Title: Stayin' Alive: The Invention of Safe Sex Author: Richard Berkowitz Publisher: Westview Press Publish Date: 2003 Pages: 235 Genres:: Non-Fiction, Autobiography, Biography, Gay, Sociology Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

Like a folk story, Richard Berkowitz's book about safe sex is a warm and tender telling about someone born good, falling into habits that are bad, almost meeting their end via the habits, but before it is too late, they experience an awakening, save themselves and take what they learned from their spiral down to help others avoid the fate that was almost theirs--and then, of course, writing a book about it. For Berkowitz the book is Stayin' Alive, a story of a young gay man's journey to the discovery of safe sex.

Berkowitz's story was awesome--beginning with him dealing with the feelings of not being like the other boys in New Jersey at a time when people could not understand why he wasn't like the other boys (being gay was removed as being a psychiatric disease a few years before he was born), to accepting who he is, to receiving blow jobs in the Howard Johnson parking lot from old men, which lead to sex in back rooms of bathhouses in New York City, and finally moving to the City and becoming a hustler that used whips and chains on corporate executives and making a lot of money doing it.

It was a great book! It contained an amount of sex done in a manner that a heterosexual or lesbian may have trouble comprehending (one man estimated he had over 300 different partners a year) because it is so foreign to their escapades; but one that many may enjoy reading because it all seems so easy and fantasy-esque. Sex! All day, everyday and rarely with the same partner twice, often in public places with complete strangers--get off, get out, be gone! To call the first half of the book wildly entertaining would be an understatement.

But, then the diseases came: gonorrhea, hepatitis and parasites called cyrptorodiosis, a disease found commonly in livestock. Then AIDS!

AIDS came like a manmade holocaust storm created by those jealous of the free-flowing romping, chomping and satisfaction that was done in the 70's and early 80s by homosexual males. It brought an end to their party--not only in life, but the book suffers as well.

Berkowitz was able to deal with the earlier diseases, but the initial shock of AIDS stopped his sex in its tracks. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to spread the disease to others. He cared about what was happening in his community. Yes, he does go on to discover sex could be had safely, but it was never the same (the book, that is).

The slow-moving developments that weeded out the myths and truths of what AIDS was in the early 80s played out like a lesson in recent history as Berkowitz is introduced to the disease that swept over the gay community in New York City in 1981. The arrival of AIDS turned Berkowitz's story from the constant frolicking to panicked repenting.

Gone were money and sex. Enter responsibility, a boss and relationships. Vanished was the life lived for the next sexual conquest. Insert spreading the word that the lifestyle, so enjoyed, was going to kill them all if they didn't stop.

As the disease is introduced, the writing suffers. The book was well-written and interesting for the first half, but then the lessons and preaching, though valid, become hard to read as Berkowitz quotes multiple page conversations from over 20 years ago like he was a transcribing machine. The best, and most annoying example of this is a five-page word for word reprinting of an averagely written speech given by Michael Callen, an AIDS activist and cohort of Berkowitz in the spreading the news of the dangers of promiscuity. It was a landmark in their laudable battle, but did not free slaves or tell of a dream of their people--it only gave an opportunity for Callen to share their thesis, belief and to state he had over 2,400 sex partners in his lifetime.

Berkowitz fills the pages of the back end of his book with details of deep emotion and stories that lack the edge and excitement that propelled the first half of the book. There is a heroic romantic angle he desperately wants to create, but Stayin' Alive lacks the storyteller to finish the tale and reads more like a memoir of a friend. As sex changed for everyone with the emergence of AIDS, Berkowitz's attitude changed about life and sadly being careful, kind and caring about others doesn't always equal a great read.