bearbandit

That's the purpose of fiction: to allow us to safely confront our fear, or entertain the ideas of things we wouldn't do in real life. I don't think that's a gloomy view as your brighter note suggests. On the other hand all it takes is one good thunderstorm after dark and I'm so glad that I bought the Kindle with backlighting (assuming I don't have a man there)

"clean"? I had a shower this morning - most people with HIV find the use of the word "clean" offensive. To me, the world of sex is divided into two halves: Poz and Unknown. Poz is self explanatory, but "unknown" needs a bit more explaining. Your last HIV test may have come back negative, but are you sure you hadn't just picked up passengers in the fuck before the last test? It can take up to three months before antibodies can be found, and in that period your viral load (and infectivity) is soaring. Similarly, are you sure that you didn't pick up passengers in your first (or fiftieth) fuck after a negative result. The only people who can be sure of the HIV status are those who've tested and got a positive result. This is why neg/neg serosorting falls down: it's impossible to prove a negative. Could be you've just picked it up, too soon for antibodies to develop. Or it could be you waving your last blood results under the nose of the guy you're about to fuck: "three days ago, huh. Who've you fucked since then?" Moreover the standard HIV test is a snapshot of your blood up to three months ago. Drug free I'd believe, while recognising that even after all forms of therapy there can be still a compulsion to use again. This was recently illustrated by a friend: we'd met expecting sex and decided we were better at playing Scrabble on Facebook. In the process of packing he found a baggie of meph, took it and turned up on my doorstep wanting sex. I was horrified that he'd ridden his bike while so off his face. I talked him down, was prepared to give him my bed while I slept on the settee, but he was so embarrassed he wanted out. I'm ashamed to say that I allowed him to ride home still stoned. Not heard much from him since. I'd guess that embarrassment plays a part in this... He'd been drug free for a year and is a lovely man - just we aren't right for each other. Summing up: I don't believe guys who say they're negative and any hint of drug use beyond the socially acceptable beer or three is not on. I discovered that my last boyfriend drank a litre a day - of bargain basement whiskey. Ironically he was the local fuck party organiser; many potential guests, on learning that he was fucking with a guy with HIV stopped attending his monthly parties...

Plus, he could have picked the little bugger a few days before: not enough time for the body to form sufficient antibodies for a test to pick up...

Subbitch, there is a generic version of truvada (made in India, I believe) which is chemically identical. It's been mentioned here, so should be available to the search engine. Costs around $78 per month. However, and I can't emphasise this enough, you're going to have to collude with your doctor on getting it. The reason is that one ingredient of truvada (tenofovir) can attack the kidneys. It's a rare side effect, perhaps 1 in 100,000, but an issue I feel strongly about having been the 1 in 100,000. I came within days of death: when they came to take me to hospital for treatment, there was a police car around the corner: had I not gone willingly, I would have been sectioned for my own protection. The problem is Fanconi's Syndrome (check it out at Wikipedia): basically it causes damage such that vitamins and minerals don't get recycled, just pissed away. Symptoms I experienced were hallucinations (potassium is needed for lucid thought as the firing of a neuron requires an exchange of potassium and sodium). Potassium also regulates the heart beat. My appetite for food went to the extent that I lost a quarter of my body weight, and my bones have decreased in density so that my broken ankle will never heal (see a guy with a walking stick in a leather and it could well be me). Not all this happens at once: a friend has just come off truvada because of thinning bones, but, thankfully, shows no other symptoms. Got a PA? If the bone thinning (osteopenia) happens you'll need massive calcium supplementation: I use to have to remove mine every 10 to 14 days to soak it in white vinegar overnight. Got snowed in away from home and had to remove it for comfort's sake. Now I need to get the closed over hole stretched to get it back... You need to have your kidney function checked at least every three month and be prepared to come off truvada at the first sign of trouble. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news like this. One thing NOT to do is share someone else's supply: that will only leave you both short. The only thing I can think of is persuading a doctor into an off label use of truvada, for which you'd need the help of someone with a pretty high VL to play your boyfriend (and course he hates condoms, but you're so much in love...) I really wish I could give you better news: I have heard that there's a vague possibility of the trial size being expanded, so keep an eye out for that... Best of luck to you mate!

Side effects are not compulsory!!! Make that your mantra. Your horror at receiving your prescription is something I've been through, have helped friends through for something like 30 years now. It will go away. Decide when's the best time to take the drugs (for me it's about about half-way down the first cup of tea of the morning, but then I'm Welsh). Keep a stock of imodium in your pocket "just in case" till your body adjusts and get on with the day: you'll be fine (well, maybe a little extra farting, but what guy doesn't have those days?) I'm really pleased that you've gone from early diagnosis to treatment: You've got a long life ahead of you - just remember not to step out in front of buses! ;-)

I love that expression and may well borrow it for future articles in the webzine I write for!

Somewhat different in the UK - they just imprisoned someone for passing on herpes FFS! If I'm dressed, I've got enough metal red (and long termer) ribbons on me, plus I need a walking stick to go more than a hundred yards. What does that tell you? And if it's a party situation, I've gotmy biohazard tattoo on my back (complications of diabetes mean I rarely fuck these days, but I'm open to encouragement - lots of it). As my Grindr profile says - just the free version as I wouldn't pay that sort of money for the service they offer - "if you can't cope with my HIV, we probably won't get on".

And next time you go out on a date (of which I hope you have many - in the lots of fun meaning rather than no-one wants you) try wearing a red ribbon badge - in the UK we had badges less than an inch high, metal ribbons rather than badges. I keep my long term survivor badges (gold = 5 years, platinum = 10 years, gunmetal = 15 years - they ran out of ideas for 20 years and didn't like my rhinestones suggestion!) on my BEAR braces. When I finally go, there's going to be one hell of a fight for my braces and my cutoffs! But that's a long way off yet (he says cautiously watching for buses!)

A definite yes! Feeling his beard and 'tache getting tangled with mine or when one (or more) of us has cum, the stickiness of drying cum. Or simply the passion of one of us being balls deep in the other. Even with guys who shave, there's some stubble there. Why else do men have facial hair?

Mine was a Hump Gear. Recommendation: get the clear version and inspect it for bubbles in the silicon. Mine had a bubble near the tip which broke through first time I played with it. I had been hoping to review it as a "next best thing to TasP or a condom" (no PrEP in the UK at present). Still works fine both as a plug/expander and as a stroker, but I binned the review I'd hoped to write for the online poz magazine I write for.

Syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamidia, pretty much anything that can be caught from having a dick up your ass: HIV is unusual in that enzymes in saliva seem to knock it for six. But even then if I were on a mission to swallow every load I could (sorry but CS is fore play for me) I'd want mouthwash, one that contains chlorhexidine, every few loads to be sure...

With URLs, the shorter the better. Go for it!

Slowfuck - I will lick, suck and kiss you anywhere you want. Anywhere. This is precisely the message we want to be getting over. Even better, when PrEP comes online in the UK, we'll have complete chemical warfare against HIV. By the time truvada may prove problematical (and it is thought that guys process it differently depending on the presence of HIV), there'll be other PrEP drugs.

Context is everything and language changes. A hundred years ago "gay" meant loose or immoral. In the seventies "breeder" was a gay-to-straight term of abuse for their sexual practices (a response to the now in-favour "queer"). For the last twenty years I've been involved with dog-rescue and have spent most of that time living in a rural area where the land was only fit for keeping livestock. Breeding meant something different there too. Who's to say it won't change again? First time since the word breeding came to mean cum up the ass a guy collapsed on my back and said he'd bred me, it sounded kinda odd when it was a word I associated with getting livestock pregnant...

First requirement of any BDSM sex is honesty: doesn't seem to be taught now. After being ill for so long I'm feeling my way back to where I was: for me it's important to let the other guy(s) know that at times I honestly don't know what I'm capable of, as top or bottom. But even before I got sick there's be the odd guy who didn't convey his desires clearly: the top guy who over-rode my stop word (I literally couldn't sit down for a week) or the bottom guy who asked me to leave before I'd even laid a finger on him saying I was too dangerous. My opinion is that we lost so many natural teachers in the eighties and nineties that we haven't been able yet to step into their boots. The other side of the coin is that I think it's possible that BDSM has become "scaled down" by many. I'm certainly conscious of having to hold back when I top and having to "make allowances" when bottoming, as I try to stay awake. Are John Preston's books still in print? Even more than Larry Townsend, his books offered a perfect "how to" guide...

Adding to Jizz's post, viral load and most recent CD4 (and percentage) should be added in: PrEP is only available freely in a few countries whereas TasP is the safest of drug regimes - in the UK while we want everyone's VL to be as low as possible, it's generally accepted that a three-figure (or fewer) VL is extremely unlikely to establish an infection. It was only a few years ago that 400 or even 500 was considered undetectable. Protection is a two way street; After all these years (34 for me) I'm convinced that the solution is drug based, not dependence on a flimsy piece of rubber. They were right for the time when there was no effective drug, but now when guys can go from a six figure VL to undetectable VL in a month, I'd put pills above the rubbers every time.

agreed, most assuredly, but then the UK's leading HIV charity sees molluscum contagiosum as an STI when it plainly isn't (my partner and I spent many an uncomfortable hour draining each other's "warts" twenty years ago which for us happened round the neck area) - excess of beard?

Not a new practise: it's how I was conceived: mom wanted a baby and made damn sure she got one...

Erm... UTI = urinary tract infection? What we in the UK call non-specific urethritis. We call it an STI and it's worth getting treated as soon as possible. Okay, my CD4 count was at an all time low, but I got NSU and couldn't even walk upright, the pain was so bad. I tried to put it down to a CBT session gone wrong, but no. Piss into a glass and any cloudiness says "get to an STI clinic"

Strange for me to say someone else is being cynical, but I think you are Rayne. In the UK (where we have free HIV drugs because HIV clinics are deemed to be sub-clinics of GU clinics, exempted from prescription charges shortly after WW2 to prevent a gono/syph epidemic) the HIV clinics are champing at the bit for the arrival of generics to save money which, hopefully will go to pay for drugs for the more "treatment experienced" (I prefer to call myself a drug whore). With other drugs I've never noticed a difference between the "name brand" and the generic - I take a number of drugs that are out of patent and the brand I get can change from month to month. I've never noted a change in effectiveness, so I expect the same of generic ARVs.

Damn! I meant for that to be private... I'm sorry for any embarrassment that my mistake might have given. I understand your motivations in looking at chasing/gifting: look for the thread "Pozdaddy" in chasing fiction, which represents my trying to understand the phenomenon. I'm no closer to understanding, but have felt the vicarious thrill of chasing/gifting via my characters. The story is unfinished and is only a first draft - it ran away with me

Remember the Iceberg adverts on TV? I worked on the helpline that backed them up and I feel I can say fairly confidently that you are one of what we used to call the "worried well". I suggest you look in the phone book for your nearest STI or GUM clinic and go along for a blood test. That will be conclusive. Should it turn out positive (which I think is what your guilt feelings want) I will do everything in my power (which probably isn't much) to support you. Should it turn out negative (as I fully expect it will) all I can do is suggest you get in touch with a counsellor to resolve the issues the that are causing you so much stress.

I prefer the term "complementary" therapy to "alternative" therapy. Complementary therapies might make you feel good for a while, whereas using "alternative" therapies... well, I date from the early eighties in HIV terms and everyone I've known who's relied on "alternative" therapies is dead. Sure, I'll add some ginger to my tea when my stomach is bothered or hit the mung beans when herpes acts up, but these are complementary to the pharmacist's "marines". They'll help a little with symptoms, perhaps, but for the big guns, go allopathic/conventional, and I say that as a pagan: if we weren't meant to know about allopathic medicine, we wouldn't. I can set up a pain block that lasts about three days in an arm affected by a rotator cuff injury, one of the most painful non-operable injuries I know of, but I'd be the first to say "take the nice codeine/morphine".

All to the good, having so many threads on PrEP: it's a pretty new concept and one we need to explore (the second generation of PrEP is already being explored). Weight gain from PrEP is easily corrected by good diet and exercise (I'm speaking from the other side of the fence, being poz). We could stop this bastard virus in its tracks if we maintained adherence to PrEP and TasP (treatment as protection). These days, anyone getting HIV shows education's failure: we have the tools to stop its spread, while maintaining natural sex.