Back when Obama was running there were people who just couldn’t stand the thought of him getting elected – Obama gave them the willies. Back then I wondered out loud if racism wasn’t the reason for that type of opposition and a few of you slammed me for saying it. Well, it appears I wasn’t far from the mark and racism is at the root of “teabagger” movement that’s going on right now. It’s white people who can’t stand the idea that their President is black. We’re talking law and order, respect the commander and chief types who show nothing but contempt for their commander and chief. I’m not saying all teabaggers are racists, I’m saying that a good percentage of the most fervent teabaggers are indeed racists. The funny part is these people don’t like being called racists, yet there are almost no Blacks or Hispanics among them.

Take a look at this clip from Fox News – they go on and on about the race issue. They try to excuse it by saying “the majority of the US is white and middle and working class”, but the fact of the matter is the teabaggers are not representative of Americans…

So why is this relevant in the context of this blog? It’s because it’s all about bigotry and the same bigots who don’t like Obama ’cause he’s black (actually mixed race) don’t like you and me because we’re gay. George W. Bush won both elections because gay marriage was an issue in the campaign and the same haters who you see out at these protests are the same ones who got riled up back then. It’s not just about race, it’s about hatred and bigotry in general.

Those of you who are gay and support the teabaggers – please think twice. What comes around goes around and the hate you’re feeding on can come back and bite you or someone you care about in the form of gay bashing or employment discrimination.

The message here is all forms of hate and intolerance are wrong. (Intolerance of intolerance is a double negative and not the same as other forms of intolerance.) There is no room for intolerance in a civilized, multicultural society. If it doesn’t stop with us (a minority group), who is going to stop with? The sooner a live and let live attitude spreads the sooner people will stop being upset by us fucking in bars or sex clubs… The problem is the teabagger movement shows that’s a long way off. Many of those people aren’t going to change their minds, but their kids and grandkids might…

Honestly, when I see stuff like this I just wish New England and New York could split off from the rest of the country and form our own nation… We’ll even take Quebec!

But as they say, success is the best revenge. I’ll just keep my head down, work hard, live a comfortable life, fuck who I want how I want, and thank god I live in a generally sane place like NYC…

UPDATE…

Wow, I write the post above and then it comes out a few hours later that President Carter feels the same way. He’s saying it with the experience of someone who cut his teeth in Southern politics during huge race wars. There aren’t too many other people with his level of credibility and experience who can speak on this issue. Listen to this clip – his words are worth hearing…

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American. I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans. And that racism inclination still exists. . . . It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.

It’s just sad our country is going backwards like this, but in thinking about it – we’ve had some rough times in our country – we’ll get past this…

A really hot site site has just been relaunched – Butt Machine Boys. So I figured I’d promote it. While it’s not a bareback site, it doesn’t have condoms either and it’s all about guys getting their holes abused. But before I promoted it I figured I’d find a place that sold fucking machines. I found the machines for sale at Mr. S. Leathers (a big San Francisco-based company), and saw that they had an affiliate program, so I signed up. Unlike most places they review you before you get approved, so I waited. Two days later I got the following response:

Thank you for your recent application for the affiliate program. I regret we can not approve your application; you have a pretty extensive website with videos, scene reviews and erotica but as a company that contributes greatly to HIV/AIDS research and health organizations, there is a conflict of interest when considering websites with the focus of unprotected sex.

I hope that you can understand our decision and know that we pass no personal or professional judgments. If I can be of assistance in the future, please feel free to contact me.

Needless to say I had to reply 😉

No, actually I don’t understand the decision at all. By not engaging with people who bareback you’re losing the opportunity to talk with them and express your views to them. How will you ever change anyone’s mind by rejecting them and not talking with them? I’m giving you the opportunity to get traffic from a bareback site (and btw, I’ve got condom sites as well). What you do with that traffic is up to you. If you want to show safe sex messages in the side bars – it’s fine with me. Prior to now I respected you guys. I’d much rather give you guys traffic than Extreme Restraints, but it doesn’t look like that will be happening…

Think about this for a moment… There are a lot of blogs like mine that talk about barebacking but almost none that talk about safe sex. Add to that there are very very few that talk about what it’s like to be poz. And then people like you wonder why guys don’t try to stay neg. You’ve turned inwards and then wonder why your message isn’t relevant and isn’t getting out. That will only change if you start actively engaging people who don’t agree with you.

So no, don’t understand your decision at all. While it disappoints me, given IML’s antics lately, it doesn’t surprise me.

The bottom line is that Mr. S. Leathers doesn’t want to be associated with you. So if you’ve shopped there, stop. Why would you give money to a company that doesn’t like you?

Now the one piece I’ve gotten from Mr. S is the leather hood I put on bottoms… The question is how to handle it… I’m thinking I’ll give them credit to make it clear they’re associated with bareback porn already. Maybe I should even title the scenes things like “Bareback bottom in Mr. S Leathers hood never sees the guys who breed his ass”.

But seriously – how in the hell do they expect to achieve their goals and make the changes they want to make if they refuse to engage with the people they want to change? People amaze me sometimes…

Or I guess I should say being a submissive bottom to our enemies has no place in the gay political and legal agenda. Let me explain…

A little over a year ago I wrote a blog post saying I thought the major gay organizations were dead wrong for not fighting aggressively. Their argument was that they didn’t want negative legal precidents that could take decades to overturn. Basically groups like Lambda Legal, NCLR, The Human Rights Campaign, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Glaad think we shouldn’t fight fights unless we know we can win the fight. IMHO that line of reasoning is the political equivalent of being a submissive bottom to a rapist. While I’m all for actually being a submissive bottom to a rapist if that you’re thing – it has no place in gay politics. When your enemy is raping you, you get up, get him against a wall and beat him to a pulp.

Luckily there are powerful, upstanding straight people who don’t understand the reasoning behind our illustrious gay leadership’s argument. I mean think about it, who’s made the biggest difference lately? There was Gavin Newsom, the straight mayor of San Francisco who fought for gay marriage. There’s Jerry Brown, the straight Attorney General of California who refuses to have his office fight for bigotry. There’s David Patterson, the straight Governor of New York who is doing everything in his power to get gay marriage passed in New York. And now there’s Ted Olson and David Boies, the two opposing (straight) attorneys from the Bush v. Gore case, who are fighting Prop 8 despite all the major gay organizations asking them not to (and then reluctantly changing their mind after they realized it was going to happen whether they wanted it to or not). And last but not least is straight (?) Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley who is suing the federal government demanding the federal government treat married gay people from her state the same as married straight people.

Why is the gay rights movement being lead by straight people? Are all of our gay leaders submissive bottoms? All I can say is thank god for good straight people!

I’m not alone in my disgust for our gay leaders. David Mixner, who was in the Clinton administration, has been criticizing our leadership on his blog. In his latest post he talks about how the gay leadership opposed fighting Anita Bryant in 1978 with much the same reasoning they’re using today. When he, Harvey Milk, and many others refused to follow the gay leaders of the day and then won, the gay leaders who had opposed them were quite eager to take credit for a victory they had actually tried to torpedo. Mixner’s pushing the idea that we’ve got gay apartheid going on – and it’s gaining some traction and making it harder for the sub bottoms to argue their case.

We, each in our own way, need to stand up and fight for our rights. Do not roll over and be a submissive bottom when it comes to whether you’re treated with dignity, equality and respect. And don’t put up with other gay people who are being political and legal submissive bottoms. Stand up, be the dom top, and put them in their place and tell them what to do and when to do it. If you give money to their organizations stop and explain why. These sub bottoms are Uncle Toms and they have no place running our major civil rights and legal organizations.

<rant>

I just sat through the IML (International Mr. Leather) contest and I was shocked and really pretty saddened… A few big issues popped out at me…

First, IML is fucking racist. A “judge emmeritus” was announcing the top 20 finalists and what did he say before announcing the 20th finalist? Something like “I hear there’s a movement in Asia and next year we’ll be having Mr. Eggroll Leather and Mr. Sushi Leather”. And the really sad part was most guys in the audience laughed along with it. A few of us booed him. There was no apology, no correction of his statement, everyone just went along with it. And the really scary thing was he travels around the nation judging leather contests, so he’s still VERY influential in the process of someone becoming IML.

Then during the final entertainment segment they had with the puppet Madame With An E (the one who used to be on Hollywood Squares), she made the comment about going to East India “where the people have the red dots on their head. What does that mean?… [long pause] Coffee’s Ready!!!” (laughter).

How in the hell do they manage to have two major racist comments in one program? It’s fucking shameful. And on top of everything else everyone kept talking about being “inclusive”, but it turns out “inclusive” means bringing people like the tennis shoe and sports kit fetishists in under the fetish umbrella. True, IML 30 (’08) was Latino, but there were shamefully few minorities as contestants, and of the 20 finalists the darkest person they had up there was a very well Americanized Arab.

On top of that they’re completely hypocritical on barebacking and HIV… For starters, IML makes money off bareback porn. In their leather mart they had Dick Wadd Fetish, Treasure Island Media, Spunk Video, Helix Studios, and LeatherMatch.com (an offshoot of BarebackRT) – and those are just the ones I can remember.

Then there’s all the bareback sex parties in the host hotel. I’d say more people are at IML for barebacking than are there for BDSM. IML is a bareback event… There was even a conversion party schedule in the hotel (though it fell through). I mean honestly, how many of the attendees get infected each year? I’d be surprised if it w

Oh, and best yet – the guy who won IML this year announced in his speech that he found out he was poz this year. While I can’t say for sure, I’d bet money he got HIV from being a willing bareback bottom – the numbers are on my side on that bet.

Yet IML’s founder, Chuck Renslow, gives this big long speech about how horrible barebacking is. It was noteworthy that no one applauded any of his comments, but at the end he had everyone stand up who had lost someone close to them to HIV. This is how he was trying to show support for his cause. I stood up ’cause I had lost a boyfriend to AIDS in ’95, but did he honestly think someone like rawTOP standing up in anyway supported what he was saying? His message was to support yet another “just say no” sorta campaign. It was so out of touch with reality it was sad (and irritating).

And lastly, they fail miserablably with bringing people into the leather community. They had a hotel full of guys into barebacking who know very little about what it means to be a leatherman, yet there was zero outreach to them. There were no educational seminars, no organized activities for guys who are leather curious. Most of that group think leather is a fashion statement. Guys would come to my room and I’d ask them if they wanted to get into bondage or flogging and they’d look at me like I was crazy – they just wanted vanilla fucking. Yet many of those same guys genuinely understand sexual submissiveness (and for the tops, sexual dominance). It’s easy to teach a bareback bottom about bondage or flogging or being a puppy – it’s an easy sell ’cause mentally they’re most of the way there already. And the concept that sex can be about power and control isn’t alien to barebackers either.

Let me put this bluntly. The “just say no” program Chuck Renslow told everyone to support isn’t going to do squat. What might have an impact is to reach out to barebackers and bring them into the leather community (much of the leather community are barebackers to start with), and then teach barebackers about caring for each other – which is one thing the leather community is good at (if you can get included in the first place).

</rant>

OK, that’s all the negative shit. On the positive side it was clear there’s a bit of a war going on in the leather / BDSM community. Many of the contestants speeeches were about the divide between “the old guard” and “the new guard” and quite a few others mentioned “inclusion” but almost no one defined that term. Put simply, the new guard is going to win through attrition. I hope they’ll be a bit smarter than the old guard. But honestly, with that many people laughing at racist comments and jokes I may hope, but I can’t say I’m hopeful.

Just saw a story on The Sword that there’s a club drug mix out there now called MTV that combines Meth, Tenofivir (and anti-retroviral) and Viagra that neg barebackers are taking when they spend the night partying and barebacking… Meth to get high, Viagra to stay hard, and Tenofivir as a form of “PrEP”.

In case you don’t know anything about PrEP it’s an offshoot of PEP. PEP is the course of HIV meds that you take after being exposed to HIV. Used sparingly PEP is a good thing (though it’s a bit of a joke if you’re a bottom who regularly takes anonymous loads). PrEP takes that a step further an instead of being post-exposure it’s pre-exposure… If you’re the type of person who takes a lot of risk, you theoretically take HIV meds just like poz guys do so you won’t get HIV.

Let me put this bluntly – while you can make whatever choice you want, personally I think PrEP is a crock of shit and I’d never take it – even if I was a bottom. While the ARVs are far better today than they were 10 years ago, they still can have some serious side effects. It’s possible that the PrEP you take today could have worse long-term impacts than becoming HIV positive.

IMHO, the fewer meds I take the better. In the past I always said if I became poz I wouldn’t take meds until I clearly needed them. Now I’m not sure what I’d do. I might take a mild ARV, but I’d first want to get a sense for what HIV was doing in my body. If I could stay off meds I would – for example if it was clear that the strain I had was particularly mild.

One of my big issues is that doctors are putting people on ARVs immediately after diagnosis. They say it’s because it’s best for the patient, but I really think it’s because the meds stop them the person from spreading HIV. It’s clearly best for the community, but I don’t quite believe them that it’s best for the individual patient. [And yes, this is where my selfish American side comes out. A European would likely have no problem taking meds because it’s in the best interest of the community.]

The other problem with PrEP is that you can build up a resistence to ARVs and when you do become poz your treatment options are less. That’s not a good thing at all.

In the case of guys who take MTV or other forms of unsupervised, recreational PrEP they’re in an even worse position – their intermittent use of ARVs will most definitely create drug resistance problems for them long-term. And the combination of PNP and barebacking means they’ll probably wind up poz at which point the drug resistance will be a problem.

Bottom line – if you PNP leave ARVs out of the mix. In the long run you’re better off not taking ARVs until you need them. If you really want to be on PrEP – see a doctor and do exactly what s/he tells you to do (and be honest with them about your recreational drug use)…

I want my MTV too – the old one that played music videos all day long…

There’s an affiliate program out there, Condom Cash, that I really didn’t pay much attention to. I mean, just based on the name you wouldn’t think it would be appropriate for me, right? Well, it turns out if you thought that (like I did), you’d be wrong…

Condom Cash has not one but two bareback sites – RetroMale.com and GayRetroPorn.com. They’ve conveniently redefined bareback to not include what’s been euphemistically called “pre-condom” – you know, the bareback stuff from the 80s.

Think about it for a minute – if you didn’t use a condom in the 80s it could actually kill you in a matter of a few short years. Compare that to now, where if you bareback, and start treatment within a reasonable amount of time after infection, it may not kill you at all. So the people who think “barebacking” (their definition) is evil (or at least horribly, horribly wrong), are fine with the far deadlier version of barebacking which they’ve called by another name – “pre-condom”.

I just find the whole situation pretty funny…