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Role Reversal Artist Robert Sherer is creating headaches for censors with his male nudes. Sherer, they say, has no right to paint the male body in traditional female poses. It's a weenie thing. Page 27 Party On Ru Paul will be home in Atlanta for New Year's Eve. Read about it and other party ideas for the last night of '94 in Nightmoves. Page 29 PLEASE RECYCLE TAKING PRIDE N OUR CULTURE DECEMBER 29/1994 Pass the pills, please Drug use and abuse among gay men and lesbians continues to be a stubborn fact of life in Atlanta and across the country by ADAM J. SANK "I've done everything," says Jason, grinning ironically, "let's see, I've done coke and crystal, and X and K, acid, mushrooms— but coke was my drug of choice— coke and Ecstasy." Jason, a rather handsome 28- year-old marketing director is sit ting with me in a courtyard out side his office talking about drugs in the gay community. A month ago I saw Jason at local gay club and asked him if he'd speak to me for an article I was writing. At the time, he was X-ing, under the in fluence of Ecstasy, and he said he'd be more than happy to impart his drug experiences. Now, dressed in a business suit at midday, he's just as willing to self-disclose, yet his mood is noticeably more somber. "When I was in college, we would do coke at the gay bars con sistently," he says, "because.. .you don't lose control on it. It's a con trol freak's drug. You don't wig out like any other drug." I ask Jason, who has partied with both gay and straight groups, if he finds drug use more preva lent in the gay community. "Ab solutely," he says, "more drugs, more often, more frequently." Why is that, I want to know. Jason offers that it's "escapism .. .on the whole, I think it's just be cause we really fuckin' want to party. We had some rough times when we were young, and we come out and we find this new way of life, and it's just so liberal and so free that drugs are easy to do and easy to get." But not so easy to handle, Ja son has discovered. "There's eu phoria, there's superiority kind of, you just feel like you're cool...but [with cocaine] you can't stop, you always want more. I worked full time through college, and I would be using all night and then go to work the next day, and then I'd use that day to get through the day, so that I could sleep the next night." What about sex, I ask. Was it better on drugs for Jason? "I'm dif ferent from most people because I don't have sex on drugs...because one, you do stupid things like have unprotected sex, and two, it inca pacitates you...coke and X both do, and it's harder to get a hard- on." But he knows plenty of people that have used sex and drugs con currently. "People [will] use drugs during sex and it's definitely a kicker to practice unsafe sex...at the time, you're feeling invincible" Jason soon found that his own cocaine use was out of his control. "I was definitely one of the people that used it long enough and of ten enough that my social use be came too intense and I had more of an addiction. I'd go out to the ^ Continued on Page 16 Skandalakis chooses conservative Christian as policy advisor Fulton County Commission Chair Mitch Skandalakis by KC WILDMOON Atlan ta—Fulton County Chairman Mitch Skandalakis has added a policy advisor with close ties to the Christian Coali tion to his staff. Josh Kenyon comes to the county from the Southeast ern Legal Foundation, a conservative group cur rently providing legal as sistance for state Rep. Billy McKinney's legal chal lenge to the city of Atlanta's domestic part nership and sexual orien tation ordinances. Kenyon is now one of four policy advisors to Skandalakis. "Obviously [Skanda lakis] is a commissioner for the entire county," Kenyon said. "He's got to hear the voice of ev eryone." Kenyon, whose area of focus is public works, said he doubted he would have any say over gay and lesbian issues in the county. The exception to that, Kenyon said, would be if Skandalakis "seriously considers a domestic partnership ordinance for the county" which he would op pose. He added that he would "try to get [Skandalakis] to at tend a few more conservative events." "I'll be trying to make sure he's got a balance between the conservative and more moder ate voices," he said. "I'll advise him, but there's no guarantee he'll take my advice." The conservative newsletter Bill Shipp's Georgia speculated that hiring Kenyon was a calcu lated move aimed at shoring up support of the state's religious conservatives for a possible statewide run in 1998. Kenyon said that the Christian Coalition does have a much stronger in fluence in areas outside of the metropolitan Atlanta area, but also said that his being on the staff is no guarantee of Coali tion support. Karen Webster, Skanda lakis' chief of staff, said Kenyon's hiring was part of the chairman's effort "to reach out to all the Fulton County citi zens." "[The staff] is almost like Noah's Ark," she said. "We have one of everything. I think that's wise for a politician to do." Mary Louise Upshaw, an open lesbian who coordinates the Ryan White CARE Act funds for the county, said that Skandalakis still intends to launch a lesbian and gay advi sory panel early next year. She said her work toward that has been put on hold while she fo cuses her effort on battling the incoming Republican Con gress, which has threatened to > Continued on Page 3