Community Questionnaire

[rawTOP]

"ARD" made some disparaging comments on Twitter about Breeding Zone…

During the discussion (which I give him high marks for keeping civil) at one point he essentially said I was out of touch and should ask around. So that's what I'm doing.

Please answer the questions above. Those questions are at the heart of what ARD is complaining about.

Your profile name will be visible because this is about real life and what you're willing to stand for (even if it's standing for something behind the comfort of a fictional profile name).

Even when the #bbbh hashtag was born there was a disagreement over whether "The Bareback Brotherhood" was just about breeding and the exchange of cum or whether it was specifically a poz thing. The current disagreement is similar to that disagreement except the stakes are higher this time around.

[verslut]

Here's my answer to the first question.

[rawTOP]

11 minutes ago, verslut said:

Here's my answer to the first question.

BTW, I moved your thread to the more general  sexual health section since it wasn't specifically about bareback fucking.

[And note to others - messing up with thread placement in the sexual health forum will not earn you an infraction provided you post a genuine sexual health topic. Despite ARD's comments to the contrary, sexual health has always been important to me. We can be pigs and still care of our sexual health.]

[SlampaBay]

I admire your endless work with this site. It is a safe place to explore and fantasize what is not possible to share elsewhere. So thank you, Sir, for that. 

And while I respect your intentions to protect the POZ community from marginalization, I wonder how marginalizing a specific subgroup of POZ people will achieve your goals.  

I do not question your intentions around these topics. I would suggest that the words, fantasies, stories are not in themselves dangerous. And while any topic on the site can push boundaries and buttons, I think it only expands on the territories our communitiies have already pioneered, that any sexuality, any kink, any deviation from "the norm", IF IT IS THE RESULT OF FREE WILL AND SANE MINDS, is still human and has value.

One question. it's there solid evidence that anything written on BreedingZone had actually been injurious or harmful to a living breathing person? That would make all the difference for me.

Edited April 25, 2021 by SlampaBay

[BootmanLA]

14 minutes ago, SlampaBay said:

And while I respect your intentions to protect the POZ community from marginalization, I wonder how marginalizing a specific subgroup of POZ people will achieve your goals.  

I do not question your intentions around these topics. I would suggest that the words, fantasies, stories are not in themselves dangerous. And while any topic on the site can push boundaries and buttons, I think it only expands on the territories our communitiies have already pioneered, that any sexuality, any kink, any deviation from "the norm", IF IT IS THE RESULT OF FREE WILL AND SANE MINDS, is still human and has value.

Here's where I take issue with the above: it's all good and fine to talk about "free will and sane minds" but if those "sane minds" are poorly educated - or getting bad information via eroticization of things like progressing to AIDS - then they're not going to be making informed decisions. And given the exceptionally piss-poor sexual education systems we have in this country, people *will* take much of what they read in erotic fiction as accurate depictions of the reality of sex.

In another HIV-related thread earlier today I came across a posting that suggested "Muslims" have a natural resistance to HIV infection, for instance. While it's true that some diseases are known to be more of an issue for people of certain racial or ethnic backgrounds - sickle cell disease, for instance, for black people, or Kaposi's Sarcoma for Mediterranean people (before HIV, that is) - HIV is not one of them, and in any event, "Muslim" is a religious, not ethnic, distinction. When you're confronting that kind of ignorance, free will is meaningless if you're not informed.

As for marginalization: would you feel the same way if the marginalized group were, say, gay serial killers? Surely we don't want to marginalize that specific group of gay people by treating them with any less respect than non-serial killers, right? People who promote deliberate progression from being HIV positive to having AIDS are also pushing a killing agenda, just one that acts more slowly. 

I get the eroticization of an infection changing one's body, even if the reality rarely lives up to the fantasy (the obscene number of braggadocious posts here notwithstanding). I get the idea that worrying about preventing infection can be wearying and with effective treatments available, it might have made sense at one time to just give in and let it happen (before PrEP became an option). But I do not, cannot, and will not accept the eroticization of deliberately shortening ones' life with a disease that kills as horribly as AIDS does.

Like RawTop I went through all the early years of the AIDS crisis watching people get sick and die. I have a close friend who relocated from San Francisco to the southeast US here a few decades back because he'd reached the point where he just couldn't watch any more friends die. I have no statistical evidence to back this up, but I suspect very few of the pro-AIDS crowd are gay men who are in their late 50's and 60's who've been out since the early 80's and understand what AIDS does to people. I don't really see much of an issue with relegating those who push a pro-AIDS agenda off to another site for them to deal with.

[Oldercumslut]

There is probably no way to sort out the reality from the fantasy here.  Put not only do I not understand the Pro-AIDS group, I don't have a problem if they leave.  My perspective on HIV and Aids comes from my health care background.  I was just starting my health care career at the beginning of the AIDs crisis.   AIDs patients were the first patients I took care of.  Since then I've taken care of people who didn't get syphilis treated.

I see AIDS as a preventable horrible disease and although fantasizing being part of a specific group, it should never be pushed and advocated for.

 

[BootmanLA]

5 hours ago, SlampaBay said:

And while I respect your intentions to protect the POZ community from marginalization, I wonder how marginalizing a specific subgroup of POZ people will achieve your goals. 

Here's another thought that's just occurred to me: what benefit, if any, does the HIV+/non-AIDS (ie mostly undetectable) community gain from welcoming pro-AIDS people into their group? When a key part of their message is that being HIV-positive is NOT, in fact, a death sentence nor a significant health risk for partners if medication regimes are adhered to?

What benefit does the PrEP-positive community, which promotes responsible sex through prevention of infection, gain from welcoming people who not only glorify infection, but promote the most dire result possible of that infection?

This community exists. The onus is on those who want to join it to explain how their different perspective (to use a euphemism for promoting early death through irresponsibility) provides benefit to the community that exists. 

[rawTOP]

16 hours ago, SlampaBay said:

I admire your endless work with this site. It is a safe place to explore and fantasize what is not possible to share elsewhere. So thank you, Sir, for that. 

And while I respect your intentions to protect the POZ community from marginalization, I wonder how marginalizing a specific subgroup of POZ people will achieve your goals.  

I do not question your intentions around these topics. I would suggest that the words, fantasies, stories are not in themselves dangerous. And while any topic on the site can push boundaries and buttons, I think it only expands on the territories our communitiies have already pioneered, that any sexuality, any kink, any deviation from "the norm", IF IT IS THE RESULT OF FREE WILL AND SANE MINDS, is still human and has value.

One question. it's there solid evidence that anything written on BreedingZone had actually been injurious or harmful to a living breathing person? That would make all the difference for me.

I agree with most, possibly all of what @BootmanLA said. But just to answer your question and elaborate a bit more…

There's an entire section of the site, the Testimonials section, that's all about how reading stuff here has changed guys' behavior. If you fantasize about something long enough you're gonna want to do it. I'd rather this site not be what gets that ball rolling when it comes to chasing STIs and progressing to AIDS. I can't stop it completely, but I can starve that fire of some of its oxygen.

And like BootmanLA said - guys who didn't go through the AIDS crisis are woefully uneducated about HIV/AIDS. Hell, even the ones who did go through it weren't so enlightened when it came to accepting the efficacy of PrEP. Simply put, too many young guys don't understand the difference between HIV and AIDS. This comes from the fact that most heterosexuals don't understand the difference either, and sex ed in too many places doesn't explain the difference in effective, memorable ways. I'm hoping my drawing a line and saying fetishize HIV all you want, but don't fetishize AIDS will raise awareness that there is a huge difference in being HIV positive and having AIDS. People need to hear that message.

And lastly, the whole "let's spread STIs and get AIDS" mantra is a huge ticking time bomb for the gay and poz community. If it gets widespread we'll lose the support of heterosexuals, our legal rights will regress, and funding for HIV/AIDS research will dry up. And it's possible that funding for care/support of people who are HIV positive will be curtailed. When I categorize the STI/AIDS fetishes as "harm to the community" I can't stress how much that is the root of the issue. I want nothing to do with it, and don't want this site associated with it.

[alwaysready]

agree with bootmanla.  i imagine some guys have gone off prep, or stopped taking meds, or b4 any of that started taking raw loads. but bz, while it does glamorize this activity, does not directly push guys into having raw sex.  i mean, this is not a sequel to 'reefer madness' called 'poz madness.'

[BradStevens]

On 4/25/2021 at 7:38 AM, rawTOP said:

"ARD" made some disparaging comments on Twitter about Breeding Zone…

During the discussion (which I give him high marks for keeping civil) at one point he essentially said I was out of touch and should ask around. So that's what I'm doing.

Please answer the questions above. Those questions are at the heart of what ARD is complaining about.

Your profile name will be visible because this is about real life and what you're willing to stand for (even if it's standing for something behind the comfort of a fictional profile name).

Even when the #bbbh hashtag was born there was a disagreement over whether "The Bareback Brotherhood" was just about breeding and the exchange of cum or whether it was specifically a poz thing. The current disagreement is similar to that disagreement except the stakes are higher this time around.

You're not out of touch at all.... personally I'd been a little put off by all the glamorization of becoming poz and chasing AIDS on BZ and stayed away for years... I love taking loads but I do not enjoy getting STIs although they are an unavoidable occurrence in the line of work of being a cumdump. That being said... if I know someone is poz and not on meds and has a high viral load... I'm not going to let him fuck me... period. That is one thing I can control. I'm also not going to willingly poz another guy but since I'm like 99 44/100% bottom that is prolly not going to happen. Plus, all of my profiles clearly indicate that I am Poz and undetectable and proud of it. I worked hard over the past 20+ years to achieve 0VL and maintain it!

If PreP had been available to me 30 years ago before I seroconverted I would have taken it in a heartbeat. Being poz is no picnic. As it was I didn't take meds for the first 10 years of my pozness and ended up in 2001 with 33 tcells and thankfully no OI came down the pike. Mostly I stayed off them cuz when I first got sober I took AZT (all that was available in 1996) and after six months I felt sicker than I'd ever felt in my life. I told my doctor I couldn't take the meds anymore and he told me I didn't have a choice. I said, of course I have a choice... it's my body. And he said that maybe I should find another doctor. I didn't but I stopped seeing him and in five years ended up at death's door. So now, I take my meds (one pill a day) and have had no problems since. I do get the occasional STI, which my doctor tests for (and treats, if necessary) every three months.

So I do concede that others also have the ability to do with their own bodies what they want.... and that can include chasing poz loads, taking no meds if poz, and trying to get AIDS. It's your prerogative. But stealthing others and trying to poz them could (and possibly should) land you in jail in many states and countries. I would recommend reading up on the local ordinances regarding this when traveling or before moving to a new location.

My two cents.... probably worth less than a penny.

[LetsPOZBreed]

It'll be interesting to see the final stats on this, once the voting has largely regressed to a stable statistic.  I have checked this thread a couple times and find that over 90% of us have said "no" to both questions (myself included).  Fair conclusion that those of us who have answered are solidly behind @rawTOP on this.  

I've had an STI in the past (syphillis) and it wasn't fun at all.  There is nothing glamourous about going to the clinic once a week for three weeks to get jabbed in the butt-cheek.  There's nothing glamourous about the anti-biotics.  For those who don't test or treat it early, there's nothing glamourous about it progressing to the point of having the spotty rash, or worse, tertiary syphillis - with all the neurological baddies that come along with that.  This is just one of many STI's, each with it's own nasty effects on the body.

 

[Guest Descartes70817]

I cannot answer either question since the only STD I've ever had is HIV, and my HIV progressed through all the opportunistic diseases and well into the full blown AIDS already, so the wonders of pharmacology have already given me four years I wouldn't have had without them. I love taking risks, even though I've come within a hair's breadth of dying more times than most people ever will. Life without taking risks is soul crushingly dull.

[120DaysofSodom]

Having HIV may not be the death sentence it once was but it isn't to be taken lightly. You can become resistant even with medications. I have lost many friends that this happened to. Being HIV+ myself and having been undetectable since just a few months after my diagnosis due to ARV's, still get sick very frequently. Nothing fun about it, nor is there anything fun about being dependent on expensive medication to prolong your life. Furthermore, even being still an attractive twink-ish 30 something year old, it changes your life. I am transparent about my status, but that doesnt stop assholes from randomly messaging me behind a veil of anonymity to tell me that "they would love to have sex with me if not for the fact im HIV+". Nothing really feels more dehumanizing than this, and not in the erotic "degrade me like im a cock hungry slut bitch" kind of way. It really demotes you to the status of an untouchable even in this day and age. Stigma still exists, and I have even less fun than I did when I was negative because I am an open, honest person that will always disclose my status to my partners and I simply just dont care to deal with the rejection or the assholes that after telling them I am HIV+ undetectable still look at me as if I am some sort of plague rat.

Keep it a fantasy. Be warned. Do not seek out conversion. It only has to happen once and then you too will experience this.

[RandomStranger]

There are some interesting replies to that tweet.  Post those.  

[Loveitraw]

I have answered no to both questions.

A nice and straightforward response, but let me put some context that might help especially if you've ever read any of my fictions.

I found this site a while ago, a while before I was diagnosed with HIV. It blew my mind and I blew some loads. It wasn't until I'd spent some considerable time here, reading, digesting and trying to understand what I was seeing. I was always a barebacker, I loved nothing more than letting guys fill me up, but the longer I spent here the more and more I was coming to the conclusion that I was following a chaser's path. What I didn't know, for all of this time, I was already poz. (hidden message, seriously, get tested)

It progressed as it will untreated and while I carried on doing what I was doing I went full blown. I ended up with pneumonia and was very, very, fucking close to dead. This is where I consider myself lucky. I live in the UK and the NHS saved my life and brought me back from the brink. After a few very long and uncomfortable conversations about my life at that point I decided that meds was my way forward. Mostly because I quite simply didn't want to die.

Because I had already spent so long here I feel I came to terms with things pretty damn quickly. Because I have always maintained personal fitness and, believe it or not, my general health I recovered well. My CD4 count climbed and my viral load has been undetectable from about 6 months after I was diagnosed.  I intend this to remain the case.

Now, I genuinely believe I would have actively chased had things not come to the conclusion they did, it was a path I was already a long way down. Conjecture is easy however and we can only deal with things the way they actually happen.  I ended up poz, it was anticlimactic in as much as I never knew who bred me or even when it happened.  I just ended up in a hospital bed full of tubes with a stern consultant talking very seriously to me.

Since then I have enjoyed myself thoroughly.  I'm undetectable. I disclose it on my profiles, I get checked out regularly and am always quite amazed at how calm the clinic staff are when I discuss my sexual screens. 

I consider the chance that STDs will happen because no matter how many measures you take to reduce risks if you bareback you take risks. But I'm not looking for them, at all.

If you've made it this far, I commend you, I want to say that everything I've just said is entirely personal to me. If this gives a perspective you haven't considered, cool. I don't judge if you disregard everything either, your choice.

As far as I'm concerned this site has shown me that acceptance starts with yourself, cliché I know 🙄, but it definitely helps having others who recognise and understand what is going on. Just be careful of sounding off in an echo chamber.

Have fun guys!