''If we're working where people are meeting to have sex,'' said Steven Gibson, program director for Stop AIDS, ''we have to find ways to work on the Internet.'' Health officials say gay men online and in general are not disclosing their H.I.V. Recent studies have concluded that gay men are more likely to use the Internet to find a sexual partner than lesbians and heterosexuals and that people who use the Internet to arrange sexual encounters are more at risk for sexually transmitted diseases (S.T.D.'s). The agency will train four disease-prevention counselors to roam through chat rooms popular with gay and bisexual men and answer questions about safe sex.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health last month gave Stop AIDS a $130,000 grant to expand its presence into chat rooms.

in San Francisco since 1984, is expanding its outreach from the usual venues to include increasingly popular places for arranging sexual encounters: Internet chat rooms. Health officials hope that their message sticks in the mind of a patron as he leaves with a willing partner.īut what to do when the meeting place is virtual, yet the sex that follows is just as real? The Stop AIDS Project, a nonprofit agency that has fought the spread of H.I.V. In San Francisco, the bars in predominantly gay neighborhoods teem with safe-sex posters, baskets of free condoms and fliers for counseling services.

WHERE men meet men for sex, health agencies are sure to follow.