In an effort to increase HIV awareness and promote safe sex in the UK, particularly among 16- to 24-year-olds, the BBC has just launched a campaign that includes an interactive website, events on school campuses, and videos that feature the central figure of the campaign: GI Jonny, a safe-sex crusader.

The first video, which stars GI Joe-like action figures, features graphic sexual moments and shots of certain choice body parts. When I first saw what Captain Bareback's "crotch cannon" could do, I didn't know what to think. But if that's how you get to young people, I guess that's how you get to young people. Thankfully, GI Jonny comes to the rescue, but when he pulls down his pants I was like "WTF?!"

I understand that our own Queersighted blogger and octogenarian, Richard Rothstein, will be performing at La Mama soon. Like many of you, I read his post on Stage Fright and I felt a deep and sincere obligation to help him get over his fears. You see, I was a stand-up comedian for many, many, many, many years. I still do stand-up occasionally, when I'm not blogging or "wrestling the menopause".

We all know that Richard is a very funny writer. He wrote this line for example ... "As for Susan, she may remember some of these classics, but at the moment she's busy wrestling the menopause to the ground." See, that is hilarious.

But there is a big difference between funny on paper and funny on stage. I am a perfect example of this. For year and years and years and years, I basked in the white hot light of success as a stand-up, and yet, I have received somewhat, well ... luke-warm reviews from readers here at Queersighted. This one for example ... "while i don't support miss tequila, i think you're an annoying, pretentious, bitter c**t".

Sure, that hurt a little, but when your audience gives you lemons, try to make lemon-aid. That reader didn't really "get" my post on bisexual dating shows, but doggonnit, at least I can feel good about the fact that she "got" me. Richard often helps me with my blogs. He's the one who insisted I do the Bisexual Dating Show post.

That's why I want to return the favor and help him with some performance advice. The first and best bit of advice I can give you is to warm the audience up with what's known in the business as an "icebreaker". You're performing for a room full of drag queens and trannies. so you might want to start with, "Hey there, where ya from?" or "Say you're a good looking crowd!" or "So, how old's your vagina?" Better yet, here's some comedy advice from a seasoned comedy professional who is really good with first timers. Pay attention Richard. I want you to do well at La MaMa.

CRUISING is the black sheep of gay cinema history. It's the kind of gay film we want to see but it is also the kind of gay film we'd rather nobody makes. What's most extraordinary about this high-profile controversial film is that it is extraordinarily mediocre, one of Friedkin's lessor accomplishments--of which there are many.

Friedkin is an odd director having created a few classics (The Exorcist, The French Connection), but mostly he's responsible for a whole slew of bad to boring film and television productions. CRUISING is not bad enough to be a camp classic and it's far from good enough to be a landmark film. So why all the attention--surely not just because a young buff naked Al Pacino is trussed up for a good poking? What Friedkin accomplished with CRUISING is an almost documentary-quality look at an important and influential part of the gay world circa 1980. CRUISING is, like it or not, a major record of a very important and influential moment in gay history--and from many aeries, it ain't a pretty picture.

At the time, gay activists condemned the film claiming that it would mislead straight America into thinking that the gay world is dominated by leather, S&M, fetish, sex clubs and relentless anonymous sex in every dark nook and cranny of New York's night world. Gay activists insisted that this world was on the fringe and did not represent mainstream gay America. Obviously, to suggest that the leather, rubber and fetish community was on the fringe of the 70s gay sex scene is not entirely accurate. Just ask The Village People or just about any New York or San Francisco queer who survived it..

Medical researchers are going to subject healthy young black men to ctic acidosis (a buildup of acid in the blood that can lead to a medical emergency), nausea, vomiting, unusual muscle pain and/or weakness, a high potential for serious liver problems, an increased risk of kidney damage and potential bone damage,

Of course, this isn't Nazi Germany, so the medical experiments will be purely voluntary. The incentive to participate is simple, compelling and seductive. These otherwise healthy young black men who are either too macho or too lazy to use condoms can bareback their little hearts out on the chance that the "prophylactic" use of HIV treatment drugs such as Gilead Science's Viread and Truvada will prevent infection by the HIV virus.

The theory, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), suggests that taking anti- HIV drugs before exposure to the virus can protect a person against infection when they are exposed to it through sex or intravenous drug use. It's controversial because it may raise resistance to the drugs, making them less effective when infection happens. And since gay black men are the study subjects, the high risk of dangerous drug side effects seems to be of little concern to the United States government researchers.

``We don't yet have definitive proof this is effective,'' Dawn Smith, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a reporter for Bloomberg News.

Unlike other experimental approaches to fighting HIV such as vaccines and microbicides, PrEP uses drugs that are already in use, such as Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Viread and Truvada. The technique has been shown to lower the risk of infection in monkeys.

According to the CDC, "The U.S. trial will target young homosexual black males because they are statistically more at risk of contracting HIV than their white peers."

Can you count the number of things that are wrong with this picture? Of course, if I were a true cynic, I might even applaud the pharmaceutical company for concocting a brilliant marketing scheme designed to dramatically expand sales. The HIV positive population is so very small, but the HIV negative population? Now there's a marketing opportunity beyond compare! Heck, even without an FDA approved indication, the publicity for this trial alone will drive thousands of affluent gay men into their doctor's offices for a lovely happy hour prophylaxis drug cocktail. Who needs condoms when I can sell my liver for a daily hit of Truvada?

In early May, I questioned the sense and sanity of sero-sorting, basing my protests on little more than science and logic.

A few weeks ago the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention released a report describing the fact that sero-sorting, the sophisticated gay poz pundit term for bare-backing, was in fact causing what common sense told us all along would be the case: the development of new and more virulent strains of sexually transmitted diseases.

Today's report puts some ugly and downright terrifying numbers on this phenomenon.

Syphilis, including a particularly lethal mutation, among gay and bisexual men in Los Angeles County has increased 365% since 2001, county health department officials say. Six in 10 gay and bisexual men with syphilis report being HIV-positive.

Andy, are you listening? 365% increase in the infection rate. Sixty percent of the new cases are among the HIV-positive.

Apparently a number of gay pundits--educated, responsible and sophisticated men--confused their certificates of HIV test results with degrees in medicine and science. Understandable--both are just paper with words and numbers and we all know how gay men hate to read anything other than Page Six and People magazine. And in their wisdom from their lofty positions of great influence these opinion leaders and trend setters determined that in defiance of logic, common sense and science they would inspire thousands of HIV positive gay men to abandon the bondage of latex, PVC and unsatisfying water-based lubricants and thanks to the brilliance of sero-sorting live in a fabulous and magical world of thoroughly safe unsafe sex.

Of course, some spoilsports such as myself vigorously challenged this bizarre and dangerous fantasy but given a choice between the wisdom of established and well-known queers like those pundits and sycophants to the condom industry such as myself, the media and many queers shed their sheaths, sero-sorted and provided a nasty soup in which spanking new sexually transmitted diseases could thrive and evolve. Oops.

Reuters reports that "A particularly serious form of the sexually transmitted bacterial disease syphilis has been detected in gay and bisexual U.S. men infected with the AIDS virus, federal health officials reported on Thursday."

President George W. Bush has announced his "intention to nominate James W. Holsinger, Jr., to serve as the 18th Surgeon General of the United States.

According to Mr. Bush: "As America's chief health educator, he will be charged with providing the best scientific information available on how Americans can make smart choices that improve their health and reduce their risk of illness and injury "

However, if you're a gay American you'd better duck.

Take note that Bush's choice for America's top quack rejects the scientifically-based positions of the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics that plainly state that so-called reparative or ex-gay therapy actually is a danger to an individual's health and well-being and may lead to clinically dangerous bouts of anxiety, depression and suicide. The new White House top doc responds to that with one big resounding "quack!"

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is an extraordinary organization where theatre folk from Broadway and around the country raise money for people living with HIV and AIDS, as well as with breast cancer. (And even if you aren't involved in the theatre or live in New York City, it's an important and worthwhile organization to check out.)

And one of its most anticipated annual fund-raising events is 'Broadway Bares,' a show where New York's hottest theatre dancers and actors strip – yes, strip! – to raise money for BC/EFA. And this year they'll all drop trou on Sunday night, June 17th, at The Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan.

I recently spoke with the show's director, Denis Jones (himself a Broadway dancer with a stripper-ready bod), as he took a quick break from rehearsal to talk about the event (and, um, Cyndi Lauper's sex toys).

Read how the conversation went down -- and see some sexy photos from last year's 'Broadway Bares' -- after the jump.

Pride is the big party at the end of a long day of hard work; except most of us are just showing up for the party

Fifth Avenue is the premiere location in the world for celebrations of cultural diversity and community pride and when the lavender stripe runs down the avenue past Tiffany's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and Saint Patrick's Cathedral, I for one am annually reborn and each time it is as a more complete human being. And Pride holds a very special place in the panoply of community celebrations on America's most prestigious and famous main street. In October, the Italians march. In November, it's the veterans. In March, it's the Irish. The Greeks march in April and the Puerto Ricans and the Jews march in May. But in June, we all March under one rainbow flag. The unified power of New York's diverse gay community reflects the unique diversity of New York as a whole--and it is a powerful and unstoppable force. And as much as it swells my heart with Pride, it equally weighs me down with sadness.

Yes, I'm crazy for the Fifth Avenue Pride Parade but for too many years now it's been the tail wagging the dog. We took the active out of activism and replaced it with party, creating partyism. All that energy, focus and enthusiasm and all we can think to do with it in the land of Dobson, Bush, Robertson and sporadic civil rights is throw a party.

It's not what the Founding Fairies intended. Not at all.

Last week's FDA renewal of the agency's outdated ban on blood donations from gay men was most certainly a major setback for efforts to protect the nation's dwindling blood supply, but that wasn't the worst part of it. In a breathtaking abuse of the Food & Drug Administration's authority and its scientific credibility, the Bush Administration has served up "scientific" support for the some of the worst aspects of American homophobia.

Just on a practical level, the ban is insane.

Of course, it's not like the FDA hasn't been wrong before.

Remember the dirty old days when raunchy barebacking was deliciously forbidden, irresponsible and practiced only by the self-destructive, uneducated, friends of Tina and enemies of Bill? Well, the thrill is gone. Sadly, responsible, educated and sober gay pundits have now taken barebacking and gone mainstream. Today this bane of safe sex and disease prevention has a spanking new clinically sophisticated and Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval name: Sero-sorting, condom-free sex between people of the same HIV status.

The last time I saw logic like this--rationalizations used to justify incredibly self-destructive and pathologically self-indulgent behavior--was in Stanley Kubrick's brilliant 1964 film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. (The 2007 version simply replaces "Bomb" with "HIV".)

Kubrick satirized a world gone mad and irrational over the nuclear threat (perhaps much in the same way some of us today have gone mad over the HIV threat.) Kubrick's classic satire examines a world where death and destruction seem an inevitability in the face of an unsolvable problem. Rather than stop the madness by eliminating the threat or effectively working towards sensible ways to prevent it, an insane world simply succumbs to escalation and solutions that prove to be even more lethal and destructive than the original crisis.

John Glover is one of the great unsung heroes of gay America. Most of you just went "huh? Who the hell is John Glover?" Well, according to the couple sitting behind me at a recent performance of The Drowsy Chaperone in which Glover is currently appearing, he is Lionel Luthor, the evil--or maybe not--father of Superman's arch-villain Lex on the TV series, Smallville. And indeed John Glover is Lionel Luthor, but he also one of my heroes--and not just because he's been tossed around and manhandled repeatedly by Tom Welling.

An incredibly hard working actor since the early 70s, John has been in dozens of movies, TV series and plays. He's enjoyed many Emmy nominations and walked away with a Tony for his astonishing portrayal of gay twins in Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion! But John has also been an openly and proudly gay actor in Hollywood for many decades, living honestly in a long term relationship with sculptor Adam Kurtzman.

When I first realized I was homosexual, my second thought was to shake my fist at heaven and curse God. "It's not bad enough I have to live with being Jewish? Now this!?

Talk about your dumb ass ideas. And speaking of dumb ass ideas: It wasn't enough I have to listen to this relentless crap about the evil gay agenda?

Manhattan foreskin lovers are hanging their heads in horror. Mike Bloomberg, the Jewish mayor of the largest Jewish city in the world, New York, has authorized Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the Jewish health commissioner to launch a campaign to circumcise gay gentiles. And the timing couldn't have been more ironic. A Passover plot to end all Passover plots; going in for the penile slash and burn just three days before Easter. Oy.

The cover story is that according to a growing body of scientific evidence, the cut are less likely to spread HIV than the uncut. The New York Times today reports: "In three recent clinical trials in Africa, circumcision was shown to lower a man's risk of contracting the virus from heterosexual sex by about 60 percent. On March 28, the World Health Organization officially recommended that countries adopt the procedure as part of their AIDS prevention plans."

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is convening meetings and designing studies to examine the possibility of using this controversial and bizarre method to prevent and control the spread of HIV among gay men. However, Jewish New York City, " the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic," according to Dr. Frieden, is calling in the Mohels NOW. Don't know what a Mohel is? Ha! You soon will!

Another gay epidemic? Another gay health crisis? Haven't we suffered enough through the first one? Indeed. And the second "AIDS" epidemic of the early years of the 21st Century will make the first AIDS epidemic of the 1980s look like a bad case of the common cold.

No one could have seen the first epidemic coming. However, the second epidemic's coming is as easy to see as a stampede of rogue elephants. Both epidemics have much in common: A complex syndrome of diverse diseases and symptoms, multiple drug interactions that sometimes ravage the body more than the disease itself, pervasive destitution and homelessness, relentless wasting, weakening immune systems and the marginalization and invisibility of the patient. Both epidemics are associated with an almost certain death sentence and both epidemics demand research and support systems that provide quality of life and quality of care as we learn to live with a long-term chronic condition.

The profound difference between the two epidemics is the size and mortality rate of the patient population. As a result of the first wave, during the 1980s approximately 80,000 gay men died of AIDS. As a result of this second wave, an estimated 180,000 will most certainly die over the next ten years. Overall, the first 25 years the American AIDS epidemic swept away the hopes, dreams and futures of about 260,000 gay men; over the next 25 years, the second epidemic will sweep away the lives of close to 4.5 million gay men and women. These are astonishing and breath taking statistics.