The BEST of Lifelube - "When Barebacking is Noble: The Ongoing Controversy around Serosorting" From Friday, April 6, 2007

Before you get to the article, a note on language. At the LGBTI Health Summit in Philly last month, I learned a great new term called "sero-adaptation" which was coined by this very cool, edgy Parisian HIV prevention group called The Warning"

Sero-adaptation includes, but is not limited to, the idea of "sero-sorting." It refers to a selection of harm reduction strategies that do not involve the use of condoms. These strategies may reduce the risk of HIV transmission, but are not a guarantee and require a clear-headed risk analysis, weighing the good, the bad and the ugly and making a decision around the amount of risk you and your partners are comfortable with.

So, what are some examples of sero-adaptation?

Sero-sorting - having condom-free sex with guys who share the same HIV status

Strategic positioning - determining who does what based on HIV status. For instance, the neg guys fucks the poz guy, which is less risky than the other way around.

Dipping - just sticking the dick inside a little bit and for a brief amount of time

Pulling out - kinda like the "rhythm method" of the 50"s, meaning withdrawal before cumming. Lot's of people become parents like this, and this is exactly how I myself tested poz, but it is less risky than actually allowing cum inside.

Lube - using a generous amount of the slippery stuff reduces friciton in one's tender, delicate anus/rectum and therby reduces the risk of HIV being offered a pathway in.

And of course, there are other sexual activities that can be done by people with same or different HIV statuses that do not involve fucking - sucking, rimming, water sports, JO, fisting, massage...

By the way, just for a moment of clarity, none of the above can be taken to offer complete or partial protection from other types of sexual transmitted infections...

--Jim

So here is that article already..

"When Barebacking is Noble..."

By Christopher Murray

[From the current issue of Circuit Noize, with thanks to the Gay Men's Health Listserv for posting...]

Last month, a virtual Vesuvius erupted when the popular New York gossip blog,Gawker , posted a link and then the next day an interview with a twenty-something gay guy in Manhattan who gets off on fucking guys without condoms.Confessions of a Bareback Top, his site, details his unapologetic adventures and is whack off material for some guys and proof of the end of civilization for others. The kink with the blogger, and those who identify with him, is the thrill we get when we break the taboo of safer sex.

The undeniable point of Mr. Bareback Top, is that while many gay men mouth lip service to safer sex practices, when push comes to shoving it in, so to speak, it's a different story. The bareback top loudly proclaims both his negative status and his assertion that it takes two to tango and that even if discussions before and during sex with his partners revolved around intentions to practice safe sex, once they acquiesce during the act, then they are just as responsible for what happens as he is, no matter how much they or others cry victim.

A storm of disapprobation not surprisingly followed the boost in the bareback blogger's profile. Gawker's comments file was crammed with postings suggesting he be put on the next train to Dachau, other gay men's health listserves picked up the drumbeat of dismay and disgust. But this controversy is only the latest concerning the practice of serosorting.

Defined as guys choosing only to have unsafe sex with others of the same HIV-status, serosorting has been ade facto reality in gay men's lives since the AIDS epidemic started, and before, if you count guys choosing not have sex with others they knew to have an STD or saying fuck it , if they knew they both had herpes, or whatever.

Serosorting, however, is a concept that is exclusive to considerations of HIV prevention. It's based on the premise that men need to know their status and that if they do, and then limit their unsafe behavior to only others of the same status, that HIV infections will fall. This assumes of course that people take steps to learn their status, that their status stays the same, that they are honest about their status, and that others are too. It is true, by the way, that people are more likely to have safer sex if they know they are positive. This is part of the innate civic-mindedness and altruism of gay men, we'll come back to that later.

Serosorting has recently been picked up by some advocates and taken out of the realm of decisions that gay men make on their own and promoted as a serious prevention strategy to be encouraged. Last fall, the San Francisco Department of Public Health launched their "disclosure" campaign that links knowing your status and talking about it with potential sexual partners to intentionally choosing partners of the same status. And Robert Brandon Sandor, the organizer ofBrandon's Poz Parties, a longstanding occasional sex club event for poz guys in New York, took up the charge, hosting a forum at the gay center in Manhattan on serosorting a month later. Brandon has run afoul of some local public health advocates for his championing of serosorting, as they claim his promotion of the concept is overly simplistic.

For Brandon, serosorting means, if you are poz, and only fuck without condoms with other poz guys, HIV won't be transmitted and will eventually burn itself out. Critics note that the world is more complicated then this with people not sticking to the system, assuming things about other people's status, and remaining vulnerable to other STDS.

This also lays the burden on poz guys to have unsafe sex – or maybe by extention of the argument sex, period – only with other positive guys, but also for negative guys or guys of unknown status to continue to have sex only with condoms.

It's easy to fall into a moralistic discussion about sexual ethics when considering serosorting. But in fact the issue is really one that has been around forever and complicated forever: assessing risk. A noted HIV researcher once told me about a guy in Los Angeles he spoke to who would have unprotected sex if his partner had clean matching socks on. The reasoning went that if he was a nice, clean enough guy to have nice, clean enough socks, they it's likely he wasn't a skank and therefore HIV-negative. Sounds pretty silly, but it's a risk assessment strategy, albeit a poor one.

We are all responsible for making decisions about how much risk we can tolerate. Just about any sex can lead to the transmission of an STD; bottoming for anyone carries some risk of exposure to HIV, no matter how minimal if we choose to engage in sex, a major part of being alive, then we are taking risk. If we have sex with people we don't know, or with people we do know, but whose status we can't be 100 percent sure of, we are taking a risk.

While serosorting is a strategy that attempts to lower that risk, as Bareback Top makes clear, sometimes, for whatever reason, we are likely to be taking risk with less than complete information. Like we do when we are drunk, or high, or deeply in love, or deeply in lust, or inexperienced, or desperate, or stupid or lonely. How much risk we are willing to take is a combination of our mind's intelligent assessment and our hearts over-riding blindness to circumstance based on our desire in the moment. That leads back to the altruism issue. What alternately upsets and turns people on about Bareback Top is that he puts his needs for sexual satisfaction and thrill above others. He turns other people into objects, his playthings, and gets a kick out of when their intentions to protect themselves and others are undermined by their desire for hot sex and closeness with another human being. 

In his most recent posting, Bareback Top describes fucking a young guy without a condom and his assumption that it's the first time the kid has been fucked, He says that the kid was clearly in pain. But he did what he wanted and took care of his own needs, popping a nut up the guy's tender ass. Did he give the young man HIV? Probably not, presuming he's still correct that he doesn't have HIV. Did he give the kid any other STD, who knows? Did he use another human being for his own pleasure at the cost of his own and the other person's humanity? Sounds like. That occurs with a cost that Bareback Top has yet to become aware of. You pay for such cavalier games with a little piece of your soul.

Most of us have probably used other people at some time or another for our own gratification. That's called exploitation. The lucky among us learn to regret it.

Risky Business: Bareback Sex

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Choosing to Bareback - on Adam4Adam

One of our favorite health bloggers, Stephan on the Adam4Adam blog, goes  bareback this week. Check it out.

I believe that there are a host of reasons why men choose to bareback that cannot be understood outside of the context of an individual.

We as gay men have been told to ‘always use a condom’ by health professionals for many years now and it is good advice in most sexual circumstances. We have been shown how to use them, even by porn stars such as Matthew Rush and Brent Corrigan, and we have lots of choices when it comes to what condom we want or need. But there are considerations regarding condoms and  bareback sex that have not been discussed or considered as broadly as they may need to be.

We, especially as gay men, have been bombarded with safer-sex messaging, telling us that condomless sex can lead to contracting HIV/STDs. Leading me to believe that a lack of basic knowledge regarding condom use, and the protection it offers, is not the foundation of why most men who choose to do so have unprotected sex. I think most of us know at least the basics of HIV/STD transmission.

I am often surprised, and occasionally shocked, at how some in  HIV/STD prevention view and approach gay men who are fully informed on safer-sex practices and choose to bareback. There are some who immediately judge men who choose to engage in condomless sex as either being uninformed, in denial or as something other, like a “Bug Chaser” or “Gift Giver”.

It is worth stating; I believe strongly that it is the right of all adults to have consensual sex in whatever way they choose to have it as long as no harm is caused to another.

Read the rest.

HIV-Positive Men Who Bareback Should Have More Frequent Hep C Testing

via AIDSmeds

A new study has found that 75 percent of new hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in HIV-positive men occurred in those with no history of injection drug use (IDU), mirroring other studies documenting a rise in cases of HCV infection in men who have sex with men (MSM) in Western Europe, Australia and urban cities in the United States. The study, published online January 31 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, prompted the researchers to echo the conclusion of other cohort findings by recommending more frequent testing for HCV antibodies in those with high-risk practices, such as MSM who practice anal sex without condoms.

Because of shared transmission routes, up to 30 percent of people with HIV in the United States also have chronic HCV infection. Chronic liver disease is a leading cause of death in people with HIV, and people coinfected with both HIV and HCV are also at a higher risk of death from a number of non-liver-related diseases, including kidney disease.

The majority of HCV cases in the United States are attributable to injection drug use, but there have been reports of HCV transmission in MSM who have no IDU history. Studies of these cases have suggested that HCV risk in these individuals is associated with various sexual practices, including unprotected anal intercourse, the use of sex toys, multiple partners and fisting.

To further explore the occurrence of HCV infection in people already infected with HIV, Lynn Taylor, MD, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and her colleagues examined data from the 4,000-plus-person ALLRT study.


Read the rest.

Can Magnetic "Gut Breeders" Be Role Models Too?

via Bay Area Reporter, by Seth Hemmelgarn

Porn company's 'role models' draw concerns of AIDS advocates
   

The pornography company Treasure Island Media is promoting a couple that includes an HIV-negative and an HIV-positive partner having unprotected sex as "role models." They are believed to be the first sero-discordant barebacking couple to be advertised as porn stars.

According to a Treasure Island statement, the acting couple's James Roscoe is HIV-positive, while Brad McGuire is HIV-negative. In a scene featuring Roscoe and McGuire on a Treasure Island website, Roscoe is the receptive anal sex partner or bottom.

"The two are a real-life, long-term, promiscuous, bareback couple," stated the company in a press release.

In the statement, which was dated October 27, Paul Morris, the studio's owner, spoke of demolishing "the HIV-positive closet" and said, "We know exactly what we're doing and we will not allow reactionary individuals and organizations to dictate our behavior. James and Brad are fitting role models for young gay men. They are living their lives with honesty and integrity."

Read the rest.

"In the heat of the moment, he allows me to have my way"

via TheBody.com, by Terron J. Cook

[Powerful, piercingly honest story regarding this man's struggle to use condoms, and the intense attraction and pleasure of sex without them. Many of us will relate.]

Excerpt:

Wearing condoms always has been extremely tough for me. First, I ask myself, "Why the fuck would I use a condom when I'm the top man?" But knowing that the majority of men who contract HIV play the bottom role is absolutely no excuse for my behavior. Second, I can't maintain an erection in a condom, or at least, that's what I've convinced myself of. I use this as an excuse to not use them.

When I partake in a sexual escapade with another man, I need it to be fulfilling in all aspects, and utilizing a condom simply does not afford me that pleasure. In my earnest opinion, safe sex is absolutely ridiculous, yet necessary. It creates rigidity, as well as a wall in the middle of what is designed to be so beautiful. There is something about barebacking that allows me to feel close to the man directly in front of me.

Read the whole thing.

Discussion: Laying It Bare: Gay Men and Unprotected Sex in the Age of HIV/AIDS

TheBody.com recently hosted a panel discussion - via teleconference - on unprotected sex among gay men.Absolutely fascinating, engaging and illuminating - a must for any and all interested in gay men's health.

Click here for the audio and a transcript.

The call was moderated by fogcityjohn and included Walt Odets, Rashad Burgess and Jeffrey Parsons.

- Select quotes -

Walt Odets: It's a natural behavior, and it's of emotional significance. And I think gay men naturally engage in it. We have liked to feel that it was somehow dispensable -- and it's really not, emotionally. So, again, we haven't helped men to think about what they are doing. It's a very narrow range in which HIV is transmitted. Anal sex has the emotional import for gay men that vaginal intercourse has for heterosexuals. And it can't be dismissed. And we can't expect that that's going to done all the time, under any circumstances, with a condom. It's compelling. It's emotionally compelling. 

Rashad Burgess: We, as Americans, [need to] recognize the value of gay men, in all of our lives, in the many facets of our lives -- whether it be the business owners, whether it be folks' uncles, or family members, other types of family members, the partners that gay men have. Because it is a community that, it's imperative, understands that their lives -- and as a gay man, that our lives, and my life -- is worth saving. 

Jeffrey Parsons: We do sometimes forget about the group of gay men who are out there -- and it's a large group -- who are very happy, very satisfied. They're not depressed. They're not lonely. They're not engaged in risk behaviors. They're not seroconverting. They're actually doing very well. And I think -- and I can certainly say this as a researcher -- that too often we don't get to focus on that group. We don't get to actually talk to them and research them and find out: What are they doing to stay safe, and to stay healthy, and to stay well adjusted?

Read, listen to the whole thing here.

Raw Emotion: Thoughts on Why Gay Men Bareback via The Body

This post, by fogcityjohn on The Body has been creating a LOT of discussion.

Excerpt:

To me, the urge that I think motivates barebacking is perfectly understandable. It is, after all, just a deeply felt desire for the most profound form of intimacy, a desire that goes beyond merely wanting to be close to someone else and crosses over into a need for union -- for the "blissful merger" that Irvin Yalom describes. Barebacking can be seen as the ultimate attempt to remove all barriers between ourselves and our partners, to literally become one. It's an effort to escape the loneliness that haunts our separate existences, and to be freed, if only momentarily, from the solitary confinement of our individuality. Men who bareback may be seeking what James I. Martin calls "transcendent sexual experiences." (Martin, 9 Sexualities 214-235 (2006).) That is, sexual experience in which they feel a dissolution of their separate selves and a fusion with the object of their desire.

Check it out.

The Barebacker’s Delusion

via Melbourne Community Voice, by Daniel G. Taylor

‘Jacob’ says he probably took thousands of loads of cum, starting when he was 14 years old – from partners who were HIV-negative, HIV-positive, or unknown status – before he became HIV-positive 15 years later.

“There were some periods of weeks or months where I was getting fucked every day, two or three times a day,” Jacob says. “By the time I was in my twenties, I started topping as well and that was nearly always bareback. After that much activity, and a lot of it unsafe, you start to think, ‘Am I immune?’ or ‘What the hell’s going on?’”

Surf bareback blogs and you’ll see other gay men who have had repeated exposure to HIV and stayed negative. Some come to believe they are immune. Is anyone immune to HIV?

Read the rest.

And come back and share what you think.

Resilient?

Fantasies have to be expressed, channeled

If I was more inclined to have anal sex more, especially receptively, I would probably be more inclined to do it raw, because of my eroticization of raw sex.

by Charles Stephens
Read more LifeLube posts from Charles

I am a 29-year-old black gay male and I’m HIV-negative.

Of the group of gay men I came out with, three have died, and I am now one of the few left in my social network that’s still HIV-negative.

I don’t see my being HIV-negative as the result of “good choices,” I’ve made, verses “bad choices,” I’ve avoided. I don’t see being HIV-negative as a prize for good behavior. To me it’s been more a matter of inclination, even if this inclination has produced a kind of “resilience factor,” for me.

I have sought to have a fulfilling, open, and interesting sexual life, and remain HIV-negative along the way. To some degree I think I’ve managed to achieve this, even as I’ve created boundaries for myself. I believe that my being HIV-negative has to do, more than anything else, with my lack of receptive raw anal sex, and my overall ambivalence around anal sex in general. To be more clear, if I was more inclined to have anal sex more, especially receptively, I would probably be more inclined to do it raw, because of my eroticization of raw sex. My lack of engagement with receptive anal sex has more to do with the discomfort it causes me, rather than some moral stance, so the logistics of the act, creates a kind of covert protective factor. But I still eroticize anal sex, particularly raw anal sex, even though I do it infrequently, and have sought ways to channel those desires in a different direction.

I yearn for other HIV-negative gay men to tell their stories, and share their strategies, especially those like me, that don’t like condoms, eroticize semen, exist in high prevalence HIV sexual networks, and develop strategies to remain HIV-negative.

My rule for the most part is to keep semen out of my mouth and ass. And if I choose to indulge in that particular pleasure, I would identify strategies to do so that would reduce my risk along the way. Even though I don’t think sex is ever completely rational, I do believe I can be deliberate and intentional.

I think bareback porn could potentially be an HIV prevention strategy.

Once I was with a guy that wanted to penetrate me condomless. I did not want to do it. Or rather I wanted to do it, but chose not to do it. This has not been the case every time, but was the case this time. We ended up masturbating together, while he narrated to me his fantasy of barebacking with me, ejaculating inside me, feeling the inside of me raw. I found this extremely powerful and the fantasy hot. We were able to engage in a very intense way, our sexual fantasies, without actually doing it, all the way. Our orgasms were powerful, even if his semen was collected on to his bellybutton and not in my rectum. I also watch bareback porn, gay and straight, and find that an effective way to channel my desires. I think bareback porn could potentially be an HIV prevention strategy. Fantasies have to be expressed, channeled. Must be. In the theater of the erotic arts, we have an opportunity to witness visually the sexual archetypes and fetishes that structure our psyches and animate our fantasies. Those are two imperfect strategies that I have found effective for the moment.

The gap that I’ve found in HIV prevention, is the lack of engagement around HIV-negative men that remain negative. Eric Rofes years ago, called for support groups for HIV-negative gay men. Spaces. This still has not happen on a large scale, and I believe strongly that it’s necessary.

Thus, I’m calling for an HIV prevention agenda for gay men that would include three things:

(1) An exploration of how gay men, particularly black gay men, have remained and continue to remain HIV-negative, especially those like me, that have a dissaffinity for condoms. What strategies have they used? Those that has existed in and fucked in sexual networks and contexts with high HIV prevalence that remain negative should be studied and interviewed rigorously. Urgently.

(2) An STI prevention workshop for gay men that like to have raw sex. Not just a list of strategies or tips, but a workshop, that can be replicated within community-based organizations and centers for gay men targeting gay men that bareback.

And (3), spaces for gay men that are HIV-negative that can talk about their ambivalence, their desires, and their challenges in a supportive and affirming environment.

Is there some resilience I have that has guided me, facilitated my remaining HIV-negative? I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about this since the brilliant Walt Senterfitt referenced the notion of resilience to me, and it’s value in thinking about gay men’s sexual health. One thing is for sure, the notion of resilience in gay men’s health, and not just as it relates to sexual health but also mental health and other realms, could provide some really valuable strategies as we map out our collective destiny.

Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based gay men’s health advocate and writer.

Pleasure and Risk

Garrett Prestage gave the following talk at the Australasian Society for HIV Medicine conference held in Brisbane, Australia in September 9 - 11, 2009 as part of a community organization (ACON) panel. Please give it a read. (Thanks to Michael Hurley for putting this on the LifeLube radar.)


For 25 years I’ve noted various attempts to ‘sell’ condoms to gay men as though they could be erotic or fun, usually using bright colours or a sexy pose or some cutesy addition – the latest being a banana. But it’s never worked – it just seemed to because most gay men have practised safe sex throughout the epidemic.

What do they really think about condoms?

Like most straight men, they hate them – they’ll use them because the circumstances require it but if they had some other option they’d go for it.

In PASH (Pleasure and Sexual Health - a survey conducted in Australia) two thirds of men (including 81% of men who did UAIC - unprotected anal intercourse with casual partners) said that if there was no longer any need to worry about HIV it’d be unlikely they’d continue using condoms. Less than a third (29%) of men who did UAIC agreed that condoms can ever be fun or erotic – even among those who ALWAYS used condoms with casual partners only half could agree with the statement. Three quarters – 78% (including almost all – 93% – of the men who did UAIC) said that sex just feels better without condoms. Over half the men who did UAIC said that condoms are a hassle, they slow down the sex & are a nuisance.

Lots of the men in PASH noted that using a condom makes it harder to keep their erection, or makes getting fucked less comfortable, but they also spoke about the sheer pleasure of sex without a condom & how a condom just gets in the way.

So what’s the point? Well, I would argue that gay men appreciate honest and realistic information that enables them to make up their own minds – and they don’t automatically buy what we tell them. Although I know that most organizations have tried to respond to changes in HIV and changes in how gay men think about risk, we basically continue to give them a message that can be reduced down to ‘but really, you should just use a condom’.

In PASH, the majority (59%) think HIV messages are all the same, and that they never say anything new (58%), & three quarters (75%) say that all HIV messages tell you is to use condoms. So do they have any impact: Well, half the men who did UAIC say they see HIV messages but don’t pay much attention. But that doesn’t mean they’re ineffective. Of course condom reinforcement works in a more subliminal way to reinforce a safe sex culture – and we should retain that. And even though large numbers probably ignore much of the content of the messages, they mostly appreciate their value. Despite their general hostility to condoms, almost all men in PASH, whether they used condoms consistently or not, agreed that condoms provided a sense of security either from infection or from the possibility of infecting their partners and so they agreed they were necessary for this reason.

They’re not idiots and they’re not irresponsible. They know how useful condoms are – but that doesn’t mean we ever fooled them into liking them.

However, as I’ve said on previous occasions, at the beginning of this epidemic, when we had to start promoting condoms & safe sex, the common feeling was that once there was a cure, we’d throw one huge orgy to celebrate. And the reality is that some men have quietly begun to celebrate. Not all men: Some men remain locked into a morbid fear of HIV and couldn’t possibly contemplate taking any sort of risk; But others, still just a minority, but undoubtedly growing, are reassessing the situation. They’re not quite ready to throw caution to the wind – they know it isn’t quite over yet – but they feel the risk has decreased enough that they can relax a bit.

In PASH, one third (31%) including a little under half (41%) the men who did UAIC feel that HIV has become controllable, similar to diabetes, & one in six (18%) including a third (32%) of the men who did UAIC say they’re now willing to try some things that they used to think were too much of a risk.

The sorts of things that some men said in PASH about the risk of HIV transmission are the same as what I’ve heard many of us say quietly as well: For example, one PASH respondent said, “I guess I genuinely believe there's a very low chance of passing on my HIV as a bottom, and because I take my own meds so regularly, I believe there is next to no chance of passing on HIV to another partner."



So, my question is how much longer we think we can get away with treating gay men like children and trying to frighten the minority into submission with a boogie-man that even we don’t really believe in any more?

Sure, HIV is still quantitatively different to other STIs and we all think we should avoid getting infected or infecting anyone else – but it’s now no longer an absolute. It’s a question of how much do I want to avoid it.

People tell me I should eat more healthily. Probably I should if all I cared about was getting all my health indicators into perfect alignment. But, really, if my health is generally pretty good and I have other things in place that make me think the risk of anything really bad happening is probably fairly low, why should I sacrifice eating things that give me so much pleasure? It’s pretty unlikely.

In life we all judge relative risks and pleasures, and pleasure always wins unless the risk is judged to be relatively great.

Until the mid-90s, the risks posed by HIV appeared very great indeed, especially to gay men, and so, of course, they mostly sacrificed their pleasure, at least to a significant extent. But nowadays an increasing number of gay men – still a minority, but definitely increasing – are coming to a different conclusion. They’re not abandoning all caution – they mostly still practice some sort of risk-minimisation. But condoms are no longer an automatic part of that.

I’m going to quote something from Elizabeth Pisani’s writing in the Guardian a couple of days ago to put this in context. She’s talking about the tension between trying to promote HIV-prevention at the same time as let people know that if they get HIV they’ll still be able to live a normal life. I’m selectively quoting from a fairly long article.

She says: “If there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having AIDS then why should be bother with HIV prevention messages? … AIDS industry dinosaurs like myself know that AIDS really is something bad. What we’re not so good at admitting is that it is practically non-existent in rich countries… Treatment readily available means you can have HIV without getting AIDS for decades, maybe forever. And the treatment is free for patients (LifeLube note - not in the USA), if not for the taxpayers… HIV is no longer a mass murderer in rich countries. It’s an inconvenient disease that will have you taking pills for the rest of your life, cost taxpayers lots of money and make big pharma rich… ‘HIV increases your tax bills. Protect yourself!’ Not really a line that’ll get you reaching for the condoms is it?”

And, really, plenty of gay men know this is the reality. They still try to reduce risk, but it isn’t a life-or-death priority any more.

What is a big part of gay men’s decision making though is the question of trust. How well they know someone, how well they can trust the situation they’re in, how much they can trust their sexual networks. And key to this is knowing someone’s HIV status.

Most men when asked will recite what we’ve all been taught is the correct line: In PASH 93% agreed that you can never really be sure of someone’s HIV status – but two thirds (66%) also believed that there are some men whose HIV status they could be sure of, plus three quarters (72%) felt that knowing someone’s HIV status is a way to reduce HIV risk. And when they were asked about the casual partner that they’d last engaged in UAI (unprotected anal intercourse) with, nearly half said they were very confident that they knew his HIV status.

So, all these serosorting campaigns that are based on telling men that they can’t really be sure of knowing someone’s HIV status are probably fairly meaningless. Yes, gay men nod approvingly to this statement, but for many the statement is only meaningful in the abstract. And then it simply doesn’t apply to this particular guy, because I know him, or I trust him, or I trust this situation.

We don’t provide him with any tools to minimise his risk in these situations – other than to imply that he’s a fool for trusting anyone. And we mostly justify this because the Seroconversion Study is full of stories where this trust was misplaced – but of course it is. These are the stories of the men who were unlucky enough for it to go wrong.

But when we look at data from our other research what we see is that many others are doing the same thing and not seroconverting: A substantial proportion of men are engaging in UAIC with partners they believe they know, and mostly with partners they believe they can trust. And the HIM data (Health in Men study in Sydney) tell us that while these sorts of decisions may be riskier than using condoms, they’re significantly more protective than when they have UAI with men whose HIV status they don’t know.

Nonetheless, we know from the Seroconversion Study that often this trust can go awry. This statement from a PASH respondent tells us a lot about why it can go awry: “He asked me if I was neg. If he'd been positive I would have assumed he wouldn’t have cared."

So, he’s placing his trust in the situation. His logic was that a pos man wouldn’t have bothered asking if he was neg & then proceed to have UAI with him. His implication about the irresponsibility of pos men is clearly misplaced but his assumption that this guy was neg based on the interaction was probably a reasonable one but even so a pos man might have used that information to decide whether he should be top or bottom.

When we look at the Seroconversion Study data, the lesson we need to learn from them is not that we need to get gay men to behave like they did a decade ago and return to absolutely consistent universal condom use with casual partners. Not because it’s not a worthy ambition to get gay men to take up condom use in the same way again – but it’s simply not reality. It won’t happen.



The lesson from the Seroconversion Study is that we need to provide gay men with some practical tools so they can make informed decisions about the safest circumstances for them to discard the condoms, and so they start to reflect on what’s really going on for them when they feel they can trust the situation they’re in.

When is that trust rational and when is it misplaced?

Mostly, gay men still want to protect themselves and their partners from HIV, but not at the expense of enjoying themselves. It’s not our job to decide for them that there’s only one way they should behave, or that virtually no degree of risk is acceptable. Our job is to provide them with the tools to enable them to put into practice their perfectly reasonable decisions about relative risk and pleasure.

After 25 years I think we can trust them to get it right.

The End of Condoms? Not so much.

by Daniel Reeders, via Trevorade

It's Friday night, the rain has eased, I've just got back from an enjoyable session at a sauna (that's Aussie for bathhouse) and cracked the top off a Beez Neez -- a Western Australian malt beer brewed with honey. It's been a rough week but right now, life is pretty good.

And then I notice an article about PrEP in The Daily Beast. Danger, Will Robinson, mainstream media coverage of HIV prevention! And sure enough, it's a shocker.

I'm mellowed-out enough to admit there are flashes of insight in the piece. It has all the right pieces of the puzzle, but author David Kaufman has jammed them together trying to make an altogether less optimistic picture of PrEP than their proper placement depicts.

And that's a shame, because there's enough genuine uncertainty to write a balanced piece without leaving any gay boys itching to rush out and score themselves some tenofovir.

A big part of the problem is Kaufman's deathly purple prose. AIDS, he writes, is "caught in a 30-year swirl of sex and morality" -- and he's stirring away furiously. In his article, PrEP is a "necessary evil" but "downright dangerous", "game changers", elation and alarm, and cringing PrEP proponents -- holy asslicking assonance, Batman!

HIV prevention is a big field, and there's an ongoing dialogue about PrEP -- as well as the whole complex of related issues like safe sex, versus serosorting, versus barebacking, versus social network interventions, versus combination prevention.

Read the rest.

Panel Takes a ’Raw’ Look at Barebacking: Why We Like It, Why We Still Do It

via EDGE, by Scott Stiffler

Lively, sometimes loud debate; passionate viewpoints accentuated by applause from the crowd; and skepticism towards the establishment’s ability to effectively advocate for public health. It sounds like a contentious town hall event in which the proposed health care overhaul takes a beating--but it was, in fact, an August 13th public forum sponsored in New York City by the nation’s oldest and largest private AIDS service organization, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC).

Certainly, it’s understandable why high passion would have erupted at a discussion of the most sensitive topic among gay men today: barebacking. Although its topic was every bit as divisive as Obama’s sweeping initiative, the event managed to demonstrate that the town hall format need not devolve into a shouting match.

Actually, it technically wasn’t about "barebacking," at least if the organizers could help it. The conclave’s premise was that the term "barebacking" unfairly stigmatizes gay men who have unprotected sex.

GMHC’s organizers instead chose the no less provocative but apparently more acceptable term "raw" as the title of the event. A poster promoting the night showed a man, shirtless and with back to the camera, displaying the word "RAW" in tattoo form on his back right shoulder.

GMHC Board of Directors Co-Chair Odell Mays moderated a seven-member panel, each of whom had had five minutes to assert his particular point of view around the issue of stigma and unprotected sex. Afterwards, moderator Mays spent the remainder of the evening taking questions and comments from the audience - to which the panel had the option to weigh in on.

Read the rest.

Related - "Risky Business" forum and podcast in Chicago

Risky Business Podcast is LIVE - WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF BAREBACKING?

via Feast of Fun

On today’s special edition of Feast of Fun, we’re teaming up with Lifelube and Project Crysp in conjunction with the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit to bring you Risky Business- a raw discussion with a live audience at the Center on Halsted on the sex and intimacy we crave and the risk we’re willing to take.

How do adult films with bareback sex affect our sexual desires and practices?

Are videos depicting sex without condoms a hot but safe way for viewers to find pleasure or is it a dangerous normalization of risk?

We have a panel of experts here to break down the ins-and-outs of condomless sex.

Tony Valenzuela, Writer and Activist whose work focuses on the politics of gay sex, subcultures and assets based perspectives. He’s known as AIDS activism’s most misunderstood man.

Mufasa Ali, Minister and Activist, as well as co-founder of ONYX, a leather group for men of color.

Dr. Braden Berkey, Clinical psychologist whose practice focuses on gay men, and the director of the Center on Halsted’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Institute.

Chuck Renslow, the founder of International Mr. Leather Conference and Convention, was in the audience to talk about why he recently banned bareback porn at IML and the future of the ban.

This is a frank talk about the kind of sex men have in real life and how they “seroadapt” or reduce sexual harm.

For many people, this is just the start of the conversation surrounding sex without condoms, it is not the final word. If you have any questions or insight, please leave a comment and keep the conversation going. Please be respectful and refrain from personal attacks, inflammatory remarks or general hysteria.

Listen to the podcast.

Check out photos from the forum.

Daniel Reeders on "Risky Business"

The little forum that could...

via Trevor's blog, by Daniel Reeders


Check out pics from the event here.



I'm enjoying the free wifi and replica designer furniture at the Centre on Halsted, marvelling at this amazing space, and the contradictions of American culture.

On my way here, I passed a huge billboard on N Halsted, warning that hotdogs kill. Cancer, you see. The message: not eating in moderation, but total hotdog abstinence.

I'd just had breakfast, which like almost every other meal I've had here, came with a huge, unbidden helping of fried potato. The enormity of the normal serving size here is deadly -- through diabetes and heart disease -- but exception was being made of a single food.

Instead of saying "eat less, mostly vegetables", there's a billboard for a single illness targeting a single food. Somewhere else, a diabetes agency has no doubt done a billboard about corn syrup (rather than declining bottomless refills).

I've been here five days and I'm already feeling swamped by a myriad of health messages. Almost invariably they are phrased as Don't Do X. None have sought to communicate skills and ideas for managing the complexities of your own health.

On Monday night I came to the Centre on Halsted for a forum about barebacking, called Risky Business, moderated by Fausto Fernos and Mark Felion from Feast of Fun - the top gay podcast on iTunes! - featuring Tony Valenzuela, Rev Musafa Ali and Dr Braden Berkey.

And something similar was happening. Rather than talk about pleasure, unsafe sex without the label, or the complexities of sexual negotiation in a mixed poz/neg sexual world, co-presenters Fausto and Mark sought a consensus: Don't Do Bareback.

The audience rebelled. Keith Green, someone I've long admired for his contributions to Lifelube and the Gay Men's Health Summit online community, challenged the panel: the subtitle for the event is "reclaiming pleasure" - why can't we talk about that?

Read the rest.

Dangerous Dialogue - Keith Ecker Reflects on "Risky Business"

LifeLube hosted a community forum last evening - at the Center on Halsted - to discuss bareback sex, bareback porn, and the reclaiming of pleasure. The Feast of Fun (Fausto Fernos and Marc Felion) moderated, and panelists Tony Valenzuela, Mufasa Ali, and Dr. Braden Berkey engaged the topic.

Audience member and writer Keith Ecker (pictured below right) was motivated - he tells LifeLube - to write the longest post of his blogging history. Here is an excerpt, with a link to the whole shebang.

Another point from the forum: Many people were upset that there was not talk of reclaiming pleasure, as the title of the forum suggests. These people didn’t come to hear about safer sex. They knew that message. After all, it’s been trumpeted for years. And I can’t blame them. This wasn’t a forum to discuss new approaches to HIV/STI awareness (though I really would love to have a roundtable about that cause I got some ideas brewing). This was a forum to discuss pleasure, and all we’ve been talking about is whether to condemn or condone barebacking. Sadly, despite audience members pleads to steer the conversation in their direction, little effort was made, as the hot-button topic of barebacking overshadowed the pleasure conversation. However, I have to commend one audience member. He stood up and discussed how we should shift the dialogue from safer sex/barebacking away from the ass altogether. Why not eroticize something less likely to spread disease, like the scent of a man or armpits or back hair?

And he’s right. All too often us gay men are so fixated on our assholes that it’s a surprise we can’t see our heads are firmly planted up them. If we continue to characterize the safer sex conversation solely about the butt and putting on a condom, then we are going to forever use the same old tired tactics we’ve been using for a couple decades, tactics that have proven ineffective. Let us move away from staring at our buttholes and let us talk about how sex can encompass more than just penetration. Having a man thrust in and out of you might feel just fine, and it’s kind of hot to emulate those movies we see flashing on our computers, in bars and on our video iPods that we secretly view on public transportation. But lets not have porn dictate our dicks. Let’s put the power in our own hands, so to speak, and let’s re-define gay male sexuality. I’m not saying let’s get rid of anal sex. I’m just saying we should expand our vocabularly, and we should celebrate this expansion. Otherwise we will forever be doomed to say the same sentence over and over and over (”Use a condom. Use a condom. Use a condom.”), and this message will surely fall on tired, deafened ears.

Read all of his post.

Read his piggyback, follow-up post.

Read his apology post.

The forum was podcasted and will be posted on the Feast of Fun site in the coming days. In the meantime, there were a number of folks Tweeting throughout the forum and you can read the very interesting thread - #FoFRisky - here.

[Dr. Braden Berkey, Marc Felion, Mufasa Ali, Fausto Fernos, and Tony Valenzuela]

Talking from the bottom up - Condoms, no condoms?

via Vue Weekly (Edmonton), by Ted Kerr

Seemingly absent from conversations around condomless anal sex are issues of trust, choice, love, consent and the difference between the fantasy of porn and the reality of flesh. Barebacking has either been demonized as a one-way ticket to being HIV+ or vaulted as the holy grail of new queer sex. This seeps into our queer heads and we feel the collective shame the culture puts on us of our natural inclinations, our older-than-time desires. We're made to feel that what we do needs to be policed, sanctioned, protected. What affect does this have on the gay male psyche? On how we exercise our desires? On how we treat one another?

Read the whole item.

And if this topic entices you, please join LifeLube and friends at the "Risky Business" forum tonight - Monday August 17 - at the Center on Halsted. Check out more info here.

Barebacked

This piece originally appeared in RFD #138 (Summer 2009). For 35 years, the non-profit collective-produced magazine has chronicled the lives of faeries and rural queers everywhere. Available at many LGBT friendly bookstores, RFD is dependent on subscriptions to sustain production. Check out online content at www.rfdmag.org and subscribe here.


by Wow

12-23-2007
San Francisco
How do I trust?
How do I take responsibility for my actions?
The events of the past cannot be undone, nor will I be undone by the events of the past.

The air in the room was thick with sex. Men of all ages, shapes and sizes stripped and eager to be touched. Hands, mouths and limbs ready, warm and willing. The party in full gear from the get go. My hunger alive, I sought lips and tongues ready for the feast. Male flesh wanting nothing more than to be caressed, cherished, consumed—a fantasy come to life. I feasted and was feasted upon as I circled my mouth around a cock, another cock teasing my ass, both members hard. I was being driven to the edge of sensory overload and there were no brakes on this semi to self oblivion. "Fuck me," I whispered. "Can you take it?" he asked. "Try me," I replied. Wanting nothing more than to be stretched wide open, to feel the heat and pressure of his overlarge member inside me. "Fill me up," I implored. Feed me. I am insatiable, but try to satisfy. Coax me open, and stuff me with your sex, and maybe, just maybe, I will be filled and finally fulfilled. But no.... He teased, but did not fulfill, and so, still hungry, I waited and soon another came—shorter, smaller, but still hard and ready for the prize. His cock curved downward, a rare and curious attribute. Black hair, green eyes, virile—a combination I craved. Dark hair covered his chest. Strong arms wrapped around me. Unsheathed, he probed, found the center of my heated hole, and pressed his cock into me. Gasping, I waited as he entered me fully and, moaning, began to drive his engorged glans deeper into the dark, hot recess of my body. Eyes open. Eyes shut. Eyes all around us. Men of all sizes, ages, and colors sucking and fucking in sensuous abandon. "Oh sweet god! Hold me! Fill me!" I cried. Wrapped in his arms, his hands roving my body, I whispered, "Yesssssss." This is it. What I want. What I need to feel. Deep inside me. Harder. Harder still, until in a burst of ecstasy he cries out and shudders as he fills me with his semen. Lubed with sweat and precum, his body pressed tight against mine, I feel his arms around me as I grow hot and hotter. Sweat pours from my body. Bared. Raw. Naked and wet with passion. Suspended in that timeless moment, my cum erupts from my balls, cupped in his hand, and bursts from my cock. Howling into the pungent darkness, my mouth wide open, sounds of the beast pour out of me. Shuddering and lost, I turn to him. His dark form slips away, whispering words of thanks, and I am... alone again, adrift in a sea of confusion, wondering what I have done. His silence did not conceal the wasting in his still handsome face, nor the hardening of his stomach from the meds that keep the virus at bay. My silence does not conceal the knowing of my desperate desire, nor my confusion. The room echoes with the sounds of passion spent as I breathe deeply the dank air in this subterranean chamber. Willing my body to be free. Free from want. Free from dis-ease. Free from the blind desire that drives me to such overt acts of self delusion and abandon. I breathe in, filling myself with love. Breathing out, I pray for my well-being—our well-being. Wondering... how will this play progress?

12-24-2007
The Morning After.
Silent regrets. No shame.

Descending the stairs of the Victorian house in which I have slept, I ponder the night before. Why? Why risk AIDS for a fast fuck with a stranger? Why put myself in this perilous place knowing what I know? I wonder as I open the door onto the sunlit street, why risk years of illness for a moment of pleasure? Stepping out onto the street—Castro, a street known throughout the world for its easy sex—I am alone with these thoughts. Alone and silent. My body feels the cool air of late December as well as the noonday sun, warm and bright upon my skin. I see a man from last night's party who looks up and smiles lightly. We are comrades in sex, not friends. Nevertheless, I hear myself tell him my secret as I look into his eyes. He listens, does not smile, does not judge. His quiet is full of consolation. I feel released, released from the secrecy that left unspoken might have paralyzed. I feel more air enter my lungs. The confession prepares me for correct action. I will go to the city clinic and be tested. I will strive to understand my actions and redress myself with greater compassion. I will not be victim to my wanton desire. I will not be ashamed, but neither will I be cavalier about the foolishness of my actions. I will re-author my life. What my actions will mean for the future remains to be seen.

The morning after is bright and I am whole enough to see there will be many tomorrows. Knowing this, I see I am not alone so long as I choose communion with my brothers and sisters and my ancestors by whom I am inspired to continue to command the most caring, creative, brilliant life I can co-create, to weave my threads with trust and to aspire to truth. The web is dense. The web is strong. The web is ever-changing. This mysterious web of countless threads, this continuum of creative flow, the ebb and flow of all life. And now the journey continues....

1-29-2008
All results negative: STDs and HIV negative.
My hunger rearranged. I breathe in peace.

7-2008 / 4-2009
All results negative. Again, deep thanks

Re-reading these words in search of greater understanding, I am made aware of two significant matters. The first is my hunger for intimacy. Might I again take any substitute just to satisfy, for a moment, my craving? Most of the sex I have is with relative strangers in bathhouses or at sex parties. My compulsive impulses have often gone unchecked, with my ability to distinguish beneficial from detrimental behavior hiding offstage, out of sight. I recognize this as dangerous and obscene, smacking of addictive behavior. Second, I often feel ambivalent about life, an ambivalence I have known from earliest memory. I disturb my own sensibilities with these thoughts. I see how my deep sexual desire and cravings for intimacy combine with this ambivalence to create a recipe for disaster. I am currently taking greater precautions with my sexual intimates, but I am also very aware of how easily I might regress.

The counselors I have met with at SF City Clinic and at Magnet have been both caring and challenging. Their provocative questions and obvious concern for my well being have contributed significantly to my progress. Sharing this part of my life with my community adds strength to my resolve to remain healthy while simultaneously lending voice to a complex subject which affects many lives. I thank those of you who have taken the time to read this and welcome your thoughts.

I close by noting that in addition to pragmatic solutions I also turn to the more intangible, mystical energies I know to be present and available to we-who-are-willing to invoke them. As one who has witnessed the effects of strong intentions enacted in ritual, I close this story with a prayer or incantation:

Mother, Father, Light and Shadow of All Creation, I, Wow, call you in. Here and now I command the will and good sense to engage in healthy, loving, playful sexual activities with powerful respect both for myself and my partner(s) from this day forward and through all the days and nights of my life. I receive this blessing in a good way and for the greater good of ALL. And I thank you for this and better... here and now. Ashay. Aho. It is so. It is so. It is so.

[join a community forum regarding barebacking called "risky business" this coming monday in chicago. click here for more info.]