Who Created Safer Sex?

I’m thrilled to see that the excellent documentary Sex Positive, which I first saw at the SXSW Film Festival is opening this week in Los Angeles and New York. There’s a review in the Sunday LA Times.

The documentary focuses on the life and work of activist and journalist Richard Berkowitz, who along with Michael Callen and Joseph Sonnabend co-authored “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach” which was the first safer sex tract in 1983. They were (and still are) reviled by some who saw them as self-hating gay men turning their back on the sexual emancipation that was hard won by the movement.

I’m 39 years old but my teen years were spent in mostly heterosexual circles and as such I missed the history that this film covers, which is a history most people who weren’t there don’t know about.

The film is moving, powerful, funny, and sad. Berkowitz is unbelievably generous in the film with his time, archives, and honesty. And the result is an important document that anyone interested in the history of sexuality or in the current state of sexual health should see. Keeners should also try to get a copy of Berkowitz’s book, Stayin’ Alive: The Invention of Safe Sex

Read more – LA Times:
‘Sex Positive’ documents the pioneers of safe sex