Kris Kale Hanson stands outside Swinging Richards in a black wig and fishnet shirt, lips smeared with dark lipstick. He says it’s his third night in a row at the club. His friend Robin, wearing a velvet jacket, adds, “We’re here to worship at the church of Tyson!”-referring to one of the club’s dancers. She’s been coming since 2014, and has the X-rated picture a dancer took with her phone to prove it. It’s January 15 they’re here to witness the club’s last day. Striding past a crowd of about 150 on his way inside, a dancer asks if everybody is ready to see some-well, some Swinging Richards. Swinging Richards, which opened in 1996 on Northside Drive, was one of the few remaining strip clubs in the country that catered to gay men, and the first club in Atlanta to allow full-frontal male nudity. When it opened, gay sex was still illegal in some states. In 1996, President Bill Clinton-who had already banned openly gay people from serving in the military-signed the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as between a man and a woman only. Swinging Richards’ 26-year life has coincided with a sea change in LGBTQ rights: In 2003, the Supreme Court struck down antisodomy laws Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell fell in 2011 and in 2015, the Supreme Court extended the right to marry to same-sex couples. Over the decades, Swinging Richards has been much more than a den of debauchery, says Cameron Belle, the club’s social media director: It was “a pillar of the LGBTQ+ community from its onset,” hosting benefits for organizations like Atlanta Pride and the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus. “People have created memories here,” Belle says. They had their sense of community here.” Over the years the club has seen a number of celebrities walk through its doors, including Tiffany Haddish and Ed Sheeran. Inside Swinging Richards on its last night, Britney Spears’s “Gimme More” blasts as crew-cut Howie, 43, does push-ups onstage wearing nothing but a pair of silver and white Air Jordans. On another part of the stage, Scotty-all six-pack abs and floppy auburn hair-arranges himself into a Warrior II pose. Customers gather on the side, dollar bills clasped in their fists, waiting to stuff them into the dancers’ armbands, or more adventurous locations. The club is both a place for gay men and a “place for people who are still in the closet to be who they are,” Howie says. Over his three years at Swinging Richards, he’s danced for many married “straight” men on business trips. Questions about sexuality were ever present. The couple includes an HIV-negative top and a positive bottom, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to educate gay men by going "behind the scenes" and speaking to these two actors in a way that focused on their real life and didn't demonize them.“Every night, we were asked if we were gay or straight,” says Scotty. I exchanged e-mails with Paul Morris in an attempt to interview a real-life couple he just re-signed to exclusive bareback video naughtiness. Morris' enthusiastic wish that everyone "(have sex) freely and without fear," he's a little light on the real-life implications of such a lifestyle.
ATLANTA GAY SEX CLUBS BAREBACK SERIES
"Disease free, UB2" in online profiles is being countered by the cheeky "HIV-positive and plan to stay that way, UB2." Meeting sites are engaging in some serosorting of their own by offering poz dating and hookup options.Īnd over at the barebacking gay porn company Treasure Island Media (TIM), director Paul Morris has named it "the year of living positive," with a series of videos featuring openly HIV positive actors. Barebacking is the suspected culprit.Įverywhere on the gay hook-up radar, positive men are asking, telling, and serosorting.
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A recent study found that 75 percent of new hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in HIV-positive men occurred in those with no history of injection drug use - the more typical transmission route for HCV. On an important side note: Is avoiding HIV enough? Research indicates that poz-on-poz sex is much more likely to include barebacking (unprotected sex), and that means the potential of pitting a sometimes compromised immune system against other sexually transmitted diseases.