Seattle/King County Public Health hope to talk about something that's much discussed in online chat rooms and message boards, but probably not brought up enough in a context like what they'll offer tomorrow night: A community forum.

Tony Valensuela and Perry Halkitis, Ph.D, MS will lead the discussion at the forum called Barebacking: Taking It Deeper.

The forum will be held tomorrow, November 15, from 6:30 to 8:30pm at Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC), 1621 12th Ave. E [get directions]

Halkitis has enough credentials to fill both flaps and the back of the dust jacket of his 2006 book Barebacking: Psychosocial and Public Health Perspectives (Haworth Press). Haltikis is (and this requires taking a deep breath to get it all out) Associate Dean for Research & Doctoral Studies, Professor of Applied Psychology, and Director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies at the Steinhardt School, of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University.

Valenzuela became a central figure in the debates around barebacking after a controversial talk he gave at a national LGBT conference in 1997 when he affirmed the value of sex without condoms under some circumstances.

A February 1999 POZ Magazine cover story featuring him posing nude on a horse dubbed him in some circles, "the poster boy for bareback sex," while also opening up an international conversation on the myriad reasons behind sex without condoms for gay men. He subsequently wrote and performed an acclaimed solo show in Los Angeles called "The Bad Boy Next Door," chronicling his life as an HIV positive activist, porn star and sex worker and the contentious community politics that surface when one places sex at the forefront of his work.

In the POZ issue that included that cover, Stephen Gendin explained Valenzuela's notoriety:

Tony Valenzuela never intended to be the Poster Boy of Unsafe Sex. Yet virtually overnight, after an impromptu speech about his sex life at the November 1997 Creating Change Conference in San Diego, this rising star of gay activism was reborn as a pariah of the movement. Creating Change is the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)'s annual lovefest of hard-core politicos that Valenzuela, a local leader, had helped bring to his hometown. That he served as the event co-chair only added insult to injury. After his talk, Valenzuela was condemned in the press and by longtime allies. The then-29-year-old HIV positive Valenzuela, who had it all -- beauty, brains, a soft-spoken but steely charisma and a proud half-Mexican, half-Italian heritage -- became the sacrificial lamb at the altar of AIDS angst and anger.

His sin? He not only confessed to loving anal sex without condoms but did so to a standing-room-only crowd of 2,000 gay and lesbian honchos, many of whom were veterans of the good fight at barricades and in boardrooms since the '70s. ...

Like many gay men, Valenzuela recalls a sense of relief at finally getting the virus -- the flip side of terror. While the first few months after his seroconversion were easy, life soon soured. He broke up with his boyfriend, and the reality of his HIV status set in. Then he contracted hepatitis A and B. Meantime, he was dutifully disclosing that he was positive to his family and friends. Some expressed sympathy, while others -- fellow activists, specifically -- were working from a different script. "I found a lot of attacks and judgment," he says.

When TheBody.com gave Dr. Halkitis an HIV Leadership Award in 2005, it said of him:

It is through knowledge and compassion, as well as important collaborations within the community, that Dr. Perry Halkitis seeks to address the struggles of those infected and affected by HIV. He feels that the most important quality he brings to the table is his ability to conduct meaningful and relevant research and then immediately apply his findings to his prevention work so that they can be of use to those who can most benefit from them. ...

His approach is holistic and makes the individual look at the totality of factors and behaviors in his or her life that may lead to risky behavior. He was among the first to document the rise of club drug use in our country and to disseminate this knowledge to empower communities to address how these substances affect the HIV epidemic.

So, then... all of this is just a way of saying that tomorrow night's forum is, indeed going to take the discussion of barebacking deeper than it's ever likely to go on an online forum.