visit to New York a few months later, in April 2009, we returned to the same subject, which bonded us more than ever before. As suggested by Lynd, “The very fact that shame is an isolating experience also means that if one can find ways of sharing and communicating it, this communication can bring about particular closeness with other persons and with other groups” (1958: 66). Jeff again planned to stay overnight at my place, an opportunity that also allowed him to meet with Martin (at his nearby town residence) for a few hours on the days of arrival and departure. During our phone conversation I commented jokingly that I hoped he was not planning to drag me again in the early morning to the nearby emergency room.
He arrived at my place in the late afternoon in the company of Martin. They were visibly cheerful, having already spent together a few hours at Martin’s apartment enjoying the absence of his partner. Martin soon left for home, and Jeff complained to me about their situation. He felt he was lonely. Martin appeared unable to terminate his unhappy lifelong partnership with his abusive mate, and Jeff had no other close relatives to rely on. Sadly, he realized he could not depend on close friends either (as related in Chapter 10, Jeff and Martin later moved to Florida together).
That comment, however, reopened a wound of painful memories related to the discovery of his HIV status. Jeff reminisced about the time in 1995 when he volunteered to participate in an epidemiological research project on health conditions affecting gay men; it was then that he was identified as carrying HIV. It was a terrible day. He felt the ground trembling under his feet. He tried to find out how it had happened: who had infected him with that disastrous disease?
Jeff soon discovered the heavy social price of HIV. He started a romantic relationship with a man to whom he felt he should be open about the virus. They had dinner at a Village restaurant when he told him about his medical condition. Without uttering a word the man stood up and left the table. Jeff remained totally devastated and ashamed, feeling he was “a piece of dirt.” He often asked himself, “What have I done to be punished so cruelly? I didn’t drink alcohol, didn’t take drugs—I just wanted to enjoy good ordinary sex!”
Still, only in 1998 was his immune system seriously weakened. He was ordered by his doctor to start a rigorous medication regime. He then endured another unexpected humiliation as he approached a close gay friend, a scientist employed at a pharmaceutical company. In a phone conversation he asked him about the side effects of the medication prescribed to him. Instead of a friendly, soothing piece of advice, he received an irate response: “‘Get used to it!’ he yelled at me.” As Jeff repeated the response that left him shattered, his face was flushed with anger. I was acquainted with this friend and his partner, whom I had met at CBST many years before. It was at their home at a Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) dinner breaking the fast that I had first met Jeff. This couple was often mentioned in our conversations. Yet despite that friend’s heartless reaction, when Jeff moved to Long Island he looked for an apartment in a neighborhood close to their residence. But since that episode Jeff had avoided mentioning his medical state in their presence, aware it was not a welcome subject in their exclusive Long Island neighborhood.
However, another blow awaited him from the same couple a few years later. They were planning to register for domestic partnership, a status granted to gay couples by the state. The medical expert’s partner indicated to Jeff that he would be invited as one of the two witnesses needed for the event at the mayor’s office. Jeff responded enthusiastically to the prospective invitation, which symbolized close friendship as well as a major political achievement for gay people. But as the scheduled date of the event approached, the partner tried to dissuade Jeff from attending, assuming it might oblige him to set out for the occasion too early in the morning. Jeff responded he would stay awake the night before to be on time for that great moment in his friends’ lives.
On the day of the happy occasion, Jeff arrived in good time, wearing his best suit, and waited in the corridor outside the mayor’s office. He now recognized two other acquaintances ready to attend the ceremony. Then, waiting to be called as a witness, he realized to his embarrassment that he was not one of the two witnesses invited to sign for his friends to confirm the legal procedure. Deeply hurt, he spent a few days in bed depressed and humiliated as never before. He felt he was not respectable enough for his “decent” affluent friends. They must have considered him a lower-class, sleazy, irresponsible, HIV-polluting gay man. As he tried to understand why he had not been told about the change of the appointed witnesses, the partner grew angry and asked him to stop nagging him on the subject. With no excuse forthcoming on their part, Jeff abandoned that friendship of many years. It was now a year since he had seen them last.
Jeff now returned to our own story. With tears in his eyes, he told me about the predicament he experienced whenever we got together: “I thought, here is my friend, an anthropologist who writes about the life of gay men. I should have told him about the suffering I go through and that of many others.” But he could not bring himself to confront another loss, which seemed inevitable in view of his observations of the frightened and brutal reactions of many gay men. Naturally, he was relieved when I accepted the embarrassing revelation with no overt sign of panic or disappointment. Moreover, he now suggested helping me connect to other HIV patients among his acquaintances, who might share with me their stories of infection and the ways they had accommodated their unhappy circumstances.
Obviously, I was relieved I had no need to employ my own devices to dig up what seemed to be the full story of Jeff’s HIV affliction and the reasons he had hidden it from his anthropologist friend. But would I have ever gotten to know that story if Jeff