Not a chaser - not on PrEP?

[bbboyfucker]

What are some reasons for non-chasing neg guys to avoid getting on PrEP?

Mine is a chronic medical issue where PrEP might cause further damage.

I know that once pozzed I will have to take Truvada with the ARV medications, but I'm willing to take that risk while enjoying topping and breeding holes.

[Qilly55]

I'm married and she doesn't know . I wish I knew how to get it we without her to knowing.

It's condoms . I wish I  could go bare 

[BootmanLA]

22 hours ago, bbboyfucker said:

What are some reasons for non-chasing neg guys to avoid getting on PrEP?

Mine is a chronic medical issue where PrEP might cause further damage.

I know that once pozzed I will have to take Truvada with the ARV medications, but I'm willing to take that risk while enjoying topping and breeding holes.

A few thoughts, and a correction:

That's an understandable concern, and it's a tough call to make.

On the one hand, you might go 20 or 30 years without getting pozzed, and that's 20 or 30 years of no damage to your system from the medication.

On the other hand, once you're pozzed, you not only will be on medication for the rest of your life, but your body will be constantly under siege from the virus, essentially always on high alert (which might cause eventual damage of its own).

One plus: if you exclusively top, you're already at lower risk than if you were an exclusive or regular bottom. One way to avoid increasing that risk is to use a condom in the riskiest situations - for instance, if you fuck guys in bathhouses or other places where they may already have one or more loads in them, or if you are fucking someone a complete stranger whose habits you don't know. You're not at risk in situations where the bottom has no other loads in his system and he's either negative or undetectable, so that compromise might push your already lower risk into the "almost but not quite completely" safe area.

The correction: Truvada is ordinarily not prescribed for HIV treatment. By itself, it's effective for prevention, but not for treatment; essentially all modern HIV treatment options contain at least three different antiviral medications, and Truvada (and Descovy) only contain two of those.

So it's possible that HIV treatment, which will contain MORE types of medication, may be even more toxic to your system than Truvada or Descovy would be.

[BootmanLA]

21 hours ago, Qilly55 said:

I'm married and she doesn't know . I wish I knew how to get it we without her to knowing.

It's condoms . I wish I  could go bare 

There are places you can get cheap or free PrEP via online without necessarily triggering your insurance. With one of those, it's unlikely your wife would find out, as long as you had a place to hide the pills that she's unlikely to discover.

(Side note: in every relationship I think each partner should have some measure of privacy and a place to keep things that the other will not explore. But it's hard to establish that once the relationship is started, because it practically screams "I have things I want to hide from you." If that zone of privacy is established before the relationship gets serious, and each side understands that there are things - like a journal or diary - that need to be off-limits, it's a lot easier. And needless to say, that's not an excuse for putting the other person's health at risk.)

[ErosWired]

On 1/15/2023 at 3:47 PM, bbboyfucker said:

Mine is a chronic medical issue where PrEP might cause further damage.

You say that PrEP might cause further damage, which suggests the possibility that it might not. If this is the case, a reasoned decision may be helped by crunching the numbers - determine the likely percentage of risk that PrEP will harm you, and by how much, then balance that against the numeric chance of contracting HIV given your status as an unprotected Top fucking holes at the rate you fuck them, modified by the risk that the types of bottoms you fuck may be positive and infectious. Make a decision based on your level of relative risk.

Bear in mind that regardless of the potential risk, it only takes one bad roll of the dice. As @BootmanLA says, you might go 20 years safely, but your bad number could also come up tomorrow, and all the weighing of risk will then be meaningless.

In terms of concealing your sexual practice from your wife, being concerned only about how to keep her from finding out about the PrEP prescription seems a little short-sighted. If you fuck a lot of bottoms in dicey places, you likely stand a higher risk of contracting other STDs. You make no mention of how often you have sexual relations with your wife, but how do you propose to deal with a situation where it’s ‘Not tonight, dear, I have gonorrhea’? Any such infection is going to sideline you for at least 1-2 weeks while you’re being treated, and you may also have to either conceal or explain the doxycycline or other antibiotics you’re taking.

Lies beget lies, and they tend to wriggle out in the open eventually. Which brings up the other element of risk to consider - what’s the risk to your marriage if your behavior becomes known? Fucking other holes bare and unprotected isn’t the first choice you make; the first choice is to fuck other holes at all. Is the possibility of losing your spouse one you’re willing to risk for the sake of male cunt? If not, then the whole conundrum you’re asking about is moot. Decide to forego the fucking in favor of being married, and you won’t have any need to decide about PrEP.

[Slocbr42]

On 1/15/2023 at 5:22 PM, Qilly55 said:

I'm married and she doesn't know . I wish I knew how to get it we without her to knowing.

It's condoms . I wish I  could go bare 

Mistr . Com. 
 

they work based off of your area/state programs and get you prep for free in most cases. 

[garsento]

My rationale was that, if I was playing with people I knew who were consistently undetectable, I did not need to be on PrEP. This remains a strong rationale.

What happened is that there was a certain amount of creep, with my beginning to actively seek out first other undetectable guys and then PrEPsters. The rationale held, but the circle of trust had broadened.

The big thing began when I had begun to take loads from negative tops, not undetectable or PrEPsters but people who presented themselves as negative. I did this rarely, at first, with select individuals. In 2021, I stepped things up on that regard, going bare with a regular fwb who was negative.

The thing that pushed me onto PrEP was an experience I had at a local bathhouse. I met one long-standing fwb who was playing with another PrEP user, this guy giving me his load. This turned me on a lot, and I found myself connecting with another guy I met just then, letting him into bare when he said he was on PrEP. I met a third guy in the maze, who said he was not on PrEP but was negative; I surrendered to the moment and took note of what I did after he pulled out and I felt his load leaking.

I was not chasing; I did not want to get HIV. On closer consideration, I think I was starting to get off on not so much the risk as my confidence in my ability to navigate complex scenarios, to keep track of people and things and acts. With my selection of a random guy to load me, I was no longer doing that.

After that last guy, I stopped sex entirely, having only a bit of sex with my then-partner when he got back on PrEP after the lockdowns. (There was not much sex; we were drifting apart.)

I went in for my tests February of last year,.of course. When all came out clear, I went on to get on PrEP as quickly as I could.

[Negasswhore]

On 1/18/2023 at 12:49 AM, garsento said:

My rationale was that, if I was playing with people I knew who were consistently undetectable, I did not need to be on PrEP. This remains a strong rationale.

What happened is that there was a certain amount of creep, with my beginning to actively seek out first other undetectable guys and then PrEPsters. The rationale held, but the circle of trust had broadened.

The big thing began when I had begun to take loads from negative tops, not undetectable or PrEPsters but people who presented themselves as negative. I did this rarely, at first, with select individuals. In 2021, I stepped things up on that regard, going bare with a regular fwb who was negative.

The thing that pushed me onto PrEP was an experience I had at a local bathhouse. I met one long-standing fwb who was playing with another PrEP user, this guy giving me his load. This turned me on a lot, and I found myself connecting with another guy I met just then, letting him into bare when he said he was on PrEP. I met a third guy in the maze, who said he was not on PrEP but was negative; I surrendered to the moment and took note of what I did after he pulled out and I felt his load leaking.

I was not chasing; I did not want to get HIV. On closer consideration, I think I was starting to get off on not so much the risk as my confidence in my ability to navigate complex scenarios, to keep track of people and things and acts. With my selection of a random guy to load me, I was no longer doing that.

After that last guy, I stopped sex entirely, having only a bit of sex with my then-partner when he got back on PrEP after the lockdowns. (There was not much sex; we were drifting apart.)

I went in for my tests February of last year,.of course. When all came out clear, I went on to get on PrEP as quickly as I could.

I completely agree with you, I´m not chasing hiv either...well not right now anyway. I did also since a couple of years ago come to the conclusion that if I only get fucked and bred by medicated Top´s then that is the safest thing I can do to protect myself without going on Prep, but I have been thinking more and more about going on it just as there will be such a broader selection of guys I can then also get fucked by, that I don´t do at the moment.  The other STIs you won´t get away from anyway, well not going bare at least. Hpv and Herpes you can get just by skin contact so those are easy to catch no matter if your shielded or not.

[austin_submale]

On 1/15/2023 at 5:22 PM, Qilly55 said:

I'm married and she doesn't know . I wish I knew how to get it we without her to knowing.

It's condoms . I wish I  could go bare 

I'm also married and can't get on PrEP because I have to be discreet.  But I go bare anyway.

 

[bbdadslut]

At first I thought it was laziness and avoidance.  I topped some guys and was hooked on the experience and now I want to take loads. As I've continued thinking about all of this, I realize the truth is that I'm not seeking out PrEP because I'm a bit of a passive chaser.  I don't intend on having HVL partners, but I won't know for sure since I'm open to playing with u=u guys and neg guys all the same.  I've opened up a bit to the fact that I'm turned on by the risk, piggy play, poz talk, and eventual conversion as I continue to ease into this path. 

[garsento]

6 hours ago, Negasswhore said:

I completely agree with you, I´m not chasing hiv either...well not right now anyway. I did also since a couple of years ago come to the conclusion that if I only get fucked and bred by medicated Top´s then that is the safest thing I can do to protect myself without going on Prep, but I have been thinking more and more about going on it just as there will be such a broader selection of guys I can then also get fucked by, that I don´t do at the moment.  The other STIs you won´t get away from anyway, well not going bare at least. Hpv and Herpes you can get just by skin contact so those are easy to catch no matter if your shielded or not.

Some people here have talked about a certain amount of creep that can occur once you start barebacking with individual people. I think that there might actually be something to that. If you make exceptions for one person or one set of persons, no matter how well-founded and justifiable the reasons you have for setting the exception you have established that you can make exceptions. Once you make one then, in principle, why not make others? You can substitute good judgement for a hard-and-fast rule, but you would still have introduced your judgement in place of an unbreakable rule.

I was taking risks. I think that these risks were justifiable, and I am glad that I took most of them. One of the guys who liked my previous post is one of my first exceptions, actually, a complete top who fucked me bare repeatedly even though he was neither undetectable or on PrEP; he was trustworthy, the sex was fantastic, and I wish only that I had taken more cum loads and some piss loads from him. (Hi!) My decision back in 2018, as he was rimming me at a local sex party and rubbing his dick up and down my crack, to take hold of his big dick and rub its head against my hole by way of invitation, is a decision I am happy with. I would say that this is the case for most of the different exceptions that I made, like the two guys on two different occasions who fucked bare and hard with their piercings in, say, or the undetectable daddy type who gave me my first load in his sling, or the west-end couple I played with regularly, or ...

Learning to be able to approach sex with some merited flexibility, to recognize how safer sex is not just sex with condoms, was very good for me. It worked out well for me, and I think it was bound to: Undetectability is real, as is the effectiveness of PrEP, and approaching sex without drugs and with active communication is key not just to safety but enjoyment.

Beyond that, the barebacking scenes re: HIV transmission in Toronto and cities like it really are very different now, with so many people either being undetectable hence untransmissible or else being on PrEPsters and obviously not being able to transmit. This might especially be the case in the clutch of avant-garde sex parties I regularly attended and the networks associated with said, where knowing and talking about status was normal. These days, I think you can make a case that someone who does not use condoms and is not on PrEP could indeed be safe from HIV infection if they know their partners and their statuses.

Even so, there is that slippage factor. I am reminded particularly of someone I met at a party, someone I did not know, who I encouraged to blow a load in me at the end of the night because he said he was on PrEP. Once you get used to making judgements, you can easily keep in making judgements even past a reasonable point. (That occurred at the same time as that load from the guy who said he was negative, FYI.)

Taking all that into consideration, getting on PrEP was clearly wise. If my judgements were becoming more problematic over time, especially in a period of time when because of COVID-19 I had relatively few contacts, what would happen when the world opened back up? That is why I got my test and quickly thereafter got on PrEP: I needed to be prepared for the new wide open sexual world, if I was to be ready.

It worked, really well. If before PrEP I was reasonably confident about my status and my security, after PrEP I was completely convinced. It was good weird, walking back after my first Naked Night on PrEP after having taken a half-dozen guys without bothering to ask about status, to know that I was safer than ever. I was able to do all sorts of things on it—taking random dicks with spit lube at Steamworks, trying to hook up with randoms on Grindr and succeeding (it really is a mess), have all sorts of moderately sketchy hookups, do some THC edibles and then play at parties, et cetera. My previous patterns of play had left me feeling fine, but playing with PrEP actually felt healing. I could stop caring about HIV risks completely, for the first time in my life, and I felt free.

I am not on PrEP now. I am still in the monogamous relationship I mentioned in a separate post, and signs are good. I discontinued PrEP at my latest quarterly because they agreed that there was no need for it. I remain very happy that I was on it—the great sex aside, I met my current partner only because I was on that tear. The only thing I would change, I think, would maybe be getting on PrEP, but that is something I would not change because I am afraid that without my particular trajectory I never would have met him.

My advice to others would be that, while being legitimately careful and playing with the right people does work, that there is a judgement creep there that can eventually expose you to danger. That strategy works only so much,.and getting on PrEP is even better. Getting on PrEP from the start is what I would recommend to anyone right now if they can possibly swing it.

[garsento]

8 hours ago, austin_submale said:

I'm also married and can't get on PrEP because I have to be discreet.  But I go bare anyway.

How discreet could you be if you end up contracting HIV, or even a less serious disease?

In my particular case, I could do what I wanted because I was constrained only by my own judgements. I only had sex with my then-boyfriend when he was protected by PrEP, and made sure of that. If he had not been, well, things would have gone differently.

I recognize that you are in a difficult position. I think the minimally ethical thing to do, with your partner who has no knowledge that she needs to protect herself, is to at least protect yourself so you will not expose her to anything.

7 hours ago, bbdadslut said:

At first I thought it was laziness and avoidance.  I topped some guys and was hooked on the experience and now I want to take loads. As I've continued thinking about all of this, I realize the truth is that I'm not seeking out PrEP because I'm a bit of a passive chaser.  I don't intend on having HVL partners, but I won't know for sure since I'm open to playing with u=u guys and neg guys all the same.  I've opened up a bit to the fact that I'm turned on by the risk, piggy play, poz talk, and eventual conversion as I continue to ease into this path. 

One of the big reasons chasing did not appeal to me is that none of my HIV-positive sex partners seem to want to have had it. Even if they had not experienced life-threatening health complications or suffered mass deaths among their friends and other loved ones, HIV was a major complication in their lives that limited their options. They would opt for a cure if they could, but they cannot because it is incurable if you don't go through anything radical and functionally impossible like chemo and a bone marrow transplant.

Another reason for me is that, honestly, HIV chasing seems like a dead end. The work that one might undertake to take a fist, say, is enjoyable in and of itself, and once you start taking fists you can continue to progress. You can also stop getting fisted and be fine. Once you get HIV, in contrast, that's it. You will just be left with something that you cannot change your mind about.

(I suppose it is possible that one might be fine with that, especially if you get on treatment early and do fine, but it seems unnecessary. Why not just get on PrEP, or do something effective, to avoid the complication of a lifetime medical condition?)

[LoadHunter612]

this is a really interesting thread - with some great responeses (particularily @garsento).

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, or if there is a existing thread out there, but what are your (anyone's) thoughts about guys on PrEP that do actively seek out unmedicated HVL tops?  is there any data as to truly how strong Truvada is against HVL?  i will admit, i still very much get off on bug chasing, but for now, PrEP is still my form of safe sex.

[BootmanLA]

1 hour ago, beefyinkedguy said:

this is a really interesting thread - with some great responeses (particularily @garsento).

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, or if there is a existing thread out there, but what are your (anyone's) thoughts about guys on PrEP that do actively seek out unmedicated HVL tops?  is there any data as to truly how strong Truvada is against HVL?  i will admit, i still very much get off on bug chasing, but for now, PrEP is still my form of safe sex.

Short answer is that there's probably no good data on this, because it would be unethical to conduct the kind of experiment necessary to answer the question.

Longer answer:

Conventional studies show a very, very low risk of contracting HIV if you're on PrEP (what they call "breakthrough" cases). But to adequately answer what you're asking, they would have to have bottoms on PrEP take loads from high viral load tops. You'd also have to stagger the exposures, so that some bottoms would only get bred once, some would get several loads at one time, some would get multiple loads over a longer period of time, and so forth, in order to see whether there was a "breaking point" and whether it was something reached by cumulative exposure alone (like getting it daily for a few weeks) or reached by overwhelming the system (by taking multiple loads from different men in a single session).

Strictly speaking, they'd also have to be sure that the bottom wasn't exposed to other men beyond what was documented, and that there was no IV drug use, for instance, that might change the results. 

But the fact that the number of known PrEP failures that can't be attributed to poor adherence to the prescribed regimen is very, very low, a logical inference would be that it works pretty darned well even against HVL semen. "Pretty darned well," of course, isn't perfect. 

[garsento]

20 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

Short answer is that there's probably no good data on this, because it would be unethical to conduct the kind of experiment necessary to answer the question.

Longer answer:

Conventional studies show a very, very low risk of contracting HIV if you're on PrEP (what they call "breakthrough" cases). But to adequately answer what you're asking, they would have to have bottoms on PrEP take loads from high viral load tops. You'd also have to stagger the exposures, so that some bottoms would only get bred once, some would get several loads at one time, some would get multiple loads over a longer period of time, and so forth, in order to see whether there was a "breaking point" and whether it was something reached by cumulative exposure alone (like getting it daily for a few weeks) or reached by overwhelming the system (by taking multiple loads from different men in a single session).

Strictly speaking, they'd also have to be sure that the bottom wasn't exposed to other men beyond what was documented, and that there was no IV drug use, for instance, that might change the results. 

But the fact that the number of known PrEP failures that can't be attributed to poor adherence to the prescribed regimen is very, very low, a logical inference would be that it works pretty darned well even against HVL semen. "Pretty darned well," of course, isn't perfect. 

The instances of PrEP failures I have heard of, like the 2015 failure in Toronto, suggest mostly that the issue at hand was not the viral load but rather mutations in the virus that let it evade Truvada. A HVL should.not matter so much as the virus is not Truvada-resistant.