PhoenixGeoff

I've been topping a lot more lately in part because I don't have to worry about cleaning out so if an opportunity comes up, I'm ready to fuck. Having said that, and having been a conscientious bottom who's made a mistake now and then, it doesn't bother me if the guy I'm fucking isn't fully clean. We all know accidents happen and I'm very well aware that I'm putting my dick in your asshole. It behooves me to be prepared to be understanding. (Having said that, springing your scat scene on me as a surprise is definitely not cool. It may be your fetish but it sure as hell ain't mine) If I am going to bottom, I do try to clean out thoroughly in advance. Two sessions in the shower spread about an hour apart usually do it, drinking plenty of water in between to help move things along. Seems to work almost every time.

I know you have promotional reasons for being on Facebook so this is a real problem. Personally, I decided to delete my Facebook profile a year or so ago because of privacy concerns, and I really haven't regretted it at all. I have to work a little harder to stay on top of upcoming events, but that's not really a big deal. I've already installed EFF's Privacy Badger on my computer's browser to block third party tracking cookies (what I like about Privacy Badger is that advertising that doesn't abuse my privacy still gets through, supporting the sites I visit. It only blocks the bad actors). Https everywhere is another easy step to take to protect your internet traffic a bit more with encryption. I'm also working on de-Googling my life for the same reason. Switching my search engine to DuckDuckGo was easy. Next step is buying a secure email account like Hushmail and dropping Gmail. Hardest thing will be working out how to protect myself on my Android phone (which may not be possible) All of the Snowden leaks about the NSA were kind of a wake-up call for me. I realized just how much information I've been handing over willy-nilly to both government and corporate interests, and I'd really rather not do that.

Fascinating news article about a Colombian man with HIV, who also had a tapeworm infection. Apparently, the tapeworms inside him got cancer (I wasn't even aware that it was possible for animals that simple to get cancer, but I guess it is) and then they actually passed that cancer on to him. A unique case of an infectious cancer. Apparently, these tapeworms are pretty common and usually have no symptoms at all. But for this guy, they grew unchecked. Why? Because he was off his meds. Apparently, only two other people have died from this kind of infection, one another HIV patient and the other someone on immunosuppressive drugs due to an organ transplant. Link: http://m.livescience.com/52695-tapeworm-cancer.html

You know, another angle to this is that I started paying a lot more attention to my nutrition and fitness when I tested positive. These days, I hit the gym or exercise some other way a minimum of five days a week, and I've cut back on meat consumption, way back on junk food (aside from gummy bears...I love bears of all kinds LOL) and cut out soda completely, Meanwhile, I eat a ton of fruits and vegetables. It all stems from really coming face-to-face with my mortality. My HIV diagnosis really drove home the fact that I was not, in fact, going to live forever. And so it became important to take much better care of myself than I did before. I wonder if that's a common experience. If so, it may also help explain the results of the study.

I had this once. The pain was excruciating, like being kicked in the balls over and over again. They gave me morphine in the ER just to shut me up. There was a brief worry that one of my nuts had somehow twisted around, cutting off the flow of blood. If that had been the case, I might very easily have lost it. Happily, it was only an infection of some kind. The urologist didn't say anything about it being an STD. Apparently, these things can happen on their own. Antibiotics cleared it up; indeed, I started feeling better (through the morphine haze) almost as soon as I took the first dose. Not an experience I'd care to repeat though. Worst pain of my life.

To everyone who calls an ass a pussy...have you actually ever seen a real pussy? They're fucking nasty. Why the hell would you insult a perfectly good asshole by comparing it to that? When I top, I never call an asshole a pussy, a cunt, or whatever. It's disrespectful to the man I'm fucking.

You know, the interesting thing is, I find there are plenty of guys in their 50s, who would have been coming out in the late '70s to early-to-mid '80s, and who therefore saw the worst of the AIDS crisis up close, who have a pretty straightforwardly piggy attitude towards sex. Go to places like Palm Springs and you'll find quite a few. It's possible that they are the guys who came out later in life, thus avoiding the worst of things, and who are also interested in making up for lost time. Or it's possible that, with effective treatments now, they're simply reverting to the common practices of their youth. Or maybe they were just the lucky ones. It really is almost as if you managed to hang on past that magic date in 1995, you made it; I've known guys who were down to single-digit levels of CD4 cells who came back from the brink with the first cocktales. It would be interesting to hear the perspective of guys from that generation on how their sex lives have evolved over the course of their lives from their 20s to today, and how the AIDS crisis helped shape that (or didn't).

I gotta disagree with a lot of this pretty strenuously. First of all, while it is true that in the English Common Law tradition (of which the US is a part), regulation of marriage was strictly reserved to the Church historically (first the Catholic Church, then after the Reformation, the Church of England), that's actually an unusual state of affairs among European countries (having to do, mostly, with the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170). In civil law countries, regulation of marriage has historically been the province of the secular state. As a matter of fact, you can trace the antecedents of civil marriage law all the way back to Roman times. It's there in the Justinian Code. And, going back to pagan times, there was no monolithic ecclesiastical authority that could regulate marriage. While Shakespeare may have Romeo and Juliet married by a priest, in Mozart operas (e.g. Così Fan Tutte), marriages are always conducted by a notary. In fact, even in Roman Catholic Canon Law, marriage in a church before a priest is not a requirement for the creation of a marriage until the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Prior to that, all that was needed is for a man and a woman without any impediments (e.g. a prior marriage) telling each other they will marry the other. No witnesses, no nothing. The whole elaborate marriage ceremony, done in a Church cam about because disputes that arose out of such marriages conducted in secret became impossible to work out fairly, as they turned into "he said, she said" arguments. But beyond that, there are actually good reasons for why sex may need to be regulated pretty tightly in order to preserve social harmony. First, there is the question of monogamy and the paternity of children. Whether or not it's logical, it is undeniable that, in general and on a very deep subconcious level, most men are concerned that the offspring their wives bear and that they raise are their own. This is a simple fact of human nature. The lengths men have gone to to prevent their wives from having sex with other men is amply documented in history, literature, art, mythology, everywhere you turn. There is strong cross-cultural documentation of this possessiveness; it's not just a European or Judeo-Christian thing (there's ample proof of it in the classical period of Greek history, for instance, long before the birth of Christ). Marriage laws and customs simply codify this fact of human nature: they tell you it's a bad idea to fuck another man's wife, because it's going to cause trouble. Second, there is a very deep suspicion in many cultures of indulging in actions aimed at fulfilling one's own desires. Again, this kind of self-denial, while deeply embedded in Christianity, can be found in many other places too. Buddhism is an excellent example, as is Aristotelian ethical philosophy. The general idea here is that chasing after ones desires, whether for sex, power, wealth, glory, fame, whatever, is ultimately self-defeating. Fulfillment of desires does not bring lasting happiness. It may temporarily satiate you, but then the desire returns, stronger than ever, always seeking more and more for fulfillment. As exhibit A, I submit the bottom guys here, endlessly chasing more and more sex, and never satisfied with what they have. Exhibit B might be the Wall Street hedge fund managers, who have more money than generations of the their families could ever spend. And it's still never enough...they need more. These various religions and philosphies teach that the only way to find lasting happiness and satisfaction is to learn how to lose those desires and to live without them. All desires, both wants and needs, are suspect. You train yourself to avoid them by practicing self-denial. This is why fasting is an important part of many religions. This is also why sex is closely regulated. Obviously, it's needed to propagate the species, but the desire for sex is an incredibly strong one, right up there with food, water and air, and so it's one that historically has been regulated very closely. On a related note I think it's pretty apparent that people who are motivated strongly by their self-centered urges often do a fair amount of collateral damage to society around them. Look at the would-be dictator craving power. Look at the payday loan operators charging usurious interest to those least able to afford it. One reason many religions try to get people focused on identifying with and helping to meet the needs of others is that it helps foster a much stronger community than having everyone focused on chasing after his or her own personal desires and goals. Third, historically, sex has been a vector for a lot of really deadly diseases. This community should be very well aware of just how dangerous promiscuity can be. But it's not just HIV. Many other STDs, like syphilis or gonorrhea had very high mortality rates prior to the discovery of antibiotics. Syphilis, in particular, had a particularly gruesome end, with people in the tertiary stage often suffering blindness and dementia.and eventually dying of the disease. One could make the argument that many religious prohibitions have the roots in efforts to prevent the spread of disease. For instance, the prohibition of eating pork in Judaism may be related to deaths caused by trichonosis. Alternatively, it may be related to damage caused by pigs to the more delicate semi-desert ecology of the Levant. In short, there are a lot of reasons why religion may regulate behavior, not all of them reducible to gaining and keeping control over the population (not even Marx, who conceived of religion as the "opiate of the masses" would have viewed religion in such simple terms). Perhaps those reasons are wrongly conceived. Perhaps they have been superseded by techonological and cultural change. But perhaps not. In any case, I am rather of the opinion that traditional reasoning should not be lightly dismissed, at least not without taking a long, serious look at it and determining why it's wrong.

I dunno...I think the same cruising dynamics apply to both young and old. I've had young guys approach me online (so obviosuly they saw something they liked in spite of/because of the age difference) and had the discussion peter out just as often as with the guys my age. Maybe it's different if both guys are young, but I doubt it. If anything, younger guys these days are even more wedded to the virtual aspects of sex and cruising than we geezers are. I wouldn't be surprised if the typical guy in his 20s wasn't having less actual sex than I did at the same age. And we did sort ourselves out by age back when I was in my 20s too. We just did it in different physical spaces rather than virtual ones. Certain bars catered to a younger crowd. Others drew in more mature guys.

One thing that might help here is to consider the worst case scenario. Suppose you have an HIV test that does come back positive? What then? HIV is not a death sentence any more. I, personally, have been living a healthy life, with no symptoms and no loss of quality of life now for 13 years. Many other men have been doing the same for far longer. HIV is not the Mark of Cain any more. Back in the bad old days, men with HIV faced a lot of discrimination. But as times have moved on, and gay men have become better educated about what is an isn't risky, and as HIV+ guys have been seen to be living good, healthy and normal lives, that discrimination has faded considerably (mostly, I find it among the "straight" and bi guys). HIV has never been a moral judgment. God did not give me HIV to punish me for my sins. HIV is a virus, no more, no less. And just as I take antibiotics if I happen to get strep throat, so too do I take HIV meds to control that infection. I look at my life now, thirteen years since my diagnosis, and I have a job I like, lots of friends I enjoy spending time with, lots of activities and hobbies I enjoy, lots to sex even if I want it, a full and thoroughly happy life, which I am enormously grateful for. HIV has done nothing at all to diminish me in any of those ways. There are sensible things you can and should do to help prevent infection. You forgot to do one of those things once. It's OK. You're human. Nobody's perfect. And chances are, nothing will come of it. And even if something does come of it, you'll still be fine.

Yeah, it's been years since I had an HIV test, so I'm not up on how well they work now. Things have improved considerably since I tested positive Incidentally, I found the thread where I geeked out on all the probabilities. It's here. Note that when I wrote that, we still weren't sure how well PrEP would work. Turns out it works a lot better than I thought at the time. Also note that a guy taking absolutely no precautions whatsoever and getting fucked and bred 45 times by total strangers still is more likely than not going to be HIV- still. So topping seven guys raw means your risk is really very low (but again, not zero...get tested!)

I hate to straight up contradict you, but you're very wrong. At one point or another, I actually crunched through the probabilities based on the best data I was able to find regarding HIV transmission rates for both bottoms and tops (incidentally, the risk to a BB top is about an order of magnitude lower than for the bottom because the bottom gets the load), and the prevalence of HIV in the gay community. Neglecting the effects of HIV meds (which greatly lower the risk of transmission), the odds of getting infected are, IIRC, very low. As in less than 1% for the top. Why is it so many gay men have HIV then if it's so hard to transmit the virus? Easy: the virus only has to be transmitted once. Every time you have unprotected sex, you raise your cumulative risk of infection. The more promiscuous you are, the greater your chances. Even so, my admittedly back-of-the-envelope calculations showed that a bottom who wasn't serosorting and always barebacked would have to get fucked hundreds of times to have a 50/50 chance of getting HIV. Of course, as this site shows, there are quite a few of us who are that promiscuous, especially looking at our sexual activity over a lifetime. Reading through your post, it sounds like you fucked bareback seven times. It sounds like you didn't know the status of any of the men you fucked (it's entirely possible that all, some or none of them were positive...you don't know). To me, it sounds as if your risk of infection right now is very low. Not zero, but unlikely. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take action now. Cumulative risk, remember? Each time you have sex, it increases your overall odds of infection. So here's what I suggest: Go get an HIV test now. Wait until three months after your last time fucking someone bareback, then go get tested again (this is because there is a time gap between when you are first infected and when your body starts producing antibodies that the HIV tests detect. During that time it is possible to be infected and yet still test negative. That window closes after three months). If that test is also negative then you're home free. Now you have a choice. Either resume your previous life and only use condoms when you have sex. OR (and this is my suggestion), go to your doctor, tell him or her you are sexually active with other men and want to get on PrEP. You'll get a prescription for an HIV med. Start taking it as directed. Then go out and breed all the ass you want.

I would submit that, as a group, the membership of this forum is uniquely unqualified to venture an opinion on this subject. First, there seem to be a lot of guys here who themselves experienced sexual abuse of some kind when they were young. Regardless of whether you experienced that positively or negatively, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that such an important experience in one's life would absolutely warp your judgment on this issue. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone who lived through that experience could possibly arrive at an objective opinion. To make an analogy, rape victims have had an intense sexual experience. Much as I might sympathize with them, I would not want them writing the laws for how we deal with rape. They could never form a balanced opinion; they're too close to the issue. Second, every one of us here is a pretty extreme outlier in terms of our sexual activity (or we aspire to be). Everyone here, to a greater or lesser extent, has built their life around having sex. Without passing judgment on the choice, I would say that taking such an out-of-the-mainstream position disqualifies us to be able to judge what would be right for society at large. Third, and most importantly, most of us are not fathers. I believe that parenthood changes your opinion on how you look at children and teens, for the better. If anyone is going to be using their judgment for when it is appropriate for men to become sexually active, I believe that parents, not us (especially not those who look at these kids as objects of desire), are best placed to make those judgments.

(Dredging up an old, but very good post that I seem to have missed) I think what you have to understand here is that the age of consent in the 18th and 19 century is identical with the age you can marry. People in the 18th and 19th centuries did not think about sex in the same way as we do. Hell, they didn't think about marriage in the same way either. Marriages may not have been arranged, strictly speaking, but it was still customary in this country well into the 20th century for a young man to ask his future father in law for permission to marry his daughter (and permission was not necessarily automatically granted). So what you're talking about there isn't sex in the sense of hooking up on BBRT. It's sex in the sense of let's get married and raise a family. Granted, they still had brothels and prostitutes and there were also young women who got pregnant out of wedlock, but those things were not the norm (as sex outside of marriage has become now) and carried extremely heavy burdens of social disapproval, as did, of course, sex between men. Sex was extremely closely regulated in many ways it isn't now, especially as you climbed up the social ladder.

I appreciate that you've made it clear that this is something you don't want to act on. But dude...think for a minute here. Is this fantasy of yours really something you want to stoke and feed? Do you really want to encourage yourself to wrap your sexual fantasies around this (hopefully) unattainable object? Don't you think that might lead you to nothing but frustration? Or worse, to eventually reaching the point where acting on this might seem like a good idea? And even if that's something you're willing to feed in yourself, do you really want to do that in someone else's mind? We all have a lot of different sexual fantasies. And we all have the ability to pick and choose between the ones we allow ourselves to indulge in and the ones we know will bring us nothing but misery. Happiness lies in knowing how to make that choice. To me, this choice sounds like one that will not bring you any happiness.

So here's my theory on this. There are two parts. Part the First: The Internet Sucks and not in a good way So, while I appreciate sites like this which help connect virtually with like-minded individuals, it has been my observation that the Internet has absolutely killed cruising. First, porn. Everybody loves porn, right? Well yeah, that's kind of the problem. We love it too much. You're horny. What do you do? Get dressed up and head out to a bar? Maybe drop by the bath for a few hours? No. Chances are you're going to jump on the internet with some vague notion of maybe hooking up, but things get frustrationg quickly, so you pull out your cock and start looking at pictures. Or, having flipped through all the guys on BBRT, you hop on over to your favorite porn site and stroke your meat. And before you know it, you've shot a load and now you're ready to get back to work or head to bed or whatever. Back in the day, porn was expensive. You might have a few grainy, well worn VHS tapes. And you would have seen them so many times that they'd have lost their potency. And before that, if you wanted porn, you had to go to a XXX theater (where you might very likely end up hooking up with a like-minded individual). Or get off to photos in magazines or erotic stories. And it turned up in an embarrassing brown paper package that the postman handed to you with a smirk. In other words, as porn has gotten better and cheaper and easier to get into the privacy of your bedroom. But that has made it a much more viable replacement for other kinds of, you know, actual sex. So why don't the hookup sites work? Low barrier to entry. This seems wrong...more guys online means more chances to fuck, right? Except before, when you went out to a bar or a bath, you made a real investment in your cruising, in the form of getting ready, travel, possibly a cover or entry fee, drinks, time. You sank that investment into your night out with some expectation that it would pay off in the form of a hook up. Which meant that you damn well better find someone before they got close to last call or the investment would be lost. Online, the investment you make into hooking up is very, very small. There's a one-time investment in the time it takes to set up a profile. You might pay a fee, but it's not required. And you can even do other stuff (work, watch TV, talk on the phone) while you cruise. If you don't hook up, you've lost practically nothing. So nothing pushes you to pull the trigger on a hookup. The Grass is Always Greener. Cruising online practically demands that you have to juggle several potential hookups at once. It only makes sense...if you message five different guys, maybe two might respond. If you did that sequentially, cruising would almost never work. But now you've got two guys interested. So you have to make a choice. Which can be hard to do. So you message back and forth while trying to close the deal. And they're doing the same thing. Meanwhile, you still hold out hope that your perfect man will show up if you just stay online for a few minutes more. And in the meantime, you lose the bird in the hand while going after the two in the bush. Fuck. Cruising in real life starts out with very publicly visible cues. Eye contact generally starts things off. And from there, it might go to conversation, or straight to making out. But see what you've done there? You've both made a choice that you're pretty locked into. Once you start getting each others' hands in your pants, it's pretty clear where things are going and the other options go away. The Amazon Factor. I'm convinced that shopping online has conditioned us to approach sex in commercial terms. We want a guy with a particular kind of body, demeanor, dick size, age, race, sexual preference, etc. And if a potential fuck doesn't measure up, then we either defer or reject him outright. Which isn't to say that some level of selectivity didn't exist in bars (they used to call 'em meat markets for a reason). But the key difference was that a bar had a more-or-less fixed population. If your perfect man wasn't there, you either compromised or didn't get laid. Online sites, on the other hand, give the illusion of a more or less unlimited supply of men to choose from, especially now that we can "cruise" guys who are half a world away. Inevitably, the men who are actually locally available won't measure up to your fantasy man who (curse the bad luck!) lives in Bujumbura. And there's always the chance that Mr. Perfect will sign on in the next few minutes.... The problem is, between the high quallity and quantity of porn out there and the promise of easy online hookups (a promise that is never delivered), we've mostly killed off cruising in bars and elsewhere. Which sucks, because cruising in person was, IMO, a hell of a lot more effective. And fun, for that matter. Part the Second: Life is (Too) Good so lets stay home and raise a family The last twenty years have seen a hell of a lot of social change regarding homosexuality. Every year, it gets a bit easier to come out of the closet at an earlier and earlier age. Every year, fewer and fewer gay teens or adults have to struggle with discrimination from their own families when they do come out. Our institutions: schools, churches, hospitals, governments, businesses, employers, all have become much more welcoming and supportive. This is unquestionably a good thing. But it has a bad side effect. Fifty years ago, if you were a gay guy, your options were severely limited. Most ended up living deep in the closet, either in sham marriages, or in lives of more-or-less enforced chastity (many Catholic gay men, for example, ended up in the priesthood, which caused problems for both the individuals concerned and the Church as a whole). If you wanted to be "out of the closet" to any degree, you had to live in a major city, preferably New York or San Francisco. And being out of the closet meant you went to gay bars that paid the cops off to not be raided. You certainly won't open at work and probably weren't with your family. So we turned to each other. And, finding that living in the city core was affordable (since all the families were moving out to the suburbs), it was easy for us to take over a neighborhood and make it our own. And, unrestrained by conventional morality (churches would have nothing to do with us and oftentimes, neither would our families), we embraced our own sexual ethics. Those influences are all running in reverse now. We're no longer cast out. We can be gay anywhere. Hell, we've got businesses supporting us in Mississippi, of all places. Even the city centers, which used to be affordable places young men could move to and reasonably expect to find work and an affordable place to live, are increasingly out of reach for a lot of gay guys (I personally couldn't possibly live in Manhatten or SF the way things are now). So the community is a lot more diffused. And a lot more assimilated. Which means that we end up acting a lot more like our straight counterparts do. Not completely—we've still got a lot of gay cultural messages that push us to be a bit more promiscuous, and we are still men too—but a lot more than we used to be. There is a generational disconnect here. Guys my age and older may have lived through the AIDS crisis (which you would think would make us more inclined to chastity rather than less) seem to still have something of that same fairly blithe and carefree attitude towards sex that is a holdover from the '70s and early '80s. Younger guys, who grew up with same-sex marriage in the wind (if not yet a reality) seem to, in general, aspire to something more conventional, something I never thought I could have. As I said, this is a good thing. But not if you're interested in a highly sexually liberated and promiscuous gay community.

This is nothing new. For as long as I've been out of the closet, any city that has had two or more bathhouses has had this same divide. One (usually the cleaner, nicer one) will cater more to the younger, twinkie crowd and the older guys who chase them. As you say, many of these guys are prissy. Often, they want to be sluts, but don't want anyone to know about it. Like many youngsters, they can be ruthless about who they find attractive. The other will usually cater to older guys, more masculine types, bears, maybe leathermen (though it's rare to see any leather in a bath, unless there's a special event). Guys there have generally been around the scene for a while and are a lot more comfortable having their business be known. And they tend not to be quite as hung up on appearances (after all, as we age, we all acquire our flaws!) I've found this to be true in pretty much every city I've lived in where I've frequented the baths, from Toronto in the early '90s and Washington DC in the late '90s to Denver and Phoenix these days. And, of course, everyone knows there's a similar breakdown between bars (bear, leather, dance, country, stand & model, etc.) and websites (Bear Underground, Recon, Grindr, Growlr, Scruff).

So here in the US, there's been a pretty stark contrast between the two major parties on gay issues over the last 20-30 years, which means that most gay guys have been pretty reliable Democrats. However, we're reaching an interesting point in our history where our political agenda with respect to gay men, bisexuals and lesbians has largely been accomplished (ENDA being the only outstanding issue I can think of). Moreover, social acceptance of LGBT people is increased enormously over my lifetime, and I only see that trend continuing to improve. Even Republicans are coming around to a limited extent. Several GOP Presidential candidates are behind ENDA (if still opposing marriage), and many conservatives have, if not gotten on board with marriage rights, have made their peace with the idea that same-sex marriage isn't going away. And many more libertarians (who often end up supporting the GOP based on economic issues) have been with us since the beginning. Which leads us to an interesting situation where a big reason to vote for Democrats has now effectively been taken off the table. Assuming LGBT issues have been your big motivator, do they still carry the same amount of importance for you? Are you a "single issue" voter? Maybe transgendered rights are important to you. Or maybe you're grateful for the way Democrats have delivered for us. Or you would like our foreign policy to press other countries to be more tolerant. Or do you have a new big issue? The economy? Foreign affairs? Environmental issues? Other social issues like abortion or euthanasia? And how would you define your political philosophy overall? Socialist? Libertarian (or classically liberal, for non-US folks)? Conservative? Some weird mixture of all of the above?

I would add one more thing: institute the secret ballot in Congress. I guarantee every hypocritical "family values" congressman who votes against gay issues but has a wide stance in the airport man's room would vote to pass your agenda. Which would be probably the entire GOP caucus.

I'll second a lot of what has been said here. First off, it's absolutely true that well all are into different things. Supposedly, a lot of guys find skinny, young, hairless guys attractive. I couldn't be more turned off by all of those things. I've always preferred my men to be manly. There are guys out there into literally every age, race, appearance and body type. You just have to find em. Having said that, if all you're after is maximizing the number of different guys who'll have sex with you, it is true that a slutty young twinkie boy will have an easier time finding multiple guys to have sex with him that someone who's more my age, or built larger, or whatever. Fair or unfair, that's an unfortunate fact of life. If it's any consolation, my general observation has been that age is not usually kind to those guys. Having said that, there are things you can do that can help out. You've already said you've lost 40 pounds, which is really impressive. You can continue to do more stuff that will help you along. Exercise would be the next thing I would try to work in (and I know that's really hard to do when you're OTR). Which leads me to my next suggestion: I had a really hard time getting laid when I was driving OTR. You're never in one place long enough to meet any of the locals, you can't get away from the truck stops (which are often far away from where the guys are). Plus, it's a really unhealthy lifestyle, what with the shitty truck stop food and a job that entails sitting on your ass all day. It's no wonder that the biggest health problems drivers face are all related to obesity. So my suggestion would be, if this is really a priority for you, quit the long haul driving and find yourself a good local job somewhere. Preferably one with regular hours, so you can get 8 hours of sleep the same time every night. You might even look into something that involves offloading deliveries (Shamrock Foods, Core-Mark, beer distributors, grocery distributors, etc., etc.) which will keep you moving through the day. Then start cooking your meals at home, pack a lunch, get a gym membership and use it, and you'll find that interest in you will go up. These things will also help elevate your mood and increase your self-confidence. And self confidence (and how you carry yourself generally) also will help with your desirability. Plus, lifting weights naturally boosts your testosterone (and hence your performance), which imporves pretty much everything across the board. If you're really wedded to the OTR thing though (maybe you're an O/O), unfortunately, you're just not going to have the same kinds of opportunities. Yeah, there are guys out there with trucker fetishes who will drive a hour each way just for the chance to climb in your sleeper and get you naked, but they're not as common as you and I might wish they were. And a lot of them are bottoms.

It's an attention getting word, like "Hey" or "So" (as in, "So, a man walks into a bar...."). Very commonly used and a very old rhetorical device in English. The first word of Beowulf, "Hwæt," means pretty much the same thing, and that's a bit of English that's over a thousand years old.

I won't argue over the name calling, though I would defend 99037's right to use forceful language to express something he's clearly very passionate about (with good reason, it sounds like). People should be aware that being on meds is often pretty straightforward these days with minimal side effects. But no drug is without side effects completely. Some people are more sensitive to HIV meds than others. There are such things as allergies. And there are potential long term effects that can build up over time that could cause real damage (many of the meds are pretty hard on your liver, for instance). For anyone who is negative and you is considering throwing caution to the wind, I would very strongly encourage them to do something I did not do and regret not doing. Stop and think about why you are having thoughts that are, on some level, self-destructive. (And yes, deliberately engaging in behavior, no matter how good it feels, that could reasonably land you with an incurable and potentially fatal disease is unquestionably self-destructive). I haven't sorted through all of through all of the reasons why I acted the way that I did and got HIV. I can tell you that I am fairly sure I was living with undiagnosed depression from my teenage years on. I can also tell you that I had (and, to some degree still have) some major problems with internalized homophobia and a resulting sense of threatened masculinity. And I can also tell you that my substance abuse (which was fueled by the other issues I mentioned) really did not help my decision making process. In retrospect, and as a more mature person, I doubt I would make the same decisions today if I were faced with them. Which isn't to say that I have regrets. On the contrary, my experiences, good, bad and ugly, have made me the man I am today, and I think that man is a pretty decent guy. But I have paid a very high price for whatever wisdom I've managed to scrape together. I'm not saying "Don't do what I did," outright. I am saying rather, "Think carefully before making this decision and analyze your motives."

I certainly hope this would only apply to men who are aware of your status and are making that choice with open eyes. This is still a potentially deadly disease we're talking about here. Stealthing is (1) almost certainly illegal, as in prison-time illegal (and by posting this here you've just handed prosecutors their case on a silver platter) and (2) really fucking evil (and not in a dark and sexy way, but in a beat the fucking shit out of your sorry ass way)

Yeah the dark story would be me murdering in cold blood out on the street in broad daylight with my bare hands anyone I ever caught even thinking of introducing a horrific virus like that into the gay community.

So I'm curious as to what your perception of your thought process was during all of this. Did you really think you were James Bond? Or did your brain come up with a way to "excuse" your acting as the hyptonist suggested (perhaps by laughing at it inwardly and telling yourself you'd go along with it "just for fun")? Or perhaps you don't have any memory of it at all?