Back in the early 90s right after I got to New York, when the City was run by Democrats, if you went to the Eagle (a leather bar) you’d have a hard time using the bathroom ’cause it was filled with guys having sex… Last night I went to the Eagle and, as usual these days, not much of anything happens there sexually any more despite the bar being packed with horny men. All that happens these days is little bit of quick stuff, like briefly jacking someone’s dick. I did get about a 30 second blow job, but then the monitor came in and things had to end. Which is about how things went back in August when the monitor came in right after I started fucking someone.

So after I came home I figured I’d see if there was any activity in the park that’s next to where I live. Usually you can find someone there 24/7/365, but last night it was completely desolate. Absolutely no one was there. A few nights ago we drove through the park and saw a couple vans full of cops and a half dozen police Cushmans at the entrance to the park – they were apparently about to do a raid of the park (both gay and straight people use the park for sex).

All the crackdowns started with Rudy Giuliani… Hopefully some day soon things will lighten up and we’ll have public sex in New York again…

And if that’s not enough reason to vote Democratic in November, here’s another…

After the study the other day saying HIV infections are skyrocketing among gay kids ages 13-24 I thought I’d tell you about a chat I had yesterday on BarebackRT.com. The guy’s an absolutely adorable/hot 19 year old kid who lives in the middle of nowhere. Pretty quickly he starts telling me about himself…

HIM: i never have topped. i only take it bareback. my cherry was popped bare and never let any guys fuck me safe

ME: when did you take your first load? any idea how many loads you’ve gotten since then? how many different guys have cum inside you?

HIM: i took my first load at 15, maybe 75-100 different cocks in me.

ME: You must have problems hooking up being out in the middle of nowhere…

HIM: i do have 5 fuck buddies, 2 are 25ish and 3 are 35+. the 5 guys fuck me alot. the 2 25ish guys breed me around 2 times a day, with the others its once a day. i have 3 loads in my hole now, plus a load of piss in my tummy

ME: damn! you’re doing well for being in the middle of nowhere. i can’t imagine how much cum would be in your ass right now if you were here in nyc…

HIM: i was in Seattle two weeks ago and got fucked silly at a bathouse, first time ever in one. cum was pouring out of my hole. my whole body had cum on it. there were condoms there, but once one dude fucked me bare, everyone did. some men fucked me more than once. but i took 12 different cocks, my hole was totally raw from all the fucking. men had no problem fucking me and leaving. not saying a word. is that common?

ME: depends on the setting. if it’s truly anonymous sex then yeah, that’s pretty normal. i have had discussions with guys in bathhouses (even met two boyfriends there – still with one of them after 10 years), but it’s more normal to just fuck, unload and go. did you like being treated like a cumhole?

HIM: yes, i liked that i was a cumhole. i liked the anon fucking, but some men fucked me brutally hard, then shooting there cum in my hole. several men had pierced cocks, which made my fuckhole even more raw. plus, most had no reserve in pissing in my mouth, even tho i never asked for it

ME: sounds like they were trying to poz you… so you liked getting fucked and taking loads, but would you want it to be so brutal next time? did you like the guys pissing in your mouth?

HIM: i liked guys pissing in my mouth, but everyone did. i was filled with piss. the guy at the counter, said the same thing about the men trying to poz me.

ME: i take it you’re ok with getting pozzed… sounds like it’s going to happen one way or the other given what you like sexually…

HIM: if any of them were poz, they got me. my hole was gapping open, totally raw inside. i knew when i first bb, that i would get bred one day poz

ME: well, it’s usually 2 or 3 weeks after getting bred that you get the fuck flu – so who knows – you might find out soon…

HIM: i have the flu now, do you think its the poz cum? i get chills, then hot. yesterday, was when i started feeling bad

[He avoided other questions about him possibly going through seroconversion… It’s like he doesn’t look forward to it, he just accepts it, so I moved on to other topics…]

ME: so if a really hot guy wanted to fuck you with a rubber what would you do?

HIM: id tease them with my hole and body, but if that didnt work, then id suck him off. but not let him fuck me

I reordered the conversation a bit to make it more narrative, but those are the details… He knows what he likes sexually, he knows it means he’ll become poz one day. He might just have the flu right now – or he could be seroconverting… If it doesn’t happen now, it sounds like it will happen soon enough…

UPDATE: I just added a story to the fiction section about a 21 y.o. who got pozzed in a bathhouse. I’m not sure how authentic the story is, but I suspect it’s true. Hell, for that matter I don’t know that the guy above wasn’t just making up a story when he was talking to me…

I came across an article on a report about HIV infections in London. I’m taking things out of order when I quote here, but it gets the point across…

“What we have discovered is that some of the spread [of HIV] occurred in bursts, with groups of people becoming infected within a short period of time.”

“The tightness of clusters that we have found is frightening.”

…many men who became infected with the virus passed it on within a few months, often before they themselves had been diagnosed as HIV positive.

…the study findings indicated that the safe sex message was “not getting through”

“If we can find out how and where these clusters are occurring then we could target the appropriate groups.”

“It is important that information on the virus is available to gay men in the local areas where they are known to meet, to try to arrest the spread of HIV and AIDS.”

…bars and nightclubs could be targeted, as could the Internet.

While these researchers mean well, the flaw in what they’re saying is that if the guys don’t know they’re infected when they’re spreading it, then you can’t catch much of the mini-burst as it’s happening. You can only really spot a mini-burst after the damage is done. And as they pointed out, general safe sex messages are not effective.

It’s hard to say what will work. Perhaps compiling a list of sexual partners when someone is diagnosed and then as confidentially as possible contact those partners. I’ve heard of it being done, and it’s a bit dicey to do without stepping over the line, but it could be worth a shot.

But I can’t see putting up a sign at a bar saying “someone who recently tested poz spent a bunch of time in the backroom at this bar”. That’s going to lead to the department of health wanting to close the place down. Don’t like that option at all… People know the risks when they get fucked in the backroom of a bar or sex club…

I don’t know how large these “mini bursts” are. But I could see signs going up saying “An unusually large number of guys tested poz last month in this neighborhood. Please be extra careful…”

I don’t have a degree in public health, so can’t say what’s best. But I can say the researchers, while they seem to mean well, have some relatively naive recommendations…

Saw this one on LifeLube’s blog…

It’s from sexual commentator Alexyss K Tylor. She was first brought to my attention by a friend who sent me a link to her wonderful video discussion entitled “Dick will make you slap somebody”. Her frank and honest discussion of sexual issues is truly unique…

In this clip she discusses an important issue for gay men – washing up “down there” or as she so eloquently puts it “WASH YO NUTZ!”

I know I try to wash up down there before hooking up… It’s especially important for guys who are a bit on the heavy side since they tend to sweat more… I remember back when I was an escort I went home with a john who was “a big guy” and he was completely rank down there… I tried to avoid the area, but he kept trying to push my head down to give him a blow job. Finally I just had to tell him I couldn’t. He actually got upset with me for not telling him right away. My view was that he was paying for a pleasant experience and I didn’t want to bring it up unless I had to. Needless to say it was one of the worst experiences escorting made worse by the long subway ride home from Brooklyn in a subway car that had a gang of rowdy teenagers…

The CDC released some statistics the other day… There were a couple of trends that stood out to me…

First, take a look at the following graph…

What’s clear is that something changed for gay men in 1999. That was the last year there was a downward trend in HIV infections. The next year infections were up and they’ve gone up steadily ever since…

I think it’s noteworthy to mention that Treasure Island’s “What I Can’t See” came out in 1999. I view that video as being truly ground breaking – it’s a video every barebacker should own – if for no other reason its historical value (BTW if you want the video Tipo Sesso, who I’ve linked to, is having a sale this weekend – use promo code SPD08 and you get an additional 20% off).

Think about what porn was like in 1999. Condoms, condoms everywhere… And then there was “What I Can’t See” with a blindfolded, “take all loads” bottom getting gangbanged – guy after guy just stepped up, fucked him and came in his ass without him ever seeing their face.

It put on screen what a lot of us had been craving and we totally got off on it. That video redefined what was what we wanted – even if we only fantasized about it at first… Tops wanted a bottom like that with a cum-filled hole to take their loads without question. Bottoms started fantasizing about getting gangbanged and taking anonymous loads.

I’m not saying that video or Treasure Island caused the increase in HIV infections… Back in 1997, two years before “What I Can’t See”, I would go to West Side Club, a bathhouse here in New York. I could always find at least two or three bottoms who were taking loads. I even chatted with a fan the other day – he was one of those bottoms and most likely got himself pozzed at West Side Club in 1996. (For all I know he was one of the bottoms I fucked…)

Remember also that protease inhibitors came out in 1996. By 1999 their effects were clear – HIV/AIDS just wasn’t the same as it had been.

It’s hard to prove that bareback porn is responsible for HIV infections. But the tide turned in 1999. It was the year people generally started seeing HIV in a different light and “What I Can’t See” reinforced what they were already thinking, and by the next year HIV infections among gay men were on the rise and Treasure Island was on its way to being the bareback power house it is today.

There’s another trend in the report that stood out really clearly…

That graph is actually pretty amazing… All of the groups are seeing an increase, but it looks like young black guys are the ones losing their inhibitions the fastest, taking loads, and getting pozzed. From what I’ve seen I would have expected it to be Latinos, but they’re nowhere close to their African-American counterparts… I don’t see all that many black bottoms advertising for loads – there must be something going on in other parts of the country… Then again there are a lot of bareback sex parties for “in shape” black and latin guys…

Again, I wish the data went beyond 2005… But I think the take away is that barebacking, bareback porn, and HIV infections are something that’s not going away… Especially with the trends among the young guys… It’s clear these young kids love getting their asses filled with cum. They’ve caught the bareback bug (pun intended) and those desires are not going to go away…

LOGO put together a great PSA inspired by the Larry King tragedy. They’ve even put it in as a splash screen for their site (before you get to their homepage). Ellen DeGeneris did her bit a little while ago, but LOGO put together a really great group of celebrities for this one…

This is a huge issue. With a LGBT person getting killed every 8 days, it just has to get more attention.

As they say in NYC – “If you see something, say something…”