There’s a new study out that looks at the mortality rates of people who are poz. Curiously they declare that HIV is “no longer fatal”, but then they go on to say how it will shorten your life…

There’s obviously a lot of young bug chasers out there. If you’ve ever wondered how they’ll fair long term – the study answers that…

The study said that “despite” these positive results, an HIV-positive person starting Cart treatment at the age of 20 will on average live another 43 years, to 63. A 20-year-old HIV-negative person in a high-income country can expect to live to around 80, a difference of nearly 20 years.

I assume “Cart” is the same as HAART (the “drug cocktail”).

I’ve said for a while now that the only safe sex message that I can see working is “stay neg – enjoy your retirement”. That’s basically what’s going to happen with the guys who are getting pozzed young. Provided they do what a good doctor tells them to do, they’ll live a decent life, and then start having medical problems when they should be retiring. The part of their life they’re going to miss out on are “the golden years”.

Then again it was just a few years ago that they said the average life expectancy after becoming poz was around 23 years. Now it’s up to 43 years for these guys. Given how well medical science is doing it will probably go higher. And that’s the point… People from my generation and before are telling the young guys how crazy they’re being but they’ve forgotten how radically things have changed. It used to be that someone who was poz for 5 years was a “long term survivor”… It’s not like that anymore.

[Fine Print: These are averages – you may be on the low end of the average. If you don’t get tested and don’t know you’re poz you will be on the low end of the average for sure and will die way before you should. So GET TESTED and know your HIV status!]

Then you think about the guys like the bug chaser who’s in San Francisco this week who are in their 40s and turning poz. Their life expectancy after infection is shorter than 43 years, but still – if you got pozzed in your upper 40s and lasted say 30 years (I’m pulling that number out of my ass), then you’ve still lives a pretty full life. They’re making a choice that will undoubtedly lead to complications, but they’re not completely insane like some people would lead you to believe.

In related news… There’s a study out in The Lancet that says that the Swiss statement (that it’s safe for sero-discordant straight couples to fuck without rubbers) is wrong. They do a mathematical model that shows that there will be HIV infections as a result if the Swiss statement is followed.

Here’s the problem. The Swiss statement is based directly on empirical data. The new study is a mathematical model, and it would appear the empirical data the Swiss have access to does not fit with the Aussie’s mathematical model. If you know anything about statistics you know the closer you are to real-world observations, the better your results will be. The data source is always suspect. So it looks like the mathematical model may be in trouble, though it is getting published in one of the top peer-reviewed journals so you’d think it couldn’t be that bad. Then again, I think there are people who want to see the Swiss discredited.

The point is, the discussion about the Swiss statement is far from over.

A discussion on bareback porn on another site got me thinking… Barebacking is a lot like smoking. It’s addictive and it can kill you. So how does it compare?

According to UNAIDS/WHO, 21,000 people died of AIDS in North America and 12,000 in Western and Central Europe. That’s 58 people a day in North America and 33 a day in Europe. By comparison the CDC reports that 418,000 people die just from cigarette smoking every year in the United States alone. That’s 1145 a day.

I get that some of the people who are dying every day of AIDS acquired HIV by barebacking. But I bet the people who are bothered by young guys barebacking don’t think twice when the same guys light up a cigarette… I’m not trying to say they’re being willingly hypocritical – personally I think society is having a moment of group think where the big killers don’t get the attention they deserve and smaller ones that are seen as somebody else’s problem get all the attention. HIV is a popular one ’cause people see it as avoidable. But smoking deaths are avoidable too and kill so many more people. But HIV is seen as something that affects unpopular minorities like gay guys and drug addicts so it gets focused on.

On the other side of the coin, as a community this does affect us greatly and it’s something we need to come to grips with. Personally I think one of the huge issues is how ineffective the safe sex message is these days. It needs a total rethink but it’s such a touchy subject people don’t want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Some people will cry foul if the message is anything but “use a condom every time”. On the other hand I’ve seen guys get addicted to barebacking in a monogamous relationship and then not be able to quit barebacking when the relationship ends. So who knows what the message should be. I know I don’t know…

But for me, as with smoking, it comes down to personal choice. People choose to smoke and some die as a result of that choice. Likewise people choose to bareback and some die as a result of that choice. The difference of course is that the damage from smoking builds over time where with barebacking the damage happens all of a sudden and you don’t know when that will be. So a teen could smoke for a year or two and stop without much consequence. But if they bareback it’s an all or nothing game. The damage may have been done by the time they decide to stop.

Just as we don’t bar people from smoking, we can’t bar them from barebacking. But society has put limits on things like advertising of tobacco and alcohol, and the sale of those products. The issue is what limits, if any, are appropriate for barebacking?

Some people have suggested a system similar to straight porn where there’s an industry sponsored non-profit testing agency who monitors all the models. But I don’t know whether that would even work in our case since so many models are poz or like me – neg and don’t mind fucking poz guys.

Personally, I think the important thing is that the guys in bareback porn do so with informed consent. That they understand the risks and consequences. If they do, then it’s all OK in my mind… The question is how do you know some Eastern European guy who doesn’t speak your language had decent sex ed in high school? The concept of informed consent is great. The implementation is a bitch…

UPDATE

I was thinking about this a little more… Canada has about 10% of our population, so let’s guess that 19,000 people in the US died of AIDS. Let’s also guess that 75% of them were gay (I think that’s actually a higher number than what’s true), so that would mean about 14,000 gay guys died of AIDS last year. Now, if we’re 5% of the population (10% of the men), then that means if the entire US were made up of gay men then 280,000 of us would have died of AIDS. That 280,000 number is comparable to the 418,000 that died of smoking.

Those are really rough numbers, but the bottom line is that it appears smoking kills more gay men than HIV/AIDS. Think about that for a moment. Smoking is a bigger problem for our community than HIV. I wish someone could get hard data to prove that, but with high rates of smoking in the gay community, I’m almost certain it’s a true statement.

For a while now I’ve been openly wondering if I was a bear. Well, the guy from Gay Porn Pig has declared I’m a bear…

You’re totally a bear, not the hairiest one I’ve ever seen, but definitely a bear. And a cute one, too. I wouldn’t get too caught up in what others say or think. You have all the qualities of a bear – masculine, facial hair, a bit of a belly (they don’t need to be huge) and body hair. In my estimation as long as a man has more of those qualities than not, then he’d be considered a bear. For instance, I think with a full beard, you can get away with having less body hair; if you were clean shaven, then I’d say, probably not.

So you might be wondering what are all the qualities of a bear? I know I always thought bears were always at least 20-30 heavier than I am… Well here’s his definition…

There are two key characteristics to classify a man as a bear: body hair and body size – a bear has to have some solidness and heaviness to him. This can range from a stocky or chunky guy to a 300-pound man with a big belly. Lots of bears have facial hair, too.

However, one other aspect of the bear community is the idea of self determination and visualization. If a man says he’s a bear, then he kind of is, whether you think he’s a cub, or something else.

So if any of the rest of you are wondering if you’re bears… There’s your answer (from someone who really seems to love bears)…

(I have lost about 10+ pounds from my heaviest a couple months ago – I’m now consistently weighing about 225-227. I was up around 238 for a while there… But I have a feeling I’ll be bearish for the forseeable future…)

Life has been crazy the past couple weeks (I’ve worked through 2 weekends now) but it’s starting to calm down. I’m sorta horny but more tired, so just been jacking off a lot. I’ll get back into the swing of things soon enough… But in the meantime…

Have you ever wondered why black guys have such high rates of HIV infection? I mean look at this HIV infection graph the CDC released last month…

Black guys are off the charts. Yet it’s not like black guys are all that much sluttier or anything. Or why is AIDS such a problem in Africa? Once again people may start to wonder about black sexuality, but it turns out it’s not that at all…

A new report out today says the real reason is that 90% of black Africans and 60% of African-Americans have a genetic trait that makes them 40% more likely to become HIV positive than people without the genetic trait. The trait was actually a response in their evolution that made them resistant to a certain form of malaria, but now makes them more likely to become poz.

It’s a bit of a cruel fate really. Not only does Africa have long standing development issues, but now we find they’re basically cursed when it comes to HIV and AIDS. On the other hand, the ancestors of northern European whites, who have so many advantages already – their ancestors who survived Smallpox gave 1% of them the ability to be completely immune to HIV and 10% of them the ability to be “resistant” to HIV. It’s like the people with all the advantages just get more advantages, while the people with all the problems, just get more problems…

So if you’re black this is just one of those things you’re going to have to deal with. Black guys who want to stay negative have to be extra careful.

But the really sad thing is how AIDS will just continue to decimate Africa… Those of us who live in the West are so incredibly lucky – we have the wealth to pay for drug cocktails that take make a manageable situation out of a health crisis. Now imagine the equivalent of the gay community in terms of likelihood to become poz, only no money to pay for the meds – and no chance of being able to afford the meds. Always urge politicians to give funding for HIV/AIDS in Africa – it’s the least we can do as rich Westerners…

The one bit of good news today was that HIV positive people can now enter the US as visitors and as immigrants! This means there’s no fear you’ll be asked to leave the US if you become poz…

Work is kicking my ass the past few days – so haven’t had time to have sex… Hope to get back to breeding ass soon though…

Came across an article today that says that aggressively giving poz guys HAART can reduce new HIV infections by 60%. Years ago when AIDSVax was in clinical trials they were saying they’d consider it an “effective” vaccine if it stopped 30% of HIV infections – so 60% is wildly successful.

The logic here is that if you can have poz guys “shooting blanks” rather than truly “dirty/toxic loads” then the bottom won’t get pozzed. This falls in line with the Swiss statement that having sex with a poz guy with an undetectable viral load is generally “safe”.

So that means poz guys will essentially be taking the “vaccines” to protect negative guys. I have a problem with the implications of that. I’m all for poz guys taking HAART if it is genuinely the best thing for their individual case. But I have a huge problem with them taking potentially harmful medications when they don’t necessarily need them. Many of the long-term survivors that are having problems can trace their problems back to medications they took in th past like AZT. It’s one thing when you take a harmful medication because it’s your only choice and you’re about to die. But it’s completely different when you take something that’s harmful to you in order to protect someone else.

I wouldn’t be against it if the medical profession were honest and said “we need you to take this to protect other people” (perhaps a lover). But I guarantee you that that’s not how it will be communicated. Already aggressive HAART therapy is pretty much the norm right after diagnosis – that’s just going to become even more so. The concept of a poz guy who’s not on meds will be forgotten despite the fact that there many poz guys who have stayed off meds for years and stayed healthy.

Aggressive HAART will become standard practice and no one is going to question it. The concept of a treatment plan that is best for the patient will be thrown out the window. The only way in which it will be honored is to find the meds that the patient can best tolerate and which get his viral load down the lowest.

Why do I feel strongly about this? Years ago I had a well-known neurologist who wanted me to stay on anti-seizure medications for the rest of my life despite the fact that they affected my quality of life and I had never clearly had a seizure. Why? ‘Cause if I blacked out while driving it would affect her liability insurance. By putting me on anti-seizure meds she removed her liability in the matter. [BTW, been off them for years and doing fine…]

I am really skeptical when it comes to doctors – I’ve seen them screw up too many times on me and on loved ones. Medicine is a field which is big on “group think” – contrarians are seen as dangerous… I’d bet money that no doctor will publicly challenge the idea of aggressive HAART therapy as a best practice for treating poz guys…

If you’re poz I’m not saying you shouldn’t take HAART. I’m just saying if you’re “healthy” make your doctor prove to you why you need it. They should be telling you about the particular strain of HIV you have and what they know about that strain and it’s progression in the body. IMO, they should also know whether you have a blocked CCR5 receptor which would make you a slow progressor. In other words, they shouldn’t recommend a lifetime of medications to a healthy person without first doing a huge battery of tests. If your doctor doesn’t like being questioned – find another doctor.

After my lover died I was talking to his social worker. She made a comment that she liked my boyfriend’s doctor personally, but it was weird how all of his patients seemed to die (this was January 1995). He was a high profile doctor who was constantly speaking at conferences and writing papers. She wasn’t sure if he just had some of the worst cases or what… But she knew other, more low-key doctors whose patients had a much better survival rate…

We’re to the point now that people don’t die quickly of HIV. But the decisions you make now may determine whether you live 20 or 40 years. I’m not saying what those decisions should be – just make sure you don’t let someone else make them for you – be actively involved in your treatment plan and be 100% comfortable with your doctor’s decisions.

This is just too much…

hi there

i pop onto your site here and there every blue moon –

i was in a relationship for 13 years, so i barebacked with my partner at the time, never goin eleswhere for fear of disease and plus i loved my partner…and only wanted to be with my parter.

in reading your blog in more depth – i am disgusted at your actions – gay people like yourself, are the ones who give us moralistic fags a bad name. “they” all think we are like you, and we are not all like you….

you have a boyfriend whom you love? you couldnt possibly… you only love yourself – how could you put yourself, as well as others at risk with HIV/AIDS as well as countless other stds? these random hook ups to dump your load into as many asses as u can, until u get some disease, is horrid. people like you should be locked away or castrated. you will fuck all kinds before you realise or get notifed that you have AIDS and at the same time infect all these other people who are just as retarded as u….sick like u…

either your boyfriend is a fool cuz you dont seem like a brad pitt kinda lookin guy, so im not sure what or why he stays with you…how could u love someone or be with someone and are constantly goin out to fuck someone else… bareback at that..im all for bareback in a relationship… after testing etc…

you are only shortening your time when you get AIDS and you will at some point.. your parents should be horrified that this is what they raise… prepare your mum for an AIDS death/funeral… this bullshit that if you top u cant get or vice versa is just that… bullshit – when people like u come down with the diseases that is iminent… it is well deserved – when people like u catch these deadly diseases, it is warranted and i have no pity – rather laugh at the stupidity…

im waiting for the day, and you will… where you write, “i have contracted AIDS” i will post a huge LOL.. on your page and tell u that you deserve it… you are a disgrace to fags and to the human race –

RIP

What do you say to someone like that? I’ll give it a quick shot…

Today is gay day. The point of gay day is to say you don’t care what straights think – that you’re proud of who you are and believe that others in your community should be accepted just as they are. The opinions of straight people (including my mother) are not how I determine my self worth.

There is no need to live up to heterosexual values or morals. There’s nothing wrong with examining them and learning from them, but that should be the limit. Hell, even the straight community has “swingers”. They’re really no different than those of us in the gay community who enjoy sex with random people.

The other parts of what he says are just so far out there there’s really nothing that can be said about them. He’s so far from the truth it’s just not funny.