LGNY, May 26, 2001 New York's Lesbian and Gay Newspaper
Virtually Reckless The Contradictory Faces of Andrew Sullivan By Michelangelo Signorile
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Given everything I've witnessed about the rise of barebacking in the past several years, I could not help but be taken aback by a story I became privy to that has lit up the Internet over the past several weeks. The same was apparently true for many others, because it was the hot topic of discussion on message boards, from the gossipy gay site Datalounge.com to the gay conservative site Independent Gay Forum, from the often liberal Salon.com to the rabidly right-wing FreeRepublic.com. The HIV-positive gay writer and pundit Andrew Sullivan, the information contended, had an assumed screen name on America Online with a profile that advertised for "bareback" sex and which linked to two Web pages where he posted headless photos and his sexual tastes, one of which was on BarebackCity.com.
Beyond the sensationalism of the "bareback" sex revelation, what was most jarring to people who'd received this information was the sheer incongruity between the public persona that many rightly or wrongly perceive as Sullivan's -- conservative, moral, devoutly Catholic, marriage-minded, judgmental toward the sexual behavior of politicians and other public figures, and arrogant toward the ghettoized gay scene --and the person depicted on the sites, a gay stereotype more extreme than any of the Village People, someone very much in the gay sexual fast lane, all pumped up and describing his "power glutes," ravenously eager to hook up but letting prospective partners know that "no fats, no fems" need apply.
The information about the sites was easy enough for any journalist to confirm early on. I did, eventually speaking with two men to whom Sullivan had identified himself through the screen name, one of whom met with him. I'd actually been informed about the sites days before the information had been posted on the Internet message boards; the information came from a source I've known and trusted for many years, a health care professional. The screen name and the Web sites were shut down soon after the story was posted on the Internet.
According to several individuals at The New York Times, Sullivan acknowledged the existence of the sites and their exposure to at least one of his editors as soon as the information broke on the Internet (though he apparently kept out the major detail: that it was "bareback" sex that he was seeking.) Rather than deny the story outright if indeed it were a false, vicious rumor, Sullivan, who normally gives a comment to any reporter who calls him -- and who has chided other public figures for not coming forward with the truth in such matters -- has refused to respond to inquiries from a great many reporters, myself included. Silence has been golden in that regard: Except for a squib on Datalounge.com, commentary from Gaybc.com radio host John McMullen, and an item by Village Voice columnist Michael Musto, no mainstream or gay media have dared to go near this story.
And yet, it is a story that will not die.
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