Listen, I want you to know something about me. I hate condoms. I hate wearing them. I love fucking raw. I love it. I don’t do it. I can’t do it. I wanted to fuck my lover without a condom. I want to cum inside you. I love you.
This is what HIV looks like in 2013:
Brandon, he’s 22… he wants to be hog tied and fucked in the mouth and ass. He wants to meet me.
He wants me to ‘take control’ he wants me to beat him and fuck him. He wants ‘verbal’. He enquired if I preferred him to call me daddy or sir. I’m interested. This daddy loves an obedient boy. We talk on the phone, he’s upbeat and sweet-natured but after we agree to meet he texts me:
‘Before we meet. I’m Positive. And I’m honest about it. Thoughts?’
I wait a moment. Restraint of pen and tongue.
I text him back. ‘Can we talk?’ I explain why I can’t meet him. I tell him that I’m scared and I don’t want to risk an infection. I’m too old to get infected. I lived through the AIDS catastrophe. I didn’t get infected.
The conversation I had with Brandon is not common. Usually when I say that I can’t have sex with someone who is HIV positive they spew vitriol. They tell you that it was a ‘mercy fuck‘ anyway, that I’m ugly , that I’m ignorant… of course… I know what they are really saying. They usually get what they want when they want it and woe-betides anyone who fucks with their plan.
Some HIV poz men feel that by being honest I will feel equally warm and fluffy and my respect for their honesty will translate into a fuck.
Let me tell you what I remember when someone tells me they are HIV positive.
I remember the gaunt, yellow faces of formerly beautiful young men crying because they don’t want to die. I remember men hermetically sealed from the world in plastic tents. I remember the smell of piss and shit. I remember the quiet sobbing of newly widowed men. I remember all of that and I cannot go there.
More controversially… when you tell me you are HIV positive I am confronted fair and square with your sexual history. I imagine other men cumming inside you.
I just do. I can’t help myself.
That’s why I can’t sit facing the toilet when I am in a restaurant. Imagining people pooing and wiping their asses. It puts me off my dinner.
There are two communities. Two gay communities. The HIV negative and the HIV positive. I have no interest in interacting sexually with the latter. I will be damned for writing that.
Brian says: ‘Duncan, someone who knows they’re positive and is on treatment can easily be less infectious than someone who doesn’t know that they’re positive and happens to have a high viral load, and is therefore very infectious. That could be the issue of ignorance of which they speak. I agree no one has the right to go off on you for not wanting to play, but the issue is more complicated than pos/neg.’
The issue is NOT complicated for me. I don’t want to be HIV positive.
The community with HIV is very eager to diminish their responsibility and guilt those without HIV into thinking it’s all ok just because they describe themselves as ‘healthy’. They still have HIV and they can infect you… however low their viral load. They claim they are ‘undetectable’ which means they have a very low viral load.
Undetectable is a big problem. It is used incorrectly by many people to make others feel that the sex they have is safer than with those who are not undetectable. Undetectable people are still HIV poz. The condom breaks. You are now a slave to toxic chemicals. A slave to big pharma.
Who are these undetectable people? These invisible men? Gay ghosts. Scarcely there. Leaving behind just the whiff of AIDS. HIV is totally avoidable in 2013. Yet, we still go on being the largest group of new infections in what is still an epidemic. I don’t want to talk about Africa or straight people or intravenous drug users.
I want us to take some responsibility. Especially those of you who are transitioning from the Neg community to the Poz community. Those of you who make the choice… who made the choice last night to take a risk. Those of you who thought, or did not think, as he came inside you… that you would risk the consequences of HIV. You are packing your bags, you are moving to the other side. To the other gay community. The undetectable gay community.
Finally, one last nail in my gay coffin.
What’s this crap about gay men and shame? We can’t shame gay/bisexual men into wearing a condom? Because they are gay or bisexsual and have shame about their sexuality?
We can’t shame gay men or bisexuals into making better choices for themselves? Like we do smokers? No… because the gay community must be shameless at all cost. We are gay! We live without shame. We’ve been shamed ENOUGH.
Huh?
I say… shame those who knew they were HIV poz and took away the neg status of others by lying. This really happens. I know a few good men who have had their good health stolen from them by unscrupulous gay men.
There are two gay communities. One of them is HIV positive. The other is not. Those who are not positive are described as elitist by those who are. Those who are HIV positive scoff at those who are not… because the implication is: they weren’t pretty or handsome or desirable enough to get infected with HIV.
I am scared of getting HIV. Like some people are scared of snakes.
I am happy that I am HIV negative. In fact… I am proud to be HIV negative. Does that make me elitist? Well, yes… if elitism means that I mostly took care of myself.
That I don’t have to buy costly drugs every month to stay… undetectable.
4 replies on “A Tale of Two Gay Communities: Poz and Neg”
The greatest act of love I will remember from my mother. One time she handed me coupons for condoms, and said: “You have never met a man worth getting anything from.” I applaud these words of yours, and this is one of the reasons I felt freer in the closet. As myself, as a human being, and the lengths I have gone to keep myself safe, and too many that I question their self-regard as well as basic sexual health. We have to take better care of ourselves. We have to make ourselves more compatible to each other. And that’s why when I hear that word community, I cringe at the bullshit meaninglessness of that term.
This is an exceptionally well written piece Duncan. I love that you always make me think. I am just a 64 year old straight woman with a very dear gay brother. I started reading your blog because I saw you on Dr. Drew and I really liked you. I wanted to know more about what it is like being a gay man in this day and age. I have learned so much about that subject and so many more. Please keep up the good work. And for heaven sake write a book and get rich!
This definitely sheds a very bright light onto a very taboo subject. HIV/AIDS isn’t going anywhere anytime time soon, but the amount of young men being affected each and every day is increasing. We risk so much for the sake of self worth, but if we just took a break and thought about our actions we’d realize how careless we as a community have become. Our bodies are our greatest gift from God. Our younger generation just needs to see beyond the Physical attraction, there is so much more enjoyment to life. I’m proud to say I’ve learned that self control a sense of celibacy until finding that right person.
I came out in 1982 – 14 yrs old – my family and friends thought I was mad – the Aids scare was at an all time high and very much swept under the carpet – information regarding Aids was non existent – HIV+ people were mobbed – pushed further back into the closet even before they came out of it. I decided there and then to play it safe .- I did not want to end up 6ft. under before my life had even begun.
31 years down the road, I have never regreted my decision – ONS for me is not going anal – if my partner of the night doesn`t like it -well he can leave it – they rarely do – My LTR are always anal and more – a HIV- test a must. – I am still negative and intend on staying so!