The next day John tells all his friends about his "conquest." They
ask if he used a condom. "Oh, yes," he lies. "Think I'm crazy?" And with
that the circle of lies and fear, pleasure, and propriety that is the
single greatest distortion caused by the AIDS epidemic is complete. This
is sex in the age of death. Of course casual sex is alive and well.
Naturally this generation thinks twice or perhaps thrice before they do
it, but they still do it. The biggest difference is that they say they
are not doing it. This is more than anything a matter of phraseology: A
man may say he had great sex with a girl for "a couple of weeks"; the
girl may say that she had a "relationship and went out with a guy for a
month." But the events described were the same. And many people are still
happy to risk it:
Harold is a 27-year-old black cab driver who hails from Las Vegas.
A part-time model, he once posed naked for Playgirl He tells me that
women, white and black, proposition him all the time.
Harold: 'Sure I do it, man. Why not? Yeah, I always wear a condom,
but I do all the ones I can.'
Me: "Every cab driver claims that."
Harold (laughing): "You don't believe me? You don't believe that
even with AIDS they still want it? Well, look at this ." He pulls down
the window visor and throws a wad of paper scraps into my lap.
Each has a feminine scrawl on it, with a name and phone number.
"And that was only last week," he laughs.
The Fear
Are we afraid of catching AIDS? Of course we are. No gathering of
twentysomethings is complete without an AIDS discussion, and without
members telling each other that, while they know the risks, they
themselves are not in danger.
The subject is dominated by wishful thinking. The prime rule about
the fear of AIDS is: the less likely a person is to catch the virus, the
more he or she is paranoid about it. Married couples are often
inexplicably more afraid than swinging singles. And, recently, men were
jubilant to read that, providing they were not gay or intravenous drug
users, according to published reports, the woman was far more likely to
catch the disease in any case. They were safe, and condoms were
unnecessary; the woman bore the risk.
At a cheap Sunday brunch in New York's Greenwich Village, Jim, 25,
a lawyer at a middle-size firm, is sitting with Brad, 28, an unemployed
architect. Jim: "The basic point is that we can't catch it, unless we're
really unlucky, 'cause girls don't sleep with gay guys, right? And
anyway, it's almost impossible to catch it from a girl. It's in the
Playboy article.'
Brad: "Sure, the whole thing is a myth. The only straight AIDS
victims are drug addicts, or people who get infected blood. It's all a
matter of statistics.'
But where I live, the "statistics" totter the streets: pale
spectres of death, leaning on walking !ticks, with faces made of aged
parchment stretched thinly over brittle bones.
Condoms, Class and Looks
To use a condom is the Death of Love; not to use one is Love of
Death. But safe sex is the big question: Is everyone using them all the
time? No. Is everyone saying they use them? Yes.
The condom is now a fact of life (as is evident in the springing up
of drive-thru "Condom Hut" shops-sort of like Fotomats for the sexually
active guy and gal on the go), but most women still have no idea how much
men hate them, and how they will often do anything-including taking a
risk-rather than use one. Many of the guys I spoke to believed the best
idea was to sleep with younger girls: less experienced, less risky. The
trouble is that teenage cherubs can often have the morals of alley
cats.
Greg, a 24-year-old fashion executive, has come up with a different
solution: "If I decide that I need to wear a condom to have sex with a
girl, I usually won't sleep with her at all. What's the attraction in
having sex with a woman who may be carrying a fatal disease?"
Safe sex has given rise to a new set of double standards: Many
women, for example, carry condoms in their purses, although the discovery
of this treasure trove is enough to terrify any man into thinking his new
partner is wildly promiscuous. I myself carry two condoms in my wallet at
all times, and the usual reaction from girls when I pull them out is not
to commend me for my safety, but to suggest that I obviously frequent
"unsafe sluts."
So how do twentysomethings make the safe-sex decision to use a
condom? The unpalatable truth is that the decision is often based on
class and appearance. Guys and girls often feel the need to use a condom
with partners of a "lower class.' Why?. Because they believe-quite
wrongIy-that people in lower classes are more promiscuous than those of
their own status. (This is ridiculous. You don't have to read Jackie
Collins to know that the richer the class, the more debauched its
habitues.)
As an example, my friend Paddy, 23, who is from New Hampshire and
works as a salesman, was with me one evening last summer in a dance club.
A girl he didn't know danced very close to him, and finally they gathered
their things and came up to say goodbye. Paddy's face was triumphant,
because he was taking her home, and apologetic, because he was abandoning
your miserable reporter alone at the bar.
Me: `You'd better use a condom.'
Paddy: (leaning over and whispering in my ear) "No way. She was at
Berkeley. She knows Lisa."
Tags:
AIDS,
aids epidemic,
andwell,
casual sex,
condoms,
cowboy boots,
feature writers,
heterosexual male,
loins,
no doubt,
pony tails,
prestigious magazines,
promiscuity,
readership surveys,
rela,
reminiscences,
sexual habits,
splendid isolation,
twenty-something,
twentysomethings,
wishful thinking,
world of sex,
younger generation
