[iBLASTinside] Justifying Barebacking

[Feeder]

To see iBLASTinside's original blog post, click here...

The Bareback Brotherhood and its recent growth forced a certain justification debate that, quite frankly, I should not engage. However, I do love a good debate when I can find someone with an open enough mind in which to discuss barebacking rationally.

Few people will, even though when the lights are off, condoms never come out of the packages.

As most men debate, they will admit to having bareback sex — just not condoning it. It’s funny to watch Gays in the same place as the right-wing lawmakers who persecutes GLBT rights only later to find they’re sitting in airport bathrooms tapping their feet hoping for a beneath the stall wall blowjob. It baffles my mind they cannot see the hypocritical stands they themselves take.

I’m getting off on a Dennis Miller-style rant. Let me back off.

This entry jumps around a little. I want to address a variety of issues and explain bareback sex in a logical, straightforward manner. If your mind if closed, stop reading now. Go somewhere else and leave me alone. And don’t bother leaving a response, especially something including negative feedback, I’ll simply delete it.

Why Do You Bareback?

I always answer this question with a collection of questions:

• Do you smoke?
  
• Do you drink?
  
• Do you do recreational drugs?
  
• Do you eat fast food?
  
• Do you drink too much*caffeine?
  
• Do you drive too fast?
  
• Do you always wear your seatbelt?
  
• Do you do things that risk your well-being?
  

Answer “yes” to any of the above and, well, you’re risking your life too.

Smoking Kills More

Smoking is my favorite to talk about. Spend literally thousands of dollars a year sucking in toxins into a body, purposely addicting it to carcinogens. With every puff, destroy cells that feed oxygen to blood and, eventually, the brain. Those lung cells never heal. That mild buzz that’s created just for the smoker. The hazy exhale of waste pollutes the air. Clothes stink. With every additional puff, someday the smoker will likely get heart disease, cancer or chronic obstructed pulmonary disorder.

The number one leading cause of death: Heart disease. The number two leading cause of death: Cancer.*Of the top eight leading causes of death, smoking contributes to six of them (http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1911060,00.html).

In a discussion with an 18-year-old Twitter user, he told me, “One cigarette won’t kill you.”

My response was, “How many cigarettes did you have yesterday? I bet the answer is more than one.”

There’s no human contact with smoking. There’s a transfer of cash to big companies and, well, you destroy the environment a little bit more. And there’s nothing “safe” about smoking. There’s no safe option to smoking other than quitting entirely.

Drinking and Drugs

I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoy a good booze fest every once in a while. And while I have never, ever partook in an illegal substance in my life, I think that solving America’s budget crisis could be in legalizing marijuana. While some medical professionals have stated healthy effects for these substances, I’ll bet most of the Gay community’s use of these surpasses the *healthy stage and runs right into the excess.

Have It Your Way with an*Espresso*Shot

America has become a country of obesity. We eat too much unhealthy food. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, so the fast food argument has to be one reserved just for the Yanks.

I want to add that we’ve packaged the entire planet into individual*ketchup*packets. Our fast food nation is about keeping us in our cars and away from each other. Our dinner and lunch and breakfast comes conveniently in Earth-raping*Styrofoam*containers for our carbon-monoxide spewing cars. And we need that Five-Hour Energy Drink to make it through the day.

Etcetera

By this point, I’ve made my point. Everyone of us on this planet is doing stupid shit. We do it because it tastes good, it feels good, it gets us there faster, it makes us feel better, we enjoy life more.

But of all the life-risking things on this list, every single one is ultimately something you’re doing alone. Even if you’re with someone else, they’re not connected to you. There’s a disconnect. There’s no intimacy in a donut at Krispy Kreme.

My Life, My Choice

Every barebacker has his reason for going raw. For me, I just got tired of fear. I tried to pretend I wanted to be “safer, ” knowing the full risks with every single act I did from a wet kiss to a blowjob. Then that moment came when it was my “boyfriend” and we could switch to being raw because I “trusted” him only to find out later that the “trust” wasn’t quite solid.

The proverbial straw on the camel’s back? This guy I’d pursued for a while. At the time, I was single but he had a boyfriend. He came over and with some heavy petting behind us, we jerked each other off. That was it. Not even any oral. In my 20s, you could satisfy me with the*simplest*acts.

A day later, he calls me frantically. He’s gotten a paper cut. A paper cut. Let me stress: A paper cut.

He got the paper cut after our encounter.

Further, he got it on his left hand. He’d jerked me off with his right hand.

He wanted to make sure I didn’t have HIV.

Now, fucktards like that shouldn’t piss me off. But that did. Idiots who didn’t know how HIV was transmitted and somehow thought that I might infect him a couple of days after just irritated me.

Then I just decided why should it bother me? Why should I — or anyone — live in that much fear?

A bus could kill me tomorrow. I could die of a million other things, why shouldn’t I experience intimacy I enjoy with a man?

The Top Five Myths of Bareback Sex

I want to dispel a few other myths about barebackers.

1. All barebackers carry disease or infection.

Contrary to perception, men who bareback are both positive and negative. In fact, what you might find among those who bareback is greater awareness of their sero status as well as any sexually transmitted infections (or STIs) in their pasts as well as the appropriate treatments sought. Barebackers are more likely to honestly speak about their status and engage with their potential partners in open dialog comfortably because this is part of their daily lives. They go into every sexual situation perfectly aware of the potential for any infection and are more up to date than most.

2. Barebacking with my boyfriend or within a monogamous relationship is perfectly okay.

Barebacking is barebacking, regardless whether it’s a boyfriend you’ve known for six months or four years. And the young ones reading this won’t believe it because their hearts are aflutter but one or both of them will cheat at some point in the relationship. Oh, you might not bareback fuck, but HIV and other STIs can come through other means (like sucking cock without a condom). Let me give you a*scenario*I know that happened with one couple. They went together to a strip bar — no cheating at all! One spent a little “quality time” with a stripper sucking his cock and ended up with herpes. Gave the herpes to the other partner. This causes breaks in the skin. Do you know how easily a tiny virus like HIV can slip in?

3. Barebacking is bugchasing.

For those of you who might not be familiar, bugchasing is someone who is HIV negative deliberately searching out HIV-positive men to engage in dangerously unsafe activities in order to “convert” to positive. Some bugchasers would go so far to inject the blood of other men into their own veins. Now that’s really extreme. But just having bareback sex with others isn’t necessarily bugchasing. Bugchasers are a small segment of the barebacking community. However, not all negative barebackers want to become positive. Many barebackers practice something called sero-segregation, where negative men prefer to fuck with other negatives and positive men insist on fucking other positive men.

4. Barebackers have raw sex 100% of the time.

Not true. Even if you becoming a member of the Bareback Brotherhood, it doesn’t mean you’ll never use a condom. The BBBH formed because barebacking is a legitimate and honest option. In fact, most Gay men probably engage in it at some point or another. Just because you advocate bareback sex doesn’t mean you exclude condom sex. That happens to be a choice I personally have made — and like most condom Nazis, a rule I occasionally break.

5. Barebackers have low self esteem or are suicidal.

I have no death wish. I do not want my life shortened. In fact, I would say barebacking allows me to experience life more fully. Because I know myself, I know my desires and I know who I am, I can say my self awareness sits where it should be. I have found barebackers to be more aware of who they are than most of those who use condoms — or say they use condoms.

A Few More Friends & Situations

I have many friends with whom I can speak frankly, some of whom use condoms. I have one who always uses condoms except when he has an encounter with a “straight” man. Now, this friend lives in a small town in the middle of no where. His perception of who a straight man is depends on whether the man is sneaking around on his wife or what-not. Still, it baffles me. He’ll slap on the condom with an 18-year-old college student who’s barely ever done anything but some thirtysomething man with a southern twang and we’re talking raw rider.

Another friend of mine waits until the third or fourth date then, in a heated moment without any discussion, he’ll reach down and rip the condom off and sit back down on the throbbing cock.

One acquaintance on Twitter with the words “slutty bottom” refuses to include #BBBH even though he’s a barebacker because he’s afraid his teenage followers (under the age of 18) will think it’s “safe” to bareback. Never mind he’s tweeting about fucking and he should block anyone 17 and younger as it’s totally inappropriate for them to read.

I am on a few hookup sites not specializing in bareback sex and often, other members will include in their profiles that they prefer those who are “safer only.”

Nine times out of 10, this is about what happens after the initial icebreaker discussion:

Him: “Want to get together and fuck?”</p>Me: “I’m sorry, we’re not compatible.”

Him: “What do you mean? You said you’re a top. I’m a bottom. Come over and fuck me.”

Me: “Yea, well, your profile says, ‘Safer Only.’ I only bareback.”

Usually there’s a little pause.

Him: “Well that’s cool. You can fuck me raw. Just don’t cum inside me. Okay?”

Me: “Sorry man. I always make deposits when I fuck.”

Another pause.

Him: “That’s really getting me hot. How soon can you come over?”

More...