One Sex on the Beach, And Make It a Double

Government researchers are spending more than $400,000 in taxpayer money to hit the bars in Argentina.

The National Institutes of Health are paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk -- and just what can be done about it.

Doctors and specialists from the New York Psychiatric Institute are using the generous grant from NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to help tailor HIV prevention programs to work at bars and clubs.

You know what this is? This is a Spring Break boondoggle that you and I are paying for. The New York Psychiatric Institute is part of Columbia University.

From the study itself:

To that end, the study seeks to describe the relative contribution of physical characteristics of the place, patron characteristics, type and level of alcohol consumption, and social dynamics that are at play and potentiate each other to result in sexual risk behavior.

"At play," indeed. Dear researchers at Columbia - take the A train to Columbus Circle, transfer to the D or F downtown trains to West 4th Street in the Village. Wait, I think the A train might even have a stop at Sheridan Square. Anyhow, I guarantee you will find a density of gay bars where alcohol is served and you can conduct your research there - which is likely to corrollate to American homosexuals and the bars that they patronize more.