Money Up Front and no Kissing

Abstract

Money up front and no kissing – a presentation with slides by Ray Cook Since the 80s, increased legitimacy and visibility has brought the social and cultural worlds of sexual minorities into ever-closer orbits with those of the dominant mainstream. While the subsidence of persecution is widely welcomed, many who experienced AIDS and the bitter acrimony that accompanied it, are left with unhealed scars. HIV tethers us to an acrimonious history so we’re unable to move on, we feel alienated from mainstream society and betrayed by a younger generation who have little empathy for our ordeal. We are suspended between a past in which our circumstances forced us to be soldiers and a present that sometimes views us as clowns. Long-term survivors of HIV are a largely invisible sector of the community where the taint of disease and the threat of contagion have exiled us to the periphery of what is acceptable and gay. ‘Money up front and no kissing’ is part of an ongoing visual research project using allegorical photographs to interpret shifts in the gay male experience from the late 80s to the present day. It questions the terms and conditions of the gay/straight bonhomie, suggesting that legitimacy is selective and conditional on conformity to dominant ideals.