Is stealthing morally okay?

[HardOneLA]

4 hours ago, orionboy1 said:

Topic aside, I woke up too early and cant get back to sleep. Just downloaded Tim Deans book, looking forward to this read. ?

Great to hear, orion.  Hope you find it interesting and enlightening.

[tallslenderguy]

13 hours ago, pervfantasy24 said:

I can't answer that for you, but it seems pointless to try and put yourself in someone's shoes who is so radically different from you (you seem like a very kind soul), say, Dahmer, for example, and then to contrive a causal explanation for their behavior based on that 'empathic positioning'. Or to speculate about what a sadistic sex offender's 'real needs' might be. It also seems unlikely that we could have 'healed' Dahmer if only we had understood things from his point of view, as you seemed to be hinting at. If i remember correctly, he was diagnosed with psychopathy - not a curable condition. Maybe you don't like to see the darker places that exist in the world.

But I think two more points about stealthing are worth pointing out: On the one hand, it is a fringe behavior within what might be called 'mainstream' barebacking subculture that has the risky potential, because of its extreme nature, to lead to the entire barebacking community to being stigmatized and pathologized. If you like to see an example of this maybe check out the work of the arguably homophobic (though unintentionally) health researcher Michele Crossley, whose work reads like bareback is a nasty cancer to be eliminated ('healed') from an otherwise healthy body of gay males. For her, much like you seem to believe, the men engaging in these behaviors do so because they are compelled to by pathological narratives in gay culture (and not because of any psychological or biological causes), a very popular view in the social sciences. I disagree with it ; biological (genetic) and personality factors are just as important in sexuality as cultural ones.

On the other hand tho, people who engage in this fringe behavior might come to places as this one for inspiration, confirmation or whatever. Some might have stealthing fantasies and wonder if it's normal. The discussion above seems to suggest that extreme sadistic fantasies are exclusive to psychopaths or serial killers. This is an exaggeration. According to many psychiatrists, normal people have violent unconscious fantasies and as long as they don't occur in obsessive or psychotic ways they don't mean you're sick if you have them. Hurting someone in your fantasy is not quite the same as doing it in real life. Declaring otherwise can have nasty effects. Poz gay men are stigmatized within the gay community and poz barebackers are stigmatized even within the poz gay community. Now, poz gay men who are stealthers are stigmatized even within the barebacking 'mainstream'. The effect of putting anything that has to do with stealthing into the Jeffrey Dahmer category should be obvious to the reader by now. Someone with stealth fantasies could flip several ways in such a scenario, such as reject, hide, deny those fantasies, or accept the stigmatized / spoiled identity offered to him. Both seem to have bad consequences.

 

 i can't answer that either, so i posed it as a question instead of a statement, i want to be careful to qualify my assertions are often just personal feelings, perceptions vs facts. [laughing at self], i came out of a fundamentalist background, as part of my 'coming out' i tend to eschew absolutes universally.  Thank you for saying so. Kindness is important to me, i want to practice kindness. 

i see stealthing as fringe too.  i don't know "Crorssley," but words like "healed"  evoke memories of 'reparative therapy' in me (an effect of her unintentional homophobia?).  Imagine straight culture treating condomless sex (barefronting?) as a "nasty cancer to be eliminated from an otherwise healthy body of [straights]."  Condomeless sex spreads disease, and has always spread disease, in straight culture, it also has the unique potential (to straights) of making unwanted babies. i'm guessing, but confidently, that gay culture didn't invent "stealthing," that it existed long before HIV was around. 

i may misunderstand you, but i do not consider barebacking to be "compelled...by pathological narratives in gay culture" (perhaps you meant stealthing?). If anything, it seems opposite to me. I.e., the compulsion to wear condoms is (often) compelled by pathological narratives internalized by gay culture from straight. While i can see an argument to be made for condomes in both gay and straight culture, in either instance they seem 'unnatural' to me.  Condomes strike me as a compromise of nature that our human reason has come up with to survive or avoid certain consequences (i.e., babies, disease). 

"Biological (genetic) and personality factors are just as important in sexuality as cultural ones."  It sure seems that way to me, maybe even more so than it would to the 'average' gay? i came out of an era and culture that taught me that being gay is "sick and/or sinful."  i had to process through (old) medical and religious notions.  In the end, it was my one man study that 'proved' to me (i don't present my experience as evidence for anyone else) that my sexuality is, in large part, intrinsic.  For me, the pathological narratives came from straight and religious culture. 

"Hurting someone in your fantasy is not quite the same as doing it in real life. Declaring otherwise can have nasty effects. Poz gay men are stigmatized within the gay community and poz barebackers are stigmatized even within the poz gay community."

i so agree with this. Having come from a conservative religious culture.  i may be super sensitized to, what often seems to me to be, internalized stuff by mainstream culture from  patriarchal religious culture.  In fundamentalist Christian culture it is purported that Jesus taught (paraphrasing): 'if you think it in your heart, it is the same as having done it.'  The reference was to "adultery."  I.e., if one 'commits' adultery in ones heart, it's the equivalent to having done it.  i think this notion has infected a lot of mainstream culture and a lot of people unconsciously feel this way. i see a whole lot of difference between thinking murderous thoughts against the person who just cut me off in traffic and a drive by shooting. 

[pervfantasy24]

23 minutes ago, tallslenderguy said:

 i can't answer that either, so i posed it as a question instead of a statement, i want to be careful to qualify my assertions are often just personal feelings, perceptions vs facts. [laughing at self], i came out of a fundamentalist background, as part of my 'coming out' i tend to eschew absolutes universally.  Thank you for saying so. Kindness is important to me, i want to practice kindness. 

i see stealthing as fringe too.  i don't know "Crorssley," but words like "healed"  evoke memories of 'reparative therapy' in me (an effect of her unintentional homophobia?).  Imagine straight culture treating condomless sex (barefronting?) as a "nasty cancer to be eliminated from an otherwise healthy body of [straights]."  Condomeless sex spreads disease, and has always spread disease, in straight culture, it also has the unique potential (to straights) of making unwanted babies. i'm guessing, but confidently, that gay culture didn't invent "stealthing," that it existed long before HIV was around. 

i may misunderstand you, but i do not consider barebacking to be "compelled...by pathological narratives in gay culture" (perhaps you meant stealthing?). If anything, it seems opposite to me. I.e., the compulsion to wear condoms is (often) compelled by pathological narratives internalized by gay culture from straight. While i can see an argument to be made for condomes in both gay and straight culture, in either instance they seem 'unnatural' to me.  Condomes strike me as a compromise of nature that our human reason has come up with to survive or avoid certain consequences (i.e., babies, disease).  

"Biological (genetic) and personality factors are just as important in sexuality as cultural ones."  It sure seems that way to me, maybe even more so than it would to the 'average' gay? i came out of an era and culture that taught me that being gay is "sick and/or sinful."  i had to process through (old) medical and religious notions.  In the end, it was my one man study that 'proved' to me (i don't present my experience as evidence for anyone else) that my sexuality is, in large part, intrinsic.  For me, the pathological narratives came from straight and religious culture. 

"Hurting someone in your fantasy is not quite the same as doing it in real life. Declaring otherwise can have nasty effects. Poz gay men are stigmatized within the gay community and poz barebackers are stigmatized even within the poz gay community."

i so agree with this. Having come from a conservative religious culture.  i may be super sensitized to, what often seems to me to be, internalized stuff by mainstream culture from  patriarchal religious culture.  In fundamentalist Christian culture it is purported that Jesus taught (paraphrasing): 'if you think it in your heart, it is the same as having done it.'  The reference was to "adultery."  I.e., if one 'commits' adultery in ones heart, it's the equivalent to having done it.  i think this notion has infected a lot of mainstream culture and a lot of people unconsciously feel this way. i see a whole lot of difference between thinking murderous thoughts against the person who just cut me off in traffic and a drive by shooting. 

Interesting comments, and how interesting that you come from such a background, I really believe it gives you extra perspective/an enhanced philosophical capacity for a lot of things.

About Crossley: She doesn't just say stealthing is driven by cultural processes in 'the gay men's community' --notice 'the', as if there were only one-- but rather that barebacking (which in her definition at least at some point was equal to 'UAI' / unprotected anal intercourse) is. Just like you, I don't agree with such a one-sided perspective - I'm sure processes related to barebacking have their origin in many different processes not all of which are 'cultural'. In a 2004 article she claims her goal is to explain 'the gay man's psyche', which in itself is very ambitious and questionable in the very least. Gay men have not just one 'psyche' or one culture.

In part, though, she would probably agree with you (when you say "the compulsion to wear condoms is (often) compelled by  . . . narratives internalized by gay culture from straight", I think she would fully agree (without the word that I omitted); many theoreticians see 'UAI' as 'reactance' or kind of reactionary resistance to decades of prevention campaign messages, which are aimed at kind of prototype of 'the healthy/normal, non-pathological gay man'). But such explanations don't cover the whole phenomenon in its richness, they only provide speculative clues to what might be one of the causes for it.. Complex phenomena are rarely explained by a single 'fact' and I very much agree with you on the view that sexuality is to a large degree driven from the 'inside'.

Very fascinating to hear about this theological perspective on fantasy ( "In fundamentalist Christian culture it is purported that Jesus taught (paraphrasing): 'if you think it in your heart, it is the same as having done it.' " ). I know of a few other religions where this view is commonly heard... Makes sense that it should be popular in mainstream culture, accompanied by the appropriate dosis of guilt or a tendency to hide/push away any unacceptable elements of one's fantasy. An additional source of this (almost) equation between fantasy and reality might be research in health and forensic science on things like 'fantasy rehearsal' and the relationship of fantasy to action (but that would not be regarding 'healthy' ways of fantasizing, without a criminal background, like the traffic situation you mentioned.. Unless someone keeps repeating such murderous thoughts compulsively all the time, or stops maintaining their own conscious distinction between fantasy and reality).

[orionboy1]

2 hours ago, HardOneLA said:

Great to hear, orion.  Hope you find it interesting and enlightening.

I read the first chapter, kinda disappointed, all this guy talks about is bugchasing/gift giving it seems like. I get it, back when this was published HIV and BB went hand in hand. However, these days it doesn't have to be that way. 

 

 I have no intention on converting over to being poz, if I was not on PrEP, granted I would not be having BB sex, and if a guy stealthed me and in turn pozzed me, I would try and do everything I could to have him charged to the full extent of the law, possibly saving other innocent guys from this creep. Its sexual assualt in an extreme sense in my eyes.

However, if a guy is barebacking and not on PrEP and a top lies about his status and pozzes him I still see it as wrong, however, I blame both parties nearly equally, BB bottom should have been well aware of the risks he was taking, while the top lied (which is wrong) its not nearly as bad as trying to poz a guy that is taking all the proper safety precautions only to be completely blindsided by a sexual predator. 

 

Just my .02

 

[tallslenderguy]

41 minutes ago, pervfantasy24 said:

Interesting comments, and how interesting that you come from such a background, I really believe it gives you extra perspective/an enhanced philosophical capacity for a lot of things.

About Crossley: She doesn't just say stealthing is driven by cultural processes in 'the gay men's community' --notice 'the', as if there were only one-- but rather that barebacking (which in her definition at least at some point was equal to 'UAI' / unprotected anal intercourse) is. Just like you, I don't agree with such a one-sided perspective - I'm sure processes related to barebacking have their origin in many different processes not all of which are 'cultural'. In a 2004 article she claims her goal is to explain 'the gay man's psyche', which in itself is very ambitious and questionable in the very least. Gay men have not just one 'psyche' or one culture.

In part, though, she would probably agree with you (when you say "the compulsion to wear condoms is (often) compelled by  . . . narratives internalized by gay culture from straight", I think she would fully agree (without the word that I omitted); many theoreticians see 'UAI' as 'reactance' or kind of reactionary resistance to decades of prevention campaign messages, which are aimed at kind of prototype of 'the healthy/normal, non-pathological gay man'). But such explanations don't cover the whole phenomenon in its richness, they only provide speculative clues to what might be one of the causes for it.. Complex phenomena are rarely explained by a single 'fact' and I very much agree with you on the view that sexuality is to a large degree driven from the 'inside'.

Very fascinating to hear about this theological perspective on fantasy ( "In fundamentalist Christian culture it is purported that Jesus taught (paraphrasing): 'if you think it in your heart, it is the same as having done it.' " ). I know of a few other religions where this view is commonly heard... Makes sense that it should be popular in mainstream culture, accompanied by the appropriate dosis of guilt or a tendency to hide/push away any unacceptable elements of one's fantasy. An additional source of this (almost) equation between fantasy and reality might be research in health and forensic science on things like 'fantasy rehearsal' and the relationship of fantasy to action (but that would not be regarding 'healthy' ways of fantasizing, without a criminal background, like the traffic situation you mentioned.. Unless someone keeps repeating such murderous thoughts compulsively all the time, or stops maintaining their own conscious distinction between fantasy and reality).

i sometimes reverse the fundamentalist Christian notion and quip: "being gay saved me from "God."  Though i know some Christians (and Webster) want to take sole possession of the term "Fundamentalist," two towers should demonstrate others possess similar surety.  Heck, i've met atheists i would call "fundamentalist."  One of my take aways from fundamentalist Christianity is the (almost) aversion to the absolutism that undergirds it.  The only thing it seems i know for sure is that i can be wrong.  That has "enhanced [my] philosophical capacity" (a lot lol). 

Funny story i think you'll appreciate.  While i was still religious, i sought every cure or remedy from being gay. i wrote several Christian leaders thinking they might have the answer/s, and never heard back from one of them.  At one point, i emailed Noam Chomsky (not about being gay), and he wrote back. Quickly, and every time.  One of the religious notions i grew up with was that only Christians have the ability for 'good' (the reasoning is "good comes from God and nothing good comes from people...).  The thing that floored me was how kind Noam was to me, a complete stranger. He was kind, patient, honest, vulnerable and connected with me in spite of my being obnoxious with my beliefs. How he was helped me see through my false ideas, he indirectly helped me see and accept reality. 

In that vein: "about Crossley."   "The gay man's psyche" strikes me as a fundamentalist sort of thing to say.  Or, at least, a fundamentalist way of saying it.

You note: "many theoreticians see 'UAI' as 'reactance' or kind of reactionary resistance to decades of prevention campaign messages, which are aimed at kind of prototype of 'the healthy/normal, non-pathological gay man')." i wonder, how many gay men ever thought to use condoms before HIV?  Did the term "bareback" exist prior to HIV?  As a kid, when i realized i am sexually attracted to males, i went to my friends for input.  Books were my "friends," so i went to the library.    Theoreticians didn't vote to remove homosexuality as a "disorder" (from the DSM) until 1973. It wasn't completely removed, as a "sexual orientation disturbance," until 1987. All the 'medical' input i got told me (us) i was sick.  Theoreticians are a work in progress, eh?

It was processing through my religious background (i was even asked to pastor a church at one point, eek lol) that ended up giving me perspective. Fundamentalists equate their beliefs with "GOD."  i went over all the isms (shackles) endlessly, exhausitvely, trying to conform.  Once outside it all seems ludicrous, but it seems real on the inside. i think the added dimension of 'God' makes it one of the strongest ethnocentricites around. "God" excuses/explaines a multitude of questions.  A result though is a huge sensitivity. i often see things in mainstream culture that appear to have roots in religious culture.  Consequently, i wonder how much of research in heath and forensic science is influenced ('confounded') by deep rooted notions. 

 

 

[TotalPig]

Not morally ok and quite evil and mentally sick to do or even fetishize such a thing. The psychos who talk that trash are probably the first to complain someone gave them a cold in winter but they fantasize about intentionally giving someone an incurable disease.

[ErosWired]

I have read through nine pages of this topic, astonished that a debate on the question could extend this long. Sorry if this runs long:

"Stealthing", as it's being discussed here, is an active choice by one man Topping another to clandestinely expose the other man to his bodily fluids without the other man's consent.

Consent is our society's gold standard for sexual relations. Non-consent is criminalized. Let's be clear now - anything you do sexually to another person without his or her consent is not ethically or morally, and in most cases legally, acceptable. The fact that it is done with deception and by intent compounds the offense.

A great deal of the hand-wringing on this thread seems to center on the question of whether a bottom who barebacks, and especially a bottom who offers his ass up to anonymous men, is giving tacit, unspoken, universally understood consent. Consent to be fucked bare? Yes. Consent to be knowingly infected with disease? No.

The OP asks whether steal thing is morally okay. Ethics, morals and scruples are the philosophical fabric that allows human beings to have civil interactions with one another in spite of the fact that every individual perceives his or her own needs as the most important. Society expounds on these values by canonizing them into laws, but even where the law is not established or inconclusive, the bedrock principle of ethics and morals remains - that is, there is and must be a commonly accepted threshold of what is right versus what is wrong, or civilization descends into anarchy.

In this case, the commonly accepted threshold is that human beings do not intentionally infect other human beings with disease. This is a standard of importance not only to individuals, but to society at large, which has a vested interest in controlling outbreaks of disease that threaten populations, economies, and power structures. Bottom line: It's not okay to intentionally infect anyone with a disease.

About Personal Responsibility - Society generally accepts that the individual should take responsibility for his or her actions. This must be placed in context, however, with the fact that the actions of every individual are not of equal weight in every situation, and some actions are more decidedly the cause of an effect than the other.

Take, for instance, the assertion that a bottom who lies ass-up in his room at the bathhouse with the door open must accept the responsibility for a stealthing because he placed himself in the position where it could happen, knowing that it could happen., even though he requests use of condoms. The infected Top, knowing of his infection (or ignorant of whether he is infected or not), then enters and, contrary to the bottom's request, arranges it so that he cums inside the bottom.

A. The top has knowingly infected another person; and B. the Top has violated the negotiated agreement for sexual contact, circumventing the bottom's right to refuse. Both A and B are violations of the moral and ethical community standard, and in many cases, the legal standard. The bottom's choice, while an active choice to put himself in the position, is still not the cause of the offenses in A and B.

The Top may claim that the ass presented constitutes an open invitation, which it does, but not an open invitation to being stealthed. The open invitation is to being fucked under certain conditions.

Now: We have seen Tops argue several times here that these bottoms deserve what they get for putting themselves in that position, and should take personal responsibility for what happens rather than blaming the Tops who stealth. But what about the personal responsibility of the Tops themselves? The personal responsibility of Tops is multifold: Tops have a responsibility, as the active, dominant partner, to exercise control so as to prevent damage or injury. Tops are, by their nature as masculine men, a strong, aggressive, and potentially dangerous physical force. Unconstrained, a masculine adult male is capable of significant harm. Because the bottom has agreed to submit to the Top's aggression, the burden lies with the Top to exercise his freedom responsibly. Socially, this is sensible - if all Tops behaved with abandon and harmed the men they fuck, their supply of men to fuck would diminish. It is not logical not to assume a weight of responsibility for the Top role.

If the Top is infected or potentially infected, again, ethically and morally, the burden rests with the Top to ensure that his disease is not passed on to another human being, just as though the disease were influenza or ebola. The fact that the Top may be angry or resentful over being made a disease carrier in the first place is immaterial - retribution-by-proxy is not an acceptable defense. Neither is a Top's potential disdain for the target of his stealthing. The discussion above has so far concerned bottoms who request condoms, but what about a cumdump bottom lying ass-up with the expectation of taking cock bare? Does this, then, absolve the infected/potentially infected Top of his social responsibility not to spread disease? No. If anything, it makes the Top's personal responsibility more imperative, because he is confronted with a partner potentially more vulnerable to harm.

One writer on these boards commented that if he found a cumdump in like situation, he would absolutely breed him so as to ensure that the cumdump caught not only HIV, but other STDs as well - presumably on the idea that the cumdump needs to face retribution in some way for being personally irresponsible enough to place himself in a vulnerable position. But such a Top blatantly ignores his own personal responsibility whilst castigating the bottom for not taking responsibility for being vulnerable. Ethically, morally, society would deem such a Top's affirmative decision to infect the other human being not only wrong, but indefensible. "He had it coming" is not a viable defense (nor is any exercise in victim-blaming).

Does the cumdump have any personal responsibility in this? Yes. If he's going to take anon loads, he has an absolute responsibility to get tested regularly for STDs, to be treated when they occur, and to take himself out of service until he is safe for play. Period. Because he is a central receptacle for many potential vectors of STDs, he has a greater-than-average responsibility to ensure that he does not contribute to the spread of disease, or to harm to any person. I am a cumdump. I live by this.

The person who I suspect may have been responsible for my recent infection with the trifecta of gono, chlamydia and syphilis caught my notice because of something he said. Once he had cum inside me, he pulled out, wiped his cock on my towel, and said, "There you go."

It might not have been him, and he might have meant nothing by the comment except to say, "There's the cum you wanted." But no one has ever said that to me before, and it left me wondering. It clearly indicated that he knew he left something inside me, and knew what it was.

I harbor no ill feeling toward whoever it was whose cock pumped me full of HIV. I have no reason to think that he did so intentionally, and he may not have known himself. I always hope that he got treatment in time.

But if I ever learn that some son of a bitch intentionally knocked me up with an STD, he will find out how dangerous I can be, because there is no ethical or moral excuse.

 

[gwmxyz]

It seems to me 100% obvious even if we are just criminalising ordinary human behaviour.  In the case of theft it isn’t even hot either.  But I’m probably just being unimaginative. I’m sure the room can do better than that.

[Pozlover1]

I think God knows your motives. If there are no I mean NO jobs and a food truck is broke down and abandoned... if the only way to eat is to sell your blood somethin ain’t right. And if you find yourself “left behind” after the Rapture, but don’t want to take the microchip, you have my permission to raid a cornfield. Or an armory. 

[drscorpio]

1 hour ago, gwmxyz said:

It seems to me 100% obvious even if we are just criminalising ordinary human behaviour.  In the case of theft it isn’t even hot either.  But I’m probably just being unimaginative. I’m sure the room can do better than that.

Moderator's Note: There was already a thread on the topic. They have now been merged. 

[hornycumslut91]

On 1/29/2019 at 1:33 PM, ErosWired said:

I have read through nine pages of this topic, astonished that a debate on the question could extend this long. Sorry if this runs long:

"Stealthing", as it's being discussed here, is an active choice by one man Topping another to clandestinely expose the other man to his bodily fluids without the other man's consent.

Consent is our society's gold standard for sexual relations. Non-consent is criminalized. Let's be clear now - anything you do sexually to another person without his or her consent is not ethically or morally, and in most cases legally, acceptable. The fact that it is done with deception and by intent compounds the offense.

A great deal of the hand-wringing on this thread seems to center on the question of whether a bottom who barebacks, and especially a bottom who offers his ass up to anonymous men, is giving tacit, unspoken, universally understood consent. Consent to be fucked bare? Yes. Consent to be knowingly infected with disease? No.

The OP asks whether steal thing is morally okay. Ethics, morals and scruples are the philosophical fabric that allows human beings to have civil interactions with one another in spite of the fact that every individual perceives his or her own needs as the most important. Society expounds on these values by canonizing them into laws, but even where the law is not established or inconclusive, the bedrock principle of ethics and morals remains - that is, there is and must be a commonly accepted threshold of what is right versus what is wrong, or civilization descends into anarchy.

In this case, the commonly accepted threshold is that human beings do not intentionally infect other human beings with disease. This is a standard of importance not only to individuals, but to society at large, which has a vested interest in controlling outbreaks of disease that threaten populations, economies, and power structures. Bottom line: It's not okay to intentionally infect anyone with a disease.

About Personal Responsibility - Society generally accepts that the individual should take responsibility for his or her actions. This must be placed in context, however, with the fact that the actions of every individual are not of equal weight in every situation, and some actions are more decidedly the cause of an effect than the other.

Take, for instance, the assertion that a bottom who lies ass-up in his room at the bathhouse with the door open must accept the responsibility for a stealthing because he placed himself in the position where it could happen, knowing that it could happen., even though he requests use of condoms. The infected Top, knowing of his infection (or ignorant of whether he is infected or not), then enters and, contrary to the bottom's request, arranges it so that he cums inside the bottom.

A. The top has knowingly infected another person; and B. the Top has violated the negotiated agreement for sexual contact, circumventing the bottom's right to refuse. Both A and B are violations of the moral and ethical community standard, and in many cases, the legal standard. The bottom's choice, while an active choice to put himself in the position, is still not the cause of the offenses in A and B.

The Top may claim that the ass presented constitutes an open invitation, which it does, but not an open invitation to being stealthed. The open invitation is to being fucked under certain conditions.

Now: We have seen Tops argue several times here that these bottoms deserve what they get for putting themselves in that position, and should take personal responsibility for what happens rather than blaming the Tops who stealth. But what about the personal responsibility of the Tops themselves? The personal responsibility of Tops is multifold: Tops have a responsibility, as the active, dominant partner, to exercise control so as to prevent damage or injury. Tops are, by their nature as masculine men, a strong, aggressive, and potentially dangerous physical force. Unconstrained, a masculine adult male is capable of significant harm. Because the bottom has agreed to submit to the Top's aggression, the burden lies with the Top to exercise his freedom responsibly. Socially, this is sensible - if all Tops behaved with abandon and harmed the men they fuck, their supply of men to fuck would diminish. It is not logical not to assume a weight of responsibility for the Top role.

If the Top is infected or potentially infected, again, ethically and morally, the burden rests with the Top to ensure that his disease is not passed on to another human being, just as though the disease were influenza or ebola. The fact that the Top may be angry or resentful over being made a disease carrier in the first place is immaterial - retribution-by-proxy is not an acceptable defense. Neither is a Top's potential disdain for the target of his stealthing. The discussion above has so far concerned bottoms who request condoms, but what about a cumdump bottom lying ass-up with the expectation of taking cock bare? Does this, then, absolve the infected/potentially infected Top of his social responsibility not to spread disease? No. If anything, it makes the Top's personal responsibility more imperative, because he is confronted with a partner potentially more vulnerable to harm.

One writer on these boards commented that if he found a cumdump in like situation, he would absolutely breed him so as to ensure that the cumdump caught not only HIV, but other STDs as well - presumably on the idea that the cumdump needs to face retribution in some way for being personally irresponsible enough to place himself in a vulnerable position. But such a Top blatantly ignores his own personal responsibility whilst castigating the bottom for not taking responsibility for being vulnerable. Ethically, morally, society would deem such a Top's affirmative decision to infect the other human being not only wrong, but indefensible. "He had it coming" is not a viable defense (nor is any exercise in victim-blaming).

Does the cumdump have any personal responsibility in this? Yes. If he's going to take anon loads, he has an absolute responsibility to get tested regularly for STDs, to be treated when they occur, and to take himself out of service until he is safe for play. Period. Because he is a central receptacle for many potential vectors of STDs, he has a greater-than-average responsibility to ensure that he does not contribute to the spread of disease, or to harm to any person. I am a cumdump. I live by this.

The person who I suspect may have been responsible for my recent infection with the trifecta of gono, chlamydia and syphilis caught my notice because of something he said. Once he had cum inside me, he pulled out, wiped his cock on my towel, and said, "There you go."

It might not have been him, and he might have meant nothing by the comment except to say, "There's the cum you wanted." But no one has ever said that to me before, and it left me wondering. It clearly indicated that he knew he left something inside me, and knew what it was.

I harbor no ill feeling toward whoever it was whose cock pumped me full of HIV. I have no reason to think that he did so intentionally, and he may not have known himself. I always hope that he got treatment in time.

But if I ever learn that some son of a bitch intentionally knocked me up with an STD, he will find out how dangerous I can be, because there is no ethical or moral excuse.

 

This is exactly how I feel about stealthing

[PupLucca]

I have to say no it isn't

[Guest SpermaFF]

It is biological terrorism

[Pozlover1]

On 1/24/2019 at 2:02 PM, tallslenderguy said:

i sometimes reverse the fundamentalist Christian notion and quip: "being gay saved me from "God."  Though i know some Christians (and Webster) want to take sole possession of the term "Fundamentalist," two towers should demonstrate others possess similar surety.  Heck, i've met atheists i would call "fundamentalist."  One of my take aways from fundamentalist Christianity is the (almost) aversion to the absolutism that undergirds it.  The only thing it seems i know for sure is that i can be wrong.  That has "enhanced [my] philosophical capacity" (a lot lol). 

Funny story i think you'll appreciate.  While i was still religious, i sought every cure or remedy from being gay. i wrote several Christian leaders thinking they might have the answer/s, and never heard back from one of them.  At one point, i emailed Noam Chomsky (not about being gay), and he wrote back. Quickly, and every time.  One of the religious notions i grew up with was that only Christians have the ability for 'good' (the reasoning is "good comes from God and nothing good comes from people...).  The thing that floored me was how kind Noam was to me, a complete stranger. He was kind, patient, honest, vulnerable and connected with me in spite of my being obnoxious with my beliefs. How he was helped me see through my false ideas, he indirectly helped me see and accept reality. 

In that vein: "about Crossley."   "The gay man's psyche" strikes me as a fundamentalist sort of thing to say.  Or, at least, a fundamentalist way of saying it.

You note: "many theoreticians see 'UAI' as 'reactance' or kind of reactionary resistance to decades of prevention campaign messages, which are aimed at kind of prototype of 'the healthy/normal, non-pathological gay man')." i wonder, how many gay men ever thought to use condoms before HIV?  Did the term "bareback" exist prior to HIV?  As a kid, when i realized i am sexually attracted to males, i went to my friends for input.  Books were my "friends," so i went to the library.    Theoreticians didn't vote to remove homosexuality as a "disorder" (from the DSM) until 1973. It wasn't completely removed, as a "sexual orientation disturbance," until 1987. All the 'medical' input i got told me (us) i was sick.  Theoreticians are a work in progress, eh?

It was processing through my religious background (i was even asked to pastor a church at one point, eek lol) that ended up giving me perspective. Fundamentalists equate their beliefs with "GOD."  i went over all the isms (shackles) endlessly, exhausitvely, trying to conform.  Once outside it all seems ludicrous, but it seems real on the inside. i think the added dimension of 'God' makes it one of the strongest ethnocentricites around. "God" excuses/explaines a multitude of questions.  A result though is a huge sensitivity. i often see things in mainstream culture that appear to have roots in religious culture.  Consequently, i wonder how much of research in heath and forensic science is influenced ('confounded') by deep rooted notions. 

 

 

Contradictions exist in scripture for good reasons. Motives are more in the etherial world than the physical. It was against Jewish law to marry outside Judaism but Queen Esther saved Judaism by doing so. David was overall a “man after Gods own heart” but not all his actions were perfect. Judas was part of God’s plan even if he had to be unaware of it to fool Sarah Palin. Jesus preferred the company of prostitutes to the company of religious leaders for good reason and healed a Centurion’s lover even though homosexuality was against the Jewish Codes for the Jewish people. 

Stealthing breaks an agreement and violates a trust, which is way more important than giving someone a disease they will likely get anyway. 

[hungry_hole]

For me stealthing is totally OK in anonymous sex, at a bathhouse or Cumunion event, but not OK in most other situations.