Phone Counseling Helps Gays Quit Dangerous Sex : Therapy: Program reaches people who are afraid to admit their orientation in public.

Steve was a man held hostage by his hormones, and they almost did him in. He had sex with men in toilet stalls, sex with strangers in city parks, sex without condoms unless the other guy insisted.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew about AIDS, and he knew his reckless, anonymous encounters could kill him. But still he didn’t stop.

“Even with all the willpower in the world, sometimes you can’t do the things you know you should,” said Steve, 32, who did not want his full name used.

Realizing he needed help, Steve finally picked up the phone and called a toll-free number his doctor had told him about: (800) 999-7511.

He reached Project Aries, which offers free, anonymous group counseling over the telephone to gay and bisexual men trying to quit sexual practices that can spread AIDS.

The only U.S. program of its kind, Project Aries addresses a growing problem in AIDS prevention: keeping gays from lapsing into unsafe sex even when they already know, at least in theory, how to lessen their risk.

Funded by a $2-million federal grant, the University of Washington program went national in April after a two-year pilot project serving Seattle. More than 1,500 people have called, and about 200 have participated in counseling sessions or are waiting to begin.

The anonymity of the telephone attracts gays who are at especially high risk for unsafe sex: men in rural areas or small towns where there is little support or AIDS education for gays. It also draws urban gays with reason to hide their identities: public officials, clergymen, even AIDS educators embarrassed to admit that they slip occasionally.

“We hear from people who say they never would have come to an in-person group,” said Aries counselor Melanie Martin. “They feel they can open up. I’ve talked to men who have never spoken to another human being about how they feel.”

Steve, 32, first called Project Aries while going through a divorce and coming out as a gay man. His emotions would race from shame to despair to anger at a society that taught him he was abnormal.

“For me, it was a lot of real low self-esteem,” he said. “Some of my crazy behavior was prompted by the fear of facing the world as an openly gay man.”

After several one-on-one interviews with researchers, Steve started a 14-week program of weekly conference-call sessions with five other men and two counselors.

The sessions are frank and detailed. Some deal with basic facts, such as the risk of AIDS involved in various sexual acts. But most address more personal matters: negotiating with sexual partners over safety issues, setting goals and achieving them, learning to identify and avoid situations that lead to unsafe sex.

The conversation sometimes gets “down and dirty,” Martin said, such as when participants trade ideas for sex that does not involve intercourse. But it can also be surprisingly tender, as men discuss how to be intimate without any sex.

Other AIDS education groups praise the program.

“When we look at AIDS, we have to look at attacking it from every angle,” said Ken Jones, director of the Stop AIDS Project in San Francisco. Volunteers for his group walk the streets, inviting gay men to join safer-sex discussion groups. Project Aries reaches people that his group cannot, Jones said.

When the sessions end, participants will be interviewed periodically to see if they stick to safer sex. Roffman said anecdotal evidence indicates that the program is doing some good.

Steve now lives an openly gay life in Los Angeles, working as a special-events producer for AIDS service groups. He is thankful that his past behavior did not infect him with the AIDS virus. He is now in a monogamous relationship and says he is “95% safe.”