“How to Have Sex in an Epidemic” (May 1983)
Gay Press Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Community Projects, 1983.
.
“It was How to Have Sex in an Epidemic…that pioneered the approach to safer sex which we recognize today. By deducing a means by which gay men could continue to ‘have sex in an epidemic’ but take rational precautions to make that sex safer, [Richard Berkowitz and Michael Callen, under the scientific supervision of their physician, Dr. Joseph Sonnabend] provided the model for safer sex campaigns ever since.”
— Edward King, author of Safety in Numbers
“This is the sanest, most sensible advice I’ve read yet about AIDS.”
— Edmund White, author of States of Desire, Genet
“At last: a response to the effect of AIDS on our lives that goes beyond fears and myths to suggest positive actions.”
— Dennis Altman, author of Gore Vidal’s America
“Particularly well-done.”
— Village Voice
“It urges a sensible restriction of sex among currently promiscuous homosexual males.”
— New York Review of Books
“The useful thing about it is that it is precisely about how to have sex, not a warning not to.”
— Body Politic (Toronto)
“The only literature yet produced by this particular crisis in human affairs, is this touchingly funny, very instructive 40-page pamphlet.”
— Peter Fisher, author of AIDS: Your Questions Answered
“Sympathetic…their recommendations are appropriate for all sexually active people.”
— Frontiers Magazine
.
The text of “HOW TO HAVE SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC: One Approach”
Click each thumbnail below from (left to right) to enlarge and read:
— The End —
Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, Michael Callen & me, 1993
Safe Sex Positive 
June 21, 2020 at 4:48 pm
[…] guidelines was inspired by a 1983 pamphlet, written during the start of the AIDS crisis, called “How to Have Sex During an Epidemic,” which pioneered the public health strategy of harm reduction and safer […]