Barebacking. For most poz folk — myself included — it’s how we contracted HIV. And concomitantly, barebacking is the one sexual act that, post-diagnosis, most violently transforms into a totem of painful memories and regret.
Ever since HIV dawned in the ’80s, LGBT folk have been flung into the contraceptive purgatory of condoms — both for fear of death and rejection. Back then, and still to this day, however, many self-proclaimed “raw only” (aka sans condoms) folk carry out their sexual lives, genitals in the buff, content or unaware of the consequences that may befall them.
Notwithstanding the purely raw folk, many gay men and women continue to bounce back-and-forth between condom and non-condom use, as per the motion of the ocean, if you catch my drift. And while I’ve met people who claim to prefer — if not love — condoms over barebacking, barring any condom fetishists out there, I feel pretty confident in stating every human would prefer skin-to-skin intercourse over the sheepskin chaperone.
So what does the barebacking option look like for HIV-poz folk? What does it become after you’re diagnosed as poz? I remember one gentleman brusquely instructing me to “bag it” from now on after he learned I was poz. (And me thinking, really? Is that what I’ll have to do from now on?) Because after you’re diagnosed with HIV, you feel like a ticking time bomb of blood and cum, that wrapping your genitals in a condom isn’t enough, that you might as well wear a condom tuxedo.
To be sure, in the immediate post-diagnosis craze, you perceive barebacking as a sacred sexual act that, for your sinful behavior, is one from which you shall forever be barred.
This perspective is not only unhealthy but simply not true. And until you can reconcile the act of barebacking in your mind, to accept the sound of that word “barebacking” as beautiful and good and not deviant deeds done under dark, you’ll revile yourself with shame and, from my experience, even increase your chances of irresponsible sexual behavior in the future.
Nothing is objectively bad or exclusive to one people in this world — barebacking included. While it may have been the manner in which you contracted HIV, there is no point to blaming yourself; just take care of how you act after the fact. Meaning, you don’t go out barebacking all over creation to ease the pain of perspective on the act, but think and make choices responsibly.
I for a time suffered from this deleterious mindset and, for it, sought to bareback with numerous HIV-poz folk, thinking that, for our sero-concordance, no harm would be done. Now, barring the potential of double infection or contracting a super-infection, the protracted harm I was inflicting on myself was that I was treating the very act I saw as sacred as deviant and cheap. I lingered in the shadows of my mind to hide from forces I believed would conjure greater torrents of pathos in my life, as if my fate was to live in perpetual sorrow, and barebacking indiscriminately would keep fate at bay.
Really, it was my perspective on love and my low self-esteem that constituted the weightiness of my heart. That’s me personally, not every HIV-poz person. But believing that I was destined to be forever unloved and had fallen from the heights of heaven, happiness and romance sequestered me in the little vagrant-ward in my head, where I could do as I pleased — with other unloved vagrants — scot-free.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Yes. An HIV-poz person can take HIV meds, eventually knocking down his viral load to undetectable levels, bringing transmission rates to their nadir, making barebacking a far less risky activity.
Yes. HIV-poz folk can always, after assessing their strains and other pertinent information, bareback with each other and bypass the potential fear of infection extant in sero-discordant couples.
But despite all those external variables, what will bring you piece of mind is understanding your relationship to barebacking. And frankly, there are too many debates surrounding barebacking that I can’t even pretend to accommodate all of them. But this isn’t all about barebacking: It’s about our self-esteem, how we perceive ourselves and the way we act, our intentions and goodwill, acting as one whole person to another. So my advice to you is to ask yourself, not just in regard to barebacking but to other aspects of your life: What is my intention? And let your intention guide your actions, not the other way around.
We’re in this together, folks. Go out and talk about it.
Aaron Stella is editor-in-chief of Phillybroadcaster.com, an all-inclusive A&E blog. A Temple grad, he has written for several publications in the city and now devotes his life to tackling the challenges of HIV in the 21st century.