Apr 08, 2005  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

When Michael Petrelis began exploring his sexual orientation as a teen at his New Jersey junior high school, he went to the school library to research all he could about a taboo subject called homosexuality.

“One of the things I had seen was a section on ‘gay bowel syndrome’ and how it was a problem for all homosexuals,” said Petrelis, who is now a gay rights activist and blogger based in San Francisco.

“For me, it meant the definition of ‘gay’ equaled syndrome, equaled disease,” he added.

That equation profoundly affected Petrelis, inspiring what has become a lifetime quest to eradicate the term “gay bowel syndrome” from the medical lexicon.

“All these decades later, I don’t want any other person, especially a teenager coming to grips with their sexuality, thinking gay equals disease,” Petrelis said.

Recently, while doing his occasional Web search on “gay bowel syndrome,” Petrelis came across the term on Microsoft’s online dictionary, MSN Encarta.

“Gay bowel syndrome; noun,” the Encarta entry read. “Intestinal disorders resulting from anal penetration: abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea in men who have incurred damage to the lower bowel and rectum as a result of anal penetration.”

But “gay bowel syndrome” is an “outdated catchall phrase,” according to Joel Ginsberg, interim executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association.

“[‘Gay bowel syndrome’] refers to any number of sexually transmitted diseases that infect the intestinal tract, including shigella, giardia, chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis,” Ginsberg said.

“Obviously there is nothing ‘gay’ about these infectious agents, so use of the term [gay bowel syndrome] is potentially harmful if people who are not gay think they are somehow immune,” he added. “The phrase also feels homophobic. Bowels are bowels — they are neither gay nor straight.

Petrelis filled out a general feedback form on the MSN Encarta site asking that the “gay bowel syndrome” entry be deleted, but received no response from MSN representatives.

He eventually discovered that Encarta was published by BloomsburyUSA, which was responsible for the dictionary’s content. But Marian Brown, publicity director for Bloomsbury, informed Petrelis that the publisher was only responsible for the print edition of its dictionary, which did not include a “gay bowel syndrome” listing, while MSN was responsible for the entry on the Web site.

But he added that he was pleased when he searched Encarta for “gay bowel syndrome” on March 31 and discovered the entry had been removed.

MSN officials refused to confirm whether the entry has been permanently deleted, according to spokesperson Leigh Rosenwald. Brown, from Bloomsbury, reiterated that Bloomsbury is responsible solely for the print edition of Encarta.

New ‘syndrome,’ different name?
But now Petrelis’ crusade to debunk “gay bowel syndrome” may face a new chapter, if a March 31 report in the Philadelphia Inquirer is any indication. The paper quotes Johns Hopkins University Professor Jonathan Zenilman as saying lymphogranuloma venereum, or LGV — a rare form of chlamydia being detected in gay and bisexual men — is a new name for what was once known as “gay bowel syndrome.”

“It almost disappeared after the early 1980s because of safer sex practices” and AIDS awareness, Zenilman told the Inquirer, referring to “gay bowel syndrome” and LGV interchangeably.

Efforts to reach Zenilman this week were unsuccessful.

An official with the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention said LGV is not “gay bowel syndrome.” The rare chlamydia strain has been around since the 1970s, and may have once been considered among the various diseases doctors loosely referred to as “gay bowel syndrome,” according to Jessica Frickey, a spokesperson for the federal health agency.

But it’s difficult for the CDC to know —let alone track — which diseases used to be included in “gay bowel syndrome” because the term was so informal and has since gone out of use at the CDC, Frickey said.

Earlier this year, six cases of LGV were confirmed in gay men — two in New York City, three in San Francisco and one in Atlanta — prompting federal health officials to call for heightened surveillance of the potentially debilitating disease.

Symptoms include discharge of blood or pus from the rectum, painful bowel movements or constipation that may mimic inflammatory bowel disease.

The Atlanta case occurred in a gay man who is HIV positive and had an additional STD at the time of diagnosis, according to state health officials. The man was effectively treated for the disease with antibiotics.

Most of the U.S. cases affected gay and bisexual men who are HIV positive with multiple sex partners and engage in unprotected anal intercourse and other high-risk practices.