Washington Blade - November 16, 2007

"Over 90 percent of the guys that hit him up online about it had 'safe sex,' 'HIV-' in their profiles," he said. "I think it's funny, yet sad. People aren't honest with themselves and each other.

"If [someone is] lying about fucking raw, he's probably lying about something else [like his] HIV status," Vaughn said.

The Blade agreed not to print the real names of some gay men interviewed for this article in order to enable them to speak frankly about sexual behaviors.

At 33, Vaughn came of age as a gay man when HIV/AIDS was taking its deadliest toll on gay men, yet he has always been averse to using condoms and now refuses to do so.

"[I've] done safe sex - bored me to tears," Vaughn said. "Condoms don't do it for me. ... I know there are risks, but I know what I like and only deal with guys who like it raw."

Asked about his HIV status, Vaughn responded that it's a rhetorical question.

"Think about it, bro, I only fuck raw - c'mon," Vaughn said.

Vaughn was one of six men in a gay chat room who responded to an online personal ad asking: "Which do you prefer - condoms or bareback sex?" Their responses reveal some of the nuances of condom use and raw sex among gay men.

"I choose life, it's not that hard to figure out," said one man identified as "Chris." "When AIDS first came around in the '80s, it scared us into safe sex. These young cats don't realize how many died. Maybe they never lost a friend or family member.

"At 40, I've never had cum in my mouth or ass, and trust me, I've had some hot sex," Chris said. "[Barebacking] seems more visible. I had guys hit me up with ads that say nothing about raw [sex], and after a few e-mails, they let me know that's what they like."

Men who admit to preferring raw sex in their personal ads occasionally evoke scorn from other users, but "most of the people who do hit me up and are interested are people who have 'safe sex only' in their profile," said "David," 30.

"Many, and I mean many, will have raw sex," David said. "They may ask are you negative, and I could tell them anything, and they'll believe it. I find it funny how quick they will believe anything from a complete stranger online with no face who says, yeah, 'I'm negative but I love bareback.'"

"Jadin," 30, has seen friends become HIV-positive after engaging in bareback sex, but he didn't start using condoms more consistently until he contracted a form of chlamydia.

"Sex feels better without condoms, and I didn't think I would get anything, [which] I know is very foolish thinking," Jadin said. "I probably would still not use them all the time, but, yes, it was a huge wake-up call for me."

Two of the men who responded recently became HIV-positive, and are disheartened by the behavior they see online.

"One thing I have noticed especially in the last five or six months is that everyone seems to say that they are into safe sex, but when it comes right down to it, they stick it in without wrapping," said "Benson," 38. "Another thing is that almost everyone I have met or come in contact with that is HIV-positive absolutely refuses to use condoms."

Twenty-five-year-old "Michael" recently tested HIV-positive, and now feels obligated to wear condoms during sex, even if he doesn't "feel as though most of my peers feel the same way."

"Even if you are infected, you should still protect yourself from other strands of the virus and other STDs," Michael said. "It's much harder to fight off even curable diseases when you are poz. I think it is important that we have these types of conversations as a community in order to educate ourselves."

Despite their life-saving potential, condoms have often been an unwelcome necessity during both gay and straight sex, and prior to AIDS, part of the pleasure of being gay was not worrying about barriers and birth control.

"I didn't become a homosexual so I could use condoms," gay writer Konstantin Berlandt famously said in the early '80s in response to the AIDS epidemic.

In addition to preventing pregnancy, condoms fundamentally interfere with the purpose of sex as a way to connect with another being, said Steven Tierney, deputy director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

"I think the simple fact is having a barrier between two individuals who are being intimate ... is not the ideal way to do it," said Tierney, who added that unprotected sex is on the rise among gay men nationwide. "I think we've noticed it for at least the last five or six years."

In the early '90s, one-third of gay and bisexual men reported engaging in unprotected anal intercourse, but now half of all gay men admit having anal sex without a condom, according to research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

In a May 2006 study published by Emory University and the Georgia Department of Human Resources, 25 percent of the 1,000 gay men interviewed reported having unprotected anal intercourse with their most recent casual sex partner.

"Men who were [HIV positive] were about three-fourths more likely to report [unprotected anal sex] than their [HIV-negative] counterparts," concluded the study, which was published in the journal AIDS & Behavior. The study also noted that men who did not have discussions about their HIV status with their partners, white men, older men, and men who reported being high or drunk during sex were considerably more likely to engage in raw sex.

For many years, Tierney said, gay men faced a simple decision when it came to using a condom: Do it or die. With contracting HIV no longer meaning sudden death, Tierney said gay men are now engaging in "higher level reasoning" that includes considering which sexual position they assume, the type of sex they're engaging in, their partner's viral load and a host of other factors.

"I don't think there's anything in the history of men - gay or straight - that suggests we're good at higher-level reasoning during a moment of intimacy," said Tierney, who added that the judgment of gay men during sex is often compromised further by alcohol and drugs, particularly crystal meth.

"Everybody has a plan for themselves - what they will do and what they won't do [during sex], a strategy," Tierney said. "Certainly, when you're using crystal meth, that safety plan goes out the window."

Most producers of gay porn responded to the AIDS crisis by voluntarily implementing condom requirements in their videos, but an increasing amount of bareback porn is now available from smaller porn companies and Internet amateurs.

At first the major gay porn companies attempted to ignore trends arising online and elsewhere in porn, but now amateur and smaller porn companies are "setting the pace for the industry," said J.C. Adams, editor of GayPornTimes.com.

It's been a heated month in the world of gay porn, after a European trade magazine distributed several of its "David Awards" to the U.S. porn company Treasure Island Media, which produces bareback film. The decision to honor Treasure Island Media prompted other major American porn producers like Chi Chi LaRue and Bruce Cam to return their David Awards in protest.

"I turned to a David Awards person and said, 'Are you fucking kidding me? Are you kidding me?'" LaRue told GayPornTimes about her reaction to Treasure Island Media winning Best U.S. Studio at the Oct. 19 ceremony. "I handed them back my Best U.S. Director award [and] I said, 'Take it. Thanks, but I don't want it.'"

There was tragically little information about how to protect yourself from AIDS during the early days of the epidemic, and gay porn companies did a lot to spread education and glamorize condom use.

"Flash ahead 15 or 20 years, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a gay man who doesn't know about HIV/AIDS and condoms and safer sex techniques," Adams said. "But when gay porn is in the business of selling fantasy - key word is 'business' here - how much of that fantasy should be sacrificed for a real-world lesson in safer sex?

"Honestly, the industry is grappling with how much of a brother's-keeper role we're expected to take on," Adams added.

Porn producer Ty Lattimore usually uses condoms in his videos, but created bareback series because models and audiences were interested in it, and because he would've felt like a hypocrite censoring sex videos.

"I never intended to become a 'spokesperson' for barebacking, but my position was I think it's hypocritical to act like every time I've had sex I used a condom," Lattimore said. "Not too many people can say that. I just think everyone has the right to choose what works for them. Some people bareback and do it all the time, some people are more discretionary when they do that, and some people use a condom all the time."

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Editors' note: This is the second in a two-part series taking a frank look at gay sex, condom use and HIV prevention. Last week's installment: Shifting views on importance of condoms.

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