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Considering himself as much a "culprit" as a "victim" of his times, Ballard was able to share other aspects of his so-called "un-special" life. Like his marriage to a woman for 18 years, or his claims that he gave his partner HIV and that he still frequents bathhouses where he has unprotected sex. "My sexuality has cost me a lot," says Ballard. "I live journal 2,000 miles away from my mother. I have HIV. And I live on a low journal income. But I still can't get away from the journal one thing that I wanted when I was 14. I crave dick." That producer Schamus has it right. Disclosures such as Ballard's are a new, addictive form of "porn." But they're also stories that need to be told—and heard. I think in the act of telling them to another person (or even to the Internet ether), these confessionals become a way for gay men to release the demons—and guilt—that hide in their souls.
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