Raw and Sore

Hmm. While everyone is losing their shit today over a fucking 'new' shit-sandwich phone, I have something I really want to write about that has been bothering more and more.

madness....

First of all, my rant on FB this morning:

FFS people...you're peeing your pants over a freaking smartphone that is only slightly incrementally better than the last four iterations of it like it's the second coming of Christ. At the same time you tsk tsk the company that produces it because of the deplorable treatment of unprotected workers on the assembly lines far far away reaping in mindboggling profits making it the biggest corporation on the planet? The hypocrisy is so thick I'm drowning in it.

Whew, okay, that's the thing pissing me off at this point of the morning, the long-term thing that is pissing me off that I want to write about is barebacking.

Just to warn you...this is probably going to piss some people off. That's not my intent, but I have a very clear stance on this that I intend to hold for a long, long time. We're all (supposedly) free to make our own decisions, so keep in mind this is my OPINION only.

madness...

As I'm sure all of you have witnessed, protection-free sex has basically become the norm in all gay porn out there now, in particular most of what's come out the past couple of years. I respect the big production companies for sticking to their principles and protecting all of their workers while promoting civilized public health messages, but everything and everyone smaller and amateurish have basically eschewed condoms for 'natural and impulsive' sex scenes. The last straw was seeing 'The Bareback Network: Because We Were Born to Breed' group on Facebook, and seeing some of my friends 'Like' it. Their mission statement reads as follows:

We aim to promote respect, tolerance and help those who feel the same and those who want to share and have their rights to have their voices heard and freely express how they feel. And this will not depend of you being HIV+ or HIV-. We embrace union and understanding. Bareback (Unsafe sex) is not a 'privilege' or exclusive to HIV+ men only. But for any men out there who feel the same as the rest of us here! We welcome you and we are here to support and respect your own personal reasons.

What the fuck has happened? Has everyone lost their minds? You want respect and tolerance because as a barebacker you feel society judges you? HUH???

Barebacking is proliferating for many reasons.  I understand some of the reasoning is that there has been a generational turnover, a chasm of education and mentoring created because of the *ahem* first time this mindset ran amuck, major advances in the treatment of HIV and AIDS, in addition to a sea change in technology in the last decade, particularly in how we communicate with each other, and simply because we are as a demographic just plain tired of thinking and living with it, but this trend is extremely irresponsible and wrong. You can call me a hater or jealous all you want, I'll admit a hint of jealousy for the ease at which unprotected sex can happen because I'm a horny fuck as much as the next guy, but I'm certainly not a hater of those that do it, though I think they're wrong. I just don't understand the nonchalance and indifference. To me, this is a seriously dangerous trend. It's still an incurable condition that can kill you and gay men are still getting infected with it every day.

As much as barebacking proponents defend their stance and as much as I've quietly harboured that jealousy at poz guys for the appearance that they can fuck with abandon like it was in 'the good 'ol days' while us negative guys still have to wrap up and be concerned with all things STD, I think the whole notion of barebacking and promoting barebacking is A) selfish and irresponsible and B) dangerous and risky. I would never do it in a non-committed situation because there ARE consequences to this behaviour. Safe fucking is risky, unsafe fucking is madness.

Why is it selfish and irresponsible? It's a cop-out to say condoms suck. Yes, they might, but so does being poz. So does contracting a new strain of HIV or some completely new strain of holy-shit-what-the-fuck-is-that. I can't believe the indifference of our general population to this stuff, and in particular gay men who should know better.  But I get it....it is simply another indication of how lame, lazy and stupid our community in particular, and society and civilization in general has become. Anyone can find an excuse or reason to support their worldview, even if it is absolutely delusional.

Why is it dangerous and risky? If you talk to any health professional, they will overwhemingly say it is. To mix all of these strains of viruses together is only inviting more hideous and difficult-to-treat variations to mutate and present themselves. The statistical increase in the possibility of this happening isn't only among the poz guys themselves, but possibly more dangerously among the population potentially yet to be converted...looking at it as a metaphor like they are a new frontier for the experiment to cultivate itself in and present new outcomes from...untraceable viral loads be damned.

There is a differentiation between practice and promotion. It's hard for me to defend my position on this while getting turned on by Dawson's 20 Load Weekend as much as anyone else.  For those guys that practice it, go for it, I have no means of stopping you if I wanted to. And I am the first one to defend your freedom to fuck whomever you choose, however you choose. Government regulation has no business in the behaviour modification business. When it comes to sex, I think you should be protecting yourself from yourself and everyone else, but who am I to stop you from whatever way you want to do it or convince you otherwise? If I was poz it's possible I might practice the same behaviours. But for those that promote it, I think you are not being principled and yes, you do have the responsibility to promote responsible sex whether you think you do or not. You may not agree with me...that everyone has free will, but it's true. It's bullshit to think that people don't emulate the behaviors they see in porn or in the media. There are uneducated and/or indifferent men looking at your product and saying, "they are doing it that way; if they're doing it, I will too". By promoting a message of risky sexual practices, you are potentially encouraging the health crisis mentioned above. You may argue that it will happen eventually anyways, but why the fuck would you accelerate or encourage it?. As the Bareback Network states:

Bareback Station website will NOT be featured in any countries where GAY rights / human rights are not respected and any of those countries where HIV-AIDS is still a death sentence.

HUH? Why the distinction when you are desiring global tolerance and respect for a arguably reckless group of behaviours? This appears to be selective communication to me, a want to only get a particular response. Promoting bareback sex is not going to win you any fans anywhere, gargantuan heath service institutions in place or not.

It is your responsibility to protect the people you're fucking with. You are positive WHY? Because you were irresponsible. Because you made a mistake or had a lapse of judgment. While you are trying to defend your bad decisions, you are endangering everyone around you with your philosophy. Nothing comes without consequence, yet some poz guys feel emboldened to promote recklessness because the after-effects of their bad decisions and unfortunate outcomes means there are no further consequences. I don't want to dump on poz guys and not all of them promote barebacking and ultimately it is the individual's decision to bareback or not, but to promote it as if there isn't an increased risk involved is crazy.

Some poz guys say that there is nothing daunting about being poz. Is that really true or is that what you convince yourself as being true? Do you have to take medication everyday? Do you have a dependency on the medical system? Does your treatment affect other aspects of your health, your body, or your life? Would you suffer if you suddenly didn't have access to your drug regimen? Then there is something intrinsically different about your situation that the rest of us don't have, right?

Using condoms is the respectful and intelligent thing to do for those you love or are lusting in the moment. How is saying we are genetically predisposed to breed naturally without barriers even an argument? It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard....well, maybe except the argument that the iPhone5 is so different it's worth lining up for and dumping hundreds of dollars on. We got into the HIV/AIDS quagmire because everyone was fucking in the 70s recklessly without protection; it isn't a leap to guess that it won't happen again in the future now that we're repeating the same behaviours again, decades later. We haven't learned a thing.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
                                                                     -George Santayana