Gay anon breeding

While I had previously written about and intellectualized barebacking, I was nonetheless taken aback by the reality of being surrounded by the act.

My own thoughts on barebacking have shifted radically in recent months, especially in regard to my stereotypes about the men themselves. It remains to be seen how politicized barebackers will become about their rights and responsibilities.

A red bulb provides the only light, casting an eerie glow over the room. Last summer, researchers documented the first case of multidrug-resistant HIV transmission -- from an HIV positive man to his HIV negative partner. Most early prevention strategies were grounded in fear and shame, disallowing honest discussion of behavior that deviated from the condom code.

“Dangers and precautions are things we don't talk about enough,” said FJB. “Aside from the biological risk of taking many raw loads, there is a physical safety risk. Acknowledging that “unsafer” behavior has its own continuum, a harm-reduction approach to barebacking would enable men to make more informed choices. Other researchers immediately disputed these claims.

While it’s unlikely that a contingent of bareback advocates will march in this year’s gay pride parades, this community is increasingly visible. A TV screen flickers with a porn video. And the things people point to when condemning and/or pathologizing anonymous group sex — the objectification, the dehumanization, the mitigatable-but-interminable risks — are precisely what turns some people on about anonymous group sex.

“I’ve talked with him for quite some time so that he understands what he’s getting into, and evidently he feels it’s controllable and wants it,” he says. With “health monitors” patrolling commercial sex venues, on the lookout for patrons who dare to break the rules, barebackers have responded by hosting private parties in their own homes. If you don't have enough, some will wait until you’re sloppier to stop by.

Then, in September, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist made the first scientific pronouncement that reinfection by different strains of HIV is a fallacy. Over and over on the XtremeSex website this fantasy plays itself out, and XtremeSexers have used their considerable knowledge of HIV pathogenesis to elaborate it.

For years now, public health experts have told HIV positive gay men to err on the side of caution by using condoms even with other positives, though the scientific jury on reinfection is still out. “This is a bareback party,” the house rules read. But if he can’t be used like this without both abusing and blaming drugs, SEED, he’s not living his best life and enjoying crazy kinks.

Otherwise, it’s going to get a lot worse.”

Rather than scapegoating barebackers for the shortcomings of HIV prevention campaigns, a more productive approach would entail outreach workers familiarizing themselves with the subculture.