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.
Thor’s men
1 day ago
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.
ReplyDeleteSo many times as an out and proud barebacker have people laid into me about things which they clearly know nothing about. The more we bring the subject of hiv and aids out into the open, the sooner we can educate people as to the reality of the current issue.
Excellent posting.
Hi, I'd be interested in your thoughts on HepC...there are a lotta guys gettin off of gettin pozzed...do you (they) also get turned on at the thought of gettin 'Hepped'? I love raw fucking but have only done it in a relationship with a guy I can trust. Not so bothered about HIV necessarily but HepC...I'm not so sure. Cheers for any comments/advice.
ReplyDeleteHello Liam, I am a French Bear and fan of TIM's productions. I make myself photos and I write porn Bear narratives. I am following your profile on Twitter too. I just wanted to say that your text is very clear, that it asks the good question about a responsible attitude and accessibility all over the world to treatments. This attitude of responsibility, I try to develop it in my speech and personal life. Hugs to you Liam. Van Orso
ReplyDeleteI hope this discussion encourages more guys who get off on poz/AIDS talk and fantasies to be more open about their fetish!
ReplyDeleteMany of us who have been poz and have managed quite well for years are fully responsible and aware of our choices.
I realize, of course, that are many people who struggle with HIV, and I wish them all the best. But I refuse to let another man's struggle or beliefs be imposed on my life or my sexual desires or practices with other aware, informed and consenting men.
Straight talking on a complex subject. Thanks for a great blog and seriously hot porn.
ReplyDeleteMikey
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.
ReplyDelete"...mindful individuals are not predictable. free will is proportionate to the amount of awareness and wisdom an individual exercises at any particular moment..."
ReplyDeleteInteresting quote, but I'm intrigued by the missing parts. Do you have the complete sentences?
ReplyDeletethere are only three words missing from the quote. one of them might only lead to a generalisation of some sort (although not in the same vain as the original commenter above). the other two are the philosophical source and the word 'explains'. these were omitted as to not take away the focus on the important relevance of your response to the original commenter, and the follow on comments. the essence of the quote is in no way diluted or misrepresented.
ReplyDeletei felt it relevant to post the quote as i believe fucking, as it's meant to be, can be a catalyst to becoming mindful. free will, i believe, is the consequence.
on the matter of fucking on drugs i think that, regardless for the reason to mix the two, drugs remain medecine. taking into consideration the corruption of the fundamental connection between two men fucking, as portrayed by 'safe' porn most of us grew up with, no wonder so many guys need medication in order to fuck. fucking might seem more 'magical' on drugs but like most medicine, it will only treat the 'symptoms' temporarily by potentially 'making you loose your inhibitions' and could leave you with feelings of guilt (or become addicted to guilty pleasures. either way, guilty & fucking should never be associated with each other).
it also dulls the memory senses & great fucking should always be remembered in its truest form. fucking on drugs might seem more wild, intense & pleasurable in the moment, but when no one can get a natural hard on, everyone just walks around like sheep. fucking sober not only heals, but is truly wild & so much more mind blowing.
live by the sword, die by the sword, long live the wild breed!
well said...
ReplyDeletea few weeks ago i briefly addressed stigma associated with hiv on flickr. some of the responses are rather supportive and come from outside "our" world... have a look-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpaulda/5223339910/
I received a blogspot notification of this anonymous comment (below), but for some reason it isn't here. I don't know how that could happen. Maybe the commenter deleted his comment after he posted it. There is a lot in this comment that I disagree with, but I'm copy and pasting it anyway:
ReplyDelete"Liam
TIM has lost its appeal. Now, like most radical ideas taken to the mainstream, it has become tired and boring and doesn’t excite as it used to, and the fetishization of HIV (whatever next?) is being subversively hailed as its devious, oh-so-unspeakable saviour. How else can it compete?
You, and your blog, are now sadly perpetuating this demise.
Your neutral stance on HIV of “describing” one thing and “recommending” another are thinly veiled. There really isn’t anything erotic about contracting HIV, even if one can have sexual abandonment, and regale in describing it, in the process. Is there any valid counter argument? HIV positive can be very sexy, as can be HIV negative men. Yes, the “naughtiness” of barebacking can be appealing.
However, as much of a cliché it is to bring up, you aren’t publishing stories about being fucked by guys with genital warts or any other STIs.
Can you find an upbeat spin to put on HIV to those men badly affected by not mentioned here, who are living in the developed world with full access to treatment? There are plenty of them.
I understand why men with HIV might want to dismiss HIV as benign, especially as it has had no ill effect on them (viz. “what is the big deal?” “Why am I being vilified for having HIV?”). The truth is though, that even despite modern advances, this disease continues to kill and disable otherwise well, bright, productive young men and women, albeit (and thankfully) not as conspicuously as it did 20-25 years ago.
The promotion of open debate is one thing. A balanced and informed debate, the more intelligent approach, is another thing altogether."
barebacking isn't naughty, it's natural
ReplyDeleteTelling guys bareback porn is filthy and wrong isn't going to make them stop liking it any more than telling teens that abstinence is a viable way to get through puberty will make them save themselves for marriage. Sex with condoms is, to be frank, unnatural (although occasionally necessary). Show me a guy that says, "I really prefer the look and feel of a condom" and I'll show you a liar, plain and simple. This is not 1985 when HIV testing was scarce and scary, and names of people who were positive were being collected by the CDC. You can order home testing kits now. You can get tested- for free- in every major city (and some minor ones). Porn is no longer a 'social arbiter'; it can return to its natural state: fantasy. What we choose to do in our own lives is NOT fantasy, and should not be connected directly with the porn we watch. It's OUR responsibility, not the porn.
ReplyDelete