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I think some people are getting the wrong message, it is not a matter of judging people or a moral high ground,as a person struggling with hiv and seeing good friends die in mid 80's and all the 90's,young gay men don't realize the struggle and what the act up organization did for us,in the early 80's we terrified if we got a cold or the flu,some people lost their jobs immediately if the got sick,now people are pressing charges on people for infecting them,any young person reading this,please protect yourself,your health is number one,i still miss my friends from the old days as i approach 60,you have a choice,you can openly serve in the military,get legally married in some states,live good live for all those men who died during the darkest days of the pleague,thanks.
"Wrapping it up" isn't just about HIV & gay men, & this author seems to miss that point. Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the US, and cervical cancer kills over 10,000 women each year. The number of men killed by penile & anal cancer has yet to be determined. Then there is the harm caused by Gonorrhea, Clamydia, Syphilis, Hepatitis B, & unwanted pregnancies. Should a woman expose herself to relatively expensive hormones that could cause additional cancers & blood-clotting, when a simple latex or plastic device will do the job? Finally, does a lifetime of taking toxic medications, & exposing others to the same fate, justify the incremental difference in pleasure between 'barebacked' & 'wrapped'? Ask anyone with HIV or AIDS if they would have taken back that moment that gave them the disease, to substitute a 'lesser' pleasure with a condom.
Hey Dave. Must be a great view from up on your mountain of righteousness. If you do get infected (which your barebacking undetectable bros may be saving you from), you can always connect with me through here. I'll give you a shoulder to cry on and help explain things. Till then, have a great life.
Wrong -- The 50% who ADMIT to not using condoms also agree (not quite the minority you are trying to claim) with Mark, maybe not verbally but by their very actions and we all know actions speak louder than words!!!!!
if such a horror commences, the community of gay men involved will adapt FIRST. face it, deal with it: condoms suck. every chance most men get to NOT use them, we take it...naturally. either make them better (or lobby for funding someone else to research how and do so), or wag your finger like any good Queen of Da Nile. the evidence is in, and always has been: condoms in all the limited variation of forms over the last 30 years have only ever been a STOPGAP. stop fetishizing them as a moral totem and try turning them into an erotic totem if u hope to increase their appeal. more cum, less bile. ;-) guys like u remind me how fantastically great it is to have real, natural sex. now THAT'S Living! :-D
Mark, Well done for touching a nerve and sparking such an outpouring of dialogue on such a relevant topic for all gay men both positive and negative alike. It's time the conversation about barebacking be taken out of the realm of morality and good and evil and into the realm of choice. Barebacking is neither good nor bad. Barebacking is a choice. Some people choose to bareback while others don't. One would hope that the choice is motivated out of some amount of education and personal introspection on the topic of condomless sex. Unfortunately, there will always be outcries from both sides of the discussion vilifying the other side’s position on the subject...welcome to the human race. I think at the heart of the issue, people are still uncomfortable talking about sex in general. Negotiating and discussing sex somehow steals some of the thunder away from the actual act. I for one being positive have no problem having sex without or with a condom depending on how my sexual partner feels about it based on the perceived risk, the person's level of knowledge and their own beliefs. Barebacking isn't inherently bad. Lack of knowledge and negotiation is.
What about the hordes of poz men who will die from sexually transmitted hepatitis C as we come to accept and normalize this Brave New World of barebacking? Are they just collateral damage in the fight against the "Condom Nazis"? What a wonderful world you've built for yourself Mr. King, where we can survive Aids only to die horrible deaths from something else. What's it like, to have won an empty victory?
edwin bruner
I'm a Nazi, really??? You reference an article which refers to drug resistant HIV, yet you ignore that and instead liken the articles concern about bareback sex to hysteria... You go on this long winded diatribe about how unprotected sex is just sweet mother nature calling and that I am Daddy buzz kill. Just for your info my mama stopped at three and yes she and pops used rubbers. Did she have to die in child birth with her thirteenth kid? She didnt raise no fool. Sorry while I wax apopleptic.... Ive been in this going on 4 decades, dude. Let me rip the beads off YOUR neck and ask u to grow the frig up. There is nothing funny or sexy or intimate about seroconversion or not having healthcare or housing,.or dying and being a burden. I've been involved in every aspect.of this fight and if I have one less.bedpan to.change for calling you out for.what you are..... You can have a wild happy long-lived sex life without seroconverting or causing others to seroconvert, and condoms and common sense are a part of that. This crap essay isn't just rhetoric, its pathology on wheels. You sir are.emblematic of.the psychopathology behind.the fact that we still.have 50,0000 seroconversions per year.. Where Sadly only one in three of.those.who are positive are able to maintain a.drug regimen which will.help them.stay healthy and protect.others. We're not in the garden of eden folks, but we have to believe we are smarter than this. Those who are hiv positive often have an attitide either conscious or.unconscious of.wanting.to infect others, and facing up to.that is.our community's biggest hurdle.. We need to standby those who are positive, but to those.who are.positive its a simple.matter of moral duty to not to pass it on to anyone else, and if you are negative its your moral duty not to keep yourself and others.that way. Condoms are sexy.. If the idea of passing on HIV gets you hard, something's wrong with you, and you should.see.a.therapist.
November 10, 2013