PhoenixGeoff

Yeah, I've got a major problem with the "are you clean?" question too. Depending on my mood, sometimes I call guys on it, sometimes I don't. My profiles have my status clearly listed on them. When I guy who say's he's negative hits me up online for sex, I'll often bring up my status in conversation (plus the fact that I only bareback). Likewise, if I meet someone in a bar and it looks like there may be some interest there, I'll bring up my status as early in the conversation as possible in order to allow him to gracefully bow out if he wants. On the other hand, if you're engaging in anonymous bareback sex in a bathhouse, I'm fine with assuming you know what you're doing and what the risks are. I'm not going to strike up a conversation about status with some random guy who's backing his ass onto my raw cock in a dark room. If asked about my status in that context, I'll be honest, but it doesn't happen all that often.

I totally get where you're coming from. Hell, on the road, I took full advantage of guys in precisely that situation (just as they took advantage of me, of course). One thing I've observed is that the soap opera antics only become more intense the smaller the community becomes. If I lived somewhere where I knew absolutely all of the gay guys in the county and they all knew me, I'd be more inclined to tread carefully around guys supposedly in monogamous relationships, not less. Because if those half dozen guys decide that you're the bitch who broke up the 17 year relationship, then you're faced with the prospect of living in a conservative part of the country without even the support of friends in the same situation. If you have some reason why you have to live in a more rural area (say to look after an ailing parent or something), then hopefully you can do what I used to do when I was in the Army and jump in the car for a weekend in a nearby city a couple times a month and fuck your brains out there. But if you're wise, you won't shit where you live. My policy with guys in relationships is that I take them at their word. So if he says it's an open relationship, that's generally good enough for me. But use a little common sense. Does he have profiles up online showing his face and his relationship status? Or is he one of those guys with no pics, no identifying information, and whenever we wants to get together you're always having to skulk around? That might be a clue that he's lying to his partner. And while I'm a huge believer in open relationships (hell, in my ideal little fantasy world, all men would pretty much randomly fuck around with each other whenever they got horny), I also believe that a big part of making them work is honesty between the partners and respect for limits mutually agreed to. The biggest reason I have for this is the HIV issue. If I hook up with a single guy who's negative (and to whom I've disclosed my status) and he wants me to breed him, he's making a choice for himself. That's fine. Now, if he's in an open relationship and his partner knows he's taking loads from guys like me, then that's fine too. Both of them know the risks and have accepted them. But where I draw the line is if one person is sneaking around behind his partner's back and letting guys like me fuck him, and then going home and having unprotected sex with an unsuspecting partner, that's just wrong. And I've refused to hook up with guys who I knew were pulling that kind of shit. It's a same reason I have a major problem with barebacking with married guys who aren't out as bi to their wives. None of us gets to go through life doing whatever we want without consequences and responsibility for our behavior. One of the hardest lessons for me to learn is that just because I look at sex as something that's fun but pretty much meaningless doesn't mean that everyone else does. I can hurt other people emotionally with my behavior, and that's something I should try to avoid. Likewise, just because I have HIV so I feel entirely free when it comes to my own health to bareback doesn't mean that I have the right to take away someone else's right to make a different decision, which is why I'm so open about my status. Having HIV imposes a responsibility on me to help look after people who don't have it and don't want it. Being so self-absorbed as to be willing to endanger the health of others (or facilitating those who do that sort of thing, which is what barebacking with "cheaters" in monogamous relationships is) just for the sake of a single fuck is just plain morally wrong. Just because I'm a pig doesn't mean I don't give a fuck about the people around me.

Sure, lots of men can be and are. You have to remember that straight men have far fewer opportunities for sex than we do (I have a straight roommate and his attempts to find a girlfriend are really pathetic...I don't dare tell him how much easier it is for us, though I think he's picked up some inkling). And you have to remember that they also live in a society that values monogamy far more than gay culture does. Hell, there are plenty of men who are not monogamous but chaste, sometimes for religious reasons, sometimes because they have no other choice. Should they be monogamous? Well, I suppose that's a question that each man should answer for himself. I've enjoyed fucking around since the day I first stepped out of the closet, so it's all I've really known. But I'll acknowledge that there is a tradeoff involved. I have difficulty with relationships. I'm averse to commitment. I have a tendency to keep my partners a bit at arms' length. And I think part of that comes from the fact that I know I can have my sexual needs met very easily elsewhere. Perhaps if I actually was monogamous, if I made that investment and commitment in another man, I could make my relationships work better. Or maybe that just reflects deeper porblems in my own head, rather than my choice. I've also known guys who've deliberately chosen to stop having sex, stop watching porn, stop jacking off, all of it, at least for a time. They report it being difficult, especially at first, but also report having tons of energy that gets channeled into other things, usually either a career or business or in some kind of creative direction. Typically they will just do that sort of thing for a period of time, then return to seeking out some sex either in the context of a relationship or more casually. So is it possible? Sure. Difficult, perhaps, but possible. Is it right? I dunno, you tell me. Is it useful? Might well be.

That's a rational way of looking at it. Unfortunately, when it comes to relationships, especially when they hit the rocks, rationality rarely enters the equation. From the information we have been given, I'd say there's a strong possibility that this guy is fucking around behind his partner's back. Otherwise, why wait until he's out of town? So how would the partner react if he found out that not only was this guy fucking around behind his back but also fucking around with strangers without a condom? No doubt there'd be a huge blowup between the two of them. But it's entirely possible, even likely that he'd be angry enough at the OP (the "homewrecker" in this little psychodrama) to cause problems for him too. There are tons of single guys out there. There are tons of guys in truly open relationships (hell, have a three-way with a couple). There are tons of opportunities for truly anonymous hookups where your name will never get back to the other half should he find out what's going on (arcades and baths spring immediately to mind). But this is a bad idea. All that needs to happen is for your trick to forget to delete his browsing history or leave his phone on the table and suddenly you're the evil homewrecking bitch. Why risk that when there are so many other opportunities for sex?

I've usually got pretty much the same attitude as this. I do kinda wonder sometimes how open I should be about how much I fuck around and what broad standards I have in men. Do you suppose that if you come across as too slutty you might be scary away some potential tricks?

There's no "may be" about it in my case. I really wish we could go back to the days when the primary place to hook up was the bar. I notice my own bad habits quite a bit. Part of the problem is I tend to cruise with one hand on the keyboard, which means if I'm not disciplined about it, I'll shoot and then lose interest in hooking up. You can't really do that if you're cruising in person. Yeah, it's a good rule. Part of the problem is that the online experience encourages you to stay on just a few minutes more, even if you have something all set up. The perfect man might log on in the next five minutes! Part of the problem is that you might end up working to set things up with two or three guys in parallel, because you don't know if the one you're emailing with now will actually follow through. Cruising in person fixes both of those problems. Of course, the bars had kinda similar thing going on back in the day. Almost no-one ever hooked up and left the bar before about 10 or 11 (although once or twice I did leave with someone, have sex, and then go back to cruise some more), because not everyone had arrived yet and you wanted to see all of your choices. On the other hand, everyone knew the bar was closing at 2 AM. This usually led to a game of musical tricks playing out around midnight...if you missed out by 1 AM, you probably weren't getting laid that night (unless you hit the bath). And then there are the tweakers, who'll happily email back and forth with you for hours upon hours at a time if you let them.

Was it safer for him to pull out? Sure, a little bit. But not as much as people think. The simple act of fucking you likely caused minor damage to your rectum that could allow HIV to be transmitted. And if he is positive, there would be virus in his precum as well as his load. Saying he's HIV- is meaningless. When was he last tested? Last month? Last year? Ever? Hell, maybe he's one of those (very small number) of guys who lie about their status. You don't really know him after all. If he's barebacking with you behind his partner's back, I'll lay dollars to donuts he's done this with other guys too. So the fact that he's been with his partner for so long is pretty meaningless too. If he's a total top, and if he doesn't do this sort of thing often (two things you can't really know for sure), then his risk and therefore yours will be somewhat lower. If you want a repeat (and before you go for that, consider the drama you might be letting yourself in for if his partner finds out), you could absolutely talk to him about condoms. Maybe he'll go for it. Maybe he'll insist on barebacking (I would, if only because I can't keep it up with a rubber on). But it's a good idea to have that conversation. And do it in advance when you're setting it up, not when you're already naked with your legs in the air. Regardless, it sounds like you're strongly tempting to bareback in the context of random hookups (very hot btw! I definitely go for that sort of thing myself). That means you need to be getting an HIV and STD test on a regular basis. You probably don't need to go to your doctor for that if you're embarrassed about it; most cities have anonymous and/or confidential (there's a difference!) testing, often for free, available in clinics usually run by the local HIV organization. If you're pretty sexually active, even if you mostly use condoms, I'd suggest getting tested every three or four months.

I found a place online that claims to do it for $90 here. Buyer beware and all that... I would imagine that as genome sequencing techniques improve and prices drop, this sort of thing might become more common, possibly covered by insurance in time (although it could also be a source of discrimination against certain people by insurers...this sort of information is a double-edged sword).

I think that's a smart move. Just put a prominent link to the site from here and that should be sufficient.

Yeah, then there's the issue I run into...taller guys like me (I'm 6'4") who have a 32" waist are pretty much beanpoles. Totally understand if you want someone who's got everything in proportion, but sometimes you can't assign a number. That's interesting. I've always assumed that more information (complete stats, interests, what you're looking for) is better than less. I'm far more likely to be less interested in someone who's basically put nothing into his profile. The "hot for hot" type of profile (you see these a lot on CL) are particularly annoying. They tell me that you're not really willing to put an effort into hooking up. I guess balance in everything though. I will say that one of the really annoying things about BBRT is that you can't separate your profile into paragraphs. It makes a longer, more complete profile harder to read. If you are going to write a longer profile, you should be able to format it so readers aren't faced with a wall of text.

I think this should be true. I think it's an ideal though, something to aspire to. It's how I try to look at it. It is true that very many people (both straight and gay, poz and neg) look at an HIV diagnosis as a source of shame because they associate it with sexual promiscuity. And that is something that broad swathes of society find shameful. And because it's a source of shame, there's a temptation for us, having experienced the stigma of being gay, and having reacted to that through pride, to react in the same way to being poz. Should their be shame or pride in being gay? Ideally, no. It is what it is, and our sense of shame or pride should come from what we do with it. But we still have gay pride marches. And indeed, those are a necessary thing for many people who have been taught that their very selves are shameful. I hope we can move to the point where HIV is treated like what it is: an illness. But I also understand the need to react against what other people do. I'd hardly call HIV "incidental". Maybe it's something you get used to. I remember that first year after my diagnosis. I'd been barebacking for quite a while, and it was expected. It still gave me a shock. And there are still difficulties to be navigated all the time, ten years after that happened. You face rejection every time you approach someone. I've had people show interest and then disappear after they find out. What do you do with that? Retreat into a poz ghetto, which in some ways this site is? Stick your head in the sand? Curl up and die in a corner? So maybe this points the way to a source of pride. I'm not proud (or ashamed) of having HIV; it is what it is: a disease. But I can take pride (or shame) in the actions I've done as a result. It takes honesty to put my status truthfully in my profiles. I can be proud of stating the truth. It takes courage to risk a potential relationship by disclosing to a guy I really like. I can be proud of my bravery. It takes care and concern to talk about this stuff with and in front of men going through this sort of thing. I can be proud of my love for all of you.

I gotta say, I'm one of those who disables the winks if I can. I understand that we're looking to hook up here, but I do appreciate some evidence that you've read and understood my profile and that you're at least willing to invest the thirty seconds or so that it takes to come up with a message that will hopefully appeal to me. I don't use the canned messages on BBRT for the same reason. If I message you, I'm going to take the time to point out similar interests and ways I think we might have fun together. That first email is supposed to be something of a sales pitch. Making me feel like something other than the 20th guy you've messaged tonight in the hopes of hooking up is going to get you a lot farther with me. Yeah, I generally try to reply to everyone who messages me politely. The one place I cut guys a little bit of slack on this is with free members on BBRT, where you have a limited number of emails per day. I dislike this sort of thing but for a different reason. It's completely and totally meaningless. What's "hot" for you may do nothing for me, and vice versa. Among other things, I love my big, older, hairy bears. To me, they're hot. Among other things, I'm usually not into 18 year old, skinny, hairless kids. Yet porn tells me that I'm in the minority on that one. I understand that some guys are into only certain physical types. Just please tell me what your type is so I don't waste my time if I don't have a shot. And please give me enough information about you so I can figure out if I'll be into you too. Just calling yourself "hot" doesn't cut it. I can understand why some people might get offended by this. Hell, now that I'm over 40 I find myself ruled outside the upper age limit that a lot of guys have, which can be annoying. And once I started broadening my own horizons of men I found attractive a bit in terms of race, I found that I'd been missing out on a lot of fun. But you know, like I said above, it's good for me know know up front that I don't have a shot with you. And as our host mentioned, we don't really choose who we find attractive. Attraction just is. Otherwise, what the hell is the point of sexual orientation itself? I guess I should add my own pet peeve. It's those people who have profiles on BBRT or here that emphasize that they're looking for bareback sex. Yeah, it's nice to know that you're enthusiastic about fucking without condoms...I am too. But it's kinda redundant. I mean, if you're into sex with condoms, what the hell are you doing on a bareback site in the first place? Similarly, the few guys on BBRT who have "oral only" profiles. WTF? The whole point of the website is finding guys who get into fucking each other raw. Minor things, yeah, but they both just kind of rub me the wrong way.

Meh...I checked my current IP address (I've got a dynamic IP from our local MSO) here while I was at home in Denver and had one result that was wildly inaccurate, one that was either wildly inaccurate or put me in a suburb on the other side of town, and two that got the city right. It's an inexact thing, which is actually kind of reassuring. And that's also why I see it working more as a sanity check rather than a reliable means of locating you. It's probably much more reliable if you're using a mobile device to connect, even if it doesn't have a GPS (I'm assuming the location data can reference cell tower info on pretty much any mobile data connection...I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case)

That might be problematic if you see much of your advantage coming from mobile devices. To my mind, no-one has managed to make a web/mobile hybrid work really well. I agree that BBRT has done a good job on the web, and that their mobile site sucks ass. My guess is that you're going to have serious trouble making a mobile site work well vs. an app. A4A probably does this best, and even A4A has issues. One thing to get absolutely right is setting your location. This is one place that app-only tools like Grindr or Growlr excel. You can (mostly) count on their location information to be fairly accurate (Scruff is somewhat worse at this). I can tell you that as someone who's moved around a lot and tried to cruise in a different place every night, manually updating your location in a web site like BBRT is a pain in the ass, even when I've been using a laptop. It would be nice to know you can trust the site to know just how far away that guy is from you. Perhaps when you sign in online you could have a default location set by zip code like BBRT does but then have the site do a sanity check based on your IP address (and if it differs, prompt to verify your location automatically...and if you can somehow have it come up with your zip code for you, by perhaps tying into the USPS database, that would be nice too...figuring out what zip code I'm in for BBRT is part of the reason why their system is hard for me to use) and if GPS location information is available then that can temporarily overwrite your default location. I can't really overstate the superiority of apps over mobile web sites though when it comes to doing mobile. The push notifications are only part of it. I'd point out that Growlr and Scruff do allow for X-rated private pics. Alternatively, you could always set up some way of allowing users to unlock their phone number and/or email address and trade pics and messages that way (which would also off load some of the heavy lifting from your servers albeit at the expense of losing eyeballs for the ads you're serving). On the other hand, I don't know if Apple would go for the kind of ads you'd be likely to run. (Incidentally, this is precisely why I hate Apple and Steve Jobs. Jobs was a massive control freak; he wanted control over everything that happened in "his" computers. Even back in the Apple II days, Steve Wozniak had to fight hard to get expansion slots included in their computers. It's no coincidence that the original Mac was a sealed box screwed together with Torx screws that most people didn't have bits for at the time. Jobs never understood that once he sold a piece of hardware, it no longer belonged to him). As far as the social aspect goes, I'm not sure I've ever run into a site that did both the social side of the things and the hooking up thing well. Most seem to end up being one or the other. The closest one I can think of off hand is a relatively new bear site, bearunderground.net. You may want to check out that site actually for a few ideas (I happen to know the guys behind the site...they're from Denver). They're forums aren't anywhere near as active as these are, but then a lot of the socializing on their site happens in the chat rooms, which is something else you might consider.

It's good having the perspective of a physician here. I suspect that many of us don't properly appreciate what we put our doctors through. A couple questions, if you don't mind: What do you think of a patient who might want to follow your advice, but is having difficulty with it for some reason. Say, perhaps an addiction he's struggling with (or perhaps not willing to struggle with) that gets in the way of effective treatment. I'm thinking specifically of methamphetamine here, which can both throw the scheduling of meds off and fuck with the user's desire to adhere to treatment, but there's any number of other situations that might cause problems with adherence and long-term health. To put it in an entirely different and non-sexual context, what do you say to smokers who refuse to take your advice and quit? On a related note, given that you bareback yourself, and given that you're obviously aware of the risks that go with that decision, not just of HIV transmission but of other STDs as well, what's your advice to patients regarding HIV prevention and risk reduction? If you advise condom use, does it bother you that you don't take your own advice? Do you feel more of an obligation to "toe the party line" as a health professional? What might be your criteria for kicking a patient out of your practice? Are these people who have their head stuck firmly in the sand and refuse to see the dangers of their course of action? I assume you discuss different treatment options up front. Would you kick someone out if you suspected that there was some underlying mental illness or addiction problem leading to the decision? And have this happened with people other than HIV patients?

Growlr isn't too bad, though I'm a bit more circumspect there than I would be on a site like this. The problem as I see it is that many of the things I like about bears and bear culture in general ... they tend to be a bit more laid back and friendly in my experience than your typical gay guy ... means that many of the bear-oriented web sites seem less about hooking up and more about socializing and chatting. Perhaps that has something to do with the average age of bears. For that sort of thing, I personally like BearUnderground.net. They have chat rooms that get particularly active at certain times of the day. Unfortunately, while it's growing fairly nicely, it's still a relatively new site (especially compared to Bear411, which I personally can't stand) so your chances of actually meeting someone in your area may be slim. They also need better search tools to help you find potential hookups. So not really what we're looking for I guess. There used to be a site called barebackbears.com, but it never really attracted a critical mass of users. While I found plenty of hot men there, they usually were located somewhere else, so I don't think I ever hooked up off that site either. In any case, it shut down a while ago. I hate to say it, but you're probably stuck with the usual suspects when it comes to hooking up. BarebackRT at least allows you to search for guys who are interested in Bears. I have kind of kludged together a search in A4A that returns bear-like men, but it would be kind of nice for all-purpose cruising sites to have an "identifies as" field to search off of.

I think sometimes we don't like to admit that abstinence and monogamy, both pushed pretty heavily by religious conservatives, are both (among other things) highly effective AIDS prevention strategies. They represent the top two most effective methods of preventing infection. And while a lifetime commitment to either or both might be unrealistic for many people, they might be the right things to be doing with your life at certain times and in certain places. Gay men as a group are pretty promiscuous by most standards. And we represent the extreme fringes of that promiscuity. So I kind of take it as a given that any discussion of HIV avoidance strategies that involves giving up sex altogether or limiting your sex to just one other person is probably going to be as popular here as talk of condoms in the Vatican.

It's unusual for me to feel much attraction for professional musicians (even though I'm a pretty big music lover in my own way), but Grant is one of the very, very few exceptions, possibly a minority of one. It doesn't hurt that many of his life experiences have mirrored my own. He's not just physically attractive, but has a beautiful soul too. Or at least that's the impression I get.

OK, I'm going to sound like a anti-sex conservative here, but one thing they do say is true: the only way to be 100% sure you won't get HIV is not to have sex at all. And that's kind of what you've been doing: masturbating to bareback porn is 100% safe. For most of us, regardless of our sex drive, that's not really an option. So we're into the realm of risk management here. You're a total top. That reduces your chance of infection by about an order of magnitude. So that's a good place to start. Next, you've got a sex drive that only kicks in periodically. That means you aren't out getting laid every week. Which means less sex with fewer partners overall. That reduces your cumulative risk of infection.1 What you really want to know is how to weigh the risk between using and not using condoms and other things you can do that would balance out the increased risk of barebacking. Basically, aside from what you're already doing right now, your best bet lies in partner selection. Which you kind of get at: I'm going to assume here that for whatever reason, a committed, monogamous relationship is out of the question for you. If you're just looking to get off every now and then, then your best bet would be to limit yourself to guys you know and trust to be reasonably careful with their own health. What you're looking for isn't so much a "fuckbud" relationship (still less an anonymous and/or random hookup) as a "friends with benefits" relationship. Let me explain the difference between the two: a fuckbud is someone you have sex with but otherwise don't really interact with socially (except maybe to say hi in a bar or on the street). You won't know much about his personal life, maybe not even if he's single or married or has a partner. A friend with benefits, on the other hand, is a friend. You know him. You know if he tends to hit the baths or sleep around. You know if he gets tested regularly. You've built enough of a relationship with him, in other words, that, if he tells you he's HIV-, you can have some confidence that he wouldn't lie to you and that he's not the type that's likely to be unaware he's been infected. And if you're so inclined, you might cultivate two or three friends with benefits (which might work out great if you're into the group thing). Is this foolproof? No. There's still risk involved. But it's less risk than just meeting a guy online who's profile says "HIV-". How much less risk depends on how well you know your friends and can judge their character, how prevalent HIV is where you are, and a whole host of other things. Is it just as effective as using a condom with random hookups? I'd say no. You would be moving into a bit of a higher risk category. But you also have other things you're doing that I mentioned above that already move you into a fairly low risk group. Is it worth it? Well, of course, on a barebacking site like this, we're all going to say it is. But that's a choice you have to make for yourself. 1As an analogy, suppose you flip a coin. What is the chance that it's heads? 1 in 2. Now you flip that coin ten times. What is the chance that it's heads at least once? 1023 / 1024 or 99.90%. HIV only has to infect you once, so the more often you have sex, the more likely you are to be infected.

I agree, not going on meds because you want to feel all edgy and shit about how you don't give a fuck about AIDS is stupid. And yeah, when it comes to fantasizing about getting infected or infecting someone else (especially without their knowledge) with a deadly disease, well perhaps we might suggest that maybe, just maybe, there are certain fantasies that should not be indulged. But there are solid reasons for delaying starting meds if you are otherwise healthy (and by healthy, I mean having CD4 counts in the normal range). Taking HAART isn't like taking an aspirin. Many of the meds can have potentially serious, even potentially deadly side effects. We're talking side effects that can leave you in a permanent state of low-grade nausea and nasty diarrhea. Or fuck with your head and make it impossible to sleep at night or concentrate during the day. Or rob you of any energy to go out and get anything done. And that's just the stuff that I've personally experienced at one time or another (and I count myself as someone who's gotten off pretty lightly). Some can be complicated to take, especially if your life is chaotic. For instance, I have a once-a-day regimen. Simple, right? Except my job has me working and sleeping at a variety of times depending on the work situation. Oh, and I've not supposed to take it with a high-fat meal (like damn near everything they have in truck stops). And it might cause some of that insomnia I mentioned. Now it's not so simple anymore. Now imagine doing that if you have a drug problem. Or an unstable home life. Or don't have much of an income. Any or all of those situations might mean that starting meds earlier might cause problems with adherence which can leave you worse off than you were before. Better by far to deal with the life stuff first, get yourself somewhere stable, then go on meds, if you have that luxury. And then there's the issue of long-term health problems that can accumulate over years of taking the meds. Tenofivir is commonly prescribed as a first line medication. But as bearbandit pointed out on another thread, it can have serious cumulative risks to your kidneys that persists even after its use is discontinued. Other medications place a huge amount of strain and wear and tear on your liver. Will they keep HIV from killing you? Absolutely. But over the long haul, they might themselves end up causing problems too. Why not delay that as long as possible? The decision to start meds is a personal one. All anyone, including doctors, can do is make recommendations. The choice is ultimately yours. You need to do the research, consider the risks and make the best decision you can based on the available data.

Here's my rule of thumb when it comes to drugs, both prescription and otherwise: don't take them, unless you absolutely, positively have to take them in order to survive. Hell, regular acetaminophen, that painkiller that's been widely available everywhere for decades, can completely wreck the liver of a completely healthy young adult if he or she only slightly exceeds the recommended dose. As in put you in your grave. If the stuff they have sitting out on the shelf for anyone to buy has that much risk attached to it, how much more risk is there to the drugs that need a prescription?

There's an article specific to the kidney effects here. Note that the elevated risk persisted even after the drug was discontinued. I'm really of two minds when it comes to PrEP. You're taking some heavy duty, expensive drugs that have potentially life-threatening side effects. I'd hate for someone here who's still negative to end up with permanent liver or kidney damage just because they thought they could take these drugs and get away with barebacking without consequences. Like Heinlein wrote, TANSTAAFL. I've been feeling kinda down lately...feeling my age a bit, plus some other shit, so take this with a grain of salt: If you're so scared of HIV that you're willing to expose yourself to drugs like these, then perhaps barebacking isn't right for you. I can't possibly imagine that any insurance program, private or government, would be willing to fork over the massive expense of PrEP (not to mention the risks) when there are plenty of other perfectly legitimate and much more inexpensive and safer means of dealing with HIV prevention (and that's the old familiar "ABC" method they routinely push in sex-ed). We're talking approximately $7000 per year when you can buy 150 condoms at Walgreen's for $35. What do you think they're going to tell you? And actually, given that there are other effective options out that, I think that might just be the right call. So yeah, I think PrEP is a dead end. Unless the price of HAART drops radically, which ain't on the horizon.

Previously, the CDC here in the US had recommended going on meds when your CD4 count drops below 350 IIRC. More recent research seems to show that your long-term health tends to be better the earlier you start taking your meds. As others have pointed out, the first step here should be to have your CD4 count, viral load and a genotype test done (the genotype test will identify if the particular strain of virus you've got is resistant to any drug classes). Your doctor will probably do a bunch of other blood tests as well to check for possible co-infections like Hep B or C (certain HIV meds can also have an effect on Hep , liver function (if you have liver problems, that excludes taking certain meds that are hard on the liver), etc., etc. Basically, get used to having a bunch of vials of blood drawn whenever you go in for a checkup. So make sure you and your doctor have all of that information first. My suggestion would be that if your CD4 count is above 500 (i.e. in the normal range), you can do without meds for now, but continue getting your numbers checked every three months. If your CD4 count is between 350 and 500, you might want to consider starting meds, even if it's a bit early. Remember, there are side effects you will likely have to work through and getting yourself on a regimen can sometimes be difficult. Easiest to do that if you don't have any other problems to worry about. And research suggests that you'll likely have more success down the road. On the other hand, if you're not psychologically ready to start treatment (it took me about a year), then you can feel free to take a break. Keep monitoring things every three months though. If your CD4 count is 350 or below, I'd recommend starting treatment immediately. The US government has a pretty decent site here, if you want more info.

I thought I'd post a few stories about some of the fun times I've had over the years. This is from the late '90s, while I was on active duty in the Army and stationed just across the Potomac from Washington DC. And I should also point out I was still testing negative at this time. Southeast DC was not one of the touristy areas. That's where the Navy Yard and Fort McNair were. Aside from that, it could be kind of sketchy, cheaper housing, light industrial and commercial space. Not far from the Navy Yard, there was a remarkable street, where in the space of one block there was a bathhouse, and a bar that featured male strippers. I went to the bath now and then, when I could afford a room and liked it much more than the much cleaner and more pretentious place up off Dupont Circle. I never cared much for strippers...look but don't touch ain't my style. But there was also the incredibly named "Glorious Health" club as well, aka the "Glory Hole". The Glory Hole was my first introduction to an arcade / porn theater setup. I'd never visited them before. But a review I'd read before moving to DC hinted that this might be my kind of place: dirty and sleazy, yes, but also with men who had the kind of sexual attitude I liked best. I can't remember the cost to get in, but it was reasonable. There was only a small area up front that sold porn and a few toys. In the back was the interesting part. First there was a small gay porn theater that only rarely had any occupants. Passing through this, you got to the arcade. It was nothing but maybe 8 or 10 booths with doors you could hook shut of varying sizes. The larger ones had wooden benches, like a bathhouse room but without the mattress or sheets. The smaller were just cubicles, most with at least one glory hole to its neighbor. And one such cubicle might have been built for me. I'd walk through the place, looking very obviously like a soldier, with my high and tight and clean shaven looks. I was in my late 20s, and in good shape. I could max out my Army Physical Fitness Test. I also had the confidence that came with rank (I was a sergeant at that point). I'd take a look at the other guys (a mix of gay tourists, maybe another military man, and a healthy mix of locals, mostly black). Then I went to my cubicle, assuming it was unoccupied. I'd go in and lock the door. I'd drop my jeans. On one side of the cube, my ass would go right up to one glory hole. And then, if I bent over at the waist, my mouth was perfectly lined up with the hole on the opposite side. This was the best part...while I enjoyed sucking the cocks that appeared in front of my mouth, I really loved getting plowed through the other hole. It was totally, totally anonymous sex. I had no idea who was fucking me, not his age, not his race, not his appearance, nothing. All I did was reach back to ensure he wasn't wearing a condom and to guide him into my ass. And I'd ride his cock til I felt him cum inside me and then withdraw. I have no idea why I find getting bred anonymously to be so hot. I always have. As wonderful as it is to enjoy a handsome man, to look in his eye was he fucks you, to talk to him and get to know him before and after sex, there is something so utterly perfect in the simplicity of anonymous sex: it strips everything down to the barest of essentials. After that first cock and load, I'd stay for a while longer. I'd return to giving the cock in my mouth the attention it deserved (I've never been good at sucking cock while I get fucked...my mind can't concentrate on cocksucking while my ass is sending waves of pleasure over my entire body). But really, I'd be waiting for more. And usually I got it. Another cock...different size and shape so a different anonymous man...would eventually appear at my ass. I'd back on to it, in heaven at the feeling. The first load I'd taken would help lube the way for the second cock. And I'd ride that one too until I got my reward. Typically, I'd be getting a little tired of my position after three or four cocks had bred me. I'd be hot and sweaty in that little room. And my knees and legs would be getting tired. I'd regretfully stand up and pull up my jeans and walk out again, not talking to anyone. Sometimes I'd sit and rest in the porn theater for a bit, my cock in my hand, hard as a rock more from the fucking I'd taken than the porn on the screen, and the cum slowly leaking out of my ass and making a growing wet spot on my pants. Other times, I'd find a likely bottom and take him into a bigger stall. I preferred fucking guys where I could get a good hold on them and give it to them a little rough. Gloryholes put the bottom in control of the fucking...in general I find that when I top through one, I just push my cock through as far as I can and let the bottom ride me. I like more control than that when I top. Sometimes I'd walk the hall, back to the little maze area in the rear...this was another good place to get fucked...nice and dark and with the added benefit that other guys could watch me having sex. Looking back, I don't really remember a time that I didn't have a good time there. I could generally count on getting at least a couple loads up my ass. And while the men weren't exactly the hottest guys out there in DC, they had exactly the right attitude. They were there to fuck and get fucked, suck and get sucked. And there wasn't any attitude or people looking down at you for being there for sex. It was refreshingly honest, and that made for a lot of great sex. I don't think I ever saw anyone use a condom there either. If there was a place that taught me how much more fun you have if you just let yourself go and have fun with a wide range of guys, rather than my preconceived ideas of who was hot and worthy of my ass, this was it. This was the place that took me from being a guy who liked bareback sex to a real raw sex pig. The old place is gone now, torn down as part of a redevelopment effort and the gentrification of the surrounding neighborhoods. I understand it's moved to a new location. I have no idea if the same spirit is there or not. I hope it is. We pigs need those dark, dirty, sleazy spaces where men can be real men and fuck like the animals we are.

Love hearing from all these pigs out there swapping cum. This wasn't my last load, but it was a good one. Happened to be out for a walk about 9 PM, when the sun sets here and passing close to a park that occasionally cruisy. It was a really nice evening... some clouds but no rain, nice and cool. I strolled through the park easily and struck up conversations with the guys walking around. I came across this handsome bear, probably in his mid thirties. Black short haircut, trimmed full beard, furry chest, shoulders and arms visible under his tank top. He smiled and nodded to me and I went and sat next to him on the bench. A few pleasantries, then I mentioned how I needed an itch scratched...and said I thought he had just what I needed, looking at his crotch. Went off in the bushes where I opened my shorts and knelt down. He pulled down his shorts, revealing a beautiful thick 7 inches with a big head and slight upward curve. I went to town sucking on him til he was rock hard and wet with my spit. He'd been bending over to rub my ass while I was doing that so I already knew we both wanted the same thing. I stood up and bent over against a tree and quickly lubed my hole with some spit. He came up behind me and in seconds he was buried to the hilt in me. He gave me a great fucking for a few minutes before he told me he was close and where did I want him to shoot. I told him I wanted his load deep inside me and he thrust hard and deep, and started fucking me faster and faster...finally felt him go deeper still as he grunted. His cock swelled in my ass as he came. My own cock was rock hard from knowing that he was breeding me deep. Then he pulled out, pulled up his shorts and left without a word, leaving me with a rock hard cock and a wet, well-fucked hole. God damn, I fucking love random anonymous encounters in the great outdoors!