Our Future: Hookup Culture in the Age of PrEP

The AIDS epidemic left a scar on the American gay community that will likely never fade, and deservedly so. The lack of care of the Reagan administration in their response to the epidemic nearly wiped out an entire generation of gay men, and those that lived through it likely had plenty of friends and lovers that weren't as lucky.

It's hard to imagine what gay culture would look like today without it, and even harder to imagine a future where its looming legacy isn't still felt. The epidemic threatened the core of our community in a very existential sense -- that even after overcoming the cultural disdain over being openly gay, embracing one's sexuality could still lead to pain and loss. The homophobic culture that had for decades violently suppressed gay people no longer needed direct violence, because through their lack of care they allowed the same violence to act out itself.

Now, in 2017, PrEP has essentially eliminated the threat of AIDS. With it, the fear and anxiety that followed the disease has also more or less passed. Those that have the disease can live perfectly fulfilled sex lives and date others without the dread that might have once followed them. Gay men no longer have to worry that their next hook up could have dire consequences. What this also means is that for the first time in years gay men can also engage in high-risk sex without too much concern.

This of course comes at a time when it's easier for gay men to have casual sex than it ever has been. It's almost considered a right of passage as a young gay man to go through the hook up phase, where trolling Grindr for a slew of no-strings-attached flings is essentially accepted as the standard entrance into the gay world. Similarly, as many have noted, sex parties, once considered a relic of the carefree pre-aids era, are on the rise again in a big way.

That's all well and good, but it's concerning to me to see the attitudes many young gay men have adopted towards sex in light of these developments. For many, PrEP isn't seen as a life saving cure, but an excuse to throw concern regarding sex to the wind. Barebacking during hookups has become standard practice for many, or at least an acceptable option if it helps get your partner off. Cause if it's not gonna kill you anymore, then what's the issue? Certainly, anyone that knows the colorful variety of lifelong and life-threatening viruses one could still contract from unprotected sex outside of AIDS could give you a compelling answer to that question.

But it's not necessarily just a matter of health either. There was something more that came out of the AIDS epidemic than just the fear it instilled. That being that sex matters, and sex has consequences. Beyond that, we're a community explicitly because of our shared experience with sexuality. If we're going to be able to thrive in a culture that's set itself explicitly against anyone who's not heterosexual, then it's absolutely necessary for us to look out for each other.

It's fantastic that for the most part we're at a point where gay men can enjoy their sexualities without concern for their well-being, but it bothers me what an entire generation of gay men seeing sex in the most carefree and detached way possible could spell out for our community. But in a lot of ways, it feels that's the way we might be heading. For many young gay men, sex seems to be the only option they have if they want to enter into the gay world.

Gay men, unlike straight people, generally don't get their adolescence as a period to discover what sexuality and relationships are and how they function. Whereas most straight people likely come out of high school with at least a rudimentary amount of experience with that side of life, gay men are usually flung into the world and forced to figure things out without much in the way of training wheels. It's a fact that's always made me love my community, given that we can still find love and happiness in spite of this fact; but it also means that young gay men are susceptible to being hurt and damaged by sexuality in a way most other people aren't.

Sex is something that should be enjoyable for everyone, but it's also a thing that can be incredibly dangerous to play with blindly. It has consequences and reverberations that can last way beyond the bedroom -- exploring sexuality can be just as liberating as it can be damaging. And personally, I've seen one too many friends emotionally burned out and isolated by the ferocity of gay hookup culture to not take note of it.

Kyle Mangione-Smith is a filmmaker and student living in Boston.