>>24634850
They literally protested when the bathhouses were forced to close in SF and NY. Saying that straights were trying to assimilate them and stripping them of their uniqueness. Bruce Mailman was a NY businessman who operated who a few bathhouses. When his staff suggested he close them down because of the ongoing health crisis he fired them.

What you said however is true; they didn’t deserve to be abandoned and treated like this. I’ve read stories of funeral homes not accepting people who died of AIDS. It was a time full of appalling levels of discrimination.

I try to emphasize and see the world through their eyes. Here was a time where gay men were literally part of a social revolution and could be out and about enjoying relative freedom in their little gay bubbles in inner cities. And how do you punch in your timecard in this revolution? You put your dick in a guy’s ass. A simple look, a glance, no words needed and that’s all it took for sex to take place. It’s a very primal, very animalistic way of living that straights have no idea about. Just google the BDSM clubs of NY at that time. The Mineshaft and the Eagle come to mind. If straight people knew what went on in there they would’ve sent in the army.

I can see why it reached such a decadent level but I just find this kind of recklessness baffling. A whole generation of gay men literally fucking themselves to death. The gays of then really do embody the story of Icarus. All freedoms must have limits.

And what’s propping up the gay community today? Only science. At the end of the day men will be men and man’s appetite for sex is insatiable. So let’s be honest here, if it weren’t for PrEP and penicillin gay men would be extinct.