Just to pass along a story....

Friend of mine calls me yesterday to ask where someone might go who thinks they were just exposed to HIV.

Seems a mutual acquaintence got fucked raw at some event over this weekend and then AFTER the fact came to believce that the guy who fucked him was HIV positive and now has been freaking out for two days.

So between the two of us we figured out where to send him so he could get an immediate medical attention.

This is the reality of barebacking when men dont discuss HIV status.

It takes two to tango, so who was at fault?

The top? the bottom? promoters who dont take a stand about barebacking at their party? the "leaders" of our community which doesn't seem to want to get involved and offend anyone?

Does anybody really even give a damn that Gay men are still getting infected with HIV?

[DONNING FLAME-RETARDANT SUIT IN PREPARATION FOR THE BAREBACKERS' OUTRAGE] While it's repugnant that anyone in this day and age would fuck someone else bareback knowing they are HIV positive, knowing all the bullshit and trauma gay men have gone through over this matter, both personally and politically, I would the say the blame, if we're going to throw it at someone, lies with the guy who let himself be fucked bareback. It's his body and his responsibility to take care of it. Why is he freaking now? How much foresight does it take to realize that getting fucked bareback carries with it the possibility of a horrible consequence, especially with a guy you met at the Black party?! Hello?

(Donning flame retardant suit) Scott is correct, the only place to place the blame, is with the guy who let another guy fuck him bareback!!!!!! END of discussion. NO ONE ELSE is responsible for you EXCEPT you, and there are guys out there who are HIV+ who either dont know it, or dont care, and they might be YOUR next fuck, so take the neccessary precautions if you want to protect yourself......

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hot tite throat & ass 4 u

I was at that party and while there was a lot of sex going on the majority from what I could tell - and it was pretty dark in those areas where guys were having sex - was j/o and oral. I went to the same party five years ago and saw more fucking going on because the layout was different and I think guys could fuck in a close circle in utter darkness without anyone outside that circle really noticing. One guy tried to fuck me at that party five years ago and he was ready with a condom (we didn't).

I think gay men are the ones who care the most about gay men getting HIV, and we all can do lot without blaming promoters or those among us who like to bareback or who are already infected and single/open and cruising. I'm glad there are promoters and bar owners or bathhouse proprietors out there who are willing to run the huge business risks of allowing sex between men on their premises. I'm also glad that, despite the huge obvious absorption of drugs by so many of the men who attended this party, perhaps 80-90% of the guys who were there, at least between 2:30 am and 9:30 am when I was there, were not there to have sex. They were there to dance, to celebrate being gay men, to see so so so so many other beautiful gay men showing off their bodies and spirit. And those who were there to have sex seemed to be staying pretty sane given the ambiance.

It was a great party! The guy who let himself be fucked raw there must have been on drugs. Being totally wasted makes it a lot easier for us to not feel that we are making decisions or choices regarding un/safe sex when in fact we are letting a choice be made.

And to the three very hot young guys I sucked off for what seemed like two hours in the right corner at the end of that long dead-end corridor by the windows, until daybreak, THANKS!!

[This message has been edited by Lex (edited March 28, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Lex (edited March 28, 2001).]

Does anyone really even give a damn that gay men are still getting infected with the HIV?

Yes, I suppose we all do give a damn or else we wouldn't be posting to these boards when the subject comes up.

I have sympathy for men who are still getting infected with the HIV. It is the same sympathy I have for someone who chain-smokes ciagrettes for years and gets lung cancer.

But, I also have another kind of sympathy for someone much like Ryan White. You do remember him don't you? In case you don't remember him, Ryan was a young 13 year old boy from Indiana who contracted the HIV from a blood-transfusion and later acquired full-blown AIDS. He suffered the humiliation and loss of personal dignity by being socially ostracised for having contracted the HIV/AIDS from blood tainted with the HIV. He was not allowed to attend school with his classmates. He was shunned by the public. He subsequently died at such a young and tender age.

Oh yes, I have a different kind of sympathy for him and others like him. Ryan White never had a choice to make in his life because of how he acquired the HIV. As adults, we do have that choice and yet we see too many people still acquiring the HIV.

If a person has been tested for the HIV and it is medically confirmed they have the HIV, what is that person's legal and ethical obligations to inform their potential sex partners of their HIV status? Isn't there also a moral obligation to inform others too?

When people 'freely' enter into a mutually consentual relationship such as having sex together, is there an implied or implicit (unspoken) understanding between the two that neither shall do harm to one another? Does the withholding of vital information (HIV positive status) violate the social contract between the two people?

Before you rush to judge, think first about the current debate on tobacco and the implications of withholding vital information from the public at large.

These qustions have a profound impact on our society in general and not just the gay community more specifically.

Many states have made it a crime for a person who knows he is HIV positive to have unprotected sex with another person without disclosing HIV status, having done so to clear up several issues (mens rea, causation, etc.) that would arise in a plain old murder prosecution. These crimes usually carry sentences similar to manslaughter, which is 8-25 years in typical states. Not all states have done this, and prosecutions are rare. I recall one in Tennessee that involved a female prostitute who had unprotected sex with upwards of 25 johns, infecting an unknown number of them; I don't know how the case was resolved. My inclination is to support making knowing infection equivalent to murder, but I see the arguments for treating it differently.

"Ethical obligations" to me seem indistinguishable from moral obligations, which the previous poster has already opined on. I consider it an ethical obligation to disclose status if you know you are positive, even if you think (but don't know) your partner is positive or knows you are.

Interesting thread. I don't think porn-sized guy was asking people to "sympathize" with his friend, so the Ryan White comparison seems odious. It sounds as if that poster in fact shows no sympathy to either cigarette smokers who get cancer or adult gay men who sero-convert. The latter is not a clean analogy either: cigarette companies spend billions of dollars persuading very young people to smoke. Nicotine is highly, highly addictive. Once smokers start, they have a terrible time quitting. I think we should care about these people a lot both before and after the cancer develops. They're human beings who are suffering horribly, from both addiction and disease.

Gay men are often raised in extremely homophobic environments, including their immediate families while growing up, and grow into a society that is generally homo-intolerant, with dozens of states still prohibiting gay sex by law and with prevailing mores that equate gayness with sin and damnation. Gay men respond differently to this environment according to their character, inner strengths and upbringing, but for many the sexualization process can difficult and many, though not nearly all or even a majority, are prone to self-loathing and self-destructive behavior for extended periods of time, particularly when still young and forming. Doing drugs (just an assumption) and letting a guy you don't know fuck you raw at a huge all-night gay rave in New York City, one of the HIV epicenters, doesn't reflect well on that particular guy's self-respect or maturity; but self-respect and maturity, even in adults, can be fluid - mature adults on drugs and alcohol can do stupid things. Fucking a guy raw, if you have HIV and don't know your partner and don't discuss it is a deeply uncaring and negative act, I think we'd all agree. But should we condemn both of these guys? Should we not care about either of them? Should the top go to jail and the bottom to re-education camp?

The Ryan White analogy, I think, would condemn ALL gay men who seroconvert, since the men are adults with - we assume - fully formed moral compasses. The laws condemning knowingly infective HIV transmitters may not distinguish between a truly criminal act, the deliberate transmission of HIV to others, and a deeply careless and negative act between gay men, e.g. two guys fucking raw at the Black Party without any verbal communication between them about HIV status. In the latter case, I think it's important to repeat what I said in the above post: that it's gay men who care most about gay men getting HIV, and that we can always do more to help each other stay negative, and to help poz guys continue to care about themselves and others while they struggle to live with the disease. If we're going to continue to enjoy the tribal rites we've developed for ourselves as a community, such as circuit parties and multi-partner gay sexuality of the sort that cfs.com and its posters, for example, appear to celebrate, then we have to try unceasingly to care more about one another more while pursuing the very real pleasures of the sex for which we continue to be discouraged and persecuted (and prosecuted). What it boils down to is the individual act.

One last note: a good friend of mine, a top guy who is HIV negative and new to this country, and I were discussing this very subject and the fact that in New York, among a lot of sexually active gay guys in anonymous sex encounters, there seems to be a prevalent attitude that if you're fucking and the bottom guy is willing to be fucked raw, then it's the top guy's responsibility to assume that the bottom guy is HIV positive. Does this sound familiar to any of you?

Well, my top friend says that he had no idea at first that so many guys thought this way (or indeed that so many guys are willing to fuck raw, which he never does). New to this place and these ways, he nonetheless didn't make any assumptions, he just always wore a condom. What if the guy who got fucked at that party was the poz one, and the top guy was just a lusty greenhorn who didn't know to assume the bottom guy is positive? I guess all I'm saying is that condoms really make sense in a world of so many unspoken assumptions, and that it really pays to communicate.

I fully expect to be reamed for this posting, because so many of the political postings here deal in absolutes, despite what I consider to be the deep shades of grey on this subject... .

I used the Ryan White comparison to illustrate the point that most HIV infected people today use poor judgment in making bad choices that govern their behavior.

Anyone who has been gay or bi for at least five minutes 'knows' that unsafe sex and/or the sharing of needles are choices not made without knowledge of the consequences. Mixing alcohol and other recreational drugs in an environment where unsafe sexual behavior is likely to occur, such as circuit parties, raves, or sex clubs, only underscores the cultural acceptance of such behavior and does not mitigate personal responsibility and accountability whatsoever.

A person who chain-smokes cigarettes for many years may be addicted to nicotine. However, even when they have repeatedly read the various warnings on each pack of cigarettes, they have continued to smoke with the foreknowledge that smoking could still lead to cancer. This is not the case when it comes to using good judgement and making good choices to promote safe sex practices.

I will always have sympathy for people who contract the HIV. However, lets not fall all over ourselves in making distinctions without a difference for why people use poor judgment in making bad choices when we do have alternative choices in preventing the spread of HIV to others. It begins and ends with personal accountability which cannot be separated from personal responsibility.

We may not like the alternative choices available to us in preventing the spread of the HIV, and the high number of new HIV cases each year (approx 40,000) strongly suggests some of us are not making those alternative choices much less ever considering them in light of the tragic and deadly consequences. Being gay or bi is not a valid or mitigating reason for contracting the HIV.

In most cases, the HIV/AIDS is the deadly consequence of bad choices from poor judgment. Alcohol and/or recreational drug usage only magnifies and compounds poor judgment and bad choices ten fold, the consequences of which are never in doubt.



[This message has been edited by IrishRedHead (edited April 02, 2001).]

Thanks for expounding and in fact I agree with much of what you say. I would never suggest for example that a drunk driver who hurts or kills a person with his vehicle should be excused from criminal charges because he or she "had a poor upbringing" or a troubled youth. This case and so many others appear more like two drunk drivers hitting each other. And I really do presume that the guy in question was on drugs, so to panic after the fact seems ludicrous. What did he expect? he had raw anal sex at the Black party with someone he didn't know. I just worry that HIV transmission among gay men today may lead to quarantines, crackdowns, greater divides between poz and negative gay men and blanket condemnation of gay sex all around, when the sad awareness of it can contribute instead to greater caring and more personal accountability, as you say. My friend's policy of always wearing a condom when fucking anonymously is most effective. My personal preference for blow jobs, where I run the risk, and gloved anal, saves my ass. Our airing of these issues helps raise awareness - and I'd say especially how you've phrased it - of the deadly responsibility involved in anonymous sex encounters.

I sometimes like to start these discussions to see what guys have to say...

All the issues brought up in the replies are familiar ones.

My question and the purpose for starting all this is that as I hook, I mean work, I mean trick, whatever my way around this city I am constantly amazed as to how many guys will bareback--no questions asked.

I know some are poz and some are neg (or so they think).

I just wanna know

1)What the fuck is up with a Positive man that doesnt tell his partner his status before unsafe sex?

2) of course, What the hell is up with Negative or Untested guys that they would bareback with someone they hardly know (and therefore can really "trust" yet)????