How have we got to the point today where young gay men feel the need to take powerful medication meant to treat HIV positive men (PrEP) and use it as a way of having unprotected “condomless” sex to stop the anxiety of being infected with HIV and feeling “liberated”?
Just reread that and let it sink in. If you transported anyone from 25 years ago and read them that statement they would think you were crazy or indeed mentally ill. Yet times move on and this is how it is. But how did we get to this point in the wonderful world of gay men’s sexual health and who is responsible for this?
ARV drugs were developed and became available around 1996 and 1997 it was certainly great news that HIV was no longer a death sentence and those gay men who had contracted the disease in the 80s (they didn’t know how to stop it) could be treated along with those who made the odd mistakes along way and their lives could be prolonged.
However from this point HIV is not seen as a death sentence but a “manageable condition” and the gay (ill)health organisations latched onto this idea that having HIV was no big deal. The theory goes, and it is just a theory, that if HIV is no longer a scary death sentence you can get more gay men to test for HIV and get them on treatment so they don’t die. However this notion that HIV is “no big deal” and you can live a long and happy life has had unforeseen consequences and that is if I get HIV it doesn’t really matter it’s a “manageable condition”.
From this notion that safe sex was no longer as simple as “wear a condom” whether you were HIV+ or negative came all sorts of bizarre so called “safer sex strategies” which really were badly thought out and made safe gay sex more complicated the safe sex “toolbox” was born. The toolbox of deception.
Instead of just saying “wear a condom” you could use other means to have “safer sex”, notice the term “safer” not “safe sex” was introduced in this period. Such strategies as communicating with your partners whether they are positive or negative, pulling out before you cum (like a porn star), you are less likely to get HIV if you are a top, don’t fuck after fisting (this was now to be normalised from a minority subculture) and somehow testing regularly could save you from HIV infection through responsible group action. How many gay men took this advice on board and didn’t wear a condom all the time and became infected? We will never know but the stats show many did. HIV infections increased.
In the “good old days” when condoms were seen as the only safe sex strategy, rather than the mythical toolbox, you took responsibility for yourself and proudly wore a condom. It was an unspoken rule. This meant that HIV negative men could have sex with HIV positive men with no HIV transmission, great news we could all be united in the fight against HIV and protect ourselves against HIV, their was no divide. The gay (ill)health organisations had other ideas though to divide the gay community as many HIV positive men who hated condoms and no longer were dying joined these charities to come up with new strategies. Failed strategies that had made them HIV positive.
A bizarre strategy, which they have gone back on now and confused matters further, was “serosorting” and it is linked with “communication” and hopelessly relies on gay men telling the truth. A truly fairy tale world the gay (ill)health so called experts live in. You would grill your partner when they had their last HIV test, who they had slept with, their sexual history whether they had slept with a poz guy, if they were sleazy, how often they had unprotected sex and whether they were positive or negative at their last test before you had unprotected or “condomless” sex with them. You tell me you are HIV negative from 3 months ago and you slept with 6 guys who also said they were negative therefore you are HIV negative and I did them same – safer sex! Lunacy. Or if you are HIV positive and I’m HIV positive what meds are you on, oh we take the same meds so have the same strain of HIV so we can have bareback sex. The HIV divide was born, which conveniently meant the gay (ill)health organisations could fight this “stigma” in the future.
This toolbox of deception and a multitude of safer sex strategies, which really aren’t, has led the gay (ill)health organisations to the point where condoms aren’t an essential part but an inconvenient add on which can be discarded with the use of PrEP. The same strong medication that HIV positive men take to keep them alive. The safer sex toolbox in itself has been replaced by a “combination” approach. Which they will continue to relentlessly bang on about TaSP (treatment as prevention) that you can fuck undetectable guys bareback without any fear of HIV infection and not to do so is denying science and discriminatory in a post condom world. Also continual testing, especially if you are a barebacker but always to remember “anyone can catch HIV” as condoms aren’t reliable and only work 70% of the time. Which of course is a manipulated statistic. They have ramped up the fear of HIV so its not just a condom but the “combination” approach. How devious.
According to the so called “experts” you now have a “choice” in your safer sex strategy. What they really mean is you have a “choice” to bareback and have condomless sex with whoever you choose with no questions asked if you take PrEP or are “undetectable”. Other STIs are conveniently ignored, some becoming untreatable due to a decrease in condom use but solvable now. We must live in hope not fear is the strapline.
Most gay men use a condom and protect themselves however a small minority and it is a very small minority don’t and they must be pandered to and not “stigmatised” so they access PrEP and protect themselves from HIV. Well that’s the theory now. However we are seeing the results of this continued downward spiral of hatred for the condom but HIV positive men in the charities through their consistent policies of undermining condom use and HIV being no big deal. Bareback must be “deshamed” so barebackers access clinics but how many gay men now believe, as they are told, they have a “gay right” to the sex they want which is “condomless” sex? The consequences can be dire.
“Consent” to sex has now got to be explained to young gay men and that the 2, 3 or more parties involved have to agree what sex they want. In the good old days you popped a condom on and got on with it! We are seeing more and more sexual assaults of young gay men even between friends and surprise surprise its bareback assaults. We have said regularly that bareback is about domination, power, humiliation and is abusive and these assaults prove this to be the case. It is my gay right to have the sex I demand and screw what the other person wants.
Its hyper sexual consumerism. The gay (ill)health charities have brought us to this, however no one can speak out as they have implemented the non judgemental, no slut shaming regarding bareback agenda on us.
Any dissenters are bullied and called “condom nazis” who deny the science, and you have the problem. Risk is seen as good and part of a fulfilling sex life and disease the result of great sex. These people are lunatics. Long term effects of the drugs are ignored and drug resistance strains of HIV coming along to PrEP ignored as it has become a gay right to bareback and evil comparisons are made that “your mother was a barebacker!”. Bareback is sold as more pleasurable and intimate and condoms get in the way when in fact the evidence of rape and chemsex sexual assaults before us show it isn’t.
The gay (ill)health organisations have brought us to this point but claim their “combination” strategy all along was a victory. Look around you on apps and the gay media of the mental trauma and bareback cesspools of depravity they have created in the name of complex strategies and political correct agenda that no one can be “stigmatised”. Bareback has been normalised and presented as desirable. Their hatred of condoms and bareback agenda has spawned so much harm to the gay community. Maybe that was the aim as it keeps them in a job and is a funding opportunity? Who knows?