Portraits: gay sex in the face of AIDS.

In Tony Valenzuela's world, freedom means having a lot of sex. He has sex for money and for free. He gets off in bathhouses, in sex clubs, and even in a new pornographic video. Sometimes the HIV-positive San Diego resident wears a condom. A lot of times he doesn't. "Sex with a condom is artificial sex," he says.

At 29, Valenzuela isn't the slightest bit ashamed of lbs busy sex life. And he thinks you shouldn't feel guilty about yours either -- no matter whether you're monogamous or a man-about-town, a top or a bottom, a condom user or a risk taker. "It's about making informed decisions where you feel comfortable," he says. "People are always saying unprotected sex equals AIDS. We keep pounding into people that they have to think this way. But it's not that simple. It's a complicated equation."

Valenzuela says he just can't resist the eroticism and joy of unsafe sex with a consenting partner. "Our goal needs to be personal health, but health isn't only biological," he says. "Health is psychological, emotional, and erotic. We're so one-dimensional when it comes to health, saying that it has to be biological survival."

When it comes to sex, Valenzuela may know more am most people. He is a self-described hustler and the first openly HIV-positive star of a gay porn movie (Positively Yours). He says he's had sex with as many as 150 men this year, and he estimates it was unsafe about a third of the time.

When he's not having sex, Valenzuela works for gay rights. He is a prominent activist and helped organize the first national meeting of Sex Panic!, a New York City-based group advocating sexual freedom, in San Diego in November. And he's given controversial speeches about the joys of unprotected sex.

But Valenzuela disagrees with people who say he supports too much sexual freedom. "I want people to stop calling me an advocate of unprotected sex," he says. "It's about respecting people's decisions."

AUSTIN

AIDS activist: Sex can be a weapon

"Unfortunately, the history of gay men has been defined by what they do in bed," says Jose Orta, a longtime AIDS activist in Austin, Tex. "Promiscuity among gay men has always been an in-your-face issue. It was a caming card for activism in the '60s and 70s." To be sexually promiscuous, he says, was to refute the puritanical influence of mainstream heterosexual society.

"I think what Sex Panic! is doing, " says Orta, who is 35 and HIV-positive, "is exactly what the National Rifle Association is doing by saying, 'Guns don't kill; people do.' Sex Panic! is saying, 'Sex doesn't infect people with the AIDS virus; people do.' But they fail to realize that sex, like guns, can be a tool, a weapon."

Orta says Sex Panic! supporters do not understand that as sexual beings people have a moral responsibility to know their HIV status and to protect their partners against infection. "I believe that with the advent of protease inhibitors, I can live a longer life," Orta says. "However, I still know that I will die of AIDS."

He says medications in the pipeline will help people who are HIV-positive live relatively comfortable lives, but AIDS should never be viewed as a "manageable chronic illness." AIDS can not be eradicated if people come to feel comfortable with the idea that they are infected, he adds.

While Orta has had only one sex partner in the past year, he says many of his friends have become more promiscuous in the wake of reports about protease inhibitors. "People in Austin are being much more casual about having unsafe sex," he says. "I am surprised and disappointed that people are now asking whether AIDS service organizations are necessary. There's a euphoria about protease inhibitors. The truth is, these things are not the miracle drugs they're made out to be. It amazes me how gay men in this country are so selfish."

NEW YORK CITY Too much sex? According to whom?

For Felix Garmendia, a New York City teacher, sex in 1997 was liberating. The Puerto Rico-born 36-year-old says he moved to the United States eight years ago to live a more sexually adventurous life. "Here I can be a teacher, live my life, and have whatever sex I want," he says. "It's what America is about."

Garmendia, who tested HIV-positive 12 years ago, says he has slept with hundreds of men this past year. "Some weeks it can be as many as ten or 15 men; other weeks it can be zero," he says. "It usually happens in a sex club. I'm definitely very active."

Sober for a year now, Germendia says alcohol and drugs don't play a role in his sexual activities and have nothing to do with his relentless quest for a fix of man-to-man action. "I simply enjoy sex as much as I enjoy eating or living," he says. "It's just about pleasure, like buying yourself something. And it's not just physical; it's emotional, sometimes spiritual."

Garmendia supports Sex Panic!'s mission to promote sexual freedom, "It's not American to wipe all of those things out because we're going through a stage of combativeness and religion," he says. "I have a problem with the idea that someone has too much sex. According to whose standards?"

While Garmendia says he usually practices safer sex, he says once or twice he's gone "bareback," but never with anyone he knew to be HIV-negative. As for the argument that the hope for an AIDS cure and the success of protease inhibitors are fueling riskier sex practices, Garmendia says, "Any intelligent gay man knows it's still not OK to be irresponsible. Those with HIV fear dying. Those who are HIV-negative are scared of contracting it. I don't see anything near a cure. But there's always room for ho like to survive the crisis."

SEATTLE Former drag queen: Sex Panic! is reckless

Robb Thompson is a 30-year-old employee of a telecommunications company who lives and works in Seattle. He has been out for ten years and until his recent retirement from the scene was an active member of Seattle's drag community, making his way to the "international" level. Although Thompson does not know precisely how many people he slept with during the past year ("I honestly couldn't say"), he describes himself as being very aware and careful in his relationships. He is HIV-negative and gets tested for the virus several times a year.

Thompson believes Sex Panic!'s message of sexual freedom has become one of reckless promiscuity, but he shares the group's concern about some gay writers' promulgating agendas that might harm the rights of gay men. " Who are they to regulate where I fuck and how I fuck?" he quips.

He is wary of overstating the impact of gay opinion leaders. "I know [Michel-angelo] Signorile has been accused of pushing an agenda on people in the past, but I don't know if I'd ultimately say that's what he does. I mean, he's out there, but [those writers] are mostly just blowing off steam. They're just getting attention."

Thompson is hopeful that AIDS will become a manageable disease, but he doesn't imagine that the advent of a "morning after" pill will affect his own sexual behavior. "I've been out for ten years, and I just play it safe," he says. "I think it's like the "morning after" abortion pill. You can't just go to the doctor in the morning and say, 'I had a great right last night, but I'm afraid I might have done something risky -- give me the pills!' If you've taken precautions and something happens, then that's beyond your control. And for cases of rape, for medical professions [a "morning after" treatment] is a great thing. But I don't want to see Bob, who's always standing in an alley blowing every guy who walks by, to be going down to the doctor's office every weekend. That's not cool."

PITTSBURGH Playing safe isn't always easy

"People will always have sex," says Paul Kovach, a 29-year-old public relations specialist from Pittsburgh. "But we don't always ask the right questions, and we don't always protect ourselves."

Of the nine sex partners Kovach had this year, two encounters were "bareback," and he reports that on several occasions he had sex "under the influence."

While Kovach hasn't been closely following the Sex Panic! debate, he believes that the politicization of the issue is only "justification for human nature. And we need to put out the message, especially to younger gay men and lesbians, that the disease is still there. There is help but not a cure."

Kovach is HIV-negative and says, "I would like to think I'll remain negative. If I don't, it'll be one of the times I mess up." And though the latest medical news is encouraging, he is still skeptical about the nature of transmission. "I've read enough literature that's questioned the cause of the disease that I'm not convinced by all these medical reports. I've read studies that question the causal factors such as drugs, especially poppers and cocaine. There seems to be one message getting out -- that unprotected sex can lead to AIDS -- and maybe that's true and maybe that's what we need to see. But truthfully, I haven't been convinced. "

And that skepticism extends to the drug therapies and talk of a vaccine.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's the same as ddI, ddC, and AZT. It may be a stopgap, something to prolong life, but it's still not a cure. "

Yet even with his own doubts about transmission and treatment, Kovach says he hasn't changed the way he thinks about safer sex. "I still try to be careful," he says. "But the trouble is that I'm human, and human beings can be idiots."

PHOENIX Internet connects those of like interests

Sexuality and spirituality are deeply intertwined, says Clay Spillman, a 31-year-old Phoenix-based advertising executive who travels the Internet in search of other men who share this interest in "leather, kink, and master-slave relationships."

"Being submissive or tied up and engaging in these activities doesn't necessarily equate to having sex," Spillman says. "I had one of my most intense sexual encounters, and I never came. I never even touched the other guy's dick."

Spillman started using the Internet, where he visits various leather-fetish-S/M chat rooms, after growing tired of trying to connect with people he would meet in bars. "The Internet has been the best tool I could have for interacting with other people who have my same interests," he says. "I haven't been in a relationship, so occasionally there have been times when I've gone out and picked up a trick -- but not that many, only seven" in the past year, he says. "There isn't a lot of emotional attachment that happens. It's more a way of just getting my rocks off."

The number of times he goes cruising to find someone "to get off with" is dwindling, he says. The constant threat of HIV is a factor, but he is seeking more than an orgasm. And if he does find himself in a bar environment seeking a sex partner, alcohol, he admits, may impair his judgment.

Spillman has never known a time without AIDS. He is HIV-negative and gets tested every six months. The "what if" mind game tempers his sexual activities. "Normally I don't allow someone to fuck me, even with a condom, "he says. "I'm looking to have that experience with someone I'm forming a relationship with. I've never experienced anyone fucking me without a condom. I don't want to use condoms. I want to have a relationship so I can feel that closeness with someone."

Until then, Spillman is smart enough to know better and wise enough to read between the lines of what he calls "sex-negative" HIV messages. "The issue is not how many sex partners you have. If they do it responsibly, then I don't feel that's a bad thing. I'm striving for that sexual freedom, but I don't think -- even if I am in a monogamous relationship -- that it is going to be there as long as this epidemic is around."

CHICAGO It's protected sex or no sex for this guy

For Mark Rosenthal, a 23-year-old recent college graduate in Chicago, the past year has been the most sexually active of his life. He counts approximately 15 sex partners in 1997. About half of the experiences were while he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, but he says all of them involved protected sex. Rosenthal says he wouldn't do it any other way. The epidemic has hit too close to home for him to ignore: Last year his father died of AIDS.

While sexual freedom is a kind of "right and privilege" to Rosenthal as a gay man, he says he doesn't understand people who blatantly ignore warnings about unsafe sexual practices. "It seems moronic," he says. "I wonder if reality has come into their lives. Because if it has and they still want to do thus other [unsafe] stuff, then I have to question their intelligence. If it hasn't, I have to question their naivete. But I guess [AIDS] hasn't touched everybody."

Rosenthal says he's simply adapted to the times he lives in. He doesn't expect a time in his life when he'll be able to have sex without a condom. "It doesn't really bother me," he says. "I'm sure [other people] would laugh their heads off at this, but I can't imagine that it could be that much better. I don't feel deprived. I've had some pretty great sex, you know?"

AID 1997 A LOOK BACK AT THE YEAR OF HOPE

JANUARY

Postponed eradication: Time Man of the Year David Ho says he is postponing an experiment to see if HIV can be rid from the body. Ho had planned to take patients while undetectable levels of the virus off their drug therapies.

Pot endorsed: in a strong endorsement of marijuana in treating a variety of illnesses, including wasting syndrome in people with AIDS, the New England Journal of Medicine calls the government's opposition to medical marijuana "inhumane" and "foolish."

FEBRUARY

Expert criticism: A panel of experts chosen by the National Institutes of Health reports that misplaced political and social objections to such concepts as needle-exchange programs and explicit safer-sex education for youth impede efforts to fight AIDS.

Suicide assistance: A survey of doctors in San Francisco finds that 53% had helped patients with AIDS commit suicide by prescribing them a lethal dose of painkillers.

MARCH

Slipping up. A study by researchers at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, finds that lack of communication and the desire for intimacy and social acceptance are among the main reasons gay and bisexual men engage in unsafe sexual practices.

APRIL 

Now AIDS czar. Sandy Thurman, former executive director of AID Atlanta, is appointed director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.

Drug approved: The Food and Drug Administration approves delavirdine, one of a new class of nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. The relatively low price of the drug -- $2,250 annually -- wins praise from AIDS activists for its maker, Pharmacia & Upjohn.

MAY

Presidential pledge: At a commencement address at Morgan State University in Baltimore, President Clinton challenges AIDS researchers to develop an effective vaccine within a decade. Activists applaud the move but note that the president did not promise any additional federal funding for the project.

JUNE

Combination therapy encouraged: A federal task force calls upon physicians to treat HIV infection with a three-drug cocktail that includes two nucleoside analogues and a protease inhibitor, saying the combination therapy offers a "high chance" of suppressing replication of the virus.

Call for needle exchange. The U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the federal government to fund needle-exchange programs to curb the spread of HIV among intravenous drug users. The federal government bans money for such programs in the belief that it encourages drug use.

Home test kit pulled: Citing lackluster sales, Johnson & Johnson pulls its home HIV test kit, Confide, from the market.

JULY

Death rate drops: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports a 19% drop in deaths from AIDS in the first nine months of 1996 compared with the same period in 1995.

Kissing connection? The CDC announces that a woman apparently contracted HIV from deep-kissing her male partner, whose saliva apparently contained a small amount of blood as a result of his brushing his teeth. It is the first possible case of HIV transmission through kissing.

AUGUST

Vaccine initiative: The International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care asks for volunteers from the health care community to test a live-HIV vaccine. The request leads to hundreds of people looking to volunteer and a flurry of media coverage about the hitherto-unsuccessful attempt to find an HIV vaccine.

AIDS mutant: Researchers report finding a gene that appears to keep those infected with HIV from progressing to AIDS for an additional two to three years.

SEPTEMBER

Death rate drops: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the proportion of gonorrhea sufferers who are men having sex with men increased 74% from 1993 to 1996. based on statistics from 26 clinics. This suggests an upswing in unsafe sex practices that could lead to increased HIV infection.

OCTOBER

Changing attitudes: A CNN/USA Today poll shows that just 15% of people avoid people they suspect of having AIDS, down from 43% ten years ago.

Postexposure drugs: San Francisco begins a trial program to give drug treatments to people who may have been exposed to HIV through drugs or unprotected sex in hopes that they will not seroconvert.

NOVEMBER

Federal funding increased: House and Senate negotiators approve a 71% increase in funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which provides drugs to uninsured or underinsured people with HIV and AIDS.

DECEMBER

Is HIV a disablity? The Supreme Court announces its intention to rule on whether people with asymptomatic HIV are entitled to protection under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Prior to the advent of life-prolonging drugs, courts tended to assume HIV met the law's definition of disability.

San Francisco AIDS cases down: The San Francisco Department of Public Health estimates that new cases of AIDS will total 1,200 in 1998, down from a peak of 3,300 in 1992.

Higher positive rate for home testers: A survey of users of the Home Access Health HIV test kit finds that 0.9% tested positive for HIV, three times the overall national infection rate.