Setting the record straight

The last post received this anonymous comment:

HIV and Dying of AIDS is not intensly pleasurable or beautiful. You got insurance? your going to need it…don’t forget lots of diareah and wasting away to disfigurement…but go ahead and have this “beautiful” sexual experience. Hey Try some heroin while your at it.

There’s a confusion here between description and advice. Speaking honestly about a pleasurable activity is not the same as recommending it. It’s up to us to make informed choices of our own.

To answer the points about HIV and AIDs:

“Wasting away to disfigurement” presumably refers to lipodystrophy: body-fat changes including fat-loss from the face and buttocks. This isn’t a symptom of HIV or AIDs. It’s a side-effect of drugs used to treat the virus (AZT and d4T). Fortunately, newer HIV drugs have been developed without this side-effect (efavirenz, tenofovir, abacovir, etc). For this reason AZT and d4T are no longer recommended to people starting HIV treatment.

Diarrhea is a possible side-effect of some HIV drugs, but it doesn’t effect everyone and often only occurs during the first few weeks or months of treatment. Diarrhea caused by HIV drugs can be treated with ordinary tablets (loperimide, Imodium) available at pharmacies.

The aim of current HIV treatment is to reduce the viral load to “undetectable” and prevent AIDs for life. That’s becoming possible because of continuing progress in HIV drug development (which we should be celebrating as a fucking triumph of human ingenuity).

Increasingly, the problem is not whether these drugs work, but whether they are available and affordable to all people with HIV, from San Francisco to Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the politics of healthcare, and it requires all of us (poz or neg) to be clear-headed, informed and engaged. So, the commenter is right to bring up insurance, but wrong to cloud the topic with stigma and fear-mongering. 

36 comments
  1. Ok as some who was given an AIDS diagnosis 6 years ago, I was lucky to survive almost unscathed. I had a viral load of 800,000, CD4 of 12, PCP and Thrush and luckily – thanks to the new anti-viral meds – I bounced back to undetectable with no further complications as of this date. Yes, I still bareback but only with other poz guys mainly because of the anxiety issue and comfort issue – you are not worried about spreading anything. I have been severely criticized for this but its a consensual thing, not forced. You want worse is all those DL married men who do fuck around bareback then go back to their wives and have unprotected sex with them AND don’t care if they spread any STD.

  2. In the beginning, the CDC didn’t have an established name for the disease, often referring to it by way of the diseases that were associated with it, for example, lymphadenopathy, the condition after which the actual discoverers of Aids originally known as the virus.

  3. The role of HIV meds is to get everyone undetectable so they cannot pass on the bug to others. It is not to help those that are already poz or have aids. Having aids and being sick or having the runs control your activity is not fun. But I still love to bb and fuck around.
    I believe every guy should make his own decision as to fuck with a poz guy or go raw.
    It is important to have insurance if you doing meds, they are expensive.

  4. I have a regular f-bud who is a medical doctor. We only bareback when we have sex. He is the top and tells me he has no issues about topping a poz guy if he is on meds. So many people make an issue about their partner being the same status. If you are the negative top and you are with a positive bottom there is little of cross infection. One always runs the risk of catching something each time they have sex. So many guys in my part of the country bareback (get fucked) all the time. They say ‘negative’ only. I respect this but if you are positive, like me, it’s very hard to convince guys it’s ok to be on top. I suppose what I am trying to say IS we need much more REAL education about m4m sex. Not to mention the legal issues that must be changed. The forms one has to sign about condom use (in my state) is a violation of our constitutional right of privacy. To have the government tell me I MUST use a condom each time I have sex is a violation of MY Right To Privacy. I disclose my status to whom ever is topping. This can give way to fear when doing the most natural of acts. Again, education is key. I hope this rambling made some sense.

  5. Google Cachexia.

    Cachexia is not necessarily a symptom of drug therapy, but is definitely a symptom of HIV infection.

    Wasting away (cachexia) does NOT presumably refer to lipodystrophy, but definitely is symptomatic of HIV infection.

    The point is, make healthy behavioral choices that halt the spread of this disease

  6. I am the guy who wrote the letter to Liam that inspired this comment that we are all now commenting on. In the same way that video games and Marilyn Manson were not responsible for the Columbine shootings in the late 90’s, TIM and other (inferior) bareback porn companies are not responsible for young men contracting HIV. For years, I have been struggling with wanting to fuck the way nature intended it versus the way I’ve told to do it since I was young. I felt a sense of guilt every time I found myself “slipping up” and taking some dudes load. I would beat myself up for it for weeks. That is not a healthy attitude to have about one’s sexuality. So after years of soul searching, I have decided to be true to myself, and what I desire. I am fully aware of the possible consequences of my actions, and I am prepared to be man enough to take them. I am also of the belief that if I do find myself HIV positive, I will inform anyone I’m about to sleep with of my status, and let them decide for themselves if they want to go through with it or not. We are all accountable for our own actions. To try and place the blame on someone else (in this case TIM or bareback porn in general) is bullshit. Anyone who does this, has no backbone. In regards to the commenter above about fucking on drugs. I can see your point. It was a one time thing for me to try crystal meth. I knew before I did it, when it was being offered to me that it would be the first and last time. However, I don’t think there is anything wrong with using a substance from time to time to enhance sex. As human beings, we are naturally drawn to feeling an alternative head space. Even people who don’t do drugs still drink alcohol. I fuck sober most of the time. I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to smoke a joint, or do some poppers, or a line of coke off of a guy’s cock, on occasion. Thanks for reading guys. I’m glad not everyone is mongering fear and pointing fingers. And once again, thanks and love to Liam for making the hottest and most honest gay porn available today.

  7. This is an enlightening and healthy conversation to have on a site dedicated to the worship of barebacking. As a gay man who knowingly accepted the risk of HIV in order to do what I wanted — bareback — I can hold two seemingly polar thoughts about the experience. The first: Barebacking and bug chasing was like a moth-to-flame addiction for me, intensely alluring and boundary pushing at a time when I needed to break out of my narrow world. The second: I’m now 7 years positive, healthy, in recovery from meth addiction, and grateful that I came through the drug/barebacking period alive. I accept 100% responsibility for my prior choices, and I do not for one second deny that something deep in my psyche was satiated by engaging in fetishistic, “dangerous” sexual behavior. I can’t say with any integrity that I regretted it, but I absolutely must also accept that my behavior was outrageously irresponsible and jeopardized others’ health and broke the hearts of some people who are dear to me. So, to me, these are the two sides of barebacking. Ultimately, life is a journey that is not worth making unless one can learn from ALL experiences. And so I can sit here drooling at Liam’s gorgeous pics all the while soberly realizing that my acting out of such scenes has greatly complicated my life. Peace to all.

    1. Hi Tom, that’s a great post. I love how Treasure Island Media’s honest presentation of sex has a way of attracting guys who are also able to be honest with themselves. Sexual life is always complex, and even more so in times of incurable STDs. Without honest self-reflection there is just confusion and panic (something the safe-sex-only campaigners seem to thrive on). Thanks for sharing your thoughts, they’ll be read here and appreciated.

  8. Quote:

    “barebacksaunaslut says:
    December 14, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    Well said Liam. So many people get worked up over the HIV and Barebacking thing they seem to overlook the facts and then rant and rave about totally incorrect things.

    So many times as an out and proud barebacker…” OMG, proud of what, contracting major illness and giving it to someone else? Sure it is natural that is a given. What is there to be proud of? I don’t like condoms either, so I don’t do things that would need it. Frustrating, yep, but the other things of real substance I have going on in life are more important that taking some hot hairy guy’s seed in my butt. I can get off on his thick musc. feet, legs, pits, pubes, frot, edging, so many things…cum is not the be all-end all, unless u get infected.

    But, to each his own…some have nothing else to live for except dangerous sex, to risk the rest of your life, being sick, poisoning the body with drugs, just to get a nut. It is learned behavior. We make our choices. Sure, it is natural, that is not the issue. All I ask is that you let others know your position up front and stay with your own kind. Eroticism is found in so many places beside the ass; some will never know it. Again, to each his own. Sorry but you just cannot defend that shit about contracting HIV and AIDS, erotic? LOL u gotta be kidding me…what drugs are some of these people on…oh wait…there is something in the drug that is changing the thoughts…that is it…fuck, and fuck some more take in more seed till you expire, then world will be rid of one more. I wonder if it is set up that way…..possible?

    Again, to each his own, if that is what barebackers like, enjoy it…it is what you live for. The act of fucking raw is exciting…just like with a man and woman. And keep making movies…but each has responsibility to make their own decisions, we love it…great to watch, jack off to, with a buddy, or buddies, hot men together, we get our nut and move on with life, not wondering…will I be sick next week, next month, or will I be dead in a year! Just keep it in your own group.

    One last thing…this post

    “Anonymous says:
    December 15, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    Is it fucked up that I get off on the subject of bareback and pozzing o much that I can even jerk off just reading this post about HIV meds? I guess I associate pozzing with sex strongly, so everything related to it turns me on. Anyhoo, it’s good to know that I am not alone.b Thanks”

    Duh, man there is seriously something wrong with you; seriously…you need help. Sex is supposed to be the sharing of emotions and high fueled desire with others…pleasurable, etc. Damn..I can not even go on with my questions…never heard of anything like this…I feel sorry for you man, I really do. But, if you are happy that is all that matters. Just please, be upfront with others you meet and keep it in your own group.

    Thanks

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