BootmanLA

I read what he wrote. I can read between the lines. He's in a relationship. His partner wants it kept closed. The OP made that crystal clear. The OP is turned on by cheating on his partner - violating the terms of that relationship. That, too, the OP has made crystal clear. I don't have to be "privy to the functioning of their relationship" to take what he made expressly clear. He's looking for justification to cheat. You seem to think it's "moralizing" to ask people to be honest. Apparently, you don't think honesty is a good thing, right? As I said earlier: the problem is not that wanting an open relationship is wrong, or bad, or immoral. I'm all for the OP being as big a slut as he wants to be. But he can't be in an honest relationship with his partner and do that. He needs to choose. But I do get this much: clearly, you don't think keeping one's word is an important thing.

I downvoted not because you disagree with me. I downvoted because you made a dangerous statement about consent. I take consent VERY seriously and to suggest that you automatically give consent to anyone to fuck you just because you get into a sling is dangerously wrong.

OK, let's run this pop fly out. Joe's in the sling. Two guys show up, one about five seconds behind the other, both want to fuck him. Joe wants the second guy, but not the first. Does he have to let the first guy do it first, even though the second guy is ready, willing, and able? Let's say 10 guys show up as a group. Joe's "consented" to getting fucked, right? So by your argument, he can't get out of the sling once they've shown up, because he's "consented" and presumably "owes" them something, according to your "logic". Or are you saying he has to vacate the sling immediately if he doesn't want guy X to fuck him, even if nobody else is waiting to bottom in the sling? Even if guys Y, Z, and A through F are lined up ready and he wants all of them? The sling has to go unused because Joe doesn't want guy X to fuck him? Sounds like X is being just as big a sling hog as y'all think Joe is. Why is his desire to fuck more important than Joe's desire to get fucked by guys he particularly likes? Does this apply to non-sling locations? What about, say, a locker room-syled play space with benches, all the same except one is much better located for prime visibility? Does a bottom have to relinquish that spot if he doesn't want to accept every top who comes along, even though there are a dozen other identical benches in the room?

I'll add my usual caveat that "should" is the most useless word in the English language. What you SHOULD do is be true to yourself, honest with him, and decide between yourselves what's best for you two. That may be bareback from the beginning. That may be condom sex until some future point, which may or may not be determinable (like "once we're monogamously committed" or "when we feel ready"). But the important thing is to decide it together, and be frank about what you want. Anyone telling you you "should" do X or Y or Z isn't the one who has to deal with the consequences, and only YOU can know yourself well enough to make that decision.

You're jumping to conclusions, and they're wrong. What my "normal" is doesn't matter. I'm saying that *IF* a person makes an agreement, he should stick to it. If he wants an open relationship, polyamory, or whatever, that's fine. I'm all in favor of people living the lives they want - but he needs to be HONEST about it with his partner, and if the partner doesn't want that, they shouldn't be partners. You seem to think that if a guy wants sex bad enough, it's okay for him to lie about it to the person who supposedly is the most important person in his life. For someone who says sex isn't that important. you sure seem to be placing a huge priority on the "right" of a cheating asshole to have sex when that's a violation of the agreement he has with his partner. Sounds like sex is a lot more important than you want to admit. And frankly: if the asshole is willing to lie to his partner about having outside sex, why in the fuck would you think he's going to have enough sense of right and wrong to be careful about HIV and STD's and possibly infecting his partner? If you'll lie about one thing, you'll like about others.

I'm going to point some things out that others have hinted at, but that you should keep in mind as well. 1. People lie. A guy can say he's negative knowing full well he's positive. 2. Even if a guy isn't lying (because he doesn't know otherwise), a guy who says he's "negative" could well be positive and just not know it. 3. Even with a negative HIV test in hand, that documentation is only as good as of the date of the test, and it's possible that he has converted since (and does or does not know it). He could even have converted slightly before the test and there wasn't time in his system to develop the antibodies that the test would reveal. 4. Serosorting for "negative" guys, then, is risky. Even discounting the liars, there are plenty of poz people who don't know they're poz. That doesn't mean you don't have sex with guys who claim to be negative, but you ask about testing. You stay on PrEP. You don't engage in practices (like drug use) that may interfere with your judgment. (Sorry, but while I think most drugs ought to be legalized so that people can make that choice for themselves, I think it's one of the stupidest things you can do.) 5. Consider undetectable guys. They're brave enough to admit they're poz (ie they're not lying and claiming they're negative), so they're probably* not lying about their undetectable status. The odds of an undetectable top infecting a bottom on PrEP are so vanishingly small that it's not worth being concerned over at all. *I say probably because yes, of course, a guy can be HIV-poz and have a toxic viral load, and lie and claim to be undetectable. But such a guy could just claim to be negative, and I think mostly likely that's what he would do.

No. That's the point. The point is that cheaters promise something *MORE* than sex - that is, monogamy - to a partner and then do something else. YOU may not care whether a partner is monogamous, and that's fine. In such a case, it's not cheating. It's no different, really, than (for instance) going into a business partnership with someone agreeing to split the profits 50/50, but then padding the expenses with side payments that end up in your pocket so that profits are lower and you end up with more than 50% of the actual profit. You make an agreement, you stick to it, or you end the agreement. Cheating on the agreement makes you a sleazy person.

I think that's horsecrap. We live in a world where we have to all interact with each other, and while we have laws to regulate some interpersonal behavior, we rely HEAVILY on customs of decent behavior to fill in all the gaps where the law can't reach (either effectively, or not at all). We hold doors for older people, or people whose arms are full of packages. We step aside on a sidewalk for someone coming through in a wheelchair who can't herself turn sideways to take up less room. We let that wheelchair user get onto public transit first so that the bus or train doesn't leave them stranded repeatedly, since we can move faster after they're aboard and still make it on. We let the disabled have priority for seating on that transit. I could come up with a thousand examples of things we expect decent human beings to do even when they're not mandated by law, or even when they're mandated but can't be enforced readily. If we normalize people breaking their word and cheating in relationships because it's "hot" - if we say "not my business" and treat those shitholes as though they were decent people - we debase our society as a whole. We tell people that it's okay to do whatever you want, no matter who you hurt, if you can find some self-justifying reason to do it. That's a world I don't think most of us want to live in. And look - I'm not moralizing that sex is bad, or sex with lots of people is bad, or anything like that. I'm for people honestly enjoying themselves as much as they want. But not at the expense of lying to someone about behavior about which you've expressly promised otherwise.

If anything, I think we owe our partners/lovers more respect than property.

Advising people that PrEP is "poisoning yourself" is about the crappiest advice I can imagine.

I agree he's likely to end up HIV positive. That's not the same thing as saying "that's how everybody becomes poz."

Animals do not have the concept of commitment that we do. You are making the huge mistake of anthropomorphizing pair-bonding in the animal kingdom with "mating for life" and then adding a heaping dose of hypocritical bullshit about "natural and normal" on top. What animals do out of instinct has zero to do with what we choose to do after making explicit, intelligible promises to partners. If a guy can't make those promises and stick with them, he should at least be an honest person and break off the relationship rather than prove himself to be human garbage. But in any event, glad to know you think "breaking the rules" is so appealing to you. Let me know the next time you're out of town and your address so I can come "break the rules" and raid your house for stuff I might want. After all, the drive to acquire things is also "very strong".

Can fail? Yes. "Very likely"? Not at all. When the PEP regimen (which lasts for several weeks) is begun within 24 hours of exposure, it has an extremely high success rate. True clinical studies are limited (there are ethical concerns with letting some people actually get preventative treatment while not providing it to others), but it's possible to extrapolate some information from observational reviews. In one review conducted by the CDC of 1,535 men who took PEP after exposure to HIV, 1,487 of them remained negative after PEP while only 48 contracted HIV. Of those 48, 40 were men who continued to be exposed to HIV after beginning PEP, leaving only 8 who represented potential PEP failure. That's a pretty damned good success rate (lower than one-half of one percent, not "very likely" in the least). Of course, the caveat: you have to stick with PEP for the entire cycle; unlike regular HIV treatment, it's multiple pills daily, for 28 days straight. It's higher dosing because you're trying to prevent the infection from taking hold at all, not (as with daily HAART) trying to keep the virus under a particular level. It requires diligence, in other words. Where available, PrEP is absolutely a better option.

I'm not saying that Joe can't wait while the guy topping him goes to get more lube. All Joe has to do is say "My top buddy will be right back and he'd like to finish up in me" and Bob and Dave, applying the golden rule, should say "Gotcha, hope it's good for you!" or whatever and wait, or go find another place to fuck, or whatever their choice is. What I AM saying is that (a) nobody should lie in one of a few (or the only) sling(s) available and turn away everyone except Mr. Perfect, but at the same time (b) nobody should feel obligated to take a fucking from anyone and everyone who comes along, just because he's in a sling.

As has been mentioned before in this discussion: there is an algorithm by which members here are scored based on participation. That algorithm is kept private, precisely so that people don't try to game the system just to get to the point of having a particular set of privileges, such as sending private messages or reacting to public posts. At some point in the past, when it was easier for new members to send private messages, some bad actors joined and then almost immediately began spamming members here with ads for some service. By requiring actual interaction via making posts and commenting on them, the site ensures that people are engaged with the other members before granting them that kind of access. The same is true for reactions - given that one of the things that affects a user's reputation score on here is how many upvotes/likes/etc. he gets, offset by downvotes, the system is designed to prevent a couple of possible kinds of misuses of reactions: either having a bunch of new "members" (possibly all fake accounts for one individual) downvoting a member so as to overwhelm his reputation score, or alternatively upvoting and boosting the score of some other individual to get him an early promotion to a higher level. So you're not going to be told exactly how many posts you have to make to get to X or Y level of privileges. Just keep posting, and it'll happen.

Not everyone. Some people contract HIV without ever going to a bathhouse or sex party, or indeed without ever having intentionally bareback sex - condoms do break, for instance. Some people are partnered and believe their relationship is monogamous but the partner doesn't treat it that way (I know of several individuals who became poz thanks to cheating partners). One might argue that anyone who's sexually active in the slightest should be on PrEP, and a reasonable argument could be made for that, but I don't think it's rational at all to say that "everybody becomes poz" the way the OP described his sex life. Not to mention the rampant spread of HIV among intravenous drug users where needle sharing is commonplace.

I disagree. I do not believe that simply occupying a sling or fuck bench means you have to accept any and all cocks that come along. I agree that no one should hog a piece of sex equipment in a public environment hoping for Mr. Perfect to come along, but I don't think consent can be assumed either. And it may be, for instance, that Joe is in the sling hoping to get fucked, but Bob and Dave come along and Bob wants to fuck Dave in the sling. If that's the case and nobody's interested in Joe at the moment, the fact that he's willing to take any and all customers shouldn't entitle him to stay in the sling as long as he wants, just in case someone might come along eventually who wants to fuck him. Golden rule, people.

True, and I didn't mean to minimize that. But historically, it was a "once and done" or "a few times and done" thing, as you say to break the spirit of that slave and others, not so much for the actual sexual gratification of the rapist. That's not really the same thing (although as abhorrent in its own way) as taking black female slaves as forced mistresses, including when there were offspring of those rapes who were themselves enslaved from birth. My impression - and it may be faulty - is that in the case of female slaves, it wasn't necessarily an act to insure submission as a way to satisfy a base urge.

Some HIV treatments can have an impact on the body's ability to control blood sugar, just as there are HIV medications that can impact the kidneys. These are not universal side effects of the particular medications (that is, one person may have blood sugar issues taking HIVMed A, while another person may not). It's something that an HIV doctor generally monitors as part of your regular testing. If you are diabetic and taking insulin, in other words, that may limit the number of options your HIV doctor should prescribe for you. But at this point, there should be enough other options that this shouldn't present a problem keeping HIV under control. Does that answer your question?

First, you should probably separate the two "thrills" here - that is, cheating and cuckolding. You can't get into a cuckold situation without the active cooperation of your partner, because that's the very definition of a cuckold - someone who knows his partner is having sex with other people and who has to tolerate/accept it (sometimes including watching it but not being allowed to participate). So, if your partner is not up for any sort of openness, cuckolding isn't going to happen. Cheating (that is, violating the terms of the relationship as you both understand them) is different. I think there are times when it's the least bad option out there: for instance, if your partner lost the ability to fuck you, wasn't willing to let you get fucked by anyone else, and you didn't want to break up a long-standing home together over sex. Or even if he can perform, but isn't interested very often while you have a much higher sex drive. Those are cases where discreet cheating, where you cover your tracks carefully and otherwise give him no reason to doubt your relationship, might be understandable (with the caveat that you're still playing with fire, and there's a good chance if he finds out that your relationship is over). Otherwise, it's generally a shitty thing to do, not because sex ought to be monogamous, but because you're letting him believe you are being monogamous and you're breaking your word. It sounds to me like it's the cheating itself - that is, transgressing against what you're expected to do - that is appealing, not that there's any need your partner isn't meeting. Which suggests you are probably not actually relationship material - I mean, let's be honest: what's the point of being in a relationship with someone if your biggest turn-on is breaking the very terms of that relationship? I'm not saying you should or shouldn't break up - I don't know you at all, much less well enough to advise on that. I am saying, however, that I feel sorry for your partner. He deserves someone who will actually give him the relationship he thinks he's in.

Giving him advice based on what *you* have experienced and like is just fine. Declaring it what "real" bottoms do is pretty damned arrogant. It's a public forum, which makes posts here everyone's business. If you don't want it commented on, send it privately.

Not that I know of. Why would you assume that? Did you post something to which you think I'd react negatively?

I'd say there are plenty of people who are 100% straight, and plenty who are 100% gay (though more of the former than the latter). I would agree, however, that approximately 99.99995% (give or take) of these so-called "straight" guys who fuck guys, who get fucked in the ass, or who suck guys and/or get sucked by guys, are at some point in the bisexual spectrum whether or not they want to admit it. I mean, far be it from me to tell someone he's not allowed to identify as straight even as he's taking the 50th different cock of his life up his ass, but how someone chooses to identify and how other people perceive him are sometimes wildly discordant.

Respectfully: I don't think most tops see a problem with the number of slings at such an event because they're probably willing to fuck whoever's in the sling. From a bottom's perspective, when two bottoms occupy the only two slings for, say, 80% of the time of the event, there IS a problem regardless of whether the tops perceive it or not. Being a selfish sling hog may get you fucked more, but karma always has a way of biting people in the ass.

Never mind. I found it again (by hovering over the user's name on a post he's made, the option is there).