David Nachman Lourea (August 26, 1945–November 10, 1992) was an American writer, AIDS activist, and bisexual rights activist.

Early life and education

David Lourea was born

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

on August 26, 1945. He was raised Orthodox Jewish in Philadelphia, an antisemitic area at the time. Lourea later said his grandmother's encouragement to embrace his religion also made him more comfortable in his bisexuality, which he struggled with as a young man. Lourea studied sculpture at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptists, Baptist minister Russell Conwell an ...

Tyler School of Art and Architecture The Tyler School of Art and Architecture is based at Temple University, a large, urban, public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tyler currently enrolls about 1,350 undergraduate students and about 200 graduate students in a wid ...

and graduated with his B.A. in 1967. He later earned a Ph.D. from the

Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS) was a private, non-accredited, for-profit graduate school and resource center for the field of sexology in San Francisco, California. It was established in 1976 and closed in 2018 ...

Bay Area bisexual movement

In 1973, Lourea and his wife Lee Olivier Lourea moved to the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

seeking a bisexual community, where they met queer and sex-positive activists such as Maggi Rubenstein,

Betty Dodson Betty Dodson (August 24, 1929October 31, 2020) was an American sex education, sex educator. An artist by training, she exhibited erotic art in New York, before pioneering the Sex-positive feminism, pro-sex feminist movement. Dodson's workshops a ...

, Alan Rockway, and Lani Ka'ahumanu. He also became active with San Francisco Sex Information. Lourea and Rubenstein, along with other community activists, worked together to establish the San Francisco Bisexual Center, which opened to the public on September 23, 1976. The Center briefly operated out of Lorea's home in the

North Panhandle The Panhandle is a public park in San Francisco, California, so named because it forms a panhandle with Golden Gate Park. It is long and narrow, being three-quarters of a mile (eight blocks) long and just one block wide. Fell and Oak Streets ...

neighborhood. The Bi Center was heavily aligned with the sexual freedom movement, and offered a policy of inclusion, creating a space that was feminist, anti-classist, anti-racist, and trans-friendly. Its offerings included counseling and educational workshops on gender, bisexuality, and sexual health. The Center also conducted advocacy work, fighting against bisexual erasure and discriminatory policies such as the

Briggs Initiative California Proposition 6, informally known as the Briggs Initiative, was a ballot initiative put to a referendum on the California state ballot in the November 7, 1978 election. It was sponsored by John Briggs, a conservative state legislator ...

, which barred gay and lesbian teachers from working in California public schools. While helping run the Bi Center, Lorea also worked as a elementary school teacher for

San Francisco Public Schools San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), established in 1851, is the only public school district within the City and County of San Francisco, and the first in the state of California. Under the management of the San Francisco Board of Educa ...

AIDS activism (1980's)

In the early 1980s, as AIDS began spreading in the LGBTQ community, Lourea and the other founders of the Bi Center shifted their focus to AIDS activism, often hosting workshops and programs on safer sex. In 1983, Lourea, Rockway, Ka'ahumanu, Rubenstein, Bill Mack, Autumn Courtney, and Arlene Krantz founded BiPOL, a LGBTQ feminist political action group. The group received national media coverage of its demonstrations near the

1984 Democratic National Convention The 1984 Democratic National Convention was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California from July 16 to July 19, 1984, to select candidates for the 1984 United States presidential election. Former Vice President Walter Mondale was no ...

, and pushed for bisexual visibility in politics by nominating Lani Ka'ahumanu as a vice-presidential candidate. Lourea's work including serving on

Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was ...

's AIDS Education Advisory Committee for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and in 1984, after two years of campaigning, persuading the Department to recognize bisexual men in their official AIDS statistics. This set a national precedent, with other U.S. health departments following suit. The Bi Center formally closed in 1984 as its founders focused their efforts on the AIDS pandemic. Lourea studied at the

, and began working professionally with AIDS and HIV patients to collect and publish information on the disease and its prevention, including as the founder executive director of the support group, Bisexual Counseling Services of San Francisco. He worked closely with

Cynthia Slater Cynthia Slater (1945–1989) was the cofounder of the second BDSM organization founded in the United States (after The Eulenspiegel Society), a San Francisco, California based BDSM education and support group known as the Society of Janus, wh ...

to present safe sex education at bathouses and

BDSM BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in ...

clubs. Lourea continued his work as a sex educator throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s before his own death from AIDS complications.

Death and legacy

On November 10, 1992, Lourea passed away at the age of 47 from to AIDS-related kidney failure. Author and organizer Naomi Tucker dedicated her book, ''Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions,'' to Lourea and his ability to inspire revolution. Lourea's archival papers are held at the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center in the

San Francisco Public Library The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as '' Library Journals ...

Publications

* '"Beyond Bisexual," in '' Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out'', ed.

Loraine Hutchins Loraine Hutchins is an American bisexual and feminist author, activist, and sex educator. Hutchins rose to prominence as co-editor (with Lani Kaʻahumanu) of ''Bi Any Other Name'', an anthology that is one of the seminal books in the bisexual righ ...

and

Lani Kaʻahumanu Lani Kaahumanu (born October 5, 1943) is a Canadian bisexual and feminist writer and activist. She is openly bisexual and writes and speaks on sexuality issues frequently. She serves on the editorial board of the ''Journal of Bisexuality''. Sh ...

, Boston: Alyson Pub., 1991, . * "Psychological aspects of bisexuality. Psycho-social issues related to counseling bisexuals", in ''Bisexualities : theory and research'', ed. Dr. Fritz Klein and Timothy J. Wolf, New York: Haworth Press, 1985, ; also published as ''

Journal of Homosexuality The ''Journal of Homosexuality'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research into sexual practices and gender roles in their cultural, historical, interpersonal, and modern social contexts. History The founding editor-in-chief was Cha ...

'', volume 11, numbers 1/2, spring 1985. * "

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immu ...

Prevention: A Dramaturgical Analysis and Practical Guide to Creating Safer Sex Interventions" (with Clark L. Taylor), in ''Rethinking AIDS prevention : cultural approaches'', ed. Ralph Bolton and Merrill Singer, Philadelphia : Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1992, , originally published in volume 14, numbers 2-4 of the journal ''

Medical Anthropology Medical anthropology studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". It views humans from multidimensional and ecological perspectives. It is one of the most highly developed areas of anthropology and applied ...

''.

References