My apologies for not updating the blog with stuff that’s been going on, but the truth of the matter is that not much has been going on – sexually at least… Life has been a bit crazy lately on a number of levels. Work has been busy on several fronts and I feel like I’m constantly behind on everything. On top of that my bf and I are about to embark on a HUGE project that’s going to consume a crazy amount of time for up to a year (those of you who know me know what that is). So this is just sorta early warning that I may not be fucking as much as I’d like… Life is like that sometimes. But the end result will hopefully be VERY good.

And in the middle of everything else I managed to get a pretty disruptive STD that’s made it so I couldn’t fuck (ethically at least). I noticed a little thing on my dick and then it spread to a few places on the head of my cock. I was scheduled to see the doctor the following Tuesday so I didn’t go into the Saturday drop-in clinic at Callen-Lorde. Then it turned out the appointment I thought was on Tuesday was actually on a Wednesday. Then a snowstorm came and they closed Callen-Lorde and canceled my appointment. So that meant a week delay getting treated. Then when I went in the doctor thought I had herpes, but then he called back saying I actually had syphilis. I got my shot for that the day after he called (in itself a long story that I won’t go into). Then it’s taken forever for my dick to heal and return to looking normal. I knew everything was safely killed, but it looked like shit. About the only type of hookup I could have done would have been a dark room pump-and-dump.

Oh yeah – I did finally get confirmation that I was negative for herpes (thank god!), but only after taking Valtrex for nearly two weeks (and paying a $70 copay for the shit).

So I haven’t been fucking much. I was thinking of hooking up this weekend, but between the big project and regular work, that just didn’t happen. I’m hoping to change that in the next day or two though so hopefully I’ll have more to tell you guys soon.

If you’ve been trying to hookup with me, that’s why I’ve been saying “can’t hookup for a few days”. I didn’t want to say anything until it was over and things were back to normal. But I’ll definitely be wanting to do some quick and easy fucks over the next week or so to make up for lost time.

And for the record, I think I managed to tell everyone who I could think of who might have been affected by my syphilis, and everyone who told me their results said they were neg. So I don’t seem to have passed it onto anyone (or at least not many people). But the point is STDs are a bitch but they’re also just sort of a fact of life for people who are sexually active. We need to be open and honest about them so people can get them treated and they don’t spread. Never be silent – always tell guys that they should get tested – otherwise you might wind up playing viral ping pong with them.

The other thing I’ve been thinking is that someone really needs to come up with a nicer name for syphilis. It sounds so horrible. Gonorrhea is called “The Clap” since there was a madame named “Mother Clap” who ran a whore house in the 1800s where guys kept getting Gonorrhea. And chlamydia is just a nice name to begin with. It sounds like a flower or something. I could totally envision someone saying they gave their boyfriend or girlfriend a dozen chlamydias for Valentines Day. Herpes sounds like a Greek hero… So syphilis really needs a cute nick name to put it on par with all the other STDs… Any suggestions?

UPDATE: It Gets Worse…

So someone showed up at my door today. She asked if I was [insert my name here]. I said yes. I asked who she was and she gave her name. She asked me to confirm my date of birth so she knew I was who I said I was. I asked her who she was and she repeated her name. I clarified that I wanted to know who she was with and she refused and said she couldn’t say that before I confirmed my date of birth. We had a bit of a Catch 22. I wasn’t giving out my birth date to a stranger and she wouldn’t explain myself unless I did. She had an envelope in her hand, so I took it and opened it and saw she was from the Department of Health. I knew why she was there so I let her in the apartment.

Since I had a positive test result DOH is required to follow up. I understand why the law exists but it’s incredibly invasive, completely frustrating, and felt like it took forever. I won’t go into every gory detail but, among other things she wanted details on everyone who I’d had sex with for months and months. I was evasive and said I didn’t know their contact details, but I also made it clear that I contacted everyone who I thought might be affected and that some of them had gotten tested and come back negative. She got the name of my boyfriend and obviously she knows his address. I told her we hadn’t had sex in a very long time but she kept going on and on about how he could have gotten it from touching me. I’m thinking if guys didn’t get it when I fucked them, what was the likelihood he got it even from touching my dick? Still, we’ll get him tested just in case. She even wanted him to get treated before the test results come back. That’s not going to happen…

At one point she told me I shouldn’t be having sex for 6 to 8 weeks which just didn’t sound right to me. I’ve never heard anything like that. So once she was gone I looked it up and she was, indeed, wrong. According to the CDC…

Persons who receive syphilis treatment must abstain from sexual contact with new partners until the syphilis sores are completely healed. [Source]

Which is exactly what I did… Needless to say, I trust the doctors and epidemiologists writing the CDC web site way more than I trust some lowly paid DOH employee with a shit job no one else wants. And guess what, even the web site of her own agency disagrees with her…

Don’t have sex until you … have been completely treated and all of your symptoms have disappeared [Source]

All in all she was just incredibly judgmental and rude – and she didn’t even have her facts straight. She kept reiterating that from now on I’ll test positive for syphilis as if that means I’ve got an active case of it. And the idea that my bf should get treatment even before he’s tested when he’s barely touched my dick (with his hand) is just completely over the top. I kept having to remind her that while I’d put up with her doing her legal obligations, I didn’t need her to stand there and pass judgment on me and lecture me. Then she wanted me to get my sex partners to go to the DOH clinic. AS IF I want to subject them to people like her. I told her I always suggest going to Callen-Lorde ’cause they’re gay friendly and non-judgmental. But it was like that wasn’t good enough for her.

I take these things pretty seriously and to be treated like I don’t is really aggravating. I’m not a leper – I just a regular guy who got an STD. It’s not like I’m trying to spread it or anything… Weeks before she came around, and hours after I found out, I contacted people I thought should know. That should make someone like her happy, but she couldn’t even muster up a positive word about that. Hopefully she believed me and the case is closed.

Looking back at it I think next time I’ll refuse to speak with them and say I’ll only speak with them if they send a gay man. I think a big part of what happened was homophobia on her part. A gay man would have handled the situation very differently. If the DOH comes knocking at your door, you might want to do the same thing…

Just for the hell of it, here’s a graph that shows the current “epidemic” she was telling me about. I find it fascinating that there was a huge spike around 1990 when everyone was using condoms and being very conscious of their sexual health. I also find it odd that I arrived right about that time and didn’t hear anything about it even though it’s the highest rate of infection in the past 70 years.

So yes, since barebacking has become popular (after 1996 when protease inhibitors came out), there’s been a rise in cases. Is it an “epidemic”? Well, historically, not so much though it is going up, but the rate it’s going up is pretty slow compared to other times it’s gone up.

One other interesting detail in the report is that most of the cases were men (which you can see above) and about 87% of the men were “MSMs” (Men who have Sex with Men). So the current rise in syphilis is a gay issue, but my guess is that that’s probably been true since at least the 70s.