I couldn’t have been more than 19 years old when, as a happy-go-lucky UCLA student, I looked down at my penis and decided I was dying.

Cancer, I thought, noticing small red bumps at the tip of my penis. Since I wasn’t having sex with anyone — not for lack of trying, I might add — what else could they be? I was doomed before it was even legal for me to drink.

A quick trip to the university’s emergency room followed, where, under harsh lights, a female doctor held and studied my genitals, then, in front of a female nurse, broke out into laughter.

“My husband has those,” she told me. “They’re varicose veins in an uncommon place. Nothing to worry about. Go Bruins!”

It turns out, I had a lot to worry about... but not for reasons the doctor dismissed.

As a young, gay actor who moved to New York City right after college, in 1987, having red bumps on my penis wasn’t exactly the invitation to sex that I was hoping to find. Not every guy I slept with noticed, but the ones who did often thought they were a sign of AIDS, herpes or god knows what else. I’ve never forgotten the man who said, simply, that I was “a whore,” and, since he was in a relationship with another man, he couldn’t take any risks. Um, kettle...?

That said, jovially saying to guys, “relax, they’re just varicose veins,” didn’t work as well as my former doctor insinuated. Perhaps I should have had her write a note.

In reality, who could really blame these men for being suspicious? Guys were dropping dead from AIDS on a daily basis, and vigilance was everything. I spent a lot of time trying to have sex in the dark or simply praying that guys wouldn’t examine my tip too closely. Many a hard-on was deflated just worrying one of my hook-ups would suddenly scream out, “Dude, what’s wrong with your dick?!” One guy did just that.

Even in the midst of the AIDS pandemic, I slept with a lot of strangers (I always used protection for intercourse), and to them, I was just another dick — pun intended. I’m certain that, if the situation had been reversed, I’d have had a difficult time believing the varicose vein story, too.

During the periods when I had steady........

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