Barebacking

Straight forward title for this one. To be honest, this is rambling and disjointed enough that worrying about where I might steal a title from shouldn't be the foremost issue at hand.



In October, I got the details of this guy, D.N., through someone else he'd be talking to. I'd been talking to the other (J.C.) for a while before that, but things kept getting in the way of us hooking up. They were thinking a threesome, but it would've had to wait. None of us had actually met, so we decided that it was best to wait until at least someone had met one of the others.

But D.N. started texting me late at night, wanting to meet up the next day. He's bi, but hadn't been fucked before, so he was looking for someone to fuck him. (Looking at lot, as I found out later, as he'd already gone and met someone and sucked them off sometime around when he was texting me.) I was getting horny over the messages, then he texted me this:

"So do you bb or not?"

I told him that I didn't, which he was fine with. In the end, other things came up for me and I cancelled. Not heard a word from him since, and the guy I'd met him through got told to only contact him if he wanted sex. He seemed to be doing fine for himself anyway.

***

I barebacked once before. Coincidently in a threesome. It was with a married couple, I was topping. One of the guys had tried to top me, but I was too tight and he gave up.

I was lying on my back when the guy sat on my cock. I couldn't really see what was going on down there, since his husband had his dick in my mouth. But one minute the guy was sucking me off, and the next he'd slipped my cock into him.

I honestly can't tell you how the sensation of fucking someone without a condom felt, because once I realised what was going on my mind was racing. "What am I doing? Why am I letting this happen? I hardly know these people." It was some kind of twisted notion of trying to be polite that stopped me from asking him if I was wearing a condom or to stop and get off me.

The lack of needing to take off a condom after he came and got off me confirmed the fact for me, unless he slipped it off and disposed of it without me realising. When I looked back on it all, I might have guessed that would happen. While talking with the guy I ended up fucking, he talked about me coming inside him.

In short, I stayed the night, freaked out but almost stayed for another night (ended up having to go home instead). Was ill in the following weeks, freaked out some more. Couple of mean-spirited comments from my brother, who takes every ailment as a sign that I've got AIDS, didn't help much. Got tested later in the month, freaked out when I got a message from the clinic, had to get another test. But it turned out to be all clear in the end. The message was about possibly having chlamydia (which I didn't have either).

That panicked reaction (even if I managed to keep it hidden during the threesome) pretty much describes me at my worst. I catasrophise situations to the point where I'm nearly making myself sick. But unlike situations that don't call for such an excessive reaction, this one does have potentially severe consequences. And in this case, it wasn't something that was properly discussed beforehand. We hadn't said flat out that we wouldn't use condoms, nothing was said before it happened. Not having that mental preparation no doubt contributed to the panic.

I'm not sure how I'd file away that experience. Things didn't go to plan, but I don't regret it and it was the first time I got to spend the whole night with another man (and two, no less).

***

If I had to pick a favourite food, cheesecake would probably be up there. 99% of the time if I order dessert, that's what I'll order. And rum and coke to drink. But if I had it every day or even every other, eventually something I love would start doing me harm. The benefit of eating it every day (it tastes really good) is overshadowed by the cost (what it'd do to my health).

But obviously, cheesecake, rum and barebacking aren't the same. Eating cheesecake non-stop will probably leave you fat and diabetic, but having one slice every couple of weeks isn't going to suddenly mean you need a crane to lift you out of bed. A couple of drinks now and then won't put you on the liver transplant list. But you fuck the wrong guy just once, and you could end up with something you'll be carrying with you for the rest of your life. I don't want a lifetime of being sick or needing to take medication. I don't want to put a strain on the health service or tax payers to pay for meds for something that I did to myself (to phrase it rather bluntly). I can't afford to pay for the cost myself right now, and I wouldn't want the added expense even if I could.


It's not a lack of wanting, I guess. It is something that, even if I didn't actually do it, I'd want at least the option of doing it. Though it's not an overwhelming desire, it's something I can understand. Right now, I just don't feel the need to do it with every guy I sleep with. It's not the act itself, it's the guy you're doing it with. It demands either trust in the guy or a disregard of fear. And it's fear and mistrust that stops me in so much of life. Given the other stuff I say about myself on this blog, there's no point in hiding this weakness.  Honesty, even if it is through anonymity, is what I was aiming for here. I can't shake the fear of the worst case scenario.

Looking at the cost-benefit of barebacking, it's not something I'm prepared for at this time in my life. The pleasure of having sex without a condom last for a day, but can have an outcome that lasts the rest of yours.

***

Admittedly, I'm no paragon of safe(st) sex. I only use a condom with anal sex. I've never used one for oral, nor any kind of protection when fingering or rimming (or being fingered/rimmed). I let guys come in my mouth without much thought, and I'll lick it up if they come on their stomach/etc. I'm not really interested in telling other people what they should do with themselves nor do I have the right to, as I am obviously no poster child for safe sex. I know the risks but do so anyway, because I enjoy doing those things. Which is the same with barebacking. But the risks, possibly due to the higher volume of attention it gets, feel a lot higher with barebacking than other sex acts (or at least the ones I take part in), which is what stops me. And except for swallowing/licking up cum, that is probably the most high risk as far as the major concern (HIV) goes.

***

I don't know if you can have a stance on an issue like this without it coming across as judgemental. What have I just said about people who do choose to bareback? Am I implying that people who do bareback disregard their health? This is a rather contentious issue, so maybe it's unavoidable if it does come across that way.

I try to have a balanced view on this. I want to stand at a middle ground, not at either extreme of vilifying it as the gravest sin or exalting it as the only true way to have sex. Not to reduce it all down to this one single act, but also not treat it as the sexual equivalent of taking a gun to your head. The majority of what I've read so far have been either virulently pro-barebacking or likewise contra.

I can't say the arguments in support (beyond perhaps that it feels better) have swayed me much. 'The way nature intended' is a phrase I've seen a couple of times. But nature doesn't really give a shit about what you want or what's good for you. Otherwise no one would have heard of an 'unwanted pregnancy'. There's be no diseases or infections. We'd all be living long and happy lives fucking as we please with no negative side-effects.

It's not natural to use a condom (or lube for anal sex, for that matter). But not much about the modern world is. We travel the land, sea, and air at great speeds in various metal boxes. You can do all your foraging in a conveniently located building filled with everything you need to survive and hundreds more things you don't. And if nature tries to drag you to the grave through illness or accident (maybe involving one of those unnatural metal boxes), you've got specially trained people willing to help you cheat death and keep on living past what nature intended. They're conveniences there to make life easier or safer and not necessarily a bad thing.

***

I mentioned my brother earlier. His attitude and general homophobia is, besides the obvious 'health concerns', a big reason for wanting to try to avoid running the risk of HIV. That would basically tell him that he was right, for having called me 'diseased faggot' and thinking I've ruined my life. A mix of pride and sibling rivalry leads me to want to prove him wrong, to be better and healthier than him. It seems like such a vile cliché, but it's one he holds on to. I don't want to be gay and have HIV, because I don't want to live up to that image. Thinking I have to hold up some kind of image to the world that I'm not the worst stereotype of a gay man.


But freedom from having to fear catching HIV is a motive for some. Worrying about getting HIV is stressful, and yet the only way to be definitely sure of avoiding it is to never have sex again (or do intravenous drugs, or ever require a possibly tainted blood transfusion, etc.). I understand the idea that it can be liberating not to care. If you go out there, either with the expectation or in some cases desire to get HIV, then you don't have anything to fear any more if you catch it. The 'worst that could happen' has already happened. You can live your life without that fear, one of the most highlighted for gay men, hanging over your head every time you have sex.

But this is the one argument I will never understand. It's kind of like being glad that you're no longer going to cut your finger because you've lost your hand. It's still a negative, you're still at a disadvantage. Is your sex life of more worth than any other aspect of your life? Is it worth potentially cutting other sides of your existence--family life, social life, love life, work life, etc.--short because you want to say that you had a satisfied sex life at the end of it?

***

'Fucking without fear' is another mantra that gets brought out rather often from what I've seen.

I do admire the carefreeness that I assume that would take. And I guess what I want to know is what it's like not to have that kind of fear. How people live without it. Though even if I were free of it, that doesn't guarantee that I'd do it. It would be nice having the option that I can select, not that I'm forced into because I'm afraid.

***

I'd written more, but I want to stop here since I've already tried to shorten this as it is. I guess, to try to come to a conclusion (at least for now), I don't mind having to use a condom since that isn't the only aspect of sex for me. There's all the other things that make up sex that still mean I can enjoy it without barebacking. If it was in the context of a more meaningful/long time relationship where I knew where we both stood on it, then I would consider it. But for any casual encounters or someone I've not known that long, I can live without it.

But I do want to trust people. I want to believe that when people say they're 'clean and disease free', they mean it. Not that they're telling you the lies they think will get you into bed. I want there to be people out there who I can believe in. I want those kind of people to exist out there. I want someone like that in my life. If I did it, it would be because the guy is special.

So I can understand wanting to do it. Not wanting to feel that this is something so bad, so awful and inherently harmful that you need to be guarded from it. But for someone who spent the last 10+ years seeing the world as a living Hell, that kind of carefree attitude is some ways off for me. And maybe that carefree attitude isn't right for me.