PhoenixGeoff

I'm trying to remember what I can about the website. Given its mid-90's provenance, it was a fairly simple affair. A few jpegs, some stories, some polemic. A kind of a dark, "underground" design. Very heavily focused on "bugchasing" and "gift-giving" (using both terms...the first I'd ever heard either). I can't remember if the specific term "bareback" was used, though I think it might have been. I think the biohazard sign might have been used as well, though I can't remember for sure. There was definitely a kind of aggressive embrace of the denigration HIV+ gay men faced; I think a lot of the motivation for the site came as a reaction against that. Something is tugging at my memory telling me that the guy behind it might have been from Dallas, though I'm not sure. I do recall that he made an active decision to take the ste down. That would have been at least 10 years ago, probably longer. Sorry I can't be more specific (and the Wayback Machine is no help either, though I doubted it would be). Perhaps I can tweak someone else's memory.

I was thinking more along the lines of research that's already been done based on participation on this site, but anything you have to offer would also be of interest. Please note that most of us don't have access to academic libraries, and that academic research is often pretty heavily paywalled for the general public. If there's any way of getting around that for users of this site, that would be greatly appreciated.

FWIW, the first website I discovered back in the day (which is no longer extant) very much discussed barebacking in the context of "bugchasing" and "gift giving". 1997 strikes me as being rather late for the first use of the term, though I'm having some trouble working out an exact chronology for when I would have been online (I can give some of the signposts that might get one a bit closer to the dates if there's any interest). I definitely remember there being a #gaybareback channel on EFNet on IRC right from the first time I started using it after getting my first computer after joining the Army. I remember it particularly because I'd gone into the channel looking for cowboy and rancher types . That was definitely around in 1997, possibly earlier (I'd have to think through that chronology). As for survivor guilt, I suppose it's possible that that's a motivator for some people. It's not really a factor in my own case; I came out of the closet rather later in the AIDS crisis, around 1990 or 91 or so, and enlisted in the Army early in '95, after which I was somewhat insulated from the effects of HIV (and of course that's also when effective HAART first started). In that four year window, I didn't have any friends die (although on a visit back to Toronto after enlisting, I did learn of the death of a couple of former co-workers), but I think that's more a function of my personality (I don't tend to form large networks of friends and acquaintances by nature) and my relative youth. If I were doing this sort of research, I'd personally look in two directions. First, the effects of promiscuity, which leads fairly inevitably to "accidental" barebacking (with alcohol as a contributing factor), which leads to diminishing fear and guilt over barebacking and potential exposure and a general exhaustion and fatalism over worrying about HIV. That's more or less what happened with me. (Note that this suggests that attempting to carry on the promiscuous gay culture of the '70s and '80s but in a "safer sex" direction may have been at best an inadequate response) The other direction I'd look in is the meth epidemic that started around that same time. For some reason, meth use and barebacking seem to go hand in hand, possibly because meth use seems to encourage more "extreme" forms of sex while high, and also because meth makes it difficult enough to get and maintain an erection, even without a condom. Many of the men I meet today who bareback routinely and/or are HIV+ have either past or ongoing meth use.

Perhaps as "payment" for our participation in these studies, could we have a copy of results posted here? That would serve two purposes: first to satisfy our general curiosity and second to help reassure everyone here that this research is legit.

I actually knew a guy in West Virginia who basically threw a party in his basement every weekend. He invited the neighbors to some of them, and kept everyone who attended dressed (well, men were encouraged to take off their shirts, as he did). Others were men only, clothing optional. You knew what the rules were in advance based on the color of the light outside the door.

Yeah, the physical things that turn me on in a guy, no matter whether I'm on top or on the bottom, are all the masculine characteristics...everything that separates the men from the women and the men from the boys. That absolutely includes a hot hairy ass. There's nothing hotter as a top for me than burying my face in a hot, sweaty, cum filled ass then watching my cock sliding into that wet, hairy ass.

I have to say this is the most infuriating thing to deal with. The state health department here does the same thing except they will threaten you with civil commitment. I've always told them: (1) I don't appreciate them traipsing through my medical records and violating my doctor-patient relationship (2) I refuse to give them the name of any of my partners; I do whatever informing I can personally. It's none of their business. (3) They are contributing to the spread of STDs by harassing and threatening people who are doing the right thing and getting tested and treated. And, considering I'm usually a pretty mild mannered guy, I have absolutely no trouble whatsoever going off on them every time they contact me. There was one point where I'd made an appointment with my doctor and discovered that they'd been passed that information and had someone waiting to ambush me there. I went off on both of them (though to be fair, the doctor has little choice in the matter; they're forced to cooperate with the state). I currently have a policy of never making appointments to be seen for anything. The state has made it so that I cannot trust any medical professionals at all here, so I have to fend for myself. I personally have no objections to the collection of anonymous epidemiological data; that's a legitimate public health function. I also have no problems with participating in medical studies; I just signed up for one right now. I do my best to be pleasant and cooperative with staff. But what I will not stand for is interference from the state government in how I choose to conduct my personal affairs. Frankly, I'm tired of being singled out because of my HIV status and I'm tired of government spies snooping through my life and trying to get me to "make better choices". I'm basically a pretty easy-going guy who can get along with pretty much anyone. It takes a hell of a lot to get me angry at someone. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever been driven into a rage by anyone. But if ever they happen to drive me off the deep end and thus make me decide to go out in a blaze of glory, I can guarantee that it will happen at 4300 Cherry Creek S. Dr. in Denver. And God knows the bastards will deserve it. I hate each and every one of those government snoops and petty extortionists with the white-hot rage of a thousand suns.

Yeah, back when I was in the Army (and young and hot) there was an arcade I liked to visit...my favorite stall might have been made for me. I'd walk in, drop my pants, bend over and put my ass up to one gloryhole and my mouth would be right at another. Would get plowed and bred by totally anonymous cock that way, sometimes while sucking another. I've always loved not knowing the first thing about the man fucking and breeding me...not his name, age, race, what he looks like...nothing (though I did get some idea of how big he was once he was inside me LOL). Walking out of there with multiple anonymous cumloads was a huge fucking turnon. Still get into that kind of thing, both ways. I've put my cock through a gloryhole and had a guy take my load that way sometime. It's hot afterwards walking around, looking at the guys there and wondering which one is carrying my sperm inside him.

Right, but what's the next step? Those guys don't stop barebacking once they become positive; quite the contrary. And now, instead of spreading wild type HIV, they're spreading Truvada resistant HIV, including to guys who have the wild type form of the virus.

That's true, but I've tried to use conservative numbers. For instance, I think it's unlikely that the risk reduction from a partner with undetectable viral load is more than a tenfold decrease. The really big variable here is how susceptible your body is to infection. But it seems reasonable to me that whether you happen to be really good at fighting off HIV or drew the short end of the stick in that department genetically, the rate of risk reduction would be more-or-less the same across the board. If you want to get technical, you can look in these studies for 95% confidence intervals to get some sense of how reliable the numbers probably are. There is one thing I'd caution here, and that is the power of wishful thinking. If we want something to be true, we tend to discount evidence to the contrary and play up evidence that supports our position. As this is a barebacking site, I'd suggest that our own bias would be towards downplaying the risks that go along with that. If you are serious about wanting to avoid HIV, for instance, then it makes sense to choose a number towards the top end of the range of estimated risks, as I have here. That gives you a good idea of an upper bound to the risk that you are engaging in. If it turns out to be lower, then great! But it's not wise to assume it's going to be lower. That represents wishful thinking.

Well, you could say that about sex in general. Try getting laid in Wamsutter, WY. The higher the population, the better your odds are generally. Simple numbers game. It's not all bad. I run hot and cold on the online sites. Sometimes it seems like everyone's a flake. Then I'll get a run of luck. Baths can be the same way, as could bars, back in the day.

OK, I'll accept that there may be problems with the article I linked to. However, there are some indisputable facts: 1) Truvada's patent doesn't expire in the US until 2021. Between now and then, we're talking astronomical prices, about $900 per month or $10,800 per year retail. 2) Even when generic medications come out, many HIV meds are very complicated to synthesize and the market for them is relatively small. Which means we almost certainly won't be seeing $5 generic Truvada. Hollywoodslut found an Indian generic that costs $100 per month. $1200 per year is still a lot of money for most people. 3) Adherence is absolutely an issue. So, for that reason, is drug resistance. It's entirely possible that we could end up with widespread drug resistant HIV thanks to PrEP, just as we're seeing with gonorrhea right now. I think it's incumbent on PrEP advocates to show that adherence to PrEP is a problem that can be overcome. Research shows that "Only 6% of the patients took >=95% of their medications, the optimal level for durable virologic and clinical success.". Think about that: 94% people with an incurable, deadly disease, who have been advised of the risks of nonadherence, nevertheless still fail to take their medications in such a way that will prevent resistance and keep them alive. What do you think the adherence rate will be for people who aren't HIV+? Do you think they might find it easier to say "Fuck it" when push comes to shove? I'm telling you, as someone who's been there, adherence over the long term is not easy. Life situations come up. You forget your meds at home when you go on vacation. Or you have to work late. Or you get drunk. Or whatever...shit happens. 4) "If I'm talking about my own life, or the life of someone I care about, any price is worth it." This just makes absolutely no economic sense. Like it or not, resources are limited. We're having massive battles over health care in the US right now precisely because not everyone is willing to pay any price to cover everybody's health care. And you need to face facts: unless you're independently wealthy, you are asking people who aren't you, who frankly don't care about you, don't even know you, to subsidize your health care. And I can prove it thus: as I said, retail cost of Truvada is about $900 per month. Let's call it $10,000 per year. Median income in the US for men over 25 is around $40,000 before taxes. Would you be willing to dedicate one quarter of everything you earn to PrEP? By way of comparison, $900/month will get you a pretty decent one bedroom apartment in Denver. How many people would be willing to pay that for PrEP? What would you have to forego in order to make that payment? Now, apply that decision on a national scale. Thankfully, through Ryan White and other government programs, those of us who are HIV+ have our own choices very heavily subsidized, so we don't have to make that kind of life-or-death decision. But we shouldn't confuse that heavy subsidy for an infinite capacity to underwrite any and all medical expenses. And the point I made still stands: if people are going to be at least as promiscuous (if not more so) and if PrEP is going to only be partially effective (whether for reasons of adherence or whatever), in short, if they are going to get HIV anyway, does it make sense now to spend the extra money on PrEP? My guess is that the answer the actuaries will come back with will be "no".

Thanks man. Actually it turned out to be one of those things that sparked my curiosity a bit and I couldn't stop worrying at it til I figured I'd run through pretty much all the data I had at my disposal. Maybe I'd have enjoyed word problems in school more if they were more along the lines of "If half the football team fucks MascMountainMan in the shower after the game, and half the rest cum in his mouth, then how many loads did he take?" Just goes to show that we don't get into risky sex cuz we're dumb....

I took a look at their site. They're promising it will be up and running in Spring/Summer 2013. That means they have about a month left to launch. I'm not holding my breath. I learned a long time ago that you believe promises made on the Internet right when they actually deliver (remember Duke Nukem Forever?). And, come to think of it, the same applies to online hookups too.

It's the same everywhere and on every site. Basically, hookup sites are like bars that never have last call, so there's always the chance that someone hotter and/or closer will turn up. A couple weeks ago, I'd actually set up a fuck session with a guy. He'd agreed to travel to me. We'd exchanged phone numbers and were texting. He had my address. I sent him directions. And then I got a message from him saying he'd found someone ten minutes closer to him. Frankly, I was impressed that he bothered to cancel on me and that he was up front about his reasons why. It's far more common for people to just blow you off altogether. And it's not just when I'm trying to host at my place (though it's more common). I've shown up at someone's apartment building having set up a fuck furiously trying to reach them to let me in only to have my texts and calls ignored. That's really annoying. Personally, I'm starting to lean more towards organized sex parties and bath houses (or parties set up at baths). Sometimes I think it might be useful to have a (carefully moderated) way of allowing other people to post comments on your profile. A way of reviewing a hookup. But then I consider just how petty and vindictive people can get (whoever said "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" never met a gay guy). I dunno...maybe if there was a way of "locking in" a hookup behind the scenes where both people told the site and each other they were going to get together before allowing them to "review" each other. And then make reviews multiple choice (Did he show up? Was his profile truthful? What did he lie about-age, barebacking, drugs, position, appearance, cock size, etc.? Were there serious problems-theft, drama, not respecting limits? Rate the sex? Would you fuck him again?). Of course, then you'd end up with friends talking each other up and trading good reviews or creating phantom accounts to bring their numbers up. If there's anything the Internet has taught us it's that people will always look for ways to game the system.

Because he was willing to play the odds that you'd be so horny that you'd overlook the lie.

For negative guys interested in how effective only taking loads from guys who say they're neg is, or how effective PrEP is, you might be interested in looking at some of the number crunching I do here. Bottom line: The more promiscuous you are, the more likely you are to get HIV. Serosorting and PrEP help modify the risk, but sex with lots of random guys is the really big factor in figuring out your odds of infection.

Incidentally, one other thing I found from crunching my numbers is how ineffective serosorting is. As I mentioned above, the bulk of the risk the OP experienced came from men who didn't know they had HIV, even though there were far fewer of them. I'd also point out that that breakdown covers all men who have sex with men, whether they are monogamous and in a relationship, or total cum whores. But I'd guess that far more of the men who'd turn up to gang fuck an anonymous bottom than 23% would be poz, simply because they themselves are more likely to be promiscuous.

I'm kind of curious so I found some of the data I suggested. I'll crunch through the numbers again to give you a better idea of your odds. Information on prevalence of HIV among men who have sex with men in San Francisco (where I see you live) is from the CDC. They report that, among all MSM in SF, 23% are HIV positive. Of those men who are HIV+, 19% are unaware of it. Assumptions: tops and bottoms have the same prevalence of HIV, everyone who is HIV+ and knows it is undetectable, no extraneous conditions (other STDs, drug use, etc.), everyone came in your ass. There are three scenarios: 1) The top is HIV-, in which case your chance of infection is 0 % (77% of cases) 2) The top is HIV+ and knows it and is therefore on treatment and undetectable, in which case we'll drop the odds of infection by an order of magnitude to 0.3% (18.17% of cases) 3) The top is HIV+ and unaware of it and not on any treatment (including PrEP), in which case we'll leave the odds as originally stated as they are at 3% (4.83% of cases) Now, say you get fucked and bred once by one random man, the odds of whose status is as listed above. What is the chance that you'll get HIV from that load? The overall odds are 0.19941%, with the bulk of the risk coming from the about 5% of the guys out there who are untreated. Now, putting that into our calculation above, we find that after taking 45 loads, you'd have a 8.59% chance of coming down with HIV without PrEP and a 4.39% chance of coming down with HIV with PrEP. Those odds are a lot better than 75% and 50% respectively. But even with PrEP, there's still about a 1 in 20 chance that you just got HIV from your weeklong spree. Those are significant odds. And the more you get bred, the more those odds increase. Note that the difference between a guy who's not on PrEP who slips up once and you (on PrEP) is a more than 20 times the risk. Bottom Line: The more promiscuous you are, the more likely you are to get HIV. No other factor (top vs. bottom, condom vs. bareback, PrEP vs. no PrEP, etc.) is anywhere near as significant.

OK, lets talk math here and clear up the discussion. We're talking about a branch of mathematics called probability. I'm going to assume some numbers. First, that your odds of infection without PrEP are about 3%, if you allow a guy with HIV to fuck you and come in your ass. (I'm assuming for the same of simplicity that he's not on meds, you know he has HIV, etc.) Next, we'll assume that PrEP cuts your risk in half to 1.5% (this is a little overoptimistic for PrEP, but not much). What are the chances if you take 45 loads that you'll contract HIV? As it turns out, it's: 1 - (9745/10045) without PrEP (or about 75%) 1 - (98.545/10045) without PrEP (or about 50%) Remember: this assumes that all of the guys who fucked you had HIV, all of them came in your ass, none of them were on meds and no-one had extraneous conditions (other STDs, drug use, etc.), including you. Now, have you significantly tilted the odds in your favor by using PrEP? You bet. Would you still have a pretty big chance of contracting HIV? You bet. Now, with more information (prevalence of HIV among men who bareback in your community, prevalence of untreated HIV vs. treated, etc., etc.) we could refine those numbers a bit. But the reality is that if you are going to be sexually promiscuous and bareback routinely, then HIV has a good chance of eventually catching up with you, PrEP or no PrEP. Long story short, it's not a license to be a pig without consequences.

This article might be apropos. Setting aside the issue of compliance (and I'd imagine that guys on PrEP would feel considerably more free to take treatment "holidays"), this guy does have a point. If going on PrEP gives guys a false sense of security and lets them think that they're free to start barebacking like, well, I do without fear of HIV, you're going to get more cases of HIV, not less. 2.3% of the guys in the study on PrEP still were infected. Now remember the Russian Roulette analogy I've made in the past. Yes, it's great that your odds of infection are cut in half. But if you then end up going out and getting bred by a hundred or so guys as a result, where previously you would have been either using condoms (which rather than cutting your risk in half, lowers it by at least an order of magnitude) or wouldn't have been so promiscuous (remembering that every time you have sex, you raise your cumulative risk of infection, because HIV only has to "get lucky" once), then you're actually worse off than you were before and the insurance company is out a metric shit-ton of cash. PrEP might make sense for men like us, who are going to bareback anyways. The problem is, what does it do for those guys looking at us enviously who don't have the balls (or the insanity, depending on your point of view) to cast caution to the wind like we do. I've got a feeling that PrEP is largely going to turn out to be a dead end, except in a pretty small number of cases. And I also think that encouraging guys to bareback because PrEP is a silver bullet is irresponsible. My own advice will remain the same, PrEP or no PrEP: if you're even slightly worried about HIV, you shouldn't bareback.

Questions to consider: 1) Do you currently have good health insurance that covers both doctor's visits and prescriptions? If not, treatment becomes vastly more complicated. 2) Do you have a primary care physician that you're comfortable talking to about your sex life? If so, that would be the first person to talk to about PrEP 3) If you don't have a regular doctor or aren't comfortable talking to the one you have now, you'll need to find one (they need to monitor your bloodwork to ensure there aren't any problems with the medication you'll be on). A good place to start would be your local AIDS organization. You should be in touch with your local AIDS organization anyways (for routine testing at least). They may have a PrEP study you can get into if you don't have insurance, and if you're barebacking with random guys and are otherwise healthy (and negative), you'd likely qualify for that sort of thing, if a study is being conducted in your area.

I agree with the general theme here. If you have any doubts, then don't. Sitting in the doctor's office listening to next steps about getting blood drawn and going on meds is not the time to have regrets. Be absolutely sure you don't have them before taking this step. I particularly endorse what TattPig said. There's absolutely nothing at all wrong with not indulging certain fantasies.

My research indicates that that's about 1/3 of the retail price (which admittedly your insurance doesn't pay). Would you happen to know if they'd cut you a break if you were HIV+ or does your plan just have poor prescription drug coverage? I gotta say, I am grateful as all hell that I was able to get myself on with the VA. I try to use private insurance whenever I can to keep the burden off taxpayers as much as possible (and resources going to more deserving vets, like those injured in combat), but it's been a safety net that's really taken care of me when I had very few other options.

Just out of curiosity, for those of you on PrEP, how much does a 30 day supply of Viread/tenofovir cost you? For anyone who's HIV- and either on PrEP or considering it, how much would you be willing to pay per month? At what point would the cost to you personally outweigh the risk reduction it offers?