Highlights and full audio from the discussion between BuzzFeed’s LGBT Editor Saeed Jones and contributors Steven Thrasher and Dave Tuller.
The discussion started with a question: Why can't we discuss gay men and sex without shouting?
Thrasher highlighted the difference in public reaction between Michael Sam and Michael Johnson: "It's really different when they can make money off of you."
Thrasher: "It was really interesting for me to see how overwhelmingly embraced Michael Sam was... There you see the real division of how this country falls. Nobody there largely at that time seemed to care about Michael Johnson, just as he was not a person of much interest to national LGBT groups."
After reporting from 10 college campuses, Thrasher was baffled by the lack of condoms or birth control methods available to students.
Steven: Condoms are the lowest hanging fruit of public health disease control. It's the most obvious thing that they [colleges] do. You have all these students, they are having sex. You put condoms on the RA's door, you have them in the hallway, you put them in bowls on the table, you have them in the student health center.
And this college didn't have them anywhere, they didn't even have them for sale. Nor could you get a birth control prescription at the college health center. It's a historically religious institution, I would assume that somewhere on the board of something that's not how they want it to be... They did not want to deal with it as a public health issue."
Tuller disagreed with the idea that the onus of protection should only be on the HIV-positive partner.
Tuller: "I never really asked people in the '80s or '90s whether they were positive or negative because to me it was sort of immaterial — we would be using condoms either way... I never really understood the idea that the onus was solely on the person who was positive to inform the other, when the other had every opportunity to protect themselves should they choose. I mean, it seems to me there's an equal responsibility if you're having sex with somebody not to believe whatever they say."