BootmanLA

Eros, I think in reading over your post it struck me: to answer the "What does it mean to be a Man?" question with another question, the response is "As opposed to what?" How you define a man, as opposed to a woman, focuses on different traits than defining a man as opposed to a boy. As does defining a man as opposed to an animal. Without specifying the axis along which one is locating "man", no single meaning is going to capture the entirety of "man".

In the incontinence products aisles for most drug and grocery stores, you can find "booster" inserts for adult diaper type products - basically, an absorbent pad you can use inside the diaper to increase its holding capacity, typically for overnight use. Just keep a few in your car, slip one between your cheeks before you get in to drive home, and that should keep most everything from reaching your pants. Then you can toss it (or whatever else you may choose) when you get home.

Just for the record: it may be he's actually negative, but finds little luck getting laid via BBRTS if he lists that way. Or he could, as you suspect, be poz (possibly undetectable) and can't get laid on A4A if he admits it. (Not sure how anyone gets laid there with all the spammers). Or he could just have neglected to update an older profile.

I don't see what the problem is. It sounds to me like people who are pro-cheating want a "safe space" so that they don't have to deal with anyone questioning the wisdom of that practice. In spaces where stealthing is discussed, people are allowed to be anti-stealthing and to cast aspersions on that activity. In spaces where people talk about wanting to take loads but don't want to be on meds, people who are pro-PrEP are free to express an opinion about that. On this very forum, there has been a lot of discussion about the wisdom/appropriateness of hooking up during Covid lockdowns. I don't see any "own space" for people who are determined to have sex with strangers despite the pandemic. What makes pro-cheating so special that we have to treat those people like precious snowflakes who will wilt if they're called out on their behavior? FYI: Nobody's saying stealing is a sexual practice. We're saying that you can draw analogies from the non-sexual world into the sexual one, because sex is not some special, magical, disconnected from the entire remainder of the universe where only sexual rules apply. Sex occurs between PEOPLE, and people create "established social norms" precisely so that people can interact without having to constantly be on alert as to whether or not someone's out to screw you over (that being a sexual term imported into general parlance). Yes, of course, cheaters are going to cheat. I'm still asking: why should pro-cheaters be entitled to a safe space so their little snowflake feelings won't get hurt? Sounds kinda sad for people who are edgily trying to "contradict established social norms" to me.

Another suggestion - not sure if it's possible with the existing software. The red "dot" or "star" next to each thread in a forum indicates new content (stars on the ones you've participated in, dots otherwise). It would be nice if there was a separate designation for a completely new thread (as opposed to just "new comments"). It would be especially useful in, say, the fiction areas, but in any forum where a user routinely looks for all-new content - say, new questions in the health area - it would be easier to find truly "new" things as opposed to the forty-seventh person swearing they've never touched a condom.

This is true. That said, one of the things about cheating is that it was (ordinarily) kept very discreet, in part so that the facade of the "norm" being fidelity was upheld. It was also because it was considered rude and distasteful to involve other people in your deceptions, so that if the cheated-on party found out, she (it was almost always a she) didn't have the additional humiliation of knowing that everyone in their social orbit was aware and keeping his secret. And while cheating men were cut a lot more slack than cheating women, if they abused that privilege, they could be deemed socially unacceptable and effectively banished from polite society. It's also important to note that cheating, to the extent that it was discreetly accepted, was only so treated because there was a broad social rejection of the idea of open relationships period. We don't have that restriction so much any more; for better or worse, we recognize that less-conventional arrangements like polygamous relationships, like open marriages, like having both a husband and a boyfriend, are acceptable options for people. That's because we've come to value open and honest discussions of, and explorations of, our sexuality over lying and cheating and sneaking around. In some ways, it's an extension of the idea that it's okay to be openly gay, instead of being a "lifelong bachelor" or worse, a gay man married for social purposes who slinks off to the baths or sex clubs late at night. And that, in my opinion, is a good thing. Suggesting that we should be helpful to people trying to deliberately deceive others, to destroy their trust, is shitty. What advice would you give to someone who, say, is turned on by stealing from his partner in order to feather his own nest? "Here's some helpful tips to conceal your embezzlement"? Encourage him to get as much as he can early on, so that if things turn south, he's got a head start on his ill-gotten gains? How is this, really, any different? I get it - some people are turned on by cheating, and some people get off on reading about other people's cheating. That doesn't mean every place online needs to become a refuge for the pro-cheating crowd, just as not every place online needs to become welcoming to pro-breeding.

I don't think it's hard to navigate at all. The one UI issue I saw in the past, where the "speech bubble" icon could mean (alternately) "take me to new posts in this topic" or "mark all posts read in this forum" (depending on where it was used, got corrected in the most recent "update". The biggest issue I see is that too many people seem to assume every forum here is open to personal ads - usually unrelated to the forum topic. I can't count the number of times I come across "Who wants to fuck this pussy hole?" threads created in the porn forum, in the sexual health forum, in the politics forum, in the fiction sections - it's like some people approach the site as simply one big hookup zone. Maybe labeling more of the forums with the prefix "DISCUSSION:" would help? e.g. "DISCUSSION: HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health ISSUES" or "DISCUSSION: Bareback Porn" ? Putting it at the front of the title, rather than the end, might stress that some areas are for discussing things, not just random "Am I hot?" posts. Maybe pinning a closed topic at the top of each forum with the title "WHAT GOES HERE", with a post explaining the kinds of things that are suitable, and a list of what's not? If every folder had one, people might get in the habit of looking to see if what they're posting about fits the forum.

You won't get good information without providing good information. Simply stating that you aren't going to change doctors - with no explanation of why that's such an imperative - means nobody can give you informed advice. People who want honest advice need to be up front and honest themselves - and not just by "not lying" but by being forthcoming about relevant information. Because understanding the nature of the hold this doctor has on you - whatever it is - is an important part of why you're in the situation you're in. If you can't explain that, then don't expect people to be able to advise you on how to deal with it.

You posted this four times (in four different threads). You seem to be as unable to let go as anyone else. More to the point: he's no longer president, but he still, clearly, has a death-grip on the testicles of the Republican party, as evidenced by the fact that no more than a handful of Republican senators will vote to bar him from future office, for fear of his minions primarying them out of office in the next election - even after he egged on a seditious riot to the Capitol intent on murdering the VP for daring to refuse to unconstitutionally throw the election to Trump by refusing to accept electoral votes Trump wanted to contest. When you're willing to acquit a man of conspiring to murder the elected leader of the body in which you serve, in order to protect your personal electoral interests (or to protect your family from nutcase retribution from his followers) then Trump is still a serious threat. Trump himself is not president. But Trumpism - the reality-denying, burn-it-to-the-ground "ideology" (not that it's coherent, but the closest word) - is alive and well, in the form of Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks, Lauren Boebert, and a host of other GOP nutcase grifters, supported by a vast assemblage of dark money, NewsMax, OAN, FoxNews (which almost seems rational these days in comparison), and more. We came

For what it's worth, as long as your husband doesn't object, that isn't cheating and it's perfectly OK with me. It's when it crosses into deception - and putting your partner at risks that he hasn't knowingly signed up for - that I have a problem.

Let me add this. There are interactions between medications, and there are also side effects from medications that come up at times. For instance, some HIV-related medications, including some forms of PrEP, can interfere with kidney function over time. So let's say you get on PrEP, and all's good for the first couple of years, and then your kidneys start showing signs of stress. If your regular doctor doesn't know you're on PrEP, much less whether it's a kidney-friendly version of the medication, then he's going to be chasing other things trying to figure out what's going on in your body. He may switch out things that are not a problem in order to see if a different medication for, say, cholesterol would cause less of a problem. But the problem isn't your cholesterol medicine; it's the PrEP he doesn't know you're on. I'm not asking you to explain why neither (a) explaining things to your doctor or (b) finding a gay-friendly one is an option. I'd hazard a guess - just a guess - that this doctor is a family friend or relative, and you don't want him judging you, much less accidentally saying something to a family member. Maybe he treats others in your family as well; maybe he's just conveniently located and gives you a good break on costs. None of that matters as much as actually getting the right health care, for YOU. Assuming you're an adult, no health care provider in the US is going to risk his ability to practice over disclosing something you tell him, medically, in confidence - not to your mom, your dad, your sister, your cousin, or whomever. And it's not my place to decide where your loyalties should lie. But I will tell you this: you give strong hints that the allure of bareback sex is something you heed, and no amount of attempting to pre-screen people for whether they're "likely" to be positive is going to work over the long haul. You can rationalize it by saying you'll "minimize" the risk, but you have no way of knowing whether the next guy who tops you raw actually got bred by a poz guy who converted a month ago and has no idea he's infectious - even if you assume everyone who you sleep with tells you the truth, and there's certainly no guarantee of THAT. If you don't use condoms and you don't use PrEP, and you get fucked even semi-regularly, the odds are good you'll end up pozzed. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. And if you do: What do you tell your doctor then?

Like several others, I think you need to examine your health care provider choice. Where I'd start, though, is a frank discussion with your current doctor. Explain to him that you have sex with men (you do not need to tell him, at least at first, that you do so bare). He may surprise you and be more accepting than you think he would be. If he's not, then take that opportunity to thank him for his years of service but tell him you need a doctor who can deal with that in a non-judgmental way. Ask for a referral elsewhere, but don't feel obligated to use that doctor unless you like him or her. Then, with whoever your doctor ends up being - this guy, or someone else - explain that you have sex with men (you don't say whether you're gay or bi, but I'd acknowledge whichever it is with the doctor) and that you want to go on PrEP as an additional layer of protection. I wouldn't recommend lying to him and saying you always use condoms if you never do, but you can fudge the issue. "Sometimes there are no condoms handy when we go to have sex and frankly we don't have the willpower to wait" covers the fact that you don't have them handy because you never buy any or pick them up. The reason you need a doctor with whom you can be relatively honest: such a doctor is going to be looking out for your health a lot better than one who has no idea that you engage in risky behavior. He'll know to test for things like HIV and other STI's, something a doctor who assumes you're not sexually active will not necessarily do. As for "on demand" PrEP - look in the PrEP forum for any number of threads about that. The bottom line there, though, is that while it's somewhat effective, it's nowhere near as effective as daily PrEP in preventing infection.

And that 20% success rate is primarily due to the fact that there are so many strains of flu (which require different vaccine components), and vaccine manufacturers have to project - with varying degrees of success - which ones will be circulating months from now, when the bulk of flu shots will actually be administered. In years when the projected flu variants are in fact the ones that end up in widespread circulation, vaccination prevents a huge number of cases. But even when they miss the mark, the reduction in caseloads is significant and helpful for keeping our health care system from being overwhelmed.

The fact that you toss around words like "biological men" and "biological women" without any understanding whatsoever as to what those terms mean - the fact that you're using them to advance your own narrow-minded anti-trans political agenda - makes it pretty clear you don't know jack shit about what you're talking about.

Really? Because I can't name any. There are some who pretend to support LGBT rights - that loathsome prick Richard Grennell comes to mind - but he doesn't actually support LGBT rights; he just supports HIS personal right to fuck men while not giving a damn about what happens to gay men anywhere else, because that might affect his investments and his employability (or what's left of it). It's possible that the Supreme Court might reverse the finding of a right to privacy (although I doubt seriously they'll go that far, explicitly). More likely, they'll keep slicing away at the REACH of that right to privacy. Luckily, the most recent LGBT rights cases hinged less on privacy rights and more specifically on the "on account of sex" line of cases, which essentially hold that treating gay men differently from straight men or straight women is, on its face, discrimination on the basis of sex. The justice who articulated that reasoning, so very clearly, just a year ago? Neil Gorsuch. And even with the replacement of the virago Ginsburg with the handmaiden Barrett, there still are enough votes to keep the essence of that ruling in place. That's because Trump wasn't a right-winger; he was a grifter out to make money for himself and he figured the right wing were bigger marks than the leftists. Trump has never had any political beliefs of note outside his own racism; even his drive for lower taxes (and huge tax breaks for certain fields) were based solely on what they did for *him*. There was certainly a lot of quiet opposition to Grennell among the religious right base of the party, but those people are nothing if not politically expedient. Just as they gladly accepted one amoral promiscuous fornicating president who patronized prostitutes and paid off strippers and porn actresses, in order to keep the eye on their real prize - right-wing judges - they also accepted one gay man who otherwise presented as sexually neutral as an ambassador if it meant having a fig leaf of cover for their anti-gay bigotry. Notice that Aaron Schock never got back in the good graces of the Republicans, because he actually showed his sexuality dancing half naked in Palm Springs and hoovering all over the bodies of male strippers in a bar. As a country overall, sure. But the Trump base, the hard-core right wingers? They're vehemently anti-gay and will remain so. Gay people raised in right-wing households don't just become left wing because that's the only option; it's because being gay makes them question the underlying truth of what right-wingers say about gay people, and if THAT is wrong, what else might they be wrong about? It's not just gays. That's the reason young people are increasingly identifying as no-religion even if they were brought up in a traditional faith environment: they see how the churches reject the people they know as good people, and it makes them question what else the church could be wrong about. I suspect there will always be a handful of right-wing nuts who identify as gay, but not more than that. You probably WILL see more "moderate" gays, as opposed to left-wing ones, but I just don't see any opening for pro-LGBT right wingers, especially as the right wing gets kookier and kookier.

That's exactly what PrEP was made for.

As others have noted, the human body can do a fairly good job (at first) at keeping the virus at bay after an initial infection surge in the viral load. Depending on when you were infected, you could be in that stage. That's a good thing for your long-term health prognosis. It means your body has good "reserves" of healthy t-cells, so if your treatment keeps the virus itself knocked down, your body can deal with all the other things that come up along the way just like anyone else. Biktarvy is also a medication that is "friendly" to other parts of your body, like your kidneys. That means by itself, it shouldn't push you into having dysfunctional kidneys or kidney disease.

This site isn't just about "being poz". It's about breeding - ie bareback sex. The two are not synonymous, especially with the advent of PrEP.

That's such a steaming pile of shit that I'd suggest moving it to the Scat fetish forum. This goes way beyond politics. Politics is, under normal circumstances, "What percentage of government spending should be on national defense vs. safety nets for the disadvantaged?". Politics is "What is the best way to ameliorate centuries of oppression on the basis of race without necessarily making it harder for disadvantaged people who identify with the majority race?" Politics is "Should education funding be hyper-localized (which results in wealthy areas getting better schools) or averaged out across a state or even across the country (which creates a disconnect between society and its schools)?" Politics is "Which societal benefits are best provided by the private sector via a regulated marketplace vs. which ones should be guaranteed by the government via public funding, and which of the latter should be directly provided by the government vs. which should be contracted out to private parties to administer and deliver?" Politics is not "Jews will not replace us!" vs., well, anything. Politics is not "We refuse to accept the duly certified election results and demand that they be overturned and our highest office be awarded to the loser." Politics is not breaking into a public legislative building, disrupting the lawmaking activity going on therein, threatening the lives of the legislative leadership, vandalizing the building, or murdering a police officer. Those are not politics. Those are insurrection, sedition, and anarchy.

Actually Conway was an advisor (she's actually a lawyer) and not part of the press team - she was periodically trotted out as a spokesperson, but almost anyone in the administration could do that. I was talking about Stephanie Grisham, who was press secretary for nine months and held zero press conferences. ZERO.

I read through a whole slew of his posts and I couldn't understand any of them, which might have something to do with not receiving any replies.

I'd agree ONLY with the caveat that if daily is simply not an option - ie you live in a place like the US where access is limited by your insurance company and you're on your parents' policy and they don't know you're gay, much less sexually active - then 2-1-1 is better than nothing at all. But absolutely, if you can - and your doctor and/or pharmacy may be able to help point you to resources that will cover you - then daily is absolutely better.

It's also good to remember that some guys who miss doses of PrEP - on either schedule - may not ever actually be at risk. It's not like they line up high viral load tops to test the guys with; they're using largely self-reported data, as in "I took my pre-sex dose on time and the first post-sex dose on time, but I was late for the third dose." They don't test the guy he had sex with - he might be negative, undetectable, detectable but low-risk, or high-risk HVL. If anything, that would concern me more: if "only" 86% reduction in HIV infection happens with 2-1-1, and that's without knowing if there was even an infectious partner involved, it suggests that if one has a lot of sex with a guy who is NOT undetectable, and you try for 2-1-1 (or use daily but slip up at times), the risk could actually be higher (because you're having unprotected sex with someone known to be capable of infection).

It helps to live in one of the major cities where a number of porn actors live - Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Palm Springs, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas (there are others, but those come to mind right away). In those cities you'll run into them in certain bars and clubs just in passing - no guarantee of hooking up, of course, and a number of them are escorts in addition to acting in porn so they may not be looking to give out freebies. Alternatively, there are places (like Fire Island, Provincetown, etc.) where gays vacation in numbers, including porn actors. You'll see them at events (IML, MAL, MIR, Folsom St. Fair, Up Your Alley Fair, etc.) as well. At some events, studios will have booths to hawk their wares and they're usually manned in part by some of their actors.

I have not. However, you might inquire with your pharmacy as to whether they'll assist you in filling out the paperwork for Gilead; they may already be used to doing that. In my case, since I'm on ART instead of PrEP, the pharmacy associated with my HIV specialist's office takes care of the Gilead copay paperwork for me at the beginning of each year.