Is He A Chaser?

Ran across an interesting blog post from a relatively new "anonymous" blogger. I have no idea if he and his boyfriend "Zach" are real people or not or if he is just posting some particularly lurid fantasies mixed with embellishments. And it doesn't really matter. I'm quite sure if they aren't real, there are plenty of other young (and not so young) people all across the country that are deciding, or rather opting (as I sometimes believe that having unsafe sex is not always so much a decision as it is a rather pronounced lack of any decision at all) to participate in "unsafe" bareback sex. 

So this toxicTWINK (awwwwww, who's a cute boy? You are? Yes you are!) has posted a rumination on his reasons for engaging in raw sex, without any regard for whether the partner is POZ or not, as well as what he believes are some of the changing attitudes of today's gays regarding "safe" sex and HIV. Here's a couple highlites:

Barebacking and risky sexual behavior in general is becoming more and more the norm as the fear of HIV has subsided with people living healthy normal lives with HIV. The new generation of gays (18-25, of which we are a part of) have lived in an age in which HIV has always been around, but are too young to remember all the pain and fear associated with it. We grew up just hearing about it and having the "safe" sex mantra beaten into us since the beginning of sex-ed. Like most young men, barebacking has become a rebellion against this mantra imposed in the same way that the mantras of don't drink or don't do drugs have backfired. Even though we've been talked to death about it, we don't see the negative affects of our actions right away, including high-risk sexual behaviors.

*SNIP*

Do I consider myself to be a chaser? Although I think I understand and can sympathize with a chaser, I don't call myself one. The main reason I say this is because I am not trying to become poz. I do not buy into feeling that I would be better off just becoming poz now or that it would be hotter in anyway. I have rather weighed the risks of barebacking and HIV infection against my sexual values and decided that I would rather risk becoming a positive barebacker than to have to inhibit myself by practicing what is considered "safe" sex. (I will go into detail about why I believe "safe" sex is a misnomer in another blog.) I know that even though I may try to only do bareback with negative people, that people either don't know their status or lie about it. Therefore, I have decided that another person's status is not going to be an issue to me and I accept the responsibility for that. Having accepted that, I realized that this is truly liberating and it has allowed me to open the door to being completely uninhibited sexually, which was my main sexual value that I weighed the risks against.

You can read the entire post here.

I don't necessarily agree or disagree with anything "Brendon" wrote. Nor do I endorse "risky" behavior, or bareback sex between HIV+ people and negative sex partners. But judging by this blog and a lot more like it, as well as reading the latest HIV data out of Washington DC and the Maryland suburbs, people are increasingly opting to engage in bareback sex, regardless of the consequences. And until that is acknowledged and discussed openly, nobody will be able to figure out a way to realistically prevent new infections.