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Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures

Eric Rofes

4.07 · Rating details · 15 ratings · 2 reviews

Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures breaks new ground in offering an original and insightful interpretation of gay men's shifting experience of the AIDS epidemic. From Dry Bones Breathe, you'll gain a deeper understanding of current community debates focused on circuit parties, unprotected sex, and gay men's sexual cultures, and you will l Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures breaks new ground in offering an original and insightful interpretation of gay men's shifting experience of the AIDS epidemic. From Dry Bones Breathe, you'll gain a deeper understanding of current community debates focused on circuit parties, unprotected sex, and gay men's sexual cultures, and you will learn how social, political, and biomedical changes are dramatically transforming gay identities and cultures.Dry Bones Breathe is Eric Rofes'explosive follow-up to Reviving the Tribe, a book which broke open debates in gay communities around the world about sex, identity, and gay men's relationship to AIDS. In this volume, Rofes contends that most gay men no longer experience AIDS as the crisis they did during the 1980s. Gay men often attribute this shift to the advent of protozoa inhibitors, but Rofes explains how other factors, including the epidemic's predicted trajectory, new treatments for opportunistic infections, the passage of time, and the increasing diversity of gay men inhabiting communities throughout the country have set in motion the transformation of gay life. AIDS organizations and gay leaders, however, continue to assert that gay men experience AIDS as an emergency, resulting in a tremendous dissonance between gay leaders and their communities. In the midst of this controversy, Dry Bones Breathe lets you share in stories of hope and recovery and a new vision for AIDS work that demands a radical redesign of prevention, care, and activism. Dry Bones Breathe tackles several other issues concerning the powerful shifts occurring in gay communities and cultures by:
explaining why an understanding of the terms "post-AIDS" and "post-crisis" is crucial to interpreting contemporary gay male cultures and what Australian prevention theorists have to offer gay men in the United States
describing the "Protozoa Moment" and exploring how a dangerous obsession with pharmaceuticals is leading many to mistakenly attribute all changes in gay men's cultures to combination therapies
examining the writings of Larry Kramer, Andrew Sullivan, Michelangelo Signorile, and Gabriel Rightly to illustrate how the crisis construct has unleashed a backlash against gay sexual cultures
discussing the dramatic diminution in gay men's AIDS-related deaths in epicenter cities and the impact of shrinking obituary pages on gay men's mental health
exploring the diverse relationships to the epidemic forged by young gay men, gay men of color, gay men from rural or small towns, and middle-aged men not infected with HI
detailing how HI prevention and service organizations targeting gay men must redesign their mission and restructure their work In response to continuing efforts to direct gay men back into a state of emergency, Dry Bones Breathe suggests that long-term prevention efforts must be constructed around something other than a crisis. While AIDS organizations look at gay men's diminished participation in AIDS activism, Rofes argues that these organizations should face how they have distanced themselves from the reality of most gay men's lives. From stories and experiences full of hope, anger, sadness, and strength, Dry Bones Breathe will teach you about gay men who no longer base their identities and cultures solely around AIDS. ...more

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Paperback, 372 pages

Published April 15th 1998 by Routledge (first published January 1st 1981)

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Sep 23, 2016 Kike Ramos rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, lgbtq

English/ Español

First English because it's written in that language. In this book, Eric Roses tries to make an analysis of mainly male gay culture and how it changed after the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80's and first half of the 90's.

In reality the author focus more on the AIDS organizations, but yeah. Here he reviews how gay men had to change their behaviours constantly, how the meanings of everyday life changed and how some cultural aspects came to modify the so called gay community, while sayin English/ Español

First English because it's written in that language. In this book, Eric Roses tries to make an analysis of mainly male gay culture and how it changed after the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80's and first half of the 90's.

In reality the author focus more on the AIDS organizations, but yeah. Here he reviews how gay men had to change their behaviours constantly, how the meanings of everyday life changed and how some cultural aspects came to modify the so called gay community, while saying that there's not such thing as a one gay community, but lots of them. He calls it a post-AIDS by saying that the new drugs that appeared in the mid 90's changed the way gay men perceived HIV and how it stopped from being a 100% death sentence, to a manageable illness.

He speaks about his own experiences, but he goes way too explicit with the sexual encounters wich, even if they were entertaining, a lot of the time they felt off topic.

Anyway, a really nice book to learn more on post AIDS crisis everyday life of gay men in America and how it was perceived by one of them.
____________

En este libro, Eric Rofes trata de hacer un análisis principalmente de la cultura gay masculina después de la crisis dela VIH/SIDA de los 80's y 90's.

En realidad, el autor se concentra más en criticar las organizaciones pro SIDA pero bueno. Él habla acerca de cómo los hombres gays tuvieron que cambiar sus conductas constantemente, como los significados de la vida cotidiana cambiaron y como otros aspectos culturales modificaron a la llamada comunidad gay, aunque él argumenta que no existe una sola comunidad, sino muchas. Llama a los 90's una época post-SIDA porque los medicamentos nuevos cambiaron la forma en que se veía a la enfermedad ya que pasó de ser una sentencia de muerte segura, a una enfermedad manejable.

Eric habla de sus propias experiencias, pero menciona sus encuentros sexual es muy explícitamente y, aunque eran bastante entretenidos, muchas veces se sentían fuera de lugar.

Un buen libro para analizar la cultura gay masculina durante los 90's en Estados Unidos, y cómo estás personas cambiaron su percepción del SIDA ...more

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Nov 20, 2015 6655321 rated it liked it

Shelves: history-and-other-fictions, queer-as-in-fuck-you, science, sexuality-and-other-terrors

This is a somewhat weird book because its written at the emergence of "post-AIDS" as an idea although it also is sort of washy on "what Eric Rofes thinks is important about this dialog" and instead hops around a lot on "what is sort of happening" with a lot of Eric Rofes personal sex history presented as a case in point? ...more

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About Eric Rofes

Eric Rofes

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Eric Rofes was an author, educator, and social justice activist who worked on a wide range of political issues including: equitable access to public education; gay men's health; marriage equality; sexual freedom; racial, economic and environmental justice.

During his lifetime of activism, Eric Rofes founded the Boston Lesbian & Gay Political Alliance, served as the Executive Director of the Los Ang ...more