bearbandit

I guess I have to say versatile in varying proportions. Normally I go bottom for a guy older or bigger than me, but then there's Max, bigger, heavier, older than me who is completely bottom with me, though he tops elsewhere. I've always gone for men older than me, but now I'm discovering younger guys and the Daddy factor is working in my favour. I got very drunk last night and had a younger guy chat me up on Gaydar: local, also poz, he'd seen me at the clinic when I was pretty bad, but seems enthusiastic... It wouldn't be the first time I've had a bottom fuck me "C'mon, I want to see what you get out of it". Push comes to shove I don't really like labels, just the sex. I think my limit is that I won't fuck guys who aren't poz just in case: I don't want the responsibility of pozzing someone. But then I'll go to a mixed biohazard party and what happens, happens. Maybe I should just say "confused"

I'm a member of the Long Term Survivors Group in the UK. We have weekend retreats every three months with the option of workshops, alternative therapies, or just time to yourself. My last visit was ruined almost on arrival by someone crassly remarking that the past few months hadn't been kind to me. I was pretty sick and it had been a struggle to get there, but I damn near left on the first evening because of his words. I knew I looked like shit, but I didn't need anyone telling me so. I faced out the weekend because pride in myself wouldn't let me run, but skipped the next one (having told the chair of the group what had happened) on the grounds that it's one hell of a journey from where I live to the venue we use. I feel pretty much compelled to go to the next meeting just to show defiance to that attitude I encountered. Thank you again Scotty for starting this thread: it's made me (and I guess a lot of other guys) really think about the issues around self image. Things guys have said here I shall certainly be taking into my volunteer work with the local HIV charity...

That's excellent advice. After Stuart died in 92 I got together with John only a few months later and I'm still amazed we lasted out through that first year. Irrational jealousy, John competing for my love with a dead man, and it sure didn't help that I spent a year as a stoner. Anyway, somehow John and I survived that time and had fourteen years together before he died. When he died, I stepped back and decided that I wasn't going to make any life changing decisions for at least two years. As it happened it was nearly four years before I felt easy enough about it all to put myself out there again and get back to my normal "come and get it guys" self.

Turn it round the other way: if I fucked a woman I'd just be thinking "Wish this was her husband/boyfriend" There's a difference between the orientation and the act. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein "a hole is a hole is a hole" which seems to be the level it works on in male male sex between a gay and a straight man. It's many years since I've done it, but I used to get the feeling that I was there to do stuff the wife wouldn't, like suck and take it up the ass. Pure physical release... you're just a better wank toy than he can get from the store.

In the seventies and eighties we made do with a good shit and a bit of soap for outside. If the top ended up with a little bit of shit on his dick, more than the bottom could clean up with his mouth was just wiped off with a trick rag, unless it was an extreme case: even then (and I'm not into scat) I'd carry on and not wash till I'd cum. I've been navel to thigh before now with shit and carried on. Fortunately I'd already learned the trick of shutting down my sense of smell. Funniest one was the guy I picked up one night and back at his place I thought I was loosening him up to fuck him and suddenly there's an anus around my wrist. Fine. No Problem. Fun was had. Until he tries the same thing the next day and he's a bit on the full side. We end up in the bathroom with him trying to shit out the rest and me trying to get the shit off my hands (I'm not keen on the way the skin absorbs the smell). He, having shat all over my hand starts complaining that he can't shit while I'm standing there washing his shit of my hands. In retrospect, I probably should have shut him up by gently holding my fisting hand over his mouth... These days I find a big thrill in ATM, partly thanks to a top who used to park the dildo he'd just used on me in my mouth, and partly because it's one of those transgressive acts. As much of a pain as it is, douching has become more of a necessity (rather than the quick crap and wipe over with a soapy flannel of my youth) in that you stand a good chance of flushing out various unwanted free floating intestinal parasites such as shigella or giardiasis (it's not a cure though - see you doctor!). Also many HAART drugs have diarrhoea as a side effect; I usually reckon on sex happening in the evening so I have my HAART as breakfast. Yum. Hopefully by evening the diarrhoea will have subsided somewhat - imodium is priceless here. I still find my very high fibre meal the night before and nothing on the day of the expected fuck works: no need for a deep enema just a few squirts to clean out the rectum. I'm diabetic so I always get the diet version of soft drinks, not so the guy I started to fist at the last party I went to - a connection maybe? Three fingers in and I had a handful which wasn't other guys' loads. I've just stopped taking a meal replacement therapy which was 25% sugar and since I stopped it I've noticed a profound difference in my urge to shit and the quality of shit (firmer, less likely to leave little bits of itself behind). If Mr Right Now turned up on the doorstep I'd be more concerned about dick cheese than not having douched...

Shit, if only! I didn't come out till I was 19. My younger brother beat me to it by about six months (three years between us) and only then did I discover that the toilet I passed every day on the way to and from school was a hive of activity. My brother and I had sex once and I rate him as one of the worst fucks I ever had....

I'm afraid the news is that it only need take once - I once knew a woman who lost her virginity, got HIV and got pregnant all at once. It's too late now to go for PEP - that needs to be started as soon as possible after possible exposure with a limit of 72 hours. The big question is "is Daddy on meds?" - if he is and his viral load is undetectable then it's extremely unlikely you could have got HIV. When you're undetectable you're basically shooting blanks, which is why I think treatment as protection is very important (I know chasers might take issue with that, but I've lived with the bug long enough to know it's not necessarily pop a pill every day). Guys who are undetectable are extremely unlikely to be infectious, so much so that some UK hospitals have been known to refuse PEP to guys on the grounds that the guys who fucked them was undetectable: "it's not necessary". Some guys get seroconversion illness, also known as fuck flu. It happens when your body starts making antibodies to the virus and can happen anywhere from a week or so to ten/twelve weeks after infection. Some guys get really sick, like the worst flu ever, and have ended up in hospital because of it, whereas others barely notice it. Me, I felt a bit under the weather and had the seroconversion rash, which is pretty distinctive. It seems to me that the questions you need to sort out are your feelings for Daddy, and how much you're prepared to risk. If you want to continue seeing him, is he undetectable? If you want to continue seeing him and he's intransigent about it being raw, you might consider PrEP, but please be aware that PrEP needs good adherence to the drug regime and that side effects are possible. I know someone who had to stop PrEP because of the side effects and I nearly died last year because of one of the constituent drugs in Truvada (but that was a 1 in 100,000 chance). You don't say where you are. Since the majority of guys here seem to be Americans, I'll assume you're American and say that you'll have to ask someone else about getting PrEP if that's the route you want to go because the US health system is something I just don't understand. You've got some hard thinking to do. I hope you can come to decisions that make you happy.

I was haphazard about condoms until 1986 when a fuckbuddy died. I went safe then and stayed that way through diagnosis right up until the point my boyfriend was diagnosed. The attitude in London was "get diagnosed and you've got five years tops" so we thought "what the fuck? We've got nothing to lose" and the condoms stayed in the drawer. We split up in 1989 and I immediately got together with his ex. When he in turn was diagnosed, same scenario. Last one was when I was with a third guy who'd tested negative. We began a threeway with a guy who was poz. When it was all three of us we kept it safe (not much anal going on when it was all three of us), but when it was just me and the other poz guy, raw. Still with the attitude of "it's not like you can catch it twice". Not long after that the first protease inhibitors were available and I ended up on ritonavir: the 800mg a day dose was literally chemical castration. That was my sex life over for a number of years...

I can sympathise with the idea of not having the body you want, having been in that space for too much of my life. However most of us tend to be overcritical of how we look. I have a similar problem physically to you in that I've got lipodystrophy. Very difficult if not impossible to shift the fat from the gut (or the buffalo hump if you get that as well). The answer that was suggested to me was weights and concentrate on the upper body. You don't lose the gut, but you build up to look like a rugby player who likes a drink. It's a look that works for me. I lost most of the muscle when I was in hospital last year and now some of the weight has come back as muscle so when I start again (I've also had a rotator cuff injury which made the weights impossible) I'm not starting from quite so far behind as the first time. Starting with really skinny arms it took me six months to get to "bloody hell, what have you been doing?" It's worth a try...

That's why my bbrts profile says "56 (real, not internet, age)". Worst I came across was this guy whose photos showed a guy of about 35, with an agreeably deranged facial expression and a foreskin. The guy who turned up on my doorstep wasn't much younger than me and had (he said) been circumcised for medical reasons 5 years ago. I'd still have been interested with recent photos, but didn't like the lie. Didn't see him again. I've started going through my various profiles adding dates to the captions.

The manufacturers claim that any kidney problems caused by the tenofovir component "resolve on cessation": a year after nearly dying from tenofovir poisoning (Fanconi's syndrome) I have no "end date" for the multitude of supplements I have to take. The osteopenia (thinning, softening bones) I take enough calcium supplements for that I've given up on my PA as it needed the limescale removed at least every two weeks. The ankle I broke in March last year when it all started is still broken, though I can walk on it, but need a stick for balance and in unfamilar places. I'm reminded of early ritonavir dosages where even the doctors denied any effects on the libido. I was taking 800mg per day and would rather have had a cup of tea than getting fucked rotten. I'm sorry rawTOP, I know I go on and on about this, but we're only just beginning to realise the effect of the earlier HIV drugs: this evening I bumped into the woman who's about fourth or fifth from running the UK's main HIV charity (she's an old friend I hadn't seen in years). I made a comment about my diabetes, she responded with an anodyne comment about diseases of old age, I said "high dose ritonavir, ddi and d4t". Her comment: "Yep that'll wreck your pancreas." Newer drugs are much safer, but we're beginning to see problems with tenofovir: my reaction was pretty rare, but I know a number of guys who have had to move off tenofovir because of its side effects after a few years. I'd suggest doing a serious risk assessment before going for truvada as PrEP and then regarding the truvada as a stopgap measure until something better and less toxic comes along - pretty much how us poz guys got through the nineties...

The parties me and John used to host in London: there was one time there was so much piss on the play room floor it leaked a good 12" out to hall floor and we had to replace it. If you're reading this and were there, I'd like my jocks and other toys back, thank you.... (the downside of of hosting)

I used to get guys referred to me to learn to get fisted because of two things: I have small hands and I know when not to push it. Fisting more, than any other sort play, puts the bottom in control because if you fuck up while fisting, there's a good chance of serious injury. In my opinion, it's the one time that the bottom guy is in control. Be guided by him and his limits. It's something I've always wanted to take further, but haven't had the chance: coincidence time - the one time I did take a fist (and oh fuck I can't express the pleasure, the vulnerability, the trust, the "please Sir, can I have some more") it was from a guy I'd given his first fist...

Yes, but it's bloody boring. I had a period when I was on one of the early protease inhibitors at a massive overdose. The result was a complete disinterest in sex. I didn't even wank. When I started coming out of that some years later, my partner was falling ill. It didn't seem tactful to go out whoring when he needed help to get from his bedroom to the toilet. After he died I was so messed in the head I figured I needed to sort my head out without sex messing things up. I went for eleven years without sex. Not strictly the answer to the question, but my experience. If Mr Right is reading this over my shoulder, he'd better be aware that I want him, I want the slutty guy I saw downtown today, and I want whatever sex parties are going. So I guess the real answer is "no". ;-)

There are a few of us for whom viagra is a necessity: diabetes attacks the nerves that control blood flow to the dick resulting in the inability to get an erection no matter how much you want one. A cockring helps too. The number of guys with HIV going through metabolic disease (a precursor to diabetes) is growing incredibly, yet is going unnoticed by the medics. You mightn't need to force yourself into it, but some of us need a bit of help. Just because your body's working fine, don't assume that others of us have problems of our own making. That's one of the things I really like about this board: guys are honest and supportive of each other. Yes we've had some blazing rows, most recently about PrEP (unless it happened in a thread I wasn't watching), but I've never been on a board where so much respect is shown to other members.

JizzdumpWI: Positively maidenly!

That's a new factor in it all, isn't it? Remember, knowing transmission, of HIV in the UK is a crime, usually prosecuted as grievous bodily harm. Same thing you get done for if you cut someone's arm off. It would come under that wonderful euphemism "needs discussion". I think for me I wouldn't until they'd got a month of PrEP under their belt - and that's for my peace of mind. PrEP doesn't seem to have the same profile in the UK as it does is in the USA - or maybe I'm severely out of touch despite checking a number of HIV websites every day. I think here it's fallen into the category of "well, we've proved we can do it" and there's little promotion of it with doctors preferring to start the HIV+ person of a serodisconcordant couple on therapy early rather than offer PrEP: The idea of treatment as prevention seems to be stronger here. But both are needed when we refuse to conform to the monogamous standards they thought civil partnerships and marriage would bring (I know a guy who fucked with one of the guys getting married on their wedding night - and found him as lousy a fuck as I did) Basically I think we need a better form of PrEP, and we need to pay more attention to TasP, and in the UK at least, both need to be promoted.

raw: in those days condoms were for heterosexuals and something really kinky for gay guys.

It can be difficult to do but if he suddenly asks me to pull out (thus changing what we'd agreed), pull out, get dressed, walk out without a word.

To echo that 50's/60's game show : "in the ass"

Shame and pride are pretty much antonyms and the reaction most of us have when diagnosed poz is shame. Pretty much from the moment you're infected body systems start to degrade. Much of that is held in check by HAART, but we've no idea how much. It's only recently that HIV gerontology has come to the fore, because for fifteen, twenty years we never thought we'd need it as a speciality. Now, with guys entering their fourth decade of life with HIV, what we don't know about HIV and aging is getting to be pretty important. Saying that you're proud to be poz is a way of throwing society's opinion back in their face and making them think again. I'm as sure as I can be that I seroconverted in 1980: the rash I took to the clap clinic is identical to the photographs of seroconversion illness rash. I'm not a long-term non-progressor: I've had my share of pneumonias, thrush, herpes, had my CD4 down to double figures and so on. The point of pride here is as Sondheim said: "I'm Still Here". Internally my organs have aged faster than I have physically, but that's the case for many people with HIV, especially people who've been in long term treatment (I started in 1989). The media used to paint us as dead within a few years, now we're brave souls battling on. Gimme a fuckin' break! The stigma of HIV is such that I am the only person with HIV in the entire country (Wales) to be portrayed in the media as being HIV+. Hell, most poz guys don't even put it on their profiles on gaydar. A hell of a lot of guys on bbrts list their status as "ask me". Being told you're HIV+ is like walking through a one way door. No, I didn't want it (never even knew it was there), but now I know I have it, it's literally part of me and I'm pretty proud of me in general, so that means I have to be proud to be poz...

Curiously, I take "ask me" as meaning "positive, but I don't have the nerve to say so". I don't knowingly fuck with guys who think they're neg, and "ask me" leaves room for doubt.

I once had someone turn up who was a good fifteen years older than his photos. Wouldn't have mattered - I'd still have been interested, but you have to have some principles. My bbrts profile starts "56 (real, not internet) years..."

Know what you mean - dick and ass from every angle and a blurry facepic at the end. I usually use the line that I'm kinky about a guy's eyes and make that a dealbreaker, while showing good faith by sending a good face shot of me.