Shout Out: Sex Positive

A new documentary about Richard Berkowitz illustrates how he forced gay men to take a long, hard look at their lives and dared to suggest that our lifestyle of excess was not liberating us but killing us.

BY Advocate.com Editors

February 02 2009 1:00 AM ET

Dear Sex Positive documentary subject Richard Berkowitz,

You have our eternal thanks for being one of the earliest voices of reason in the midst of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. It’s shocking to look back, in the new film Sex Positive (directed by Daryl Wein and based on your book, Stayin’ Alive), on a generation so resistant to the idea of safe sex. You forced gay men to take a long, hard look at their lives and dared to suggest that our lifestyle of excess was not liberating us but killing us. We’re sorry that in the frustration of devoting your life to ending the disease you lost your way, became an addict for a time, and ended up broke and forgotten. As the rates of HIV infection continue to climb, we hope your story will serve as a cold reminder to a new generation and that you can now live your life in a place of honor, not obscurity.

Sincerely,

The Advocate