Andy Reid | Testing / 2022

a sexual crisis

by Douglas Messerli

 

Andy Reid (screenwriter and director) Testing / 2022 [9 minutes]

 

This Canadian gay comedy by Andy Reid might seem to many heterosexual and contemporary gay individuals as not only improbable but a bit disgusting. Yet if you were a very sexually active gay man in the 1960s as I was, you almost certainly did encounter STI (sexually transmitted infections) at least a couple of times in your life. Since I seem to have lost all sense propriety through writing these queer film volumes and due to my old age I’ll be honest and admit that I was plagued by crabs several times (the shampoos RID or Kwell being the most common solutions; I can still smell their horrific odors a vaguely recall a green gell) and, yes, I discovered myself with gonorrhea at least twice—the subject of this film, a subject with, unfortunately, is seldom discussed in LGBTQ cinema.

   The first step in resolving the latter problem, a true STI, usually discovered after a penal inflammation and difficulty urinating, is a visit to the doctor, who after a quick test, gives you a shot of ceftriaxone which quickly resolves the problem.

    These are precisely the steps the young Ethan (Andy Reid) makes. Only when the door is closed

and he is face-to-face with the public health doctor, he recognizes as Bradley (Christopher Jacot), the very man who fucked him the day before.

    This is, indeed, as Bradley puts it “an uncomfortable situation,” and he offers immediately to pass on Ethan’s questions to another doctor. But no, Ethan is determined to go through with the tests with him as doctor, and yes, it does appear that he has gonorrhea, a check of his prostrate being necessary. Ethan cannot help but note the very place where the good doctor now has his fingers where were is cock was the previous night, not without noticing that he has left bite marks or perhaps even bruises on Ethan’s rump.

     Of course, Bradley attempts to make the visit an entirely professional one, devoid of Ethan’s profane comments and uncomfortable jokes. And yes, he too, is probably now infected or, more likely, he was the cause of the infection. It’s part of the territory, as Dr. Bradley proclaims. Together they take a tablet, and soon after, the doctor injects him with ceftriaxone. He assures Ethan that he will inject himself later.

    But evidently Ethan insists that he administer the injection, not at all obeying the doctor’s orders by properly holding the needle as he simply plunges it into his butt with what is surely a sense of revenge.

    For those that may suggest that such things are improbable, I can only report that when, after my New York City days in which I spent almost every night in a gay bar, when I returned to the university I finally decided to visit a psychologist to discuss what I felt was beginning to be a compulsion for sexual activity. And soon found myself having sex with my psychiatrist and, later, even his superior. I suspect they entered the profession for the same compulsions and found a ready solution to their dilemmas in me.

    I am almost certain that when, once cured, the good doctor and his young patient must have met up with sex again. There’s nothing like a little sexual crisis to create a bond.

 

Los Angeles, March 9, 2026 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (March 2026).