Blogging @ work (dot com)
That’s right, I am collecting a substandard weekly salary and instead of doing my job I’m in my cramped office composing this missive. Scandalous! Rather than try and go back into the lost entry from the other day I thought it would be easier to relate my afternoon with Neo and try to work in some details of my group experience as well since I discussed most of it with Neo anyway. He wanted company on a trip to the Metropolitan. He had a writing assignment for a sculpture class he’s taking and needed to I guess, critique or describe three pieces of sculpture there and since I had last been to the Met oh….. never I thought why not? So I scarfed down a sammich, (not Blimpie’s, a leftover Quizno’s I’m sooo happy they’ve started opening in NYC, although I still loves me my Blimpie’s) and perched on my porch and waited for Neo to pick me up in the latest Shitmobile he’s driving. I guess before I go any further I kinda oughta explain all the references to the man I dramatically (some might say melodramatically) said goodbye to a while back. Think of it as more of a symbolic goodbye. Look, I’m going through a lot of shit right now, and the one thing I’m not going to do is break off a relationship with the one man in my life I can say anything to. Besides, while I truly deeply love Neo I’m not so sure anymore that I’m in love with him or ever was at all. I’m sort of thinking I was just in love with being in love. Part of what I spoke about in the group on Tuesday was how being HIV+ has started me re-evaluating all my relationships. Which is why things have gotten so bad (or is it sad) between me and The Ex. It’s why I’ve reduced him in my mind at least to just a guy I live with and certainly not someone I can count on or trust to be there for me. It’s not that he’s a bad person. It’s just that we have grown so far apart spiritually and emotionally and mentally (well, that’s always been the case he was always stupid) that we really are sharing nothing at this point but the place we live in. And that’s not a complaint. It’s just that I was previously expending a lot of energy trying to breathe life into something that died a long time ago. I’m not doing it anymore. So you can see that I’m surely not cutting someone like Neo out of my life who does satisfy my need to think and grow and learn and most of all laugh.
I started telling him about the other main topic of conversation at the group which was…..wait for it…. SEX. Or more to the point sex with condoms or more to the pointy point sex without them. I know, or I guess, some of you who aren’t gay or aren’t HIV+ can’t believe we spend any time as HIV+ people discussing sex without condoms but surprise surprise a real live dirty gay secret. Some HIV+ men are having sex without em. Sometimes with other HIV+ men but sometimes not and rarely with any kind of open disclosure. And that, my friends is the real bugaboo here. Basically, as we discussed it, it wasn’t a real issue for HIV+ men with negative boyfriends. Condoms it is. But what of us single gals? A couple of the boys finally grew a set of balls and admitted they’re still going to sex parties and people aren’t using condoms and by implication neither were they. One man said he was having sex, but always with condoms and then there’s yours truly firmly straddling the fence. Since my diagnosis I can truly say I haven’t had overtly unsafe sex with anyone. (By that I mean nobody I know rubbers up for cocksucking as long as there’s no cum involved). But I had some jerk off scenes and a hot three way where I sort of hosted and got sucked but there was no intercourse by/on me and I ended up cumming on a coffee table. (ewww is my coffee table HIV+???) And no sex parties for me. I will admit however that I peruse Barebacksex.com on an almost daily basis and I did in fact have condomless sex with another guy who a) knew I was HIV+ and b) was also and I still didn’t cum in his ass but I did fuck him. In my opinion two people who are HIV+ that decide to have bare sex are at least taking a shared, small risk together (of re-infection). So the question on the table in my group was how we all felt about sex and condoms and using them or not and what about those sex parties where nothing is discussed. The group collectively sort of seemed to be reaching a consensus of it wasn’t our responsibility to let someone we were having sex with know that we were HIV+ it was the responsibility of the other person to ask us to use a condom. Otherwise, the assumption is that the other guy is POZ too or doesn’t care. How convenient! Now we get to have sex and cum up some guys hot ass and bear absolutely no responsibility for protecting the health of the guy we’re fucking. Oh what a happy day this is! Yes, I’m going to have the most intimate relationship a man can have with another man. I’m going to put myself inside you. But care about you? Protect you? Shut the fuck up and get me off, hole. “It takes the lotion from the bucket and puts it on the body.” At what point did sex become all about fucking and not all the other good naked or semi naked private or semi public things two guys could do to get each other off? *hops off high horse*
So Neo got what he needed and I spent a couple of quality hours with the ancient Greeks. I was thoroughly entertained. The Metropolitan, does everyone know about this? After that we scarfed a couple of street dogs and dished about all of our drunk and co-dependent co-workers. I returned to my castle high atop Second Ave. feeling thoroughly smug and superior.
