Johann Hari: So why has this suicidal shift happened?

Over the past five years, the gay community has been keeping a secret: unprotected sex is becoming normal again. In the dark room of any gay club, in those pre-sex conversations, one question - "do you bareback?" - has become casual, ordinary, every day. The defenders of this "raw" sex see condoms as sissy and prissy, and brag that playing Russian roulette with their genitals is "manly". The Gay Men's Sexual Survey found that 60 per cent of gay men sometimes have unprotected sex - and HIV statistics released this week are merely a predictable coda to this cultural shift.

Why are so many gay men gambling with their lives? There are many causes, and it is tempting to look first at the ones that are not our fault. The children of Section 28 - whose teachers were forbidden from discussing gay sexual health - are now sexually active men, and frighteningly ignorant. A Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) survey found that most young gay men were given no education about gay sexual safety, and 14 per cent of them did not know they are more likely to contract HIV if their partner ejaculates inside them.

Other causes are side-effects of progress. Protease inhibitors, which keep HIV-positive men alive and healthy, have made HIV seem less like cancer and more like diabetes - an unpleasant but manageable illness.

Similarly, the anti-Aids campaigns have been redirected away from young gay men who are most at risk, towards straight teenagers who are statistically unlikely to contract HIV. As Will Nutland of THT says: "The result is that money is being wasted targeting low-risk straight holidaymakers, and high-risk people are not getting the protection they need."

But in the other causes there is no one to blame but ourselves. Lots of people are making money out of normalising barebacking, whether through porn or clubs offering "raw" nights. The drug crystal meth is also spreading on the gay party scene. It makes you horny, and lowers your sense of risk - a recipe for unprotected sex.

The HIV-positive playwright Larry Kramer, who lost most of his friends in the first wave of Aids, is incredulous at these changes. He says: "I cannot understand how, life having been given back to us again, you treat your life with such contempt... How many lovers and friends do you have to bury before you learn to put on a condom? Is that what it's going to take?"