The cute robots in this video are about to get down ‘n nasty after hooking up through a gay chat site. There’s just one problem: the horned up bareback bottom forgot to ask the top about his HIV status. What follows is a funny, pornographic (NSFW), painfully realistic “negotiation” in which stupidity rules the day.
I have had conversations exactly like this one. And I’ll go even further: in my crystal meth days, I had chats like these through glory holes. “If you’re clean, we’ll do it raw,” the gentleman in the adjoining booth would suggest, to which I would reply, “You’re going to take the word of a stranger you’re talking to through a three inch hole in the wall?”
The joke, if there really is one, is on the bareback bottoms who “restrict” their hookups to men who claim they are negative. These misguided folks are almost certainly already positive and don’t yet know it, leaving the door open for them to infect others.
The lesson in all this, of course, is not to put your life into the hands of someone you’ve known for five minutes. Or five months. The responsibility not to get exposed to HIV (and hepatitis and other STD’s) is entirely yours. And another thing: if you’re a sexually active “man about town” and your last HIV test was months ago, the results don’t really matter anymore. Go get a new one.
I exchanged e-mails with the producer of the robot video, who prefers the anonymity of cyberspace but nevertheless has strong feelings about the curious mating habits of the gay male. “If (HIV negative) guys are out there having anonymous sex with strangers, they’re having plenty of contact with HIV+ guys.” he wrote me. “Is there really something that they’d do with a stranger from Manhunt or Grindr that they wouldn’t do with someone who says he’s HIV+? It seems that what bothers them is knowing the truth.”
“I’d like to think that gay men could educate themselves enough to apply a safety standard to their conduct that doesn’t stigmatize anybody,” he goes on, perhaps a bit optimistically, “rather than hide behind a curtain of fear and blame.
I explored a lot of this territory is one of my older videos, “Mark’s R-Rated Sex Pig Blog.” In the video I discuss risks like barebacking and reenact my glory hole conversations (left), complete with a wall, a hole, and my friend Brian playing “the mouth.” And since the video was done before I got a handle on my meth addiction, you can see the ravages of addiction on my face, which is a lesson all its own.
This funny, bawdy robot video says more about the state of gay male sexual risk than any of the horrid public health campaigns out there today. It is exactly the kind of message I would have praised in my recent video conversation with HIV activist Sean Strub about HIV prevention campaigns.
If you want to do something about new HIV infections among our gay brothers, here’s an easy task: send this video to every sexually active guy you know.
Sometimes the truth hurts. In this case, it’s also hilarious.
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Kudos to Maureen McCarty of The New Gay for flagging this video for me. Finding potty-mouthed robots chatting about risky sex is exactly what makes a good editor, I always say. — Mark
Great video. No one takes at face value the age, weight, or penis size in an on-line profile and these can be readily disconfirmed. Yet people will believe reports of HIV status which cannot be disconfirmed.
I have never found a pro-disclosure message that emphasizes that you should be asking when you last tested negative. In the 70s the standard was to test for STDs every 3 months. I have not seen any public health messaging giving a similar standard for std tests (for either positives or negatives). These are simple messages that should be promoted.
finally, the strategy employed in the video is actually less effective that that of the het porn industry – test and segregate. Yet there has been no alignment of criticism of the het porn industry with criticisms of mindless serosorting.
LOVE THIS. I’ll never forget how I came to the realization… I was telling my mom the guy I was dating was HIV+. She was concerned for my health, but I told her, at least I know – i’m not making assumptions and doing the stupid shit I did before. She and I realized at the same time I was right.
Three years later, I’m negative, whereas a lot of my friends… haven’t been so lucky in that time.
Too true.
Paul hit the nail on the head!
I agree Mark, this is why no matter who I am with I assume that they are HIV+ or have other STDs and I have safer sex with them.
I’ve met way too many men who get into barebacking and assume that it’s perfectly fine to do it raw and they’ll say the same old excuses of “Tops don’t get HIV”, or “I may do it raw but I know the men who I’m hooking up with are being truthful when they tell me they’re neg!”
I’m in my late 20s and it is very disturbing how a lot of adult men who are younger than I am seem to think that it’s perfectly fine to do it raw/bare. It’s not just men who are like this but it’s women too. Then again this is one major reason why I haven’t been active in awhile.
HIV meds do work but they’re not foolproof and just because someone has a low or undetectable viral load someone can still be infected or even reinfected with HIV, or with other strains of HIV which is something people who do it raw seem to ignore.
I was having a conversation with some guys online about how we find the word “clean” offensive. This video hit the nail on the head. Sadly, the kind of conversation the robots have here takes place way too infrequently.
I received a link to this video from my “ex.”
He seemed to be offended by it.
He has NO CLUE.
To put it as succinctly as possible… he and I were together for five years and nine months before HE up and left me.
During that time, I did EVERYTHING in my power to make that man happy (including quitting a job, leaving my home and moving 300+ miles across Texas), and during all that time I agreed to have three-ways and orgies and what-not because, CLEARLY, *I* was never enough for him. Nothing I could do made him happy.
He was HIV+ from the get-go. To his credit, he told me that on the very night we met.
I didn’t let it bother me. In 1993, I lived with such a sense of inevitability that I would eventually contract the virus that I thought, “What does it matter?” (Because we always “played safe” I never contracted HIV.)
After he left me thirteen years ago, he landed his current partner in 2001 and they’ve been together since.
My issue is THIS: Being that he’s now got himself a partner –especially one of ELEVEN YEARS– then why the HELL is he whining about how hard it is to date nowadays? What does HE know about the subject?
I guess it is because he is STILL looking for strange dick. His partner probably isn’t enough to keep my “ex” satisfied –even after buying him no less than half-a-dozen NEW cars over the past eleven years, keeping him ensconced in a high rise condo in a tony Dallas neighborhood, shares his business with him, has afforded him numerous European vacations and Caribbean cruises, blah, blah, blah… I could go on and ON…
Even with ALL THAT, my “ex” is STILL not satisfied with his current partner and has issues with the gay dating scene?
Think I’m ready to give up alcohol now and start doing HEROIN.
When guys ask me if I’m clean I just tell them yes I wash myslef daily. So, I got a kick out of this video. Men are ignorant. And their ignorance is what is spreading the virus.
STD is an old term. It is now STI for sexually transmitted infection. They are not diseases. They can lead to diseases but STI’s themselves is not a diseases.
I am unsure if I believe the new strains of the virus hype. All of the anti-retroviral medications inhibit a particular enzyme that the virus uses in order to replicate itself. I find it highly unlikely that the viurs is making new enzymes that can not be inhibited by the medications.
I have researched this online and I can not find anthing explaining how the process works. I have asked my doctor, nurse practitioners, and other nurses how this works. They have no clue.
There are several factors that play into someone being infected. The concentration of the viral load of the HIV+ person plus the HIV- immune systems also plays a role.
Research indicates that it probably takes multiple exposures to become infected. Plus the whole pnp fad does weaken men’s immune systems.
Actually the people who discovered HIV are advocating treatment as prevention. That is why it is important to get every one in and get them tested. We could end this infection, but people are too ignorant to take responsibility for themselves. They’d rather hide behind HIV non-disclosure laws to place the blame upon someone else.
Most men that are postive take responsibility for them becoming infected. Those who go out there and throw there legs in the air for anyone and everyone that is willing to stick his cock in them raw, is only asking for trouble. Even if someone was intentionally infecting them, it is still that person’s fault for throwing hsi legs in the air!
There are different strains of HIV, even if you are positive, if you have unprotected sex with another HIV pos, you can catch a different strain, and it can make your infection worse and progress faster.
Talk to an HIV doctor (who prescribe anti retrovirals) or find you local Public Health Office’s sexual health clinic and talk to an HIV Public Health Nurse.
Yes, the general population of health care providers don’t know this information. It’s like asking a someone that works in customer service about the intricate details of a single product when they run the whole story. Not many know the details.
Great Video by the way, it was shown in my university class today!