Water Sports - San Francisco Gay Men Try To Teach Safe Sex To Africans, The Straightest Men On The Planet

Louis Bennett of Noe Valley, San Francisco had been devastated by the deaths of so many of his friends from AIDS.  'Our comeuppance', he said.  'Too many holes in bathhouse walls, too many street corner to-dos, too many...' Enough, already! The damage had been done, remedial action taken, and it was time to give back to the community. 

Bennett had become known as Mr. Clean, advocate that he was for safe sex - things like fisting, water sports, and his favorite, 'planing' an acrobatic, muscular exercise which involved trussing, hooping, and greasing. The walls of his small office in the Mission were covered with Venice Beach men, all glistening muscles and skimpy Speedos.  He and his friends cruised the streets of the Castro not for pickups but for evangelism.  

'Save Your Life' was the headline, and Bennett worked the back corners of the neighborhood at all hours, breaking up grossly inappropriate, dangerous sex, risking his life especially on Castro Street in the dead of night when the Tough Boys roamed the streets. 

He rounded up volunteers to keep Bay-to-Breakers and the Folsom Street Fair clean, but had little success.  Both, especially the parade from bay to ocean, 100 percent flouncy gay, more colorful and  exuberant than Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but also the S&M extravaganza below Van Ness, were such fun romps that no one was listening to some gay boy preachers.

 

In any case, when the US State Department and its international development agency began to invest millions in AIDS prevention in Africa, its major contractor, the Academy for Social Education, contacted Bennett and asked if he and his group of activists might be interested in working in Africa, teaching black men the ins and outs of safe sex.  The San Francisco crew were pioneers in the field and their efforts would be welcomed in Africa. 

The Academy bid and won a major contract to work in West Africa, a hotbed for HIV infection, and Vice President William Shaver, a formerly closeted gay man who once out felt it only right and proper that he should do something for his community.  

Shaver had known Bennett in the good old days before the specter of viral infection, and in fact was a frequent visitor to Bennett's cat house on Valencia.  They would take in a Giants game, eat sushi, then head out for the clubs.  It was a wild, ecstatic time.  Bill's double life ended when he got careless and his wife found him in the attic - she thought it was raccoons - with his lover, and his new life as activist began. 

Now Africa is not only one of the straightest places on earth but one where serial, multiple, frequent sexual encounters are not only common but part of every man's day.  It takes two to tango, of course, and African women are as eager for a frequent roll in the hay as men.  Sex is going on in bedrooms, in the fields, on riverbanks, in brothels, in train compartments, in bus station restrooms, everywhere.  The idea of protection is anathema, condoms rejected out of hand, and abstinence is only for nuns. 

So, when the first group of gay men from San Francisco, ready to teach their African brothers the techniques of safe sex, made their way to the Hotel Independence and prepared for the first night out on the town, they had no way of knowing what to expect.  It was a little intimidating to be around all these big, black African men and to be honest, rather exciting; but as far as broaching the subject, they could only rely on their home experience.  

The USAID office's Health Division was responsible for the visit, and pulled out all the stops to arrange for a town meeting to be held in a neighborhood community center where they had distributed food. It was a kind of soup kitchen affair - to get fed you had to hear about Jesus - and in this case a buffet and beer was offered after Bennett and his associates finished their exposition.  

From the moment these gay boys sashayed up on stage - as flamingly, outrageously flamboyant as anyone from the Castro could be - they were hooted, jeered, and laughed at.  The whole assembly got up and danced the Can-Can in the aisles, stripping off their shirts, wagging their booty, and whooping and hollering with delight.  

The USAID handlers had all they could do to quiet the assembly down, but by this time they all had crowded to the buffet table and were already chowing down. 

The next evening was out of the movie The Birdcage where the drag queen, who has promised his lover to tone things down a bit when the lover's son and fiancée come to Miami to visit.  The drag queen, Albert, carefully dressed in conservative business suit and tie, sits properly before Armand and the young man, his shocking pink socks daringly showing.  When Armand points them out, Albert looks down and say, 'One does want a bit of color'; and so it was with Bennett and his crew, all conservatively dressed, proper, and professional with only bits of the Castro showing. 

When the subdued crowd saw the first images on the flip chart - water sports, men pissing on each other and getting off on it all - the bellowing, howling, and jumping in the aisles began as before, this time even more animated and wild.  Even the whiff of boiled meat and greens did nothing to quell the enthusiasm. 

'Where are the gay men?' asked Bennett of his USAID handler. 'Perhaps if they were on stage with us'. 

'They're pretty hard to find', he was told, and in fact social scientists had done recent surveys in Lagos and Accra to investigate this surprising demographic anomaly.  It was a commonly held scientific opinion that all societies had a predictably constant three percent gay population

'We can't find any', said team leader Axel Fanning, 'and we really tried.' 

Axel had sent out a team of American, African-looking gay men to cruise the neighborhoods, but without luck.  In fact they were met with more homophobia, crass and crude remarks, and outright hostility than they had ever encountered at home. 'My homeboys weren't up for it', said one researcher.  Researchers at Harvard laughed at the methodology, and dismissed the null findings; but that's all the USAID manager had to offer. 

So the Castro gay boys had to go out there once more with their pamphlets, flip charts, and good will, but it seemed that any sex other than banging women from all angles was unheard of, laughable and ridiculous. 

Getting African men to stop their Lotharian behavior was like keeping fat women away from the cheesecake.  It was not possible. 

AIDS prevention in Africa never worked, and only the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs slowed the infection and reduced to acceptable levels. Curing it, or keeping the virus in abeyance was Africa's only hope. 

'Meet any cute guys over there?', Bill asked Bennett upon his return; but of course that little perk never happened.  The best they could do was enjoy each other's company, but that was so old hat, particularly since they were all looking for some foreign adventure. 

The project was cancelled, the money returned, and the gay boys went back to San Francisco.  It was USAID all over again, and another prime example why the shuttering of its doors was a good thing. The whole episode was in the news, and photos accompanying the story - water sport flip charts and Africans dancing in the aisles - made USAID even more ridiculous than ever.  

USAID planners and programmers never had much sense in the first place, but 'Water Sports Go African' was the jewel in the crown.