How to Have Sex in an Epidemic Many gay men were simply glad for any concrete advice in the midst of such confusion, particularly advice that did not present celibacy as the only safe option. As expected, "How to Have Sex" did receive significant criticism from other gay men and gay organizations for its critical take on promiscuity. Callen and Berkowitz had attempted to tone down their critical tone from their first major publication, "We Know Who We Are: Two Gay Men Declare War on Promiscuity" in a 1982 issue of the New York Native, which had harshly condemned the "excessiveness" and "pigging out" that was occurring
How to Have Sex in an Epidemic in the gay nightclub scene. They incorporate consistent affirmation of gay sex throughout the forty pages, including sentences like the following: Many gay community members and leaders saw the writing in "How to Have Sex" as moralistic and attributed the advice against some types of sex to internalized homophobia, self-hatred and an "anti-sexual sense of guilt." A response written by Michael Lynch and Bill Lewis in the Toronto Politic, a Canadian gay newspaper, criticized Callen and Berkowitz for blowing the epidemic out of proportion and allowing the medical community to "pathologize" gay men, and the authors faced frequent accusations of