Cautious barebackers: How do you stay "safe"?

[bbicurious]

My question is really directed towards guys who bareback but still want to look after their health and not take "unnecessary" risks, guys who are not actively bug chasing and guys who are not "no loads refused". How are you preventing those STIs?

Is there anything you look out for on a BBRT profile or something?

What are some red flags to look out for when arranging a meet?

What questions have you found to be useful?

Is it realistic to bareback and expect to stay healthy?

Any tips you have will be much appreciated

I'm asking about general STIs and not really concerned about HIV because there are many threads here on how to prevent and manage HIV. Since condoms don't offer enough protection against STI's transmitted through skin-to-skin contact (syphillis, HPV etc) this will be useful even for guys who play safe sometimes.

[Read1]

I will answer one of your questions, "Is it realistic to bareback and expect to stay healthy?" My answer is, "YES! I expect/hope to bareback (and keep barebacking) and stay healthy!" Every 4-6 weeks my doctor gets me tested -- 2 oral swabs, sometimes 2 anal swabs, urine test, and bloodwork. The results of all this point to whether I have a STD - gono/clamydia/syphilis. I've had all of them, because STDs are part of the whole barebacking experience. If you want to experience barebacking as a top or bottom or vers guy, then you better be prepared for STDs. If every guy got tested, then was on antibiotics/penicillin and stopped bb sex for 7 or 14 days and was deemed CLEAN, then we wouldn't have to really worry about STDs. So stop worrying and start fucking/being fucked and ENJOY! You are responsible for your own sexual health!

[BiJackOff]

I understand that Vaseline can protect somewhat against STD's as I forms a coating that blocks the microbes from infection.  Especially true for tops.  Other lubes are said to be abrasive and increase the risk.  STD's need skin on skin contact.  This of course would not be a substitute for a condom but I doubt the word "condom" in no longer in the vocabulary of the users here.

 

 

 

 

[wood]

Best and easiest thing anyone can do:

NEVER pnp and try not to have sex with those who do. 

 

[barecub85]

2 hours ago, BiJackOff said:

I understand that Vaseline can protect somewhat against STD's as I forms a coating that blocks the microbes from infection.  Especially true for tops.  Other lubes are said to be abrasive and increase the risk.  STD's need skin on skin contact.  This of course would not be a substitute for a condom but I doubt the word "condom" in no longer in the vocabulary of the users here.

 

 

 

 

I can understand the reasoning behind this but it is unfortunately not scientifically accurate - there is no evidence that Vaseline or other thick lubes form any effective barrier against STIs.

There is some truth to the idea that water-based lubes are often less than ideal for anal sex - they tend to need reapplication so frequently that the sex ends up being rougher on the tissues of the anus and rectum and can lead to microtears, which are susceptible to infection. Silicone-based or oil-based lubes are preferable for anal sex since they last longer and do a better job reducing friction.

Read1 is right when he says that STDs are really just a natural risk of barebacking. There are some steps you can take to reduce your risk - e.g. limiting your number of sex partners, checking your partner for signs of infection before you have sex (rashes, sores, discharge, etc) - and other steps to manage STDs if you get them, such as frequent testing and following through with treatment/instructions (you wouldn't believe how many guys don't wait until they're finished with treatment to start having sex and then get reinfected through their regular partners!).

Guys who are on PrEP are more likely to be getting tested regularly for both HIV and for other STDs, so they might be more likely to have any STDs caught and treated than guys who are tested less frequently.

Source: I am a nurse at an HIV/STD clinic and I also frequently bareback.

[TheLusciousLad]

im honestly just trying to find a man to be monogamous with so i could bareback him. But I'm not sure if i count as a barebacker because i have not found a guy too.. oh well. lol 

[PervBBbttm]

You're awesome, 

[TheLusciousLad]

5 hours ago, PervBBbttm said:

You're awesome, 

Thanks <3 ♥

[Klick]

Hey I think I fit into this category here. I love LOVE being a bareback cumdump for  daddies and be used as their sex toy. I'm negative on prep for 3 years so I'm not very worried about HIV.

Sometimes I don't make the best decisions with my choice of partners and I get reinfected with an STD that I was just treated for (example: I probably have gonorrhea again after being treated 2 weeks ago because I can tell in the mucus in my BMs and slight itching around my hole)

But you really just have to take it in strides and keep yourself checked and tested as much as you can. 

I don't play with any parTiers. i try to find more fit looking guys to play with. Signs are if they take care of their bodies, they probably take care of their STI health on top of that. 

Hope this helps 

[concerned1]

Unless you are on PrEP, are already Poz and on medication....or unless you are going to access PEP after every bareback fuck you have......You simply CANNOT bareback cautiously or safely. You cannot be neg and just bareback with anon strangers indiscriminately without being on PrEP or taking PEP afterward - this way, you're going to end up HIV positive at some point ....more often than not sooner rather than later, sometimes later.....but you WILL end up poz eventually. 

This goes for whether you're top or bottom or versatile.  Yes, there are guys on here who *claim* to have barebacked with anon strangers indiscriminately for years upon years without being pozzed up with HIV - but these guys are (if indeed they are telling the truth) the exception rather than the norm. I think even they would concede this.

Do you think if they were the norm...we would have a need for PrEP? And do you not think, perhaps, that the fact that so many neg guys (including on this forum) are on PrEP, shows that they deep down KNOW the truth that barebacking is a huge risk (and that's WHY they're taking it) ...hmmm? Don't you think if they genuinely believed it was fairly safe to do bareback, that they'd be taking PrEP? No, of course not.

The simple truth is...bareback = highly hazardous. Play with fire, and you will get burned. If you want to enjoy bb, then get yourself on PrEP or make sure you can access PEP after every single bb fuck you have (the latter not a realistic option for most people).

[rawsatyr]

After all the fear and loathing of the promiscuous bareback scene and eventually failed policy of 'trying to stay safe' I have now revised my 'safe sex practices'. No rubbers EVER! SPIT or CUM for lube! The biggest concession to SAFETY are firm, gripping sneakers to 'stand your ground' on the slippery floors! And maybe dress up with color-coordinated fetish gear for good 'marketing' to draw the popular players! Generally operating under the "no loads refused" policy! Being a 'good sport'! .. the whole 'raw scene' is a bit like an 'attraction to danger', a THRILL-RIDE! And I don't treat cum like nuclear waste after the buzz is gone! I keep it in me and on me and savor the musk of man-buck to full absorption!

Most of course is just talk and 'ready-to-go' at the drop of a stranger's hat, being that I am in a city that is pretty stale. From what I gather, other bb-bros go to the sex buffet every day. I keep it more a TREAT - that cuts down the numbers and eventual trips to the clinic... lol ! Although it would be hot to have the reputation of a regular slut!

[Guest pozbbttm]

Staying safe barebacking is bullshit! Barebacking is for us poz gays only! Prep is bullshit! Save money, fuck raw and get HIV!

It’s what I did and I’m fucking proud B.B. poz Gay for life!!! 

[seaguy]

20 hours ago, pozbbttm said:

Staying safe barebacking is bullshit! Barebacking is for us poz gays only! Prep is bullshit! Save money, fuck raw and get HIV!

It’s what I did and I’m fucking proud B.B. poz Gay for life!!! 

You do realize that if barebacking were only for poz gays only thene you would not get many new poz guys to join your group because you'd be keeping the negative gay's from barebacking which is one way they convert other than if they used drugs and share the needles.

[seaguy]

On 10/21/2017 at 8:29 AM, concerned1 said:

Unless you are on PrEP, are already Poz and on medication....or unless you are going to access PEP after every bareback fuck you have......You simply CANNOT bareback cautiously or safely. You cannot be neg and just bareback with anon strangers indiscriminately without being on PrEP or taking PEP afterward - this way, you're going to end up HIV positive at some point ....more often than not sooner rather than later, sometimes later.....but you WILL end up poz eventually. 

This goes for whether you're top or bottom or versatile.  Yes, there are guys on here who *claim* to have barebacked with anon strangers indiscriminately for years upon years without being pozzed up with HIV - but these guys are (if indeed they are telling the truth) the exception rather than the norm. I think even they would concede this.

Do you think if they were the norm...we would have a need for PrEP? And do you not think, perhaps, that the fact that so many neg guys (including on this forum) are on PrEP, shows that they deep down KNOW the truth that barebacking is a huge risk (and that's WHY they're taking it) ...hmmm? Don't you think if they genuinely believed it was fairly safe to do bareback, that they'd be taking PrEP? No, of course not.

The simple truth is...bareback = highly hazardous. Play with fire, and you will get burned. If you want to enjoy bb, then get yourself on PrEP or make sure you can access PEP after every single bb fuck you have (the latter not a realistic option for most people).

You might make it years 10, 20 before you end up poz or it could be a matter of months.  But anyone who does into barebacking without being on PrEP and thinks if they just be careful about the guys they hook up with is doing harm reduction, which is great but that is not fool proof and with guys who are untested and say they are neg because they think they are out there if you're having BB sex with guys you hookup with online or at the bath's, bars eventually your number is gonna come up so you might as well know that and educate yourself so you are ready to cope when it happens.  

To me that is much better than telling yourself if I avoid visibly poz looking guys when hooking up and don't hook up with guys who party then I can BB safely and won't get HIV.  Cause when you do it is gonna hit you like a semi coming at your from out of nowhere and you're going to have a much harder time dealing with the news that your poz.

Sure there are some guys who are lucky and they just never get it, even though they don't have immunity to it or anything like that.  They are just like the big powerball winner they lucked out but the odds of that happening are clearly not on your side.

[ErosWired]

On 9/3/2017 at 7:22 AM, bbicurious said:

Is it realistic to bareback and expect to stay healthy?

Your questions all hinge on what you mean when you use terms like "unnecessary risk", "play safe", and "healthy". You have to ask yourself, for yourself, at what point any risk is "necessary" for you to feel sexually fulfilled. Is barebacking absolutely a necessity to you, or could you live without it? The answer to  that question comes first. If the answer is no, you couldn't, then you have to look at what you mean by "safe". Barebacking is not safe in the meaning of "risk-free". It cannot be made entirely safe. There are inherent risks that can be significantly reduced, but never completely eliminated. And like any gamble, each time you spin the wheel, you take a chance.

But it's not the same chance every time. The chance you take is cumulative. For instance, if you're a neg bottom with a poz top not on meds, your base chance of getting HIV (I know you're asking about all STDs, but I'm using HIV for the math here) your base chance of getting the virus is 1.43%, or about 1 in 143 loads. Does that mean that if you take 143 loads you have 100% chance of getting HIV? No. You could, as seaguy says, be one of the lucky ones. But your chance doesn't remain 1.43%, either. If you take 143 loads, your risk will have amounted to the inverse of your chance of coming away clean (98.57%) multiplied by itself by the number of attempts (143), or about 12.8%, meaning you will have a 100%-12.8%=87.2% chance of getting the disease with a 1.43% risk.

If you're a neg top with a poz bottom and you're cut, your chance is about 63% in 909 fucks. Uncut, it's about 63% in 161 fucks.

According to CDC and other studies within the last five years, the risk of transmission over ten years of sex for a committed male couple unprotected came to nearly 100%. If they used PreP alone, their risk came to 98%. If they were committed to condom use, their risk was 76%. If they were using ART, their risk was 25%. Note that these numbers are based on specific approaches to prevention, and aren't necessarily translatable to other STDs, but if you know the general statistical chance of getting an STD from a single type of encounter, the math is sound.

The point is, there is no "safe". There are only shades of risk, and the more you play, the greater your risk grows. But if you weren't going to play the game, you wouldn't be here, right? So now you have to look at what you mean by "healthy".

I was not one of the lucky ones. I not only got HIV, my tests came back false negative until mine turned into AIDS, dragged my cell count to 49, and a fun combo of pneumonia and fungal meningitis nearly killed me. That was followed by a case of shingles and a case of mulloscum that would not go away for months, chronic fatigue, dietary change, ART-induced diabetes, and changes in my metabolism. I'm now at risk for cancers that I wasn't at risk of before. I haven't missed a single dose - not one dose - of ART since I started it in September of 2014, and my cell count still hasn't topped 320. Unless science steps up to the plate sometime soon, I will be taking these pills for the rest of my life (which I could not afford without the company's assistance) and my life expectancy has dropped to about 75 years.

I'm not sick, in the sense that I feel well and I haven't had a cold or the flu or anything like that in three years, but I have to be careful. There are some things I simply can't take the risk of eating. I know that my body simply does not have the moxie to fight off a major infection, and if I get one, that could be it for me. So there's healthy, and then there's "healthy". That's the possible price tag, my man. Nobody can tell you but yourself whether that kind of life, and those kinds of sacrifices are a price you're willing to pay for the experiences you want. And even if you take care with HIV, there are still monsters out there, like HEP C and treatment-resistant gonorrhea that are no joke, and even herpes is incurable.

You wanted to know what's realistic - that's real. It's the real I live in. But I don't live with regret for what I chose to do, and I don't harbor any hard feelings for whoever pozzed me, even though I certainly didn't want it. Chances are he didn't even know. I just hope he discovered his status soon enough to get treated. And I hope you take care.

Edited November 13, 2017 by ErosWired