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.

Just thought I’d give some publicity for BareBottom1980 (the blogger in Omaha) who’s got a top whoring out his ass this Saturday, Juy 5th… Here’s the description from the Craigslist ad the top put up…

I’m arranging a cumdump gangbang session this Saturday, July 5, for a bottom bud of mine. he’s 28, a little on the bigger size body-wise, but he can take your cock like a pro. bang him as hard as you want, he loves it, no load will be refused. we’re getting a hotel room for the action, so a freewill donation of a few bucks would be welcome but not necessary. we’re getting a hotel near 108th and L in omaha

let me say again, no load will be refused, none whatsoever. bring your buddies with you if you want, the more cum he gets the hungrier his hole becomes. we’re looking for raw loads only. the whole point is to get as much seed in him as possible. there may be pictures taken, but they would only be showing your cock, nothing identifiable. its just for his humiliation. if you dont want to do that, no problem, he’ll take your jizz and i’ll take a picture of it leaking out his hole after you pull-out.

looks, age, stats, not as important as willingness to breed. pic is preferred but not absolute requirement.

‘perv4cum’ on BarebackRT is organizing it – he’s a 25 y.o. poz top. BareBottom1980 is neg – you do the math…

If you’re out near Omaha and want to give him a load, you can contact him at barebottom1980@yahoo.com, or you can contact the top on BarebackRT (via his profile or the party listing) or via the e-mail in the Craigslist ad. Literally no load will be refused…

UPDATE: The bottom IM’d me last night while I was offline…

Think that about sums it up…

There was a discussion a while back about whether bug chasers were urban legend or not. Back then I think it was a legitimate question. Now I think you can say pretty definitively that bug chasers do exist – and some of them even have blogs…

• There’s Matt & Dan who seem to be competing to see who can get pozzed first.
• Then there’s BareBottom1980 (the bottom for this gangbang) who’s showing that heavy guys can be bug chasers too…
• Probably the first one was Cosmaz who may not have considered himself a bug chaser at the time, but chronicled his experiences a few years ago when he was using meth, going to sex clubs, and wound up poz as a result.

The other day I almost wrote up a post ’cause I saw two bug chasing ads on Craigslist on the same day.

I think bug chasing has existed for a while, but most guys didn’t want to associate themselves with the term – like the bottom from IML… But now that some of them have blogs it means bug chasers are getting their voice, which will lead more guys to being willing to identify themselves as bug chasers… It’s like they’re coming out of the closet, just as barebacking came out of the closet a little over 10 years ago…

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.

The CDC released a report the other day about HIV infection among men who have sex with men (MSM). It covered the period 2001 to 2006 and used data from 33 states. Here’s the graph showing the trends among guys ages 13-24…

There are a number of things that are striking about the report…

First is the obvious trend with young black guys 13-24 shown in the graph above. That graph is of actual diagnoses, so think about what it means for that many black “kids” to be getting infected. Blacks are approximately 12% of the population nationwide, but they were 56% of the guys getting infected with HIV between 2001 and 2006 – in 2006 that went up to 59%. To be fair the 12% is the national average and the infection data is for 33 states, but still… Every year the rate of infection for young black guys goes up about 15%.

Next is the trend that’s sort of gets lost in the graph – and that is the rate of increase for young Asian guys 13-24 – it’s going up about 31% a year. Because of small sample size with Asians the number could actually be anywhere from 12% to 53% (95% confidence) – but that’s a huge shift… It used to be that Asian guys were always pretty conservative sexually, but that’s changing quickly and young Asian guys are having more and more risky sex.

Other trends in the full report were that the rate of infection is actually going down for some groups – It’s going down about 4% a year for guys in New York and New Jersey. It’s going down about 1% a year for guys ages 25-44 but that group comprises 64% of the new HIV infections. And the geographic regions with the highest rates of increase are the West and Midwest – about 7% a year increase…

So all in all there’s nothing really surprising in this report. Infection rates are down for older guys and up for younger guys, which we’ve seen reported before.

And the explanation is pretty simple. Young guys don’t have a memory of what it was like back when HIV was a death sentence. Their actions reflect what they see – that AIDS deaths are at an all-time low.

The other thing to remember is that the report can be affected by local pushes to increase HIV testing. For example I expect to see a spike in rates for Blacks and Hispanics because NYC is doing a big push to get everyone living in the Bronx tested for HIV (that one Borough accounts for 1/3rd of the AIDS deaths in the NYC even though it’s just 19% of the population).

However local pushes only have so much influence on the numbers. We’re still seeing a remarkable increase in infections among young Blacks and Asians. Even for young Hispanics who have the lowest increase for people in their age cohort – it’s still going up 8% a year.

Now compare that to the fact that young guys are more likely to use condoms (at least in NYC). That’s one statistic I think will be changing as more and more of them are apparently learning to enjoy barebacking…