The Nearness of Others: Searching for Tact and Contact in the Age of HIV

Names

Names 319 Names In many ways unplanned (I unexpectedly found myself forced to envisage a new life when I wasn’t done messing up the old one yet), this book makes do with what’s at hand, what’s near and free for the taking. So yes, I talk about myself a lot, it’s true, and I understand that some academics find this distasteful in our line of work, but how else, I wonder, may one reflect meaningfully on tact if not at the risk of tactlessness? Furthermore, mine is a self like all selves, really, caught in external forces that shape it in relation to other selves.All the things I wrote on in these pages—­9/11, war, torture, yellow stars on lapels, clandestine abortions, the forced unveiling of Muslim women, the incessant brutality of the police, the perils and joys of public sex—­are not interchangeable with HIV, the book’s impetus and a virus that more and more people are now lucky to be living with instead of dying of; but they are its neighbors. One isn’t HIV positive in a vacuum but in the world, near the bodies, actions, and feelings of the people with whom we share this world. To the extent that being HIV positive—­ under a successful treatment and without crippling side effects—­ does actually feel like anything at all, it is only in the way you relate to the world around you and the world relates to you. Millions of people are living with HIV, and more and more have access to life-­prolonging treatments, while other people continue to become infected. In other words, more and more of us will be sharing that experience . But as I soon came to realize, one doesn’t share HIV only with people who have it. Living with HIV means living alongside people without HIV in a world where the virus is saturated with meaning. It is inevitable that a book about the fear of contact should largely be about them, about that world and about saturation. The life of the mind takes place in the world, after all.And one inhabits the world with one’s body—­well, maybe not only with one’s body, but to do it that way often brings life a unique texture. Queers like me, and presumably all groups of people pushed aside for their 320 Names irreducible corporeality, find themselves singularly well positioned as a result to propose and, more important, practice the reembodiment of taste, tact, and thought that this book advocates. Living in such promiscuity often requires what in French is called faire avec, a kind of improvisational making-­ do that bespeaks the handyperson rather than the professional. It also requires on the part of all involved that they draw on the fragile resources of tact. The ultimate point of this essay is that the two—­ making do and tactfulness—­ not only have a lot in common but also a lot to tell us about how to live with HIV.Making do may feel constraining , evidently, but may also turn out to be a source of pleasure, of the modest sort one sometimes derives from ingenuity and dexterity and from the short-­ lived satisfaction found in small victories. Such is the spirit in which these pages were written. Treading water and gasping for air, I didn’t embark on a quest; I flailed and groped and took hold of whatever I could reach.Making contact is what it’s been all about.What comes after that is of little concern right now; what came before is a different story told here only in bits and pieces. Like Blanche DuBois, this book’s tutelary goddess, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers and I do now more than ever. Luckily, I received a lot of kindness from strangers along the way, as well as incredible support from my friends. To attempt to thank everyone by name, real or made up, would expose me to the risk of tactless oversights —­a risk I’d be wise not to take. I won’t even try to be exhaustive, then, and will limit myself to those whose fingerprints are all over these pages. Ross Chambers, Juli Highfill, Nicolas Dupeyron, Bruno Boniface, David Halperin, and Matthieu Dupas have been tireless interlocutors from the start. This book simply would not have been the same without them. David Carroll and Marie-­ Hélène Huet graciously agreed to...