bearbandit

When you're a shareholder in the business you get to set the rules. Until then we're all playing in MrTOP's playroom... I've run several message boards, and my view is "if I'm paying for it, I set the rules. Don't like 'em? Don't come here..."

Strangely I remember someone with pretty much the exact same question a few months ago. Fear of HIV can ruin your life more completely than HIV itself: do the test and find out for sure. Or, even better, go to your local STI clinic and have a full workup, including HIV test. Embarrassment factor: practically none. In the UK when you have a complete workup, they let you take the anal swab (though it's better to have them do it the first time so you know what sensations you're looking for next time), they now just use a piss sample instead of a penile swab, so the only time they come near you is for a throat swab and to take a blood sample or two. Do it and stop worrying yourself...

A few answers: Leave the PA in all the time, especially during the healing period. Tight fitting underwear (like a new Bike jock) will hold your dick upright, so little trouble with the bike there. European gauges are different: we just measure in millimetres. I started with The Gauntlet's standard "beginner" size which is about 1.8mm. I'd recommend three to six months before each stretching. How much the weight of the ring stretches the flesh depends really on the posiitioning of the PA, which in turn is governed by the pattern of veins in your dick. Mine is shallower than I would like, but was the only option. My late partner had a worse time as they nicked a vein and he spent that evening with an old t-shirt clutched to his crotch (and didn't take kindly to my question "does this mean an end to all those years of PMT?") I, personally, wouldn't recommend a stretch of more than a couple of millimetres at a time. The sensation is slightly less sharp than the initial piercing, but the extra weight is immediately apparent. How long to wait to bareback? At a rough guess, until a week after you can have a real go for it wank without any blood appearing in your cum. And on the subject of cumming, I had a wank in the bath the day after I had my first ring put in. But then I had the "cushion" of a foreskin - you'll work out your own ways of wanking Leaving it out: safest not to. If you don't want the weight of an entire ring, you can get a keep which is much lighter. I have a medical condition whereby I don't retain calcium and found that I was having to descale my PA every other week. Even after an overnight soaking in white vinegar to get rid of the calcium carbonate, I found it something of a struggle to get the ring back in. The final straw came when I was snowed in at friend's house without my PA: within six days I couldn't get even a 2mm ring in. Re-stretching is definitely on my list of things to do: at present I can just about get a darning needle through the PA hole. Regular bathing is enough for cleaning: piss (which is sterile to the pisser) acts as an antiseptic, though that first piss hurts. After I had mine done we went to the Lone Star and I waited for a loud record came on, because I know my reaction to sudden pain is to get vocal. After that, the pain is kinda fun. When bathing, be sure to rotate the ring as far as it'll go in each direction. It's easier to keep your first ring in permanently as it doesn't weigh much, and save the keeps for later, after a stretching (even then I'd be inclined to keep the ring in for a week or so, treating it as a new piercing before trying to swap it for a keep. Hope this helps...

Know what you mean - and I hold my hand up to having written a load of fiction about gifting/chasing. It started as an experiment to see if I could make it erotic - well I got off on it. But I've enjoyed a lot of films and TV about situations I wouldn't like to be in... And in the real world I've got a HIV unknown biker waiting for a text from me to say that I've got my numbers back. It's only if the VL is low enough for my comfort that he gets it, when I'm convinced that my viral load is low enough not to infect. He's freely admitted that it's the gamble that turns him on, so I'm stacking the odds in my favour as much as I can and if necessary it's going to be "sorry mate... no can do". I don't want the responsibility of someone else's infection. It's why I go on so much about TasP and PrEP (if only we had PrEP here!). And because I'm honest about HIV on my profiles, I'm practically a nun, excepting the few who are more interested in my cum than me, which makes me less interested in them. I think of having HIV+ on my profiles as a twit filter...

Wow! That's some post Poz1956 - VERY impressive in its coverage! May I "borrow" (with full credit to you) for use in the UK?

Why can't you look after your own health instead of expecting someone else to do it for you? You're exactly the right way about getting pozzed by not asking.

Part of my role (all online) is doing post-test counselling for people who've tested positive. My experience is that it takes the average "it can't happen to me" between three and eighteen months to accept the situation, and that's just the ones where we have the follow-up. I have friends who absented themselves from clinical services for several years they were so freaked out. During which time, of course, many of them had their immune system deteriorate, not seriously but enough to affect their health, and of course be infectious to others. Even TasP isn't as reliable as one might think. Last time I had a drug holiday (now frowned on) I lost about 70 CD4 per month for seven months and added about 60,000 to my VL. I got very depressed earlier this year about the number of pills I need to take and missed a couple of four day intervals of medication (and I know I should have known better but when it's pushing 30 pills a day you get fucking tired of necking them), the result was the first detectable VL I've had since I had cryptosporidiosis in 2008. I realise it's harder to medicate preventively (less incentive), but we need PrEP to complement TasP...

Europe always lags behind the USA when it comes to new drugs, unless they were developed here, and the UK never trusts other countries' test results, even though we still follow the same dosing advice (hence the disasters of AZT and high dose ritonavir, amongst others). What I hear from friends in London is not "if" but "when" I get HIV, whereas in Wales it's practically impossible to get a fuck if you're open about having HIV. My feeling is that the UK should simply accept the American results and start a massive PrEP program. We're beginning to talk openly about TasP, when it used to be our dirty little secret. Even as recently as a year ago (I volunteer in HIV prevention) my saying that I'd had it with condoms, I was to all intents and purposes uninfectious, was greeted with shock amongst colleagues. Now, although the line is still condoms with everything, the unofficial policy is "keep your VL down as low as you can and do away with the rubbers". If the guys who aren't poz were on PrEP we'd slow the spread of HIV immensely - I'm seeing 17 and 18 year olds getting HIV because nothing is being taught in schools. Other part of the problem is that we know there are about 26,000 with HIV who don't know they have it. (It's legal for a lab to draw off a little blood from that supplied for another test, but it has to be done anonymously, otherwise it's assault.) As Mark S King, and many others have pointed out, women have been regulating their fertility for fifty years or so by means of a daily pill, and men can't be trusted to take a pill a day? Yes it'll put a strain on the various health service budgets, but that's easily balanced by the savings on other drugs - I take four antivirals a day and twenty odd other pills to deal with "past damage". A single truvada would be a damn sight cheaper!

Learn to hold the bottle so that your finger and thumb are just above the rim of the bottle so the bottle can't touch your nose. Always have your head above the bottle: if you're lying on your side turn your head, and don't let anyone hold the bottle for you - I missed out on that one over a year ago, got a few drops of liquid in my nostril and the nose bleeds from the site are only just now settling down. Learn to put the cap back on with one hand and don't use your thumb to close it off (too easy to transfer the liquid to your nose).

Kisses wherever you want 'em - double time for moustache rides... TasP is an obsession of mine, given that PrEP hasn't been approved here yet. Combining TasP with PrEP we could stop the bloody virus in its tracks! Okay, it would mean medicating ourselves for quite a few years, but it would extinguish the damn thing!

Poz1956 - I love your posts (and corrections where I get it a bit wrong). I learn more from them than the charity I volunteer for. Jizz - we have to look at dosing at some point soon: I blame my diabetes on overdosing on ritonavir (I was warned beforehand, but in those days it was keep me alive till tomorrow, I'll worry about the other shit later). (un)fortunately the other shit came: I'm pretty sure I'm the longest term survivor in Wales and amongst the top ten in the UK. Some days I wonder if it was worth it, and the irony is that when I got it we didn't even know there was a virus out there.

I see you're in Shrewsbury which does not have the best of hospitals (I spent nine days there after I trashed my bike on a Thursday - the earliest they could supply my HIV drugs - which included truvada - was Monday). I don't have the URL to hand, but check if the PROUD study is still open to new guys. Why we're testing it when the Americans have shown what a success it is, is beyond me, but that's British pharmaceuticals for you. You need as long as you can manage (up to a month) between fucks for PrEP to work properly. If you need PEP (post exposure prophylaxis) I's recommend you get on the train and go to Wrecsam or Chester hospitals (check locations and times online) rather than RSH. I admit it: I have a burning hatred for that hospital given they nearly killed me...

Mutual rimming. Poppers. Who's watching the clock?

Signed. And it's interesting to note that a lot of UK guys are signing too...

How long ya got?

The BF tried to be clever once and intended getting a half litre of my favourite ale up my ass. One, it's dangerous, as others have said, as the alcohol gets into the blood stream very fast (drinking it, the alcohol is already being digested, so as a rule of thumb I'd double the strength of whatever went in my ass. Two, it's messy, as bf learned when the beer effervesced and shot straight out at him. And this was a naturally fermented beer, fuck knows what sort of explosion I'd have been at the centre of with an aereated beer! It's a nice kinky idea, but it's best left unticked on your to-do list.

Sorry that's happened to you, but a few reasons why it might have happened: 1 They may have wanted to protect you from infection even if you were saying you wanted to be pozzed up. I'm cautious around neg guys for that reason. 2 What are the laws in your state? It's a long time since I've been to America but some states seem to have laws designed to stop poz guys having sex, period. 3 From what I understand, the law can do the poz partner without a shred of proof that the other guy was even touched 4 How often do you have STI tests? Prove it: syphilis, especially, gets through and causes havoc with a poz guy's immune system. Personally I'll pass on any guy who hasn't had an STI workup and HIV test in the past three months. In the UK we reckon we've got 25,000 undiagnosed people with HIV (anonymised testing). When you compare that to 75,000 known PwHIV it's one hell of a number. People who've been sloppy about getting STI checking done are just as likely to refuse HIV testing. For myself, I don't bareback with a guy unless he's got the all-clear from his STI clinic within the past three months (a shorter period for the guys I know that get around a lot - lucky bastards!). On top of that I need to know that my viral load is undetectable. In short, rejection for being neg could be a self-protection mechanism thanks to the fucked up state of the law, or it could be "how long since he's been for an STI workup"? Or even "if we end up in a relationship and then split up, how likely is he to go to the law?" It's a lot easier being neg....

London. The Block. 1994. Picture it. Okay I'll drop the Golden Girls thing. I'm in the Block (at the time the best leather bar in town and playing tonsil tennis with an American guy. We finally come up for air. In the usual vacuous conversation when your thinking about how how to get his dick in your mouth (or vice versa) he asked me what I did for a living. I replied with my usual "Oh, I took the HIV early retirement plan", usually a good way to disclose because you're joking about about it, you're comfortable with it, you know the "safer sex rules". Bastard walks off without a word, presumably in search of mouthwash for all I know. I swore then that that was never going to happen to me again (as an aside it was the first time I'd gone off with someone else with my lover around - a way of opening the gates for him to do the same). Nobody has hurt me as much as he did that night which is why I decided to be totally open about having aids (as it then was - now just different degrees of HIV disease here). Now you've got me all mad about something that happened 20 years ago I might use it for the basis for a column - I'm a regular at http://www.beyondpositive.org/ Damn good question....

No, I'm just going to play CBT games with you (Even though psychological CBT does nothing for me - get me in the right mood though and your neighbours five miles away will know about it) Compliance is what they want you to do: adherence is what you choose for yourself. The result is the same but the thought patterns are miles apart. We've found in the UK that talking about compliance gives the idea if someone/thing ruling your life whereas adherence encourages the idea of "you're doing this for yourself". The difference is subtle, the psychological impact less so. And you know what the big joke is? All I ever got from (psychological) CBT was an improvement in my ability to train dogs (my last girl was bilingual Welsh/English). Real CBT,,, you're going to have to wait and find out

Fascinating thread guys (though I'd rather read porn - had to turn down an opportunity to critique a friend's new book this week because I just wasn't up to it - and I want to read that book!) Maraviroc is being studied as the next step in PrEP, basically it's an entry inhibitor, stops HIV ever getting into your CD4 cells. From what I understand, maraviroc would give the same effect as having two copies of the CCR5 gene, which basically make you invulnerable to HIV because it has no way to access those t-cells it loves so dearly. I know a couple of guys who've had the whole genetic assay thing done and both have turned up with double CCR5 chromosomes. One's an escort who always works safe, not because of of HIV but because of other STIs around. He's a good enough fuck that you actually forget the condom's there... The other is the partner of a guy whose been HIV+ for seventeen years. Never used a condom that I know of, and if they did it was for kink. If maraviroc works out as PrEP we're looking at a major step forward. The whole point of PrEP is to catch the little fucker while it's relatively isolated, as it is when trying to set up camp in someone's body and smash the little fucker to bits. The more drugs we have available to us for PrEP, the more we can start matching them to body type and so on (does a straight woman weighing #110 need as much as a bear weighing in at #220?)

It takes a certain emotional maturity to say "thanks, but no thanks". I was in that position a few years ago: after my partner's death I decided to go celibate for a couple of years so I could work out "the issues" by myself, which I though was better than working them out on someone else. Anyway I ended up chatting with this incredibly horny man who, despite our living 100 miles apart wanted a 24/7. A long time since I'd been bottom for more than the few moments it takes to cum, so I thought I'd give it a go. As instructed I answered the front door when he arrived wearing just a jock (and that front door overlooked the village green - my eighty year old female neighbour suggested I change my porch lightbulb for a red one...), After I got over the shock of him being about fifteen years older than his profile pics, I decided that, yes I would have anyway and we went for it. I won't lie: he was good sex, but I couldn't forgive the lies (like the fifteen year old photos) that had got us there. So I basically used him as he'd used me. He only stayed a few hours, but demanded that my profile be changed to indicate I was his property by the time he got home. I changed the profile, got him into chat to try and re-negotiate the terms, but they were apparently inviolable. I said "no thanks" and that was the last I heard of him - he even removed his profile (or changed screen names) within days. Coulda been good if he'd been prepared to share his toys: when I'm bottoming I'm too much for one guy?

I've never come across poppers with anything solid in them (wow, that was a walk around double entendres!) but imagination forces me to believe they're there to make a rattling noise that a blindfolded bottom can pick up on so he has the option whether to take them or not or knows where they are. I've had to cut back on my poppers use - just as I found a supplier who sells "genuine" amyl nitrite (illegal in the UK) as opposed to the video head cleaner muck or whatever that gets you going for a second or two. Poppers of any description are contraindicated for guys on protease inhibitors, with high blood pressure or using viagra. I'm in all three camps there so when I use poppers, I start from the smallest intake and gradually increase the amount I'm taking, which I reckon to be the sensible approach when you're taking something not-quite-legal. When I'm topping the entire front of my body seems extra sensitive - I love the feeling of my balls slapping against him and if he's leaking cum, or even just lube, so much the better. When I'm bottoming, I just want more, in industrial quantities. Really brings out the pig in me (not that it takes that much encouragement). Inhibitions go: I just want to pig out. The only time I've successfully taken a fist I was poppered right up (a skill I'd like to learn without poppers). Generally speaking when poppered up I want it all and now.

What are we allowed to say in this thread?

"Looking for opinions?" - You're bragging!

In my opinion the figures for oral transmission are inflated by the guys who think it's somehow "less gay" to admit to sucking cock than it is to get fucked. So although they've been taking it up the ass they'll only admit to sucking. They seroconvert and claim that it can only have been through sucking. Enzymes in saliva knock HIV for six, and stomach acids destroy what little survives the saliva. To get HIV through sucking there'd have to be enough oral trauma (mouth ulcers, recent tooth extraction, accidental bite to the cheek, you get the picture) that you wouldn't really be up for sucking. Remember too that it takes a quantity of HIV to establish a "successful" infection: a single virus particle getting through all that isn't going to do anything apart from eventually get destroyed by stomach acid. Ever thrown up to the extent that you're throwing up bile? Remember how it made your mouth sting? However, a herpes or syphilis lesion in the mouth or throat (or pretty much any other STI) will increase the chances of transmission, so it's important to keep up with regular STI checks (in the seventies the recommendation was every three months or at the first suspicion of symptoms if less than three months). The last time I heard of doctors finding out about a sexual practice that they couldn't believe was 1982. Apparently doctors at a London hospital had to be shown a fisting video before they'd admit it was possible and enjoyable...