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At the LA Review of Books, Jonathan Alexander reviews Dale Peck’s collection of writings on the AIDS crisis, Visions and Revisions: Coming of Age in the Age of AIDS. Peck’s book includes accounts of seemingly reckless and foolish sex that he had in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. But as Alexander suggests, continuing to pursue pleasure in the shadow of AIDS was Peck’s way of refusing to surrender his own joy and pleasure to the disease. Here’s an excerpt:
Peck’s larger claim that steadily accumulates over the 200 pages of this book is that, despite AIDS, and maybe even because of AIDS, gay men must make sure not to lose joy in sex, to forget the pleasures of the body, of intimacy, of connecting, even of connecting anonymously and promiscuously with others. It’s a challenging thesis, even now, but Peck comes to it carefully and movingly, through his ongoingly intelligent discussion of AIDS and gay sexual cultures…
But the most compelling dimension of Peck’s analysis comes in his consistent turn to sex — not just sexuality or sexual identity, but sex acts themselves. His opening litany of lovers becomes something of a leitmotiv in the developing drama of his relationship to AIDS, personally, politically, and culturally. He rehearses debates about some gay men’s turn to unsafe sex despite knowledge of infection risks, noting how prevention efforts need to address the “psychology,” not just the “paraphernalia” of sex. For Peck, prevention can never come at the cost of pleasure, especially as the pursuit of pleasure asserts gay men’s right to their own self-fulfillment and self-determination. As he puts it, “every back-room blowjob, every hookup, every flushed condom and sticky-dicked walk of shame was a refusal to renounce the behavior that formed the core of our personal as well as cultural identities.”
Image of Dale Peck via Interview magazine