Sex Positive

Sex Positive offers an incisive portrait of an early but largely forgotten combatant in the AIDS wars: Richard Berkowitz, a former S&M hustler who became one of the earliest advocates of safe sex within the gay community (when it was feeling the first flush of liberation), which failed to heed his warnings. Combining archival footage with interviews of Berkowitz, virologist Joseph Sonnabend (a former comrade-in-arms), Richard's feisty mother Dottie, his friend Don Adler, director Daryl Wein's documentary successfully evokes the freewheeling atmosphere of New York gay culture during the early 1980s. Gays accused Berkowitz of betrayal at the time because his message of self-control and responsibility seemed all too similar to critics' condemnations of gay promiscuity and hedonism. Sex Positive offers a warts-and-all biography of Berkowitz—an obstreperous, outspoken man whose own past served as ammunition for all sides—who eventually fled to Florida, where he became a crack addict. The film also recalls the work of activist Michael Callen, the late singer-songwriter and co-author—with Berkowitz—of the first safe-sex manual, whose contribution to the movement has overshadowed that of his collaborator. The difference in their reputations is encapsulated in footage of the HIV-positive Berkowitz, struggling to survive on his disability checks at the age of 51, paying tribute to Callen as he visits the New York treatment center that bears the dead man's name. Featuring some semi-graphic sexual imagery, Sex Positive is recommended for more adventurous collections. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)