PozBearWI

Perhaps midwest is a bit more conservative. I've never experienced someone asking me to fill their empty beer bottle....

Hopefully that will remain if the authoritarians running there get in....

Thanks @Westhamsmoker. USA guy, poz for 18 months. Not on meds and not under any pressure from my HIV doc to do so. My experience is mine and not generally shared. Most poz folk I know have found some low copay methods of getting ARVs. But with federal funding for research off the table it is unlikely we'll see anything new come along. Unless those are put out by First World nations such as the UK or EU. But I have extenuating circumstances. Upon diagnosis I was informed I have been too successful in life and if I wanted to be on meds, I will kindly pay my pharmacy $4,500 per month. I found that off putting, but perhaps others are cool with that. Ultimately, as we were learning a bit more about how HIV was behaving in my body; the concern for medicating reduced. It was not progressing much at all. In fact all the numbers fell into a line indicating I was pretty well controlled by my own immune system. At the same time I was offered a grant to cover the cost. I started to develop an inventory as my thinking was I would start; but did not want to begin when I could not rely upon monthly availability. By the time I had that inventory; we learned even more about HIV within me, I was 9 months post diagnosis by this time. The discussion I had with my doc was what my body does on its own, combined with other medications I was on which added challenge to my liver and kidneys already; why add an unnecessary drug for a marginal benefit? It might be years before viral load gets to a point of concern, and CD4 stops rising and begins to drop again. With the current world debacle the chief toddler in the White House underway as we have this discussion; it might very well be the case I'll never have the option anyway. The idea of growing disease is obviously not of concern to the new ones in charge. Nor is fear of more fires, floods, famine, drought, etc. In fact they seem to embrace is as a way to control us, for whom they refer to as "vermin". We have reason for concern about Medicare and Social Security. In fact it gives me NO COMFORT when the orange one says he won't touch it; as he most often speaks in opposites.

To the original question, should the US leave NATO? It doesn't really matter, we have at the words of one man. I don't think it was in anyway a shared collective decision, but the orange one has taken us there nonetheless. Now, should we complete the task might be the question. With us functionally already gone, the question now is "now what?". NATO has done pretty well for it's better part of a century controlling much of global interactions. It has been a pretty effective check and balance. When we look across the globe now compared to 1940; we've seen a lot of economies grow and humans prosper. One might argue we've prospered too well. If our oligarch lords have their way, we will become more subservient to them. Do we want that? It's a pretty simple question. Do we want a ruler, or do we want the affect of our shared voices to bring about our day to day lives?

The apartment building I lived in on Christmas Eve 1977 burned down due to the "live" christmas tree catching fire.

Fuck you knew Fred too?

It is largely the "neg guys", in particular those who are towards the end of their window period. Back when we had tests but no treatment, there were considerably more in that window period. Or those whose HIV had advanced; which back then was more often than not "when" we found out we were poz. PrEP, ARVs though have done a hell of a lot to reduce infections. I think ARVs mostly. TasP preceded PrEP. With HIV often coming back from the edge of AIDS back to better functioning immune systems; new infections are reduced. It also seems that guys aren't fucking as much as they used to. Or perhaps that's my own aging reducing my options....

My experience mostly in rural USA was that bareback was more common than guys advertised. In fact many who I fucked, or who fucked me, who claimed "safe only" in their profiles weren't.

@Poz50something part of what makes HIV so interesting to me is that it is wicked difficult to get infected. Many of the stories make it seem "easy peasy", but for most these days it just doesn't happen. And from a social health perspective we might celebrate this.

Similar here JD. But condoms are not going on me or in me. I am happy to deepthroat a guy to bliss if he is a hard no on raw anal.

Yes I've had it kick in myself from time to time. And well said, lean into it, choose to relax into it is how I've described it.

So well written @jd13!!!

Sweet. Similar here. My dungeon is not open to everyone who comes to my house.

Sadly I believe it is going to get a hell of a lot worse before we begin to climb out of this hole we just dug in our democracy. He is obviously a traitor and traitors historically are stopped in only one way.

... oh if pozzing only was that easy.

KInd of perpetuates the stigma. Although as a story, damn, one could not pick a more perfect time to get infected than to get fucked by a newly diagnosed (and presumably newly infected) guy.

Take charge sorta guy here. I like to strap the guys I am deepthroating to my st andrews cross so that they have no "hand in it".

Being with Trump has always been bad for business. The rise in Trumpism didn't start by his trading partners. It started when the few very rich learned they could exploit him to get all the money. This is a power stuggle, not a financial struggle; at least for them.

@hntnhole yes raw umber is sort of a brown/red shade. puce is a variation of purple.

If we ever have a hope at moving away from racism, we'll stop fretting whether the dicks fucking us are white, black, raw umber or puce.

Well of course you can dare Erik. The Orange Clown though is unique; and we've no history in the US that actually compares.

And with DTC (Don the Con) with is on again, off again tariffs, I am glad our clear thinking neighbors to the north are keeping their boycott and tariffs in place.

Indeed, the bull in a china shop analogy is apt. I'll be long dead before the US rebuilds those alliances again along with trust that they will withstand the next dumb ass POTUS. As far as 2026 elections, not hard to predict how they will fall. But it might be challenging to swear those people in... When POTUS ignores laws and the courts let me get away with it, it creates fractures where there should be no fractures.

@Erik62 there is a huge amount of value in discussing and observing across our species rather than limit to a geographic area. Although I'll ask your forbearance. Here in the US it is as if we live next to an out of control teenager playing what he calls "music" at full volume 24x7. Whose goal seems to be that we stop talking with each other. What Trump is doing isn't "healthcare". It is celebrating the unfettered spread of disease across humanity. Big beautiful measles??? WTF? When I communicate with you and others in Australia, man please help your fellow citizens see the Orange Clown for what he is and not make the same mistakes my fellow US citizens made.

It was admittedly half a century ago, but one woman I slept with at the time explained to me that her birth control was that semen competed with other semen and in her thinking, canceled each other out. I never did find out the name of the baby...