BERKOWITZ: I'm so glad
you arrived in time to film me
at the most humiliating low point
imaginable of my entire existence.
I've spent years
drowning in pleasure,
more pleasure than most people
ever experienced in a day,
and now that I'm like a monk
trapped in a monastery,
here comes the film crew.
There is no way you can hear this.
No one knew my past.
I popped up out of nowhere,
and I was forever marked
as like, you know,
a self-hating enemy to g*y people.
- Great.
- DARYL: That's gonna come off.
All right. Don't!
I don't care. Butch.
It's butch to be sloppy.
[Sighs]
Don't film me smoking,
'cause I told my family I quit.
- DARYL: Okay.
- f*ck 'em.
[Laughs]
I really don't feel comfortable
telling you this.
I would make them get down
on their knees and suck my di...
- I mean, I'm years old, Daryl.
- DARYL: I know, I know.
- It's just, you know.
- DARYL: I know...
I can't think of anything
more unsexual
than listening to some old fart
talk about how he got
his d*ck sucked in .
DARYL:
No, it's really interesting.
[Sighs]
I really get under people's skin
because I've broken every rule,
I've done everything my own way,
I've done everything you can do
to k*ll yourself,
and I'm still standing.
Safe sex came about
because of three people.
Dr. Joseph Sonnabend,
who had the scientific background.
Michael Callen, who was
a beloved activist, who really...
g*y men connected to
when he spoke
because he was so brutally honest.
And me, because I had
the health and the anger
to stay on top of the two of them.
Joe, who was busy with patients.
Michael who was, you know,
not in the best of health.
I had the energy and time
to make sure
the words got on the page,
the writing got done,
and the book got out.
It was Joe and Michael and Richard
who walked in and said it.
They said directly to men
that this was happening
and how to keep it from happening.
I think Richard and Michael
knew what they were talking about.
They were speaking
from the epicenter of the epidemic
and speaking truths
that people didn't want to hear
and didn't want to listen to.
The idea that g*y men would wear
condoms was ludicrous in .
They were using a...
...a vernacular, a vocabulary
that was very politically incorrect
in terms of the moment.
No matter what, the idea
of reducing exposure to fluids,
reducing exposure to fluids
that may contain infectious agents,
both are really, you know,
the cornerstones of safer sex.
I think people should know
who Richard Berkowitz is,
and I should hope that Richard
will come out
and say what it's done to his life.
What all of these people
just, you know,
not wanting to accept
what he had to say.
The frustration
and how he dealt with it.
BERKOWITZ: The first week
that I had moved into my apartment,
you know, I suddenly felt like the kid
in the proverbial candy store,
because I was years old,
I had my own place in Manhattan,
and the city was exploding
with sexual playgrounds.
I mean there were places
to go and have sex
morning, noon, and night.
A lot of g*y men
who lived the lifestyle I did...
it was who they were,
it was our identity.
It was what we lived for.
g*y liberation
began about men loving men,
but it became about so many men,
so little time.
And what that meant was,
so much d*ck, so little time.
It got taken over by this expl*si*n
of commercial sex establishments
where the only thing that brought
g*y men together was sex.
One night,
I was at the Rawhide Bar.
This was the beginning of the end.
And I met this really hot guy.
And we got it started.
We took one look at each other and
we knew we were gonna walk out
and go home and have sex.
And just as we turned
to leave the bar,
he said, "What is that bump
under your ear?"
I had completely blocked it
out of my mind.
And I could feel like the earth
quaking all around me,
and I didn't know what to say.
And he said, "Listen, I think
I'm gonna call it a night."
And I remember, like, leaning back
on the Pac-Man machine
feeling like a f*cking leper,
like an abandoned leper,
and thinking, "Something's changing.
Something bad is happening."
PBS NARRATOR:
Atlanta, Georgia.
Doctors at the Center
for Disease Control
sift through volumes
of research data
as they close in the causes
of the mysterious and deadly
epidemic known as A*DS.
Memphis, Tennessee.
A popular television evangelist
preaches that the new epidemic
is a natural,
inevitable result of sin.
FALWELL: incurable
and, so far, percent fatal
because of promiscuous
h*m*.
NARRATOR: Washington, D.C.
, g*y men marched
through the streets
to demand an increase
in government spending
to fight the epidemic.
So far, over people
have died from the disease
and percent of the victims have
been h*m* or bisexual men.
CAMERON: At the very least,
there should be a quarantine
of all h*m*, drug abusers,
and prostit*tes
with the frank disease A*DS.
- Right now.
- A quarantine?
A quarantine.
They should be confined to quarters
or hospital if that is necessary.
BERKOWITZ: A*DS was more
complicated than just a new germ.
There may be a new germ.
There may not be a new germ.
But there's a lot of things going on
in an urban-g*y-male lifestyle
that are bad
for the immune system.
Let's look at what we know
and keep an open mind
for what we have yet to discover.
But it was an indictment
of urban promiscuity.
KRAMER: There is a new case
and a half each day
in New York City alone.
Do you know what it's like
to have of your own friends
in a year and a half die?
Men who are at the height of
their creative usefulness to society?
All men under years old?
In one year, I am asked to live
with the kind of problems...
or problems is the wrong word...
experiences that my mother,
at years old,
is now having to learn to live with
when her friends are dying,
and I am only years old.
Now, I don't think the straight
community has any concept
of what it's like to be a g*y man
in this city.
It's like living in w*r time.
You don't know
when the b*mb is gonna fall.
Who's it gonna hit next?
A friend of mine that I had
dinner with two months ago,
three weeks ago checks himself
into the emergency room
at St. Vincent's Hospital
and in days is dead.
He seemed perfectly healthy.
What is this mysterious thing
that is in... who?
Do I have it?
STONE: This was
a g*y white man's disease,
and that straight people like myself
didn't have to be bothered with it,
except with those of us
who had loved ones who were dying.
LISTER:
There were a lot of g*y men
who wanted the straight world
and the media world
to believe that it was a virus
that any of us could catch
and that it wasn't a direct reflection
on their sexual behavior
or their lifestyle.
BUCHANAN: I do think
it is gross irresponsibility
for h*m* active who go to
these bathhouses and the rest of it
to cry out that the government's
got to do research to save us
when they continue indulging
in the kind of activity
that spreads the disease.
It's the height of irresponsibility.
KRAMER: You've got to realize
the atmosphere of the times.
You know, we were trying
to get attention.
We were trying to get sympathy.
And you're not going to get sympathy
easily by going out and saying,
"I've slept with people.
That's why I've got it."
Well, I mean most people would say,
"You deserve it," and, "Get lost!"
And that's what we were
trying to prevent.
[Indistinct and muffled talking
from the crowd]
BERKOWITZ: I was a pretty
f*cking angry -year-old.
I was politically angry.
I wanted America
to accept g*y rights overnight,
and I had absolutely no patience
for the kind of time it takes
for social change to happen.
I grew in a family of Northeastern
liberal Jewish Democrats,
and that provided
very fertile ground
for my accepting of the whole
g*y-liberation movement,
because, you know, we were
empathetic on social issues.
DOTTY BERKOWITZ: Someday,
you'll see me on television.
For my good looks and my shape.
Anything you want to know.
What do you want to know?
But he didn't tell me everything.
[Laughs]
Richard was a delight growing up.
He gave me absolutely
no problems, and I had three sons.
They weren't bad either.
BERKOWITZ:
We weren't particularly wealthy.
We were kinda working class,
and we were a family of five
living in a /-room apartment.
And as the 's were on,
and the Civil Rights Movement
started to emerge
and the anti-w*r movement
against Vietnam happened,
all of this was
just grist for the mill,
for, like, our family dinner.
We were compassionate about...
concerned for poor people.
We were working class ourselves.
You know, we were for Humphrey
and Johnson and Kennedy.
I mean, Kennedy
was really the one, you know,
because for family values
in the early s,
we consider the Kennedy family
"family values."
DOTTY BERKOWITZ:
We loved everybody,
and we felt that's the way to live.
And if anybody
didn't have a place to stay,
they came and stayed with me.
BERKOWITZ: In between
my grandmother's death
and Kennedy's assassination,
which suddenly made it seem as if
the entire world was in mourning,
something happened
that I didn't understand
but it seemed to forever change
the course of my life.
My aunt started taking me
to Puerto Rico and Miami
on school vacations.
Somehow, being
a thousand miles away from home
with men I'd never see again
and didn't know my mother
or my father or my congregation,
I suddenly felt like, you know,
"I can do this. I won't be found out.
It's just another form
of masturbation,
and I want the blow job."
DOTTY BERKOWITZ:
I did not like Richard being g*y.
I don't like any of my sons to be g*y.
But once I found out,
I'm getting used to it.
The whole world is g*y.
We must be getting g*y.
BERKOWITZ:
I was fascinated by the scene.
I was fascinated
by the whole cruising thing.
I mean, I was years old.
I was innocent as can be.
They were all coming after me,
but I went with who I wanted
to go with,
I did what I wanted to do,
and I walked away when I wanted.
DOTTY BERKOWITZ: Richard had
a wonderful time when he went there,
But that's not
the only place he went to.
He went to other places.
BERKOWITZ: I remember that
very first day pacing the driveway,
waiting for my father
to get home from work
so I could take the station wagon
and go to Howard Johnson's.
If you're going there every night
and just not knowing what to do
and being completely soaked
in sexual desire and yearning
and absolutely terrified
of the consequences
of being discovered here,
you know, it still didn't stop me
from going back.
And it was like this moment
where I said, you know,
"All my life I've tried to be a good
son, a good student, a good Jew,
a good American, a good brother,
a good everything.
This is bad, and it feels good."
The transgression
of doing something so forbidden
that had the potential
for so much desire,
so much sexual desire, you know?
When I go to college,
I'm not going to end up
like one of these guys
cruising seedy parking lots all night.
I had no idea there were
any other options.
And there weren't
many other options in .
"I'm gonna go to college,
I'm gonna find myself a wife,
I'm gonna get married.
So you know something?
Until I go away to college
in September,
let me have my nine months
where I get this g*y stuff
out of my system."
It was the first year
that they had completely
overhauled the curriculum
and replaced it
with all these radical theories
about social psychology and
the social construction of reality.
What is reality?
It's man-made.
And the question is,
if reality is man-made
and values are man-made,
why can't every person change?
CONNOLLY: You know,
it was a period of activism,
it was a period of extreme hopes
that you have
when you are
an undergraduate in college,
and he wanted to make
a statement, and he did.
BERKOWITZ: I got swept up
into this whole Jane Fonda,
Gloria Steinem political thing.
I'm writing political things
for the paper,
and I'm organizing marches
and protesting.
You know, I finally felt
like I'd come home.
CONNOLLY: I mean, there was an
activism among the g*y community,
but I think it was more urban.
It was certainly not
at a campus level.
And I think one of the things
that Rich did
was that he indeed
took that on as a banner.
And that continued on
for the second and/or third year,
with increments.
And there were a lot
of h*m* acts that occurred,
and Rich took them on,
took them up in a public forum,
which would have been writing
in the campus newspaper
and becoming known for that.
BERKOWITZ: When the g*y league
at school declared a g*y Day,
a National g*y Day,
and the Deke fraternity,
which was the frat for jocks,
to protest the g*y Day thing,
they hung an effigy from a tree
on their lawn on College Avenue
with a pool stick impaled through it.
And on the front of the effigy,
it said, "Back to your closet, h*m*."
And an the other side, it said,
"The only good g*y is a dead g*y."
CONNOLLY: And Rich
was very disturbed about it
and wanted to write about
what it meant and to take 'em on.
BERKOWITZ: So I ran up
to the school paper and I thought,
"You know, I can either
get Walter and Trish
to go down and join
the lesbians on the stoop,
or I could write something."
CONNOLLY: He was very active
in organizing student groups
to lead a march in protest
of what this effigy that had been
hung on College Hall...
which was the main drag
of Rutgers College at the time.
BERKOWITZ: Hundreds of people
marched in front of these frat...
this fraternity for these jocks,
took the effigy down,
marched in circles,
humiliated them,
made them retreat
inside their frat house.
CONNOLLY: It was an act of valor.
It's not easy to do that,
and Rich did.
BERKOWITZ: It really was
the first g*y-rights demonstration
in New Jersey.
Sparked by my article.
BERKOWITZ: The first week
that I moved to Manhattan,
I went to the baths twice.
But since the one time I'd gone
to the baths in college,
when I missed the last bus
back to Rutgers,
I ended up staying overnight
in a bathhouse.
One guy sucked me,
and two days later,
I was at the school infirmary
with a case of penile gonorrhea.
So I remember, when I moved here,
being a little g*n shy.
So I gave oral sex,
but I wouldn't receive it.
And sure enough,
three days later, I woke up
with piercing stomach cramps
and just...
I knew something
was really wrong.
So I ran like a maniac
down to Sheridan Square
to the g*y Men's Health Project,
which is now that Chase building.
And it was an SDT clinic
run by g*y men for g*y men.
And it was just by chance
matching walk-in patients
who didn't have appointments
with whatever doctor
was available at the moment
that my chart ended up in the hands
of Dr. Joseph Sonnabend.
I had no idea that at that moment
I was meeting the man who would
turn out to be my personal Moses.
Sonnabend was a research scientist.
He had actually been trained
as a virologist and a microbiologist,
none of which I knew
when I was running to him
to get my antibiotics all these years.
He was a lab scientist.
He had a background that was
absolutely perfect for A*DS.
STRUB: I think that one
of the things that has made Joe
a different kind of doctor
is that he grew up
in what was then Rhodesia,
now is Zimbabwe.
His mother and his aunt were both
physicians who worked in the bush
and the circumstances
of disease and infection
were very different
in that environment,
but in some ways,
not unlike the peculiar ecosystem
of g*y-male sexual culture
in the late 's and early 's.
BROWN:
People came to him in the city.
Not very many people
treated the diseases
that were being seen at that time.
STRUB: I think the first
A*DS-related publication he founded,
the journal A*DS.
The first A*DS-related litigation
over civil rights issue
was when they tried
to kick him out of his office.
Joe early on questioned the
"one bug, one drug" approach to it,
which was how most
of the money was spent.
Most of the activism
was focused on the idea
that there was a single agent
and that it didn't have anything to do
with any other lifestyle factors
or anything else.
SONNABEND:
It became necessary to say,
"Why is this disease new
in all these different groups?"
And of course,
I suppose the most simplistic
and easiest way to view this
is that there was
a new biological agent
that was being transmitted
from group to group.
INTERVIEWER:
Do you believe that?
SONNABEND: No, of course not.
I mean, it's absurd.
It's just totally absurd.
And it's based on a whole
superstructure of conjecture.
BERKOWITZ: You know, Sonnabend's
idea that it's not a one-shot deal...
He said, "I don't know
if there's a new virus.
There may be
and there may not be.
But I can tell you this...
this lifestyle, it's k*lling people."
ANNOUNCER:
Medical researchers seem to agree
that A*DS transmission in g*y men
could be related to a sexually
promiscuous lifestyle.
INTERVIEWER:
Is it a lifestyle issue?
SONNABEND: I believe so, yes.
I think it's undoubted.
The disease in h*m* men
is the result of a cumulative process
resulting from lifestyle exposures.
The one characteristic
of this lifestyle is in fact
the promiscuous nature,
the sexually promiscuous nature of it.
SONNABEND:
Promiscuity was a bad... not a bad...
it was a dangerous activity.
No judgment.
It was no moral judgment.
It was just simply unhealthy
under the circumstances.
STRUB: Joe early on argued
that it was multiple factors
that made someone sick.
SONNABEND: Getting gonorrhea,
getting syphilis, getting hepatitis,
getting all these things
was a bad idea
because they could end up
giving you this new disease.
STRUB: Joe was saying that
everything from multiple exposures
to sexually transmitted diseases,
to sleep, to diet, to drug use,
all these things were influencing
someone's susceptibility to disease.
And over time, that's been born out
in all sorts of different ways.
BERKOWITZ:
g*y men that were into oral sex,
their immune systems were fine.
g*y men who were tops,
their immune systems were fine.
Cytomegalovirus,
Epstein-Barr virus,
all these sexually-transmitted
virus infections...
these are not good for your health.
Running in here, getting antibiotics
to go back to the baths...
this is not good for your health.
The drugs people are doing
to have this amount of sex,
this kind of sex...
this is not good for your health.
How much more
do you need to know
to know that this lifestyle
has become toxic?
I got f*cked at the baths,
and I'm sure that in New York City,
that's what put me at risk.
I mean, when you ask me to say,
you know, where I got HIV,
you know,
it could have been anywhere
between New York and Florida.
You know,
I don't think anybody can say.
SALGO: Probably the most
important information
we have about A*DS is this...
we know who gets it,
we think we know why,
and we think that we can
keep people from getting it
by asking them
to change their behavior.
Now, if you think
that sounds simple, it does.
But, of course, getting people
to change their lifestyles
is just about the most difficult thing
you can ever try to do.
For now, there is no cure, though,
and prevention remains
the only hope we have
in keeping A*DS in check.
BERKOWITZ:
This lifestyle that these people
have been promoting all these years
is k*lling us.
How could I be so smart
and not understand something
that was right in front of my face?
I said to him,
"Look, I have a background
in writing and journalism.
I majored in journalism in college.
He said, "God, do I need help."
He said, "I've got an office
full of dying patients,
and no one is writing about
what people need to be saying.
They're throwing theme parties
like it's something happening
on the other side of the world.
Like they don't understand
this is gonna k*ll them.
There needs to be an alternative,
rational, sensible explanation
of what's going on
that you are not going
to see in The Native
and you're not going to hear
from g*y Men's Health Crisis.
Something that's critical
of the community that created this.
For g*y men. For g*y men."
So he fills my arms with all
these articles, and then he said,
"Oh, by the way," he said,
"I have another patient
that might be interested
in writing this article with you."
I'm like, "Where is he?
What's his name?
Give me his phone number."
I could swear,
about an hour or two later,
one of my phones started to ring,
and it was Dr. Sonnabend saying,
"Um, I didn't give him
your phone number,
but I spoke to Michael Callen.
The patient wants to write.
Here's his phone number."
He said,
"You should call him at work."
[Playing the piano]
ANNOUNCER: -year-old
Michael Callen is a singer
and accomplished pianist.
Like other ambitious artists,
he moved from the Midwest
to New York... a musician's Mecca...
to find work.
But it wasn't only music
he found here.
CALLEN: By the age of ,
after being out for years,
I had had hepatitis A, B, non-B,
herpes simplex types I & II, Shigella,
Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia,
nonspecific urethritis,
gonorrhea, syphilis, um...
I could go on.
When I stepped back,
the question for me wasn't,
"Why am I sick?"
but, "How did I remain standing
on two feet so long?"
My getting sick has something
to do with my lifestyle.
And if I want to live,
I'm going to have to change.
DWORKIN:
Michael came home at some point
telling me that he'd met
this amazing guy
and that Joe had said
they ought to meet
and they'd been
to a support group together.
And most of the guys in the group
were all gloom and doom,
and this was the one guy
besides Mike
that seemed to have
some hope about surviving.
BERKOWITZ:
We decided to write an article
explaining Sonnabend's theory,
which became,
"We know who we are."
DWORKIN: I think there
was no perception of them
because they didn't exist
as public figures at that point.
That was sort of the opening salvo,
was the beginning of their careers,
if you will, as A*DS activists.
BERKOWITZ: At the twelfth hour,
as the article was going to press,
the publisher, Charles Ortleb,
had subtitled
"We Know Who We Are:
Two g*y Men
Declare w*r On Promiscuity."
And the minute I heard that, I said,
"You know, no one's even gonna
read a word of our article."
KRAMER: Richard's arrival
on the scene... and Michael's...
with that article was...
...unpleasant and a shock
and cold water in the face,
and I think most people
chose to disregard it.
ROTELLO: I thought it
was incredibly powerful,
and I frankly was shocked
that people accused them
of sex negativity.
It seemed to me that the two of them
were the last people in the world
to be accused of sex negativity.
They were the paragons
of sex positivity
who were simply saying,
"We've seen what actually happened,
and it happened to us."
BERKOWITZ: We were called the
Jerry Falwells of the g*y community.
We were attacked
over and over again in The Native.
And Michael and I
kept responding to the attacks,
and The Native
wouldn't publish them.
So if you don't respond
or you're not able to respond
to attacks against what you've
written and what you've said,
people just assume
that you're wrong.
JURRIST: We also hear
some more hysterical voices.
They come from a tiny group of men,
some of whom have A*DS.
A*DS patients I know from my work
with the g*y Men's Health Crisis
don't agree with them.
They say the only responsible
alternative to monogamy
is virtual celibacy.
We who don't have lovers
are told that we have to give up sex
because of a new brand of ethics
invented by this
self-appointed group.
Who are these men?
I don't think their names are
important, but their histories are.
For example,
one is a former hustler,
an S&M hustler
who provided pain for a price.
This man probably had more sexual
contacts in year than I did in .
He's not someone
who's going to lay down
the ethical agenda for my future.
BERKOWITZ:
I just, you know...
I understand your interest
in the whole hustling thing,
which is, like, the last thing
I want to be thinking about now.
It's the one thing I'm trying
to block out of my mind.
And it makes me uncomfortable
because it's so stigmatized
that not to put my life into a context
of meaningful relationships...
not with clients,
but with men that I had long term
monogamous relationships with...
it just feels like
an Enquirer version of my life
that I feel very uncomfortable with.
I'm years old,
I'm all alone, and I'm broke.
You know, and I don't
wanna be sitting around
talking about being a hustler.
I don't.
STRUB: I was never sure if it
was meant to discredit them
or to give them more authority,
but people talked about how
promiscuous they were, you know?
And Michael talked
about his promiscuity.
And Richard,
initially more in private,
but in time, became more public
and talked about his work
as a sex worker,
specifically as an S&M top.
LISTER: He was pretty up-front
about his life,
including his hustling,
which in the beginning
of our knowing each other,
was not a full-time thing.
I'm pretty sure
he was still going to school.
BERKOWITZ: There was a national
g*y newspaper called The Advocate,
which was extremely influential
in my coming of age and coming out,
not just for the politics,
but also for the classified section,
which was really
an incredible mirror
on to what was happening
with g*y men sexually.
So I placed an ad in The Advocate.
It took, like, a month or two
to come out.
So when the ad finally hit the stand
and the phone started ringing,
I was absolutely terrified.
Because of my fear of violence,
I would be very forceful
in getting them to talk about sex.
It kind of tapped
into something inside me
that I wasn't fully aware of,
but the guys who were
calling my ads were.
I didn't realize
that I exuded a quality
that was the essence
of a dominant S&M top.
They would start teaching me
how to be an S&M top.
They would start
buying me leather chaps
and c*ck rings and boots
and all these accoutrements,
and before I knew it, my apartment
started to look like a sex shop.
You know, guys would build
these homemade stockades
from the Pilgrims' times
and leave them here.
You know, with this well of anger
that I had as an activist and...
as the country started
moving towards the right
with the ascent of Ronald Reagan,
my anger only deepened.
And somehow,
there was something about S&M sex
that it became a channel for me
to release the anger
in a creative way, a sexual way,
that was liberating
and electrifying and...
...very lucrative.
BERKOWITZ:
What?
Say, "f*ck my hole."
I can't hear you.
Say it.
Say it, please.
Say, "f*ck my hole."
[Indistinct moaning]
I can't hear you.
Say it louder.
[Loud slap]
ADLER:
We worked together a few times.
Yeah, he had this client Larry,
and Larry used to like
to watch him beat me up.
And he would bring
loads of drugs.
Richard could get very aggressive.
Richard could get... I think
Richard went into this place
where he could be
this macho hustler, you know,
where he's
a really sweet, gentle guy.
Because I know it happens for me.
LISTER: He seemed to feel that
the ease with which it all happened
and the money it generated
was without a price to be paid.
BERKOWITZ: I had enough ethical
standards not to hurt anybody,
but the more I did it,
the better I got.
In a matter of months,
I changed the ad to
"Experienced S&M Italian Top Man,"
and when I ran it by a client,
he said,
"You know what you should add?
'Who gets off on using you."'
And I said, "Is that what I do?"
And the minute
that ad appeared, it was...
Business boomed!
Pretty soon,
I started to describe it to friends
as like like a priest
with his own congregation
who came one at a time.
I had to put in a second phone.
I had to start keeping a log
so I could keep track
of all the people I spoke to,
the ones I saw,
and I started keeping a very
intricate log of every single client.
There actually was something
very intimate about S&M.
You had to talk,
you had to communicate.
You had to...
You know, it wasn't just like,
you know, a quickie f*ck in the dark.
I mean, it was like a journey
that you had to take people on.
Each person ignited
a different response in me
that would take me
on a unique path.
Whatever they told me
they didn't want me to do
became the one thing
I had to do.
[Muffled laugh]
You know? 'Cause for a lot of guys,
it was, "I don't get f*cked."
So the minute I had them
spread-eagled standing up, I'd say,
"You're gonna get f*cked."
These hooks
were for spreading a bondage.
This was my favorite place
in the house
because there was room
to, like, walk around.
So I think even as g*y men
were becoming liberated
and forming communities
and creating this very
sexualized community,
I think we kind of realized that we
were bringing a lot of self loathing,
a lot of insecurity, and a lot
of the culture's contempt to it,
that we were also
smart enough to realize
that while we were acting out
these domination,
submission, bondage,
humiliation,
leather fantasies in our sex,
that it didn't diminish
who we were as people,
that we were taking tensions from
the culture that we had absorbed.
We were using them as fodder
or grist for sexual play,
and when the play was over
and the curtain came down,
we hugged and kissed
and shook hands
and it was understood
that this was about sexual fantasy
and it wasn't about
who we were as people.
DOTTY BERKOWITZ: One day,
somebody calls me up and says,
"Mrs. Berkowitz,
your son was in Washington.
Did you hear?
A pin couldn't drop
when he started to speak.
He spoke,
and then not a soul moved.
A leaf didn't move.
He was so good."
FREEMAN:
This evening on "Freeman Reports,"
we are discussing Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
It is referred to as A*DS.
We are going to meet
two victims of A*DS.
First, meet Philip Lanzarotta
and then Richard Berkowitz.
Mr. Berkowitz is also co-founder
of the organization
g*y Men With A*DS.
And also meet Larry Kramer.
He's the co-founder of g*y Men's
Health Crisis, Incorporated.
BERKOWITZ:
So in December, ,
I got a phone call
from Lynne Hare,
a producer at CNN,
who asked me to appear
on a live broadcast for minutes
discussing, you know, A*DS.
And I didn't want to it.
I was nervous, but Michael
had a singing engagement,
so I couldn't have him
take my place, so I had to do it.
So when I got down
to the CNN studios,
I was really nervous because
I knew that what I had to say,
g*y men would find painful to hear.
And I was trying to stay calm,
and I had all these pages of notes,
and Larry Kramer
came marching up to me
the minute he saw me and said,
"I hope you're not going
on national television
and talking about g*y promiscuity
in front of the whole country."
And I remember thinking,
"Of course I am."
I mean...
and the idea that someone
would tell me
not to talk about something...
it made me so angry
that as soon as the cameras
started rolling,
I suddenly couldn't construct
a single sentence
without the word "promiscuity."
FREEMAN:
You had mentioned earlier
it just happened
to the g*y community.
It could have happened to anyone.
Why do you think it happened
to the g*y community?
KRAMER: "No idea."
FREEMAN: Mr. Berkowitz,
do you have any thoughts on that?
BERKOWITZ: Yes, I do.
It's very difficult to talk about
promiscuity because as a g*y man,
I am immediately accused
of being sex negative,
but my personal belief
is that promiscuity...
that h*m*
and sex negativity in America
is at the heart of promiscuity.
I don't believe that promiscuity
is really as liberating
as I thought it was
while I was being promiscuous.
I think it's really a response
to the fact that g*y people
cannot be openly affectionate
in public.
And that kind of stigmatization
that we've all grown up with
has kind of led to a kind
of ghettoization of g*y life,
especially among g*y men.
And the urban promiscuity
of the last years to me
seems rather unprecedented, but...
FREEMAN: Yes, go ahead,
Mr. Berkowitz.
BERKOWITZ: I just believe
that we're not fooling anyone
if we say that we're just
a community like anybody else,
and we just happened to get
a bug in our community,
so, you know,
"We didn't do this to ourselves.
Some virus is doing it to us."
As a victim of A*DS
who's recovering,
I think there's nothing
more important
than taking a little responsibility
for the state of my health
so then I can figure out
what I can do to get better.
KRAMER: Where we had difficulty
with what they were saying
was that they were tarring
and feathering everybody
with promiscuity,
and that was very hard
for people to take
and it made people very angry,
because we had fought
so long and so hard
to have the freedom that we won.
And suddenly it was k*lling us,
and that was very hard
for people to deal with.
It's not promiscuity
that's causing it.
BERKOWITZ: It's promiscuity
that's allowing it to spread.
KRAMER: I hate to hear the word
"promiscuity" used in all of this
because it's a very,
very loaded word.
This is .
Everybody in a major urban area
like New York and Los Angeles
and London and Paris leads
a life of more than one partner.
FREEMAN:
Now, can you say that everybody?
- Can you truly say that?
- KRAMER: An awful lot of people.
FREEMAN:
But you can't say "everybody."
KRAMER:
No, I can't say everybody,
but I can say a great many people.
And what constitutes promiscuity?
Where do you draw your number?
We now have evidence.
It's not promiscuity...
FREEMAN:
Well, I think some of the numbers
that have been quoted
in a lot of the articles
and the numbers that came out
in that study from the CDC,
although it is several years old,
I mean, , partners?
, partners?
KRAMER: The new CDC figures
are and .
They have been reduced
down to that.
FREEMAN: and ?
That's still a lot of sexual partners.
KRAMER:
It's a lot of sexual partners,
but I think that occurs
in the straight communities.
The swinging singles in New York
would have or
sexual partners.
BERKOWITZ: I realized many
years later, many, many years later,
that Larry was just trying
to be protective of g*y men.
I mean, A*DS had started,
people were dying, nobody cared,
the community
didn't want to hear about it,
the media wasn't reporting on it,
and Larry was just trying
to be protective of g*y men.
KRAMER:
"Promiscuity" is a very loaded word.
What constitutes promiscuity,
you know?
One, two, three, four, five?
I mean, Richard came out
with these astronomical figures
which applied to Richard.
It didn't apply to other people who
were also getting sick and dying.
BERKOWITZ: We believe
that A*DS are basically diseases
associated with poverty
and that through
urban promiscuity,
certain urban g*y men
have managed
to recreate the disease setting
of Third World Nations and junkies.
Um...
FREEMAN:
How does that make you feel?
BERKOWITZ: I can't worry
about how it makes me feel.
I'm more concerned
about the health of g*y men.
I'm more worried
about disseminating information.
I don't believe that anyone
can defend promiscuity
in Los Angeles, San Francisco,
or New York City today.
Promiscuity in Des Moines
may be another story.
But right now in New York City,
the bottom line
has to be life and death.
It can't be a question
of politics or emotions
or public relations concerns.
We're talking about life and death.
STONE: I think the errors
of the government and the media...
Well, particularly the government
with the lack of attention
and the lack of support
and just the huge profound silence
and also,
a very in-your-face, like,
"We're not even gonna deal with it."
BERKOWITZ:
Before the media woke up to A*DS
and before the country
woke up to A*DS,
me and Michael and Sonnabend
knew what was coming.
I mean, we worked together
for an entire year
trying to wake up the community
before the country
woke up to the epidemic.
HECKLER: Probable cause
of A*DS has been found.
A variant of a known
human cancer virus.
ANNOUNCER: The Federal
Government announced
that it found what it was looking for.
A virus.
A virus that caused A*DS.
A*DS disappeared
from the news reports,
and people began to assume
that A*DS was finished
in this country.
But the problem of A*DS is not over.
SONNABEND: When people
have been told something definitive
such that the cause of the disease
has been found,
then I think it's all over.
It's a question of time.
We know what causes it
and therefore, it's a question
of time before the cure is found.
INTERVIEWER:
But A*DS isn't all over.
SONNABEND:
No, certainly not.
Nor have we found
the cause necessarily.
ANNOUNCER: One problem
has been that the virus
many people thought
was the single cause of A*DS
may not be that at all.
A*DS is a complex disease
that may have more than one cause.
SONNABEND: The perception
of the way diseases come about
is such that I think people
prefer simple disease models.
INTERVIEWER:
A*DS isn't simple.
SONNABEND:
No, I'm sure it's not.
ANNOUNCER:
Research progress has been slow.
LISTER: Rich and Sonnabend
and Michael Callen's camp
was very small.
It was like a pup tent
compared to the big camp.
DWORKIN: I think you might
be hard-pressed to even say
there were two camps
in terms of that.
There was sort
of the g*y community
and then there was Michael
and Joe and Richard...
on the other side.
And that's basically
how it seemed for a while.
LISTER: They were hated
as my recollection
of Rich's stories at that time
was how they weren't even
accepted as, you know,
one possible thought or explanation.
CALLEN: What is the concept
that people deserve disease?
I mean, let's assume for a second
that A*DS is a direct result
of promiscuity
and the diseases associated with it.
Are we suggesting then
that we don't deserve increased
federal funding
because we've been bad boys?
BERKOWITZ:
It's unfortunate because promiscuity
did become the dogma
of g*y-male liberation.
It's where all the money is.
That part of the reason
why the bath houses
have not really responded
to the health crisis,
because money is money,
and that's the bottom line.
Suddenly, we're thrust
into national visibility,
and we're just corroborating
a lot of the fears
and a lot of the prejudice
that people have about g*y men.
It's because every time
we're on television,
we get to talk about our sex lives.
BERKOWITZ:
A light bulb went off in my head,
and I realized that there was
a lot of ways to have pleasure
that wouldn't involve any kind
of risk for infections.
We started
having this heated discussion.
I mean, Michael said,
"Oh, isn't that great?
You can whip and beat people
without spreading A*DS."
But Sonnabend said,
"Wait a second.
There are ways to have sex that
interrupt disease transmission."
And I remember thinking,
"Interrupt disease transmission."
I mean, it was visual,
it was captivating,
and it just completely propelled me.
I plopped down at my typewriter,
and I remember typing
How to Have Sex in an Epidemic.
And I remember thinking,
"That's a little arrogant."
And, you know, I am too arrogant,
so I put a colon, One Approach.
And Sonnabend said,
"This is more than an article.
This should be a booklet."
DASKALAKIS:
From my understanding,
the first document
advocating safer sex
as a way of preventing
the syndrome that looked like A*DS
was in a publication
by Mr. Callen and Mr. Berkowitz.
I believe, if I remember,
the name was
How to Have Safe Sex
in an Epidemic.
To me, it's the pamphlet
that is often cited,
and, you know,
is cited in the literature, as well,
as sort of the first
community-driven...
and really, only...
first document advocating safer sex.
And my recollection is '?
So it was really early on.
So it's before there was
a lot of information
on why people were dying.
STRUB:
How to Have Sex in an Epidemic
just made such perfect sense.
You know, it said you don't have
to go to this monastic life
even if you thought
that might be feasible for you.
There is a way of rationally
having relationships
and protecting oneself.
INTERVIEWER: So, tell me, Richard,
what is the theory behind this book?
BERKOWITZ: Well, the prevailing
opinion about the cause of A*DS
appears to be
that there's a new A*DS agent,
presumably a virus,
that it's spreading
from group to group
and that one contact
with this putative agent
can cause the disease.
The real risk for developing A*DS
or CMV infection
is getting sperm up your a*s.
It's avoiding the exchange
of certain bodily fluids
which could potentially
be infectious.
ROTELLO: The strange thing
is that in attempting to counter
the claims of their opponents
that they were being sex negative,
they attempted to come up
with a regimen for safer sex
that essentially said that you can
continue the g*y sexual revolution
in the midst of a fatal
sexually transmitted epidemic
by simply resorting
to a technological fix,
which is a condom.
SONNABEND: There was nobody
else promoting condom use.
Absolutely not.
That I'm aware of.
I can't say there wasn't.
There may have been,
but I don't know of anybody else.
DWORKIN: One thing
that if you were g*y,
well, at least you didn't
have to use condoms, you know?
If nothing else.
And condoms were basically
completely foreign
to percent of g*y men.
Um...
So, yeah, the idea
that people would...
g*y men would have sex
using condoms
was revolutionary.
SONNABEND: We barely
had any official recognition.
The g*y community as such
tried to actually buy us out.
BERKOWITZ: After the book
had been out for a year
and was garnering
a lot of praise in the press,
g*y Men's Health Crisis
had to do something about it.
STACKHOUSE:
GMHC emerged
because the government
wasn't doing enough.
Or it wasn't doing hardly anything.
And, you know, it grew out
of just a handful of g*y men
who were mostly from Chelsea
and Fire Island Pines,
who got together and said,
"We gotta start something."
KRAMER:
It was like a church group.
It was like the Red Cross
or whatever.
It was not a political group at all.
We had people dying,
and we were trying to know
what to do with these people.
And the city wasn't helping
and the country wasn't helping
and how do you get 'em into
hospitals that don't want to take 'em
and how do you get wills drawn
and all of the actual
practical stuff of dying?
You know, we didn't have time
to go out
and pass out safe-sex things
when nobody knew
what safe sex was.
And unfortunately,
the Board of Directors of GMHC
was very conservative,
and they did not want
to say anything they couldn't prove.
BERKOWITZ: So they made us
an offer to buy all our booklets
with one condition,
that the multifactorial theory
be deleted from the copy
so they could then distribute it
without raising the issue
of lifestyle factors
contributing to A*DS.
SONNABEND: Tragedy is a great
source of public advancement,
and there are people
who get into the tragedy game
because it suits them.
It makes them famous
or it gives them money.
And we were
the competition, basically.
We were doing good for people,
but doing good for people,
we were doing it for nothing,
basically speaking.
There were people who like
to be seen doing good for people,
and so they took our work that did
good, like safe sex, for example.
The CDC was attributed
to inventing safe sex.
Well, they did everything
they could to stop us, actually.
BERKOWITZ: I thought for sure
that even though the community
hated what we said
in We Know Who We Are,
that somehow they'd bite the b*llet
and give us some money
to turn
How to Have Sex in an Epidemic
into safe-sex campaigns.
Year after year, we kept applying
for grants, applying for funding,
and everyone kept rejecting us.
So by the time came about,
our book had been out
for two years,
and there was still no safe sex
education being done
in New York City.
I mean, it was just infuriating
that personality conflicts
and political conflicts
could get in the way of getting
the message out to g*y men
that there was a way
to prevent A*DS.
So a friend of mine,
a former client, said,
"You're beating your head
against the wall.
You're not getting anywhere.
Come live with me
for a year in Florida
and just do safe-sex education
in Miami."
So, I was kind of pissed off,
but I did.
I moved away.
I didn't want to adopt
an identity of a disease.
I wanted to forget about it.
I wasn't I couldn't undo
what I did before safe sex,
and I felt like I was gonna be all
right for a decade or two afterwards.
So my focus was just on safe sex.
While Michael went off and worked
on all these other issues,
I wanted to focus on the "sluts."
DWORKIN:
Michael Callen was a founder
of The People with A*DS Coalition,
the Community Research Initiative,
the People with A*DS Health Group.
He served on the New York State
A*DS Advisory Council.
He was the founding editor of the
People with A*DS Coalition Newsline.
BERKOWITZ: Michael, because
he was dying of this disease,
you know, couldn't walk away from it.
And by the late 's,
he was singing at rallies,
he was singing at, you know,
national marches,
and, you know, he kind of became
a celebrated hero.
CALLEN, SINGING:
I have tried to sing my song right
I have tried to sing my song right
I have tried to sing my song right
Be sure to let me hear...
...from you
BERKOWITZ:
After a year in Florida,
I came back to New York City
because I... I don't know.
I kind of felt like, you know,
how can I walk away from a w*r
that's k*lling my community?
I put the first escort ad in
the Advocate promoting safe sex,
and soon after a lot of other ads
started mentioning safe sex, too.
ADLER: I just was mesmerized
by Rich's...
by Rich's knowledge
and his quest for more knowledge.
Oh, he was impeccably safe.
Impeccably.
And I learned that you have to
clean off the dildo and what to use.
And what he really did
was he made safe sex sexy.
BERKOWITZ: I felt safe sex was the
one thing that could save my friends.
You know?
I felt it was the one thing
that could save the community.
And because unlike
what g*y men were being told,
that once you
got exposed to the virus,
there was no more hope,
Sonnabend said to me,
"Even if you're exposed to the virus,
safe sex will still prolong your life.
Safe sex will still
protect your partners.
Safe sex will still
protect your health.
And no one else was saying that.
LISTER: And I think what was radical
about what Rich did
was to promote safe sex
without giving up on sex.
I mean, to promote safe sex,
but still believe that one could have
a varied, exciting,
satisfying sex life
was a really radical thing
because the two camps, you know,
kind of formed themselves along
what many people thought
was these hard lines.
Like, you were either pro sex,
percent,
in all of its unsafe forms,
or you were anti-sex
if you believed in safe sex.
And Rich always fought
for there to be a middle ground
where safe sex could still
be fun sex and satisfying sex.
KRAMER: Well, I tried
to come out and say bluntly
it is caused by having sex.
Please try and stop.
INTERVIEWER: And is that
what you've done yourself?
KRAMER: Indeed, yes indeed.
I think I would be terrified
at this point
with that sort of Damocles
hanging over my head,
especially in New York City.
I don't have anybody...
I don't know how anybody,
how any g*y man could have sex
in New York City.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Callen?
CALLEN: I just...
It's just so incredible to me
that people cling to this myth
that you can get A*DS
from a single contact.
KRAMER: I think we have
a case here of,
"What difference does it make?"
It's caused by either your way
or my way or both ways.
And either way, it can k*ll you.
And it really is irrelevant if it's
many contacts or one contact.
Either way,
you're playing Russian Roulette
every time you have sex,
and that's the issue.
CALLEN:
Well, I think it's important, Larry.
It's not giving up sex.
It's modifying
the kinds of sex you have
to avoid the potential
transmission of bodily fluids
thought to be infectious.
BERKOWITZ: They keep talking
about this disease like it's a virus,
but... and it's Russian Roulette,
and once you get the virus, you die.
But cut down on your partners?
Cut down on your partners?
What is that?
You know, play Russian Roulette,
but put the b*llet in the g*n
less often?
And if they're advising people
to cut down
when they believe one
sexual contact can k*ll you,
you know, who the hell
are they talking to?
Who the hell
needs advice like that?
What are these people...?
Where are their minds?
Where are their ethics?
Where are their brains?
WHITE: As it turns out,
it's better to have safe sex
with people in a back room
than to have unsafe sex
with your lover in the bedroom.
But nobody in America was prepared
to say that or even think that.
BERKOWITZ: I mean, I think
people prefer simple answers
to complicated questions,
even when they're wrong.
I mean, that's one thing
I've learned from A*DS.
It kind of astounds me.
But Joe's theory was...
And in that light, Joe's theory
was much more complicated
than just saying,
"There's a new A*DS virus.
If you catch it, you die.
If you don't catch it, you're okay."
HASELTINE: I have heard
of Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, yes.
I would say his belief
was possible to hold
in the early 's,
but not in the very late 's
and through the 's
and certainly
not possible at all today.
DASKALAKIS: There could be
lots of multifactorial things,
but at the end of the day,
at least from my perspective
and probably the perspective
of most folks
who sort of do allopathic
medicine in the United States...
most...
HIV is the cause of A*DS and the
syndromes associated with A*DS,
but there could be
a lot of cofactors.
Like percent.
Cofactors can absolutely exist.
Are there some that are infectious?
Probably.
Do we know all of them?
No.
There is incontrovertible evidence
that HIV is the cause
and the only cause for A*DS.
And those people
who maintain belief to the contrary
are fantasists or they
have a political agenda.
STRUB: In the corporate community,
it either is or it isn't.
In the scientific community...
and most of the activists
that I work with...
it's a matter of degree,
and it seems to be different
in different people,
which we are finding out
more about now
as genetic factors and so on.
There are all sorts of things
that influence how nasty
the virus is in any given person.
SONNABEND: I think there
are probably lots of people
who are walking around with HIV,
and they're never gonna get sick.
And other people get it and within
two or three years, they're dead.
So, other things are going on.
BERKOWITZ: I certainly still
believe that cytomegalovirus
plays a role in A*DS.
And, in fact,
the most respected
scientific journal in Europe,
The Lancet,
posted an editorial
by all the editors
about a year ago
during the summer
saying that cytomegalovirus was
necessary with HIV to cause A*DS.
So, I'm still a multifactorialist.
I just learned the hard way,
you know, not to rule out HIV...
as I so arrogantly did
for many years.
DASKALAKIS: Now, I would say
with what we know
and a lot of clinical studies
and a lot of clinical data,
I and most folks believe
that HIV is the infectious particle
that causes the syndrome
that we call A*DS.
BERKOWITZ: If you go on
the Internet and do a search,
a Google search on me,
I'm tied in with all these lunatics,
and I just wish I...
I'm just glad to have the opportunity
to say that, you know,
the HIV is absolutely essential
to A*DS.
The A*DS drugs
have saved my life.
I think that they were prescribed...
based on what I've seen
with a lot of people,
I think they're prescribed way
too early and in way too high doses.
I mean, the great thing
that Sonnabend did with me was
he didn't start me
on any A*DS drugs
until I absolutely needed them.
KRAMER:
Every single drug is there
because we went,
and we fought like tooth and nail.
We made the government
study what we wanted,
made the clinical trials
reflect what we needed.
BERKOWITZ: When I was
at the peak of my questioning
whether or not HIV
had any kind of role in A*DS,
I came down with A*DS in .
And Sonnabend got me hooked up
with a protease inhibitor study
in Philadelphia in ,
and I had lost all hope.
I figured, "I'm covered with lesions,
I've got molluscum contagiosum
all over my body,
I've got T-cells,
I'm a dead man."
ADLER: The drug companies
are giving horrible misinformation.
Horrible misinformation.
And they're avoiding a class
of people like myself who are dying,
who are in agony,
in horrible pain.
STRUB:
Under the Bush administration,
they are co-conspirators, if you will,
with public health officials,
because someone who is treated
is vastly less infectious.
So, they're trying
to prevent new infections
by treating everybody who has HIV,
regardless of whether
they need it or not.
It's independent
of whether they need or not.
And they don't quite officially
say everything,
but particularly for people
who are already marginalized,
people who are poor,
people of color,
when they go into their clinic,
and they find out they're positive,
they're not left really with,
"You have a decision to make
whether to go on treatment."
They're all told they've
got to begin treatment,
you know,
often with tremendous urgency.
You know,
they're really anxious about it.
BERKOWITZ: Well, the most
important thing to say
about the A*DS drugs
is that we're still
tabulating their side effects,
and it's a pretty long list,
and it grows longer by the year.
So the idea that all you have
to do is pop these pills...
You know, these A*DS drugs are not
like smoking something in a pipe.
This is serious chemo,
and it's a part-time job.
You know, running to doctors,
getting your blood tested,
going to the pharmacy,
getting the prescriptions,
filling out the insurance forms.
You don't want this.
I'm telling you.
ADLER: Taking all those drugs.
I take to different drugs
besides the herbs that I take
and supplements.
I mean, I'm always taking
damn pills, and it's ruining my body.
BERKOWITZ: There are
an awful lot of g*y men
who are being
responsible and safe,
but there are also a lot
of g*y men who aren't.
And they're young,
and they're in their s.
ROGUE: I think youth
are dealing with, you know,
particularly in urban areas,
a lot of stigma and silencing
around HIV, sexuality,
desire in general.
But I think certainly
we need to start looking
at how we address h*m*
and racism and those
sort of cultural disparities
that are impacting this community
and these communities which
are now disproportionately affected.
ROTELLO: Fear is the thing
that motivates people
to make any difficult
behavior change,
whether it's quitting smoking
or losing weight or whatever.
You're afraid of the consequences
of what's gonna happen
if you don't change your behavior.
It's very difficult to imagine
how any safer-sex idea
can even get promulgated
in the g*y community now.
If you're not afraid,
you don't even read publications.
You don't read the pamphlets
that they print,
because you're not afraid anymore.
So why even bother to read it?
If I get infected,
I'll take some pills.
I know a million guys
that are infected.
They all look great.
They're getting steroids.
They're pumped up.
They look terrific.
You know, what's the big deal?
They, of course,
had fear on their side back then.
LUCAS: Unfortunately, right now,
we don't have much talk about A*DS.
A lot of people think that it's over.
Older people think that it's not
a big issue any longer,
and so a lot of young people
have this fatigue and desire
to have sex without condoms
because yes, it feels good.
You know, it feels more real.
ROTELLO: If Richard
began his crusade again today,
if Michael Callen came back
from the dead and called a rally,
I'm afraid no one would come.
ADLER: I think activism is dead.
I was an activist.
The activists that are alive,
some of us are in horrible condition.
You know, we're tired,
and the rest died.
I thought it was all gonna change.
There was something beautiful
about the time
when everybody was dying.
We all came
so close to each other.
We took care of people.
KRAMER: Why wasn't Richard
more of an activist?
Michael started these organizations,
a couple of them,
two or three of them.
Did Richard participate in those?
SONNABEND:
Richard was lost for a few years
to crack and God-knows-what.
And he was just thoroughly useless
to the extent that Michael Callen
walked out on him
and just wouldn't talk to him.
Then he went off to Florida,
you know, this sexual craziness.
He's a very fetching...
you know, very appealing
and all of this,
but it sort of hides a kind
of terrible reality in a way
because you know,
as fun-loving as it is,
it's a totally horrible profession,
sex for money.
It's degrading.
I'm sorry.
I'm not gonna say that to Richard.
And I think it's a miracle
that Richard
has come through
all of this, you know,
with his wits about him
and with some insight.
BERKOWITZ:
I smoked crack. I mean...
- I can't just say it.
- No, but...
I can't list it like a grocery list.
I've gotta put it
into some kind of human context
to explain why I did the drugs.
I went away to Florida for a year,
and when I came back
to resume hustling
after A*DS was really in full force,
I thought I could do it
without the drugs,
but I didn't expect
to be having clients coming in
with lesions
and signs of illness and...
I mean, I felt so in control
of what I was doing safe-sexwise,
but it was like death
kept entering into the scenes
and into the erotic moments.
I mean, before A*DS,
the use of drugs was
about the inability of g*y men
to be intimate with each other.
And so the drugs
was the way to, you know,
to numb our vulnerability
and our fear of being intimate
with one another
and a kind of self-hatred
that we absorbed from the culture
that made it difficult for us
to express affection with each other.
So sex became a drug in itself,
because we would have
all of this physical pleasure,
but it was like we were afraid
to get to know who each other was.
So we hid behind these fantasies
of what we wanted
because, you know, the sensitive,
vulnerable g*y men
that most of us were,
most of us didn't want for sex,
you know?
After A*DS, I think drugs
were about numbing the pain
of what was happening.
SONNABEND:
Do you expect me to say
that Richard was rendered
incapable by his use of crack?
I can't. I can't do that.
INTERVIEWER: Was that why,
though, he didn't do more?
SONNABEND:
Of course that's why! Yes!
BERKOWITZ: Throughout the 's,
I did an awful lot of work for no pay
trying to promote safe sex
against this huge tidal wave
of, you know, the g*y community
just really not liking
what I was saying
and really not wanting me
to be heard.
And it was really hard
to get published.
I mean, I spent years writing articles
that never saw the light of print.
And I spent years carrying
booklets around,
going to conferences,
you know, helping journalists,
and I never got paid
for any of that.
ADLER: I just have great admiration
for Richard Berkowitz.
And part of me has some anger
that he didn't get that out earlier.
His book.
BERKOWITZ:
Michael had always felt that...
from the conversations that we had
where we just talked about our lives
and growing up and how a nice
Jewish boy ended up hustling
that it was my...
it was destiny
for me to write the book
about how the three of us came
together and invented safe sex
from the point of view
of a sex worker.
Because I mean, who better
to write about, you know, sex
and how safe sex came about
than someone
who was a professional.
Anyway, so...
I think it should definitely
win an award
for the ugliest cover ever created.
But, I, you know, I love it.
I mean, writing this book
was an absolute joy.
For months,
I got up every morning,
went to my computer,
and just knowing
that everything that I was writing
was gonna end up published in
a hardcover book with a glossy jacket,
after spending so many years writing
articles that never got published
or got butchered
or got watered down
and censored and whitewashed,
to know that what I was writing
was absolutely
gonna end up in a book
was, as a writer, it was the pinnacle
of all my years of writing.
DOTTY BERKOWITZ:
He put an awful lot into that book.
But I don't think it was enough sex.
That's what sells books.
And good-looking women.
[Sighs]
BERKOWITZ:
How do I make money?
I'm on disability.
I'm completely entitled to it, and
I'm not ashamed to take my check.
It's $ a month.
and something goes to rent,
goes to Con Ed,
goes to cable,
and I've got about $-
to live with a month.
But I still have former clients
who help me out here and there,
just send me money,
put it in my account, you know,
when I need
some spending money,
you know,
for an emergency or stuff.
And, you know, my family's there
when I need something,
but basically I'm impoverished.
LISTER:
The biggest impact, I think,
that the years of A*DS had on Rich
was seeing so many
of his friends die
and being a really close friend
and witness to their illness and death
and feeling that
for so many people who died,
even well beyond his friends,
it was avoidable.
It could have been avoidable,
and I think he feels
a great sense of personal failure
at not having been able
to communicate his beliefs
well enough to more people
so that they
would have taken more care
in terms of their, you know,
sexual lives
and be alive.
BERKOWITZ: All three of the men
I had long-term relationships with
ended up committing suicide.
I understand it.
I do. I understand it.
I understand...
I understand, as a g*y man,
especially in the age of A*DS,
that people reach a point
where they don't wanna go on living.
It's too painful.
It's too unendurable.
STACKHOUSE: No, no.
I haven't heard of Richard Berkowitz.
INTERVIEWER:
Have you heard of Michael Callen?
STACKHOUSE: Oh, actually, yes.
Michael Callen.
I knew Michael Callen.
We were friends.
HASELTINE: I've never heard
of Richard Berkowitz.
LUCAS: I think I've heard
about Richard Berkowitz.
The name sounds familiar.
I don't...
I cannot comment much.
ROGUE: I've never heard
of Richard Berkowitz.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever heard
of Michael Callen?
Yes.
I've heard of Michael Callen.
BERKOWITZ: I think it's a testament
to how important
the work we did together was
that years later,
probably the biggest
and most important
g*y and l*sbian health center
in the city
is named for Michael Callen.
BERKOWITZ:
My name is Richard Berkowitz.
I wrote this book
about how safe sex began,
and half of the book
is about Michael Callen.
MAN: Okay.
BERKOWITZ:
So, they're not gonna film people.
They just want to get the shot
of him on the wall.
MAN:
Okay. As long as it stays...
INTERVIEWER:
They were best friends.
- BERKOWITZ: Okay.
- MAN: Okay.
MAN: As long as there's
not a patient involved.
BERKOWITZ: Right.
MAN: But in the future,
if you ever want to do something,
there's a... on our Internet site,
there's a communications guide,
because normally,
it's very intimidating for patients.
BERKOWITZ: I understand.
I'm g*y, so I understand.
- They want their privacy.
- MAN: Right.
BERKOWITZ:
Especially in a place like this.
- MAN: Yeah.
- BERKOWITZ: I understand that.
- MAN: Okay.
- BERKOWITZ: Okay.
"In the end, for each individual,
it is as rational to it believe he
or she will be among the survivors
as it is to assume
that he or she won't.
We must fix our hearts and minds
on a clear image of the day when
A*DS is no longer... is no more.
Make no mistake about it.
That day will come."
I mean, Michael's whole message
was about hope.
And I think that was the one thing
that Sonnabend gave
to me and Michael
that most g*y men,
in terms of A*DS, never got.
ADLER: I hope that this movie
helps to promote safe sex
and to know the people
and how they struggled
to get people to believe
that safe sex was the only thing
that was gonna save us.
BERKOWITZ: I think no one's
ever taken a moment
in the -plus years
since A*DS started
to ever pat g*y men
on the back and say,
"You know something?
There are still people
getting infected,
but you've done an incredible job
and you should be proud of yourself."
No one's ever said that.
Everyone's always looking at,
there's a percent infection rate,
there's a percent infection rate.
But what about the infection rate
that isn't, you know?
I think g*y men have been
extraordinarily responsible
in protecting themselves
and their partners
for a very long time,
and no one's ever once
taken a moment to say,
"You know something?
You've done a good job."
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