A few of the stories I related from IML had to do with one particular guy (he’s the guy from the paddling/whipping video). When you read the story below you’ll see he took a huge step at IML and started taking any load from any guy he thought was hot – no questions asked.

This is a critical period in his life so I wanted him to get his thoughts during this period down “on paper” since memories often revise how things really were to suit the thinking at a later time. It’s important to note that he had a hard time verbalizing what he was feeling when he was at IML. These are his thoughts two weeks later…

To the extent I was part of his story I’ve linked to the appropriate blog post where I mention him…

I’m not advocating that other guys take the same steps he is. But I think his thinking needs to be heard. Processes like this are how guys become poz, yet pubic policy “experts” rarely take people like him into consideration. They’re much happier with the simple stereotypes – like young kids on Tina, but I suspect guys like this guy are far more typical than the stereotypes. These are the guys who tell their healthcare providers friends and loved ones “it was an accident, I’m usually pretty careful”…

I’ve been asked to write down my thoughts from IML, specifically my thoughts on becoming a cum hungry bottom who decided, for the first time, to take loads from all men there. Without asking their status or health. I took loads from guys who told me they were negative. I took loads from guys who either didn’t know or who I suspected were positive. I took loads from guys I knew to be positive, but had no idea of their viral load. And I took loads from guys I didn’t even bother asking.

I wasn’t as much of a cum dump as I could have been. Sometimes I chickened out and stopped before they came, reverting back to old excuses I used when I wanted to get barebacked but I didn’t want them to cum inside me (“I’m getting sore, I already came, etc.”). I meant to go to a few total all out bb fuck parties but other things came up that prevented that (whether or not I did that consciously). And frankly, loads are at a premium even at IML … it’s like the busiest night at the hottest bathhouse, and bottoms are so easy to find that the tops were saving their cum for the fuck parties or for the next hotter guy that might be coming along asking to get fucked. So altogether I took loads from about 10 different men there (and got fucked at Steamworks by quite a few men where I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not they shot inside me.) I thought that was a pretty good total, from someone who has barely started taking cum up my ass and has never taken multiple loads like that.

So the question is: what made me start taking loads, no questions asked? It seems like a fundamental change from a former safe sex bottom who’s been careful to stay negative after about 20 years of getting fucked (I started out life with a girlfriend, and then as a top, before I discovered I love getting fucked at about age 25). It’s really just a progression in how i’ve changed my thinking. And fundamentally, it’s an acceptance of the extreme risk I’m taking and the consequences of taking that risk.

I’ve been described, by someone who observed me on the weekend, as a bug chaser. I don’t see myself that way. I know that’s the probable consequence of what I’m doing, but I’m not seeking to become positive. It’s more that I’m indifferent about the possibility of becoming positive. All things being equal, I would prefer to remain negative, I would prefer to be one of those incredibly few people that are essentially immune to the virus. I truly see it more as a progression of acceptance of risk. Or, probably more accurately, I see it as an example of extreme behavior that men often engage in, extreme sports, hyper-aggressive driving, drugs, gambling, whatever. It’s my version of that. Living on the edge, reckless or indifferent to the consequences because the thrill of living that way is adequate pay-off.

For the first 10 years of my life of getting fucked I never got fucked without a condom. I never bothered getting tested, because knowing my status would not have changed my sexual practice in any way, since I always practised safe sex. When I met my current partner over 10 years ago, we both got tested (me for the first time), and we fucked each other without condoms. That was a sea change in my practice. Before then, I wouldn’t even swallow cum. At the same time, medications started getting better, and people with HIV were starting, slowly and not so easily, to live longer and more manageable lives. And I started to relax my restrictions. I love sucking cock, and I started to learn and to love swallowing cum down my throat. I craved that moment when a man’s cock started to throb and I would feel his cum shooting down the back of my throat. One man I sucked off a few times I found out was positive, and instead of freaking out I figured, “it’s just a different place on the risk spectrum, and not so far along where I was before, the real risk of HIV transmission is fairly small”. I concentrated on making sure I didn’t get cum near my gums, that it was all the way at the back of my throat, etc. I started to negotiate risk with myself, always consciously and deliberately. I gave up the notion of absolute risk reduction that I held in my 20s and early 30’s.

Then I started getting fucked without condoms. Just at the beginning, to tease myself. Or out in the park where it wasn’t easy to find a condom. Or in a backroom somewhere. Just for a minute, or two minutes, making sure I didn’t let the guy stay in me long enough to cum. (Knowing that it doesn’t take all that long for some guys … sometimes I would ask them not to cum inside me, and sometimes I’m pretty sure they did but I ignored the meaning of that). In those days it was pretty standard practice to pull out even if you were fucking bareback. Pretty soon, at the baths, I would always bring my condoms but I was as happy as not if the guy didn’t put one on before he fucked me. But I would always (try to) stop him before he came inside me. There were the usual tactics (see above). But the guy would usually ask whether he could cum inside me, or I would make sure he didn’t.

Then I got a boyfriend (on the side) with whom I had intense and incredible sexual energy. The first time we fucked with condoms. The second time I told him not to bother with the condom, and when I knew he was close I asked him to come inside me. And he did. And that was that. We fucked for the next 2 years, and I revelled and gloried in taking his cum (and piss) inside me whenever I could. I craved it. I lived for it. When we broke up, about 3 years ago, I felt empty and became obsessed with him, with cum, with piss, with being filled, being fulfilled, and all of that. It was only a matter of time before I needed to feel all of that inside me again.

Last year at IML I hooked up with someone I had met online, and he fucked me, and he came inside me. That was pretty much the first time since my boyfriend. (My partner and I no longer have sex … I guess that’s part of the story too.) I knew the guy was negative. I thought it was hot. I then met up with another guy, an incredibly hot daddy, who was the closest to my old boyfriend I ever met. The energy was intense for me. But he was positive. I craved his cum inside me. He fucked me bare, but we didn’t go that extra step. I felt cheated. I wanted more.

Then, two months later, I was getting fucked by a fuckbuddy (who I’ve always known is positive) … he’s always fucked me bare but has always pulled out to shoot his load on my back … with incredible control, I’ve got to admit. In the last year or two he’s played with the idea with me of not pulling out, he’s asked me to ask for his cum, but I’ve always refused. It was hot, and moreso because it was forbidden, socially taboo, a negative boy asking for his daddy’s poz cum inside him. But this time, last July, he was fucking me, and telling me to beg for his cum, and I was saying no, and he said “Just say, ‘load me up’. And I’ll do it.” And something in me clicked, and I wanted it so bad, and I said to him “Load me up. Please.” And he said “yeah, I’m going to shoot inside you and you’re finally going to take my cum”. And then I panicked, and I said “no, please don’t, I don’t want it yet” and he said “It’s too late fucker, you asked for it and I’m finally going to give it to you.” And he was pumping me harder, and holding me down, and I was crying “no, fuck no” and he started to shoot his cum inside me, and I came, an intense orgasm, shot a huge load in his sheets as he was cumming inside me, for the first time after years of fucking, and it was one of the most amazing orgasms I’ve ever had.

Since then, I’ve taken a few loads, but not so many. Some of them were poz loads. I’ve been tested since and I didn’t become positive. I’ve hooked up with some neg fuckbuddies and they dump in me regularly enough (about once or twice a month). I’ve become used to wanting and taking loads. And it’s at that point that I went to IML. I knew something would change this year for me there. I’d put my profile up on a bareback site. I’d talked openly with a couple of guys I chatted with before I got there about getting fucked and taking multiple loads of cum up my ass. I had planned to go to and got invitations to a couple of the bareback fuck parties. I tentatively planned a bareback fuck party of my own, inviting tops to come to my room one of the evenings to gang-bang me. I knew something would happen, but I didn’t know how far I’d let myself go. I wanted to have all the opportunities available.

I got my first load right away, from a neg top I’d been talking to quite a bit before I got there. Then I went to Steamworks, and lay on my stomach in my room letting pretty well anybody come in and finger my ass. Some of the men I wasn’t into, but the ones I was I lifted my ass and took some poppers and they knew well enough that was an invitation to climb on and fuck. The ones that wanted to put on a condom I told to leave. I got fucked multiple times, and I wanted to take loads, but by and large I didn’t get any (I only got one load for sure the entire evening, because men were walking in and out and fucking me for awhile but not coming). A few promised to come back and dump their load inside me at the end of the evening, but may have come by when my door was closed. But I had decided, by then, and for the rest of the weekend, not to ask status, to take loads from anyone, to let them cum inside me and to accept the consequences, whatever they were, and even to accept becoming poz, if that happened.

Why? For me, it was simply an acceptance of the risk. The benefits to me were immense … it was what I craved for years, to be a real cum dump, to take loads, multiple loads, from a bunch of hot men who wanted to dump inside me. To be completely and totally marked as a bottom. To have sex without fear of consequence. Asking status seemed redundant, or pointless, or somehow even rude. To accept loads from most men, why would I not accept loads from all? Chances are they might not know their status. I wasn’t going to insist on recent medical results. I wasn’t going to start asking for viral loads (on the theory that poz, but undetectable, men are as safe as neg men). If I was going to take one anonymous, unknown load, it seemed irrational that I wouldn’t take another one, or several, loads. I was clear-headed and purposeful in this decision. I would be (more or less) indifferent to who I allowed to cum inside me.

More or less. If I became positive, I would want to remember my sexual life (I would want to remember it in any event) as one of intense raw energy, of adventure and discovery, of hot sensual encounters that changed my way of thinking and of looking at things. I do not want men to fuck me, or cum inside me, just because they want to, or because I want some cum. I know this may sound contrary to what I’ve just set out above at great length, but frankly I don’t want just to get fucked by as many men as possible. I’ve got to be turned on by the situation, I’ve got to want the cum so bad it aches. So I organized a gang-bang, and although it didn’t turn out exactly the way I fantasized, it was still good, and a few men did come to my room and climbed on my hole and pumped a load up my butt. And that was a hot scene and it turned me on and the whole thing was worth it. But the hottest thing that night was that the first top who fucked me, who was also there, witnessed another dominant top come in and totally use my body (and mind), but he didn’t fuck me once. I responded to that as much, or more, than I responded to the anonymous loads. And that made me realize that there could be so much more to the weekend than being a complete cum dump. I spent the rest of the weekend trying to negotiate those two competing thoughts (as the dominant top put it, between being “just a hole” and being “more than a hole”.)

I think the man who asked me to write this down (the first top who gave me his load at IML), wanted me to record what I am thinking now, because I might live to regret my choice. He assumes, rationally enough, that I will become positive. That seems inevitable. He wants me to have this to remember why I did it. I won’t regret my choices, I’ve never done that. I understand pretty clearly why I’m at this point in my life. It’s not because of a lack of self-respect, or because of depression, or even a conscious self-destructive impulse. I’m pretty rational generally in my life choices. I live a healthy life, go to the gym often, don’t smoke or do drugs, and I’m in better shape at 46 than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m a professional, successful in my career, have many friends and am generally happy. I’m also at a point that if or when I do become ill, I’m set for that, with good benefits and a house and some money stashed away and other opportunities to explore if I can no longer work at my current job. I’m also at the age where I’m seeing friends, and family, die away, some senseless tragic deaths, not at all HIV-related: cancer, accidents, unforeseen events. Or quiet deaths, slipping away after long lives half-lived. Despite all appearances to the contrary, I don’t believe I’m being truly reckless about this. It’s not a coincidence that I’m doing this at this point in my life.

Was it worth it? Yes, for IML I believe it was worth it. I had fun, and I learned a few important things about myself, and my capacities (and limits … places I might want to explore or grow). Will I continue doing this? Yes, but maybe not as a complete and utter cum dump. It would depend on the circumstances. I would do another IML weekend, or Folsom or whatever comes up. Incorporating all that into my regular life at home, I’m not so sure. I really liked the special adventure of that weekend, and the incredible high it gave me. And also there’s the general issue of sexual health, HIV notwithstanding (I ended up with another, more mundane, STD from the weekend, and remembered that sexual health in general is something I have to be aware of and protective of both myself and others, if I want to continue having a good fun sexual life.)

Would I recommend it to others? No, not generally. I’m not advocating recklessness in sexual practice. I’m not advocating going out and becoming poz, or seeking it. It depends on your circumstances. I’ve always believed we have to live with the consequences of our actions. If you’ve thought through the consequences and you’re willing to live with them, then you’re capable of making your own choices.

It’s certainly an easier choice to make now than it would have been even 3 years ago … more and more people are barebacking, more people are fetishizing cum and breeding and getting bred, it’s become almost a norm of gay sexual practice. It may turn out that this was the right moment for all of that to happen because of the advance of HIV meds, it may be that it was too early. Time will tell. I’m aware of the potential impact of social practice and social discourse on my own behavior, and it gives me pause to think I’m just living through an historical moment and that’s affecting my behavior. That’s probably one of the reasons I resist being a total cum dump, I want to observe this social change for a moment and figure out how it does impact on my life, and then figure out the course I want to chart through it all. But for the moment I’m pretty happy with the direction I’m taking.