Yes! By dint of being just a little older than you, I fell into an extremely high-risk cohort. I came out in about 1980, though by "coming out," I mean I was going to gay bars sometimes on weekends. And like most of my 18/19/20-year-old peers, I didn't think twice about hooking up. Life was a grand adventure, and tasting all its delights was just part of being a newly minted adult.

Only random chance (and the fact that a very clumsy lover put me off receptive anal sex for a few years) protected me. I don't think I started using condoms regularly until 1983, by which time the need was too evident to overlook.

I do sometimes feel guilty that those almost three years of risky behavior didn't kill me like they did so many of my peers.

On the other hand, I got to briefly live in a post Harvey Milk, pre-AIDS world — defined primarily by optimism and visions of limitless progress. That was a very special time, even though HIV ended up shattering the illusion.

I once read from Querelle de Brest to my lover as we sat in a cafe in Brest, in the 1990s while HIV was raging. That was my first encounter with the novel, and I remember thinking its violence and simultaneous innocence were neat allegories for the very early 1980s.

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences!