''The oral sex panic,'' he declared, arises from ''a deeply rooted anxiety about what we do with our bodies with other males'' and from society's dismissal of ''the authentic need that many men have to exchange semen.'' Rofes ended by exhorting the audience to ''hold our ground'' on oral sex. The panel's last speaker was gay activist and author Eric Rofes. Despite the widely reported discovery that monkeys can easily be infected by swabbing the back of their tongues with SIV, the simian cousin of HIV, humans usually catch the AIDS virus sexually through anal or vaginal intercourse. Three scientists explained that although some people have been infected through oral sex such cases appear to be rare. At the International Conference on AIDS this summer, Gay Men's Health Crisis sponsored a standing-room-only forum on the subject. ''One day you hear it's not a risk,'' says AIDS activist Spencer Cox, ''and the next day you hear, Don't even think about putting your tongue on a cock.''Ĭox is exaggerating only slightly. But people cannot get a consistent answer. What are the chances of getting HIV through fellatio? This is probably the sexual question gay men ask most frequently, and it's one many straight women are asking as well. What men really want is not knowledge but certainty.
