PSU Magazine Fall 1993

an acq uired condition, and that it didn't hit ju t gay men. Campbell became an activist for AID research, ca lling himse lf Si ter Florence Nightmare. He's dead now, along with thousands from the an Franci co neighborhood th at O'Brien loved o much. In the decade that followed, whole communities faced death eve ry day in ways similar to those confronted with a plague r a war. Scientist oon learned that among the many ways AIDS is pa ed from person to person, unprotected anal sex was one of the riskiest. To avo id getting sick, gay and bisexual men would have to change ome long– established behav iors, and by all mea ns wear condoms. As a psychologist, O'Brien wanted to know how these men were cop ing and adapting. Coping with the need to practice safer sex. Coping with losing friends and lovers. Coping with hav ing to change sexual patterns that may once have been free and easy, but now demanded caution. The be t way to J o that, she found, was to listen to them directly. Soon after joining th e P U psychology faculty in 1987 , O'Brien launched the Portland Men' StuJy: a erics of ur– veys that asked gay and bisexual men about their sex lives, their relation hips and their feelings about themselves and others. "The centra l que tion fo r me i to look at the different a pect of people' social relationships and try to under– stand the things that predict psychological health in the face of this ep idemic, and the thing tha t predict omeone being able to fo llow the HIV risk preventive guidelines succes fully." O'Brien held group di cuss ion in which men shared th eir experi ence of the epidemic. From these she wrote an 18-page survey and personally handed ou t copies at gay bars and clubs, at or– ganiza tions such as the Cascade AIDS project, and at gay churche . O ne– hundred and forty men responded to her pilot questionnaire, and as the years progressed, the numbers grew. To date, more than 1,000 men have participated . Gay and bisexual men were c lea rly intere ted in learning about them ·el– ve , and for them, participating in the surveys wa a way of support ing each other. Every year, O'Brien publishes the findings from each urvey in brochure form , and distributes them to the same places where he gathers her info rma– tion. he ays it i her way of giving back to the people who help her do her research. M re and more gay and bisexual men are u ing condoms to prevent infection from HIV, the virus th at cau es AIDS. It's not an ironclad norm , but O'Brien fo und that condom u e i reaching a point where it is expected. Even so, it is a hard hab it to main– tain. O'Bri en says most gay men did not use condoms before the AIDS ep idemic, so the changeover has been a tough , almost revoluti onary, task. It' the same with any hab it, she ay . Anyone can quit smoking or change their eat ing habi ts for a day or two, but changing permanently is extremely difficult. So even though wearing a condom might ave their