ABSTRACT
Moving beyond mind-sets dominated by crisis-driven, stop-AIDS-now thinking, prevention workers who remake themselves as gay health advocates will discover many new opportunities to reconceptualize their work. Since HIV prevention for gay men began, most efforts have been rooted in the belief that fully halting the epidemic among gay men within a short time span is a reasonable goal. While this has provided a righteous cause to champion, it has encouraged the deployment of methods suitable to short-term objectives than to complex, big-picture health challenges. The everyday life of prevention groups is chaotic and high-pressured; a community of crisis emerges and feeds on drama, and intense interpersonal interactions. Post-AIDS gay health efforts must find a way to energize activism. The work of Gay City Health Project in Seattle offers one window onto post-AIDS community-building efforts. Throughout America there seems to be a hunger for mass rituals that unite diverse people, and create meaning beyond self-centered urges for money, career, and achievement.
