I think I am riding on a wave of good Karma and if that’s true, I am really enjoying the ride! It’s not a tsunami wave, it’s a simple, gentle wave with small things happening with large rewards.

Today, I went downtown for the raising of the Pride flag at City Hall. This is the first time I’ve done this, and I’ve lived here for the better part of 32 years. I went mostly because I saw a photo opportunity  - and I did get a few good ones. When I was wrapping up, I looked over my shoulder and there was a young guy watching me.

He began to tell me, “This has got to be one of the most powerful statements any city can make”, pointing to the flag. There it was, flying next to the city flag and the Canadian flag. There was another flag that he thought was some sort of British flag. I felt I had to tell him it was the Ontario Provincial flag. He went on to say, what an experience it was that I could be there taking a picture of that flag, proudly flying next to all the others, only in Canada. In other countries it wouldn’t be celebrated in the same way.

This whole experience made me think back to 2011 Toronto Pride, I had taken a photo of the Pride flag with the Canadian flag (see below) that I was so proud to have taken. It was seen by a writer who wanted to use it in a story he wrote. It was an honour to have it included in a story about Pride.  I agreed to it right away. I have since donated a copy of it for a silent auction at a local fundraiser last year.

In a true “social media experience” I saw a link on my facebook that led me to another link for a site that one of my contacts was following called Fierté Canada Pride. Right away I noticed their profile photo, I clicked on it to see a larger version of it and sure enough, it was the same photo of the two flags. I thought about other photographers I’ve met who would be upset someone used their photos without permission or compensation.  For me, if it’s for an HIV cause or to promote Pride, then please use it. I volunteer to do all photos for my local AIDS Service Organizations for most of our events. It’s a way of giving back for a lot of what they have done for me. I sent the site a private message letting them know that it was my photo and that it looked great on their site and to enjoy it.

So giving in this way is a large reward for me. Karma, what you give out, you will get back. Beautiful!

The most positive Karma experience happened about a week and a half ago.  I was out taking pictures at the local University Arboretum. I had been there for an hour or so, just sitting at the picnic table trying to catch the birds flying in and away from the feeder. I noticed a few people coming through the area. I talked to a couple of them, just a hello.

Then I noticed a couple  of guys. They looked around, then sat down on a bench to the right of me. They were around my age. I had this feeling that maybe I knew them as they fit the general description of a couple of guys I once chummed around with. One was a friend I had hoped to reconnect with, someone I hadn’t seen in about 15 years. I had made a commitment at a recent retreat back in February to try to re-connect. I had found an old phone number, but misplaced it.

So, after about 10-15 minutes, I decided to pack up and go say hello, see if it was that old friend. I turned around to see they were on their way out of the area, so I had to hurry. I managed to catch up and I called out the friend’s name. He turned around and said, “pardon me?” I said his name again and he looked at me. Then he said, “don’t tell me, give me a minute”. It was him, and like me, a little older a little more grey. He lives in another nearby city; we hadn’t seen each other in maybe 15 years and there we were, in the least of all expected places. I go to this place so often. We tried to catch up but he was in a hurry to go somewhere, said he had an appointment, he gave me his cell number and I was to call him.

This has to be the most genuine form of Karma ever, or was it “fate”? Could they be the same thing?  To move forward now I realize that I will need to do some apologizing to him. I can’t go into the reason for the separation but I wasn’t the person I am today. I didn’t know or use empathy or compassion very well then, hell most times I can’t say I had any awareness of it. I am aware that it may not be the same friendship it was before, but it could be. We can’t get into the same trouble  - or can we?

I spend a lot of time on the internet, but I am trying to get out more. Now that the weather is cooperating it’s been easier. Photography has become a social affair; I get to meet other photographers or people asking what I’m taking pictures of and they share stories of their own. One gentleman and his wife last night suggested I join the seniors’ centre, they have a photography club and I could win the photo of the week. I do qualify, you need to be 55 and over, and I am over.

So I’m trying to put a finger on what it is I’m doing and I don’t see many great things. I think a lot of it is just staying positive, avoiding the negatives. If you want things to add up in life, avoid the negatives. I have seen how people treat me by the way I treat them, I do it all so differently now. I made many bad choices in my life and tasted the bad Karma on those occasions, so yes, the good Karma is working for me now.

So I’ll sign off here and since Pride season is kicking off around the world, Happy Pride everyone.

What can I possibly write about online hook up sex sites that hasn’t been said?

I’ve been off them for a couple of years since a guy I was seeing made me delete the last of the profiles I had, which was basically to stay in touch with a lot of guys I know in Europe.

The last straw for me came when this guy I was with looked at me and said, “Ya I took some GHB, didn’t I put any in your drink?” I’m no prude, but since I put “NO PNP” in my profile, and the fact I’ve O.D’d on this stuff before, I didn’t take kindly to the prospect of nonconsensual drug use.

Fortunately there was none in the drink, as I know all to well what it tastes like and its effects. It was the fact my choice could have been taken away from me that hurt.

For the last couple of years I’d rely on a couple of dwindling fuck buddies that I could call up. Slowly this was turning into a pretty sexless life.

My return to the avenue of online shopping was prompted by my trip to Tel Aviv. First the guys are super hot there; I had to meet a few. Secondly, I don’t go to bars to meet people anymore, and I don’t drink.

Feeling not that confident anymore, I snapped a webcam shot of myself thinking that at least if they message me it will be the most recent photo I can have. To my surprise, I learned that being “fresh meat” in Tel Aviv, even being me, means there’s a lot of demand. I think over the month I got about 70 messages. I was shocked!

The problem in Tel Aviv is that everyone has their heads buried very deeply in their asses about HIV. Despite there being over 7,000 positive guys in the area, when I disclose I’m treated like I’m the first poz person they’ve ever encountered. I get the questions. I tell them, there are 7,000 guys here who are positive, you’ve fucked many of them, don’t treat me like I’m the first.

Suddenly there is a concern about doing this or doing that, even though they are happy to do this or do that with those who don’t disclose. This different environment that I’m used to took me back a bit. I had to decide what was the best way to do this.

It wasn’t like I have having sports sex on the hour.  I didn’t mention it at fiirst until we were talking face to face. It’s not my favourite way, but at least if someone is going to be an asshole, they can do it to my face instead of just ignoring a message I’ve sent.

Coming back to Canada I decided to create a couple of profiles. I’ve always thought there is something odd about gay Torontonians, and going back online really confirmed it.

Suddenly, (fresh-meat syndrome excluded) on the first site, there was no interest at all. Something happened to me over the course of flying those 6,000 miles back home. This site is exactly the same as it was several years ago - stale with the same 60 to 70 odd guys parked waiting for someone to message them.

The second one is marginally better as I will log on and see a few messages. In each I’ve said I’m positive at the end of my written portion.

I don’t like the sites that force me into disclosing. I usually do anyway, but I’d like that choice. It feels like I’m being outed to be avoided.  I like to have the choice on how I disclose such issues.

The lay of the land has changed quite a bit. I highly suspect the D&D free people are negative looking to bareback “safely.” So in essence we have many barebacking sites even if we don’t call them that.

There is a bit of dishonesty there, as they go out of their way to exclude, but can’t say it’s because of barebacking.

One guy I met off of this site, during our email exchange asked about my status. He’s very young, in his twenties. I wrote him back and expected to hear nothing back. Instead I received a nice reply saying we could still play “safely.”

What I didn’t realize is our two-tiered sex reservation system. Namely, the best sex (first class) is without condoms, flying economy, you use condoms; both of these will get you to your destination, just one is more desirable. So the HIV status question can be more about determining what kind of sex is available. But it's hard to know what are someone's motives. 

Perhaps with Israeli HIV-stigma fresh in my mind, I began to feel like an outsider looking in and much more so than I had ever in the past.

As per a friend’s recommendation I went on a barebacking site. I never ever contemplated such sites before in my life.  To my surprise I got 30 messages in a week. 

Even with people condemning such an act, I did it and was surprised to see that I was no longer on the inside looking out. This is a very low stigma site. I don’t use condoms with other positive guys anyway, so what the hell.

The irony is that the sites that I once scorned and judged are the very ones that I find the most affirming. Really who wants to be at a party where nobody wants you, which is how Manhunt & Gaydar etc. begin to feel like.

I’ve now successfully turned around my sexless life, one of my goals I can cross off of my "to do" list post-Tel Aviv. 

“Seed is a gift, it’s love, it’s acceptance. Taking a man’s cum – in your ass, down your throat, rubbed into your skin, whatever - even if you don’t know his name, is closeness. It’s an act of love and trust.  Even if yawl just met. Both the bottom and the top will walk away smiling . . . and content. Now it’s a sleazy affair that boys get cracked out of their mind for. Like it’s an embarrassing nasty secret thing to want. This is so fucked.”

From HIV-positive bareback blogger Geek Slut, quoted in "Unlimited Intimacy  . .". .

Recently writer Tim Dean gave a presentation on the subculture of barebacking and its mores to an attentive audience of 200 at the Gay Men’s Sexual Health Summit in Toronto.  PositiveLite.com editor Bob Leahy caught up with him afterwards and sat down with him for this frank talk.

Bob Leahy: Tim. Thank you for talking to PositiveLite.com – and welcome to Toronto. I’d like to talk to you about your book first of all.  Tell me, how did you come to write about barebacking? What interested you there?

Tim Dean:  I came to write that book because I was living in the Bay Area of San Francisco and I was going out a lot and having a lot of sex – this was in the late 90s – and what I encountered in public sex environments were lots of guys who wanted me to cum inside of them. There was never a conversation about status, there was never a conversation about condoms, and I realized fairly quickly that this was something new in the history of the epidemic that I needed to think about — to think about what was involved and what had changed.

There is a substantial body of research that went in to the book.  Tell me about your research method.  How did you gather the information - through conventional methods?

I would say they were not very conventional methods. Much of the information was what I gleaned from personal experience, that is, hanging out in sex bars, sex clubs, bathhouses to a lesser extent, and also talking to people. That’s something I do in my life and I was using that material to reflect on. I also got very interested in bareback pornography and was able to use my training as a critic to analyze what is going on in this kind of pornography, what makes it different from other kinds of pornography.

Let’s talk about the bareback porn industry in a minute. Writing the book, you chose very consciously to be non-judgemental, is that right? You could have injected your own views in to it, but you chose to be descriptive.  Why did you do that?

That was a very important decision on my part, influenced by two things. One was to take a kind of anthropological approach to the study of sexual subcultures, where you limit what you can learn if you decide ahead of time whether something is good or bad, positive or negative. The other was a kind of psycho-analytic influence where the suspension of judgment allows thinking to achieve its full potential so that it was very, very important to me not to judge.

And what was the reaction to that approach? In your refusal to judge, did people think it sounded like you were endorsing barebacking?

Yes, some people did. And the fact that I wanted to write about this subculture without judging it and on the other hand saying that I’m also participating in this subculture, the refusal to judge was often understood as a kind of backhanded way of endorsing or excusing what I was doing.  I didn’t see it that way at all.  For me, it was an ethical decision to suspend judgement. Some people got that.  Some people read it differently.

So did it feel comfortable writing from the perspective of a participant in the barebacking culture? It’s kind of brave, I think.

It seemed sort of inevitable, in the sense that a lot of what I found out, I found out by doing it. Certainly in the literature I read at the time on “unsafe/unprotected sex” it was always assumed that somebody else was doing it, it was others who barebacked. It was very important to me to dispel that illusion. I was not going to be closet-y about the fact that I was barebacking. There is still a stigma attached to it and it’s hard to come out as somebody who enjoys bareback sex. But I don’t think we actually get anywhere by pretending we are not doing things . . . 

OK, let’s talk more about this. We haven’t defined barebacking.  Are we talking about people who identify as barebackers, part of a barebacking culture, or people who slip up occasionally - or both?

I used the decision when writing the book to use the term “barebackers” very broadly, to cover both the subculture and also people who may not consider themselves ‘barebackers” but who sometimes or occasionally do have sex without condoms, or want to have sex without condoms. It’s too easy to place the blame on a small subset who are very committed barebackers and I wanted to avoid that by using the term broadly.

I wanted to ask you about the allure of barebacking. There are so many stigmas and potential risks, why do people do it?

I think there are lots of reasons. The first and most obvious is that men often prefer sex without condoms, it feels better . . .

You called it “enhanced genital stimulation”.

Yes. That’s the most obvious reason. Beyond that there are all the meanings that are attached to exchanging semen, to receiving someone else’s cum. I think HIV prevention discourses have not been very good at acknowledging how important semen is to gay men – their own and other peoples’. Sometimes you want lots of guys’ semen inside of you.

Well, you’ve talked a lot about disgust with bodily fluids, and you mentioned spit as an example, but semen must be the same kind of thing, that we have a sort of love/hate relationship with it - in that in some contexts these fluids are very hot and in others they disgust us.

I think that’s true. I think that semen, because of HIV and the epidemic, has become even more loaded with meaning, in becoming dangerous, in becoming dirty . . .

Toxic.

Yes, In becoming toxic it has become potentially hotter. That is, on the one hand we are told we must absolutely keep it outside of our bodies, and on the other hand it becomes something very exciting to get inside.

Well, let me throw out a quote from you on that. I think you said “the fact that sex may be unsafe may be the sexiest thing about it.” Is that true?

I think for a number of people that’s absolutely the case. It’s a mistake to think we don’t like risk. Risk can be very exciting.

I suppose you can think then of public sex. We think public sex is very hot because we might get caught. But are we saying bareback sex is hot because we could get infected with HIV?

In some cases, yes. Your question makes me think of straight couples who like to fuck in the bathroom of a plane. There is a risk involved, it’s not comfortable, maybe the sex isn’t all that gratifying because of the conditions, but there is a risk involved which makes it very exciting. And that translates for some gay men in terms of HIV too.

Is the transgressive thing important in bareback sex too, the chance of something bad happening.

Yes, and also stepping away from being a normal responsible adult in our society, and everything that goes along with that. You know part of the appeal of public sex is that it happens outside the house, it happens in a space where someone can be somebody different. Therefore it’s hot. We are also inundated with safe sex messages and sometimes for that very reason stepping away from that and doing something that is “unsafe”,  that’s ”risky”, can be the hottest thing to do.

The other allure you’ve described is in the title of your book. “Unlimited Intimacy.” That’s important for barebackers, isn’t it?

Yes, I think it is. Men who have a lot of casual sex with a lot of casual partners are not in flight from intimacy but actually searching for a particular kind of intimacy. The phrase “unlimited intimacy” came from a barebacker in an interview I read and that seemed to me to be a perfect way to encapsulate intimacy beyond the couple.

So there is nothing more intimate for some people than exchanging bodily fluids?

Right.

Sometimes we talk about casual sex, but it sounds like what you’re describing is very intense sex.

It’s incredibly intense. It’s very meaningful, completely spiritual. If you are having sex with a bunch of strangers, group sex can be something that feels like communion.

I think you’ve mentioned too in the book that there is very much a sense of belonging.

Sure. It’s about finding and making a community with people you don’t necessarily need to get to know to be part of.

OK I want to find out about barebackers and what is their relationship to risk. I think what you say - and this is probably grossly simplifying – is that this is an equation, where barebackers recognize the risk, but then balance it against the pleasure. Is that what’s going on?

Sure, I think that’s part of it. But one of the other things I want to add that’s going on is that the majority of barebackers do NOT want to infect sero-negative guys. They are not trying to put other people at risk. They are interested in an experience of risk for themselves that is maybe more a risk in fantasy than in actuality in some cases.

So they do care about the possibility of HIV transmission?

Yes.

Do you think people think they don`t care.

I do. It's hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact that people can be barebacking and still wish to reduce transmission. I think it's a mistake to think about barebackers as simply irresponsible hedonists.

Tell me why you’ve been using the word “disgust” a lot lately.

I’ve become very interested in disgust for various reasons.  One, in the world of academic theory I inhabit, people don’t talk about disgust, they talk about shame. Shame is connected to identity.  For me, disgust is connected to acts and in order to have a discourse about sexual acts we need to think about and talk about disgust.  Disgust is really complicated because disgust in the context of food simply pushes you away from food.  Disgust vis-à-vis sex or bodily fluids can draw you to those things. Sometimes sex can be intensified by doing things that you actually feel can be kind of disgusting.

Or that other people find disgusting?

Which is why large amounts of bodily fluids, especially semen, are important in the subculture and within some of the porn. One of the things that interests me is that some people find “sloppy seconds”  disgusting, that is using multiple loads, using cum as lube. But a lot of guys, including straight guys, find it very hot.

And isn’t it a staple of bareback porn? I’m thinking of the porn classic Dawson’s 20 Load Weekend?

Absolutely.

Tim, I think one of the take-home messages I got from listening to you is that if we find an act not to our liking, it becomes morally wrong.

I want to make the distinction between moral disgust and sexual disgust so that we can hold on more tightly to the idea that just because you don’t like something does not make it morally wrong. That seems to me very important.

Is anything morally wrong in sex?

Absolutely.

Give me an example of what is morally wrong in the context of barebacking?

I think coerced sex is morally wrong. I think lying to people is morally wrong. I think treating people badly is morally wrong. The ethics have to do not with the act you are actually doing, but how you treat your partner. To me it’s very important in the book — and in my life — to understand that other people are not objects to be used for one’s gratification. Other people are not sexual commodities. We may play out a fantasy in which I use you as my sexual slave and we both may enjoy that, but within the broader context of our encounter I treat you like a human being with respect, etc.

Let’s talk about the breeding, gift-giving subculture. Some people have played it down and suggested it’s mostly fantasy and that it’s very hard to track down real bug-chasers for research, for instance. Is this really a big part of bareback culture?

It’s certainly a big part of the fantasies that animate the subculture. In that way it seems to me important. I think in the process of writing the book and when I was giving lectures, people wanted to know, “How many gift givers, how many people are there out there doing this?” I don’t think that can be answered because the fact is it’s a very exciting fantasy for a lot of people but how that translates into practice is very, very hard to know.

But are there some people out there who really want to be poz?

I think so, yes. They see being poz as an inevitability, as giving them licence to bareback without worrying.

How do you feel about that?

Well, I think part of the reason I want to talk about fantasy is not so much that I’m psycho-analytically oriented – although I am – but because American culture does not have a very good way of talking about fantasy. Therefore it does not have a very good way of distinguishing between what is a fantasy and what is something you actually want to do. I’ve done some work on this around rape fantasies.  A lot of people have a fantasy about being raped, but that doesn’t mean they want to be raped. It means they want to enact a fantasy; and it seems to me you can make an analogy with guys out there who say they want to become poz.

OK, I want to talk about bareback porn.  It’s very different to mainstream gay porn, isn’t it? It looks different, I’m thinking in particular of Treasure Island Media  (NSFW link) which has a home-made feel. Actors can be overweight, older, not conventionally attractive. Why is that?

I’m very interested in Treasure Island Media and Paul Morris’s whole politics, ethics and aesthetics of making porn. He sees himself as a documentary pornographer, documenting what guys are already up to and therefore the guys in his films should not be some kind of fantasy ideal with perfect bodies.  

They should look like us?

They should look like us. They should look like the guys we are and the guys we meet.  Some people don’t like his porn for that reason.  They say the guys in it are ugly. That’s not my view on it. The range of body types makes it real.  It makes it hot. It’s clear you can be older, overweight, you can be hairy, you can have an imperfect body, you can look like a poz guy – and still be a porn star, still be the subject of sexual pleasure. That’s important.

Do you have any views, Tim, on the role of barebacking porn in encouraging or stimulating bareback behaviour?

People want to be able to draw a very clear line between pornography and behaviour – and I don’t think you can draw that line. I think it’s been proven again and again that watching pornography, of whatever kind, will not simply translate into imitating those behaviours. It’s not that pornography has no influence. Of course it has influence over what we find exciting, what our fantasies are.  But what interests me is that even with this iPhone you are recording this interview on we can go in to the bathroom and make pornography and put it on line . . . .

Want to?  (laughs)

(laughs) So that is to say we can all — and lots of people do – make our own porn and put it on XTube and I think that’s an incredibly interesting development.  We can all be pornographers.  If you don’t like the mainstream porn that’s out there, make your own porn – and I think that’s a great thing.

OK. I want to finally get to the intersection between barebacking and HIV prevention efforts. The language of HIV prevention uses words like “intervention” and “counselling” which essentially relate to efforts to change behaviour, or even stop various behaviours. Is there any scope for the world of counselling and interventions to interact with barebackers or do they have their own rationale for what they do and have made up their minds? Are the two worlds apart?

I think there is space for an intersection. When I wrote the book it was very important for me to not to write about barebacking with the desire to understand it in order to stop it. I do think, though, that what counselling offers is a space to think through what one’s desires are, what one’s fantasies are. I think to the degree that counselling makes a space available to sort through the confusion that all of us have in our minds about sex, desire, desirability – that’s good. But if counselling goes in to a situation with the sole attempt to stop something, then it closes off the space in which people can figure out their lives and what kind of sex they would actually like for themselves.

What we’ve seen here is applying a harm reduction approach to barebacking in terms of talking about techniques that might reduce the risk of transmission.  Does that make sense to you?

Yes, it does. But I don’t think it’s all or nothing.  For a long time it was pitched as “use condoms all the time or you are going to become a crazy reckless barebacker who is going to become poz and spread the virus”. It’s not either/or. Thinking in terms of harm reduction makes much more sense.

That’s likely a good place to end.  Tim, thank you so much for talking to us.  You’ve been incredibly honest and forthright about something that challenges many of us.  This has been so useful. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you.

Thank you, Bob

Tim Dean’s book “Unlimited Intimacy, Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking” is available on Amazon here. 

Tim Dean is professor of English and director of the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture at the University at Buffalo. He is the author or editor of several books, including Beyond Sexuality, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

This article was originally published in TheBody.com here

An undetectable viral load: the point at which HIV, though still present, cannot be found in a person's blood with the most sensitive tests available. It's a powerful concept with profound implications to the life of a person living with HIV (and his or her partner). However, according to CDC's treatment cascade, for a host of complex reasons, 75 percent of people living with HIV in the U.S. have not reached the point of viral suppression. (Among some specific groups in the U.S., that number is even larger.) For many of those that have, reaching that point was a major milestone in their lives. We asked people living with HIV to contribute thoughts and stories about getting their own viral loads to undetectable.

Minister Rob Newells, Oakland, Calif.; Diagnosed in 2005

Reaching undetectable never seemed like a significant milestone to me. I waited for my CD4-cell count to drop below 400 (about 18 months after my initial diagnosis) before I made the decision to begin antiretroviral therapy. My viral load, which was never extremely high, has been undetectable on every test since I started HIV meds in 2006.

For a long time, I thought viral suppression was a normal result of taking the medications. I expected nothing less. The HIV treatment cascade was a visual wake-up call that I am in the 25 percent minority. Clearly, we have much more work to do to increase retention in care and adherence to the medications that both improve the health of people living with HIV/AIDS and help to prevent transmission of the virus.

Meta Smith, Baton Rouge, La.; Diagnosed in 2001

At the time I was told I was HIV positive, I was placed on meds and did not have any idea how being undetectable would help me. When I had been on the meds for at least three months I returned to the doctor after lab work and was told I was undetectable. I knew I was feeling better after the meds; but after being told what undetectable was and how it would affect my life, I need to say I was on TOP OF THE WORLD and have stayed that way since then. It meant the world to me and changed my life, for the better. I got busy living.

Nelson Vergel, Houston, Texas; Diagnosed in 1986

I'm on the last combination I can try. I take a lot of pills. ... There's a part of me that's been very frustrated, extremely frustrated, with the fact that I've had it really hard when it comes to HIV. I've never had an undetectable viral load until three years ago ... Twenty-six years with virus in my blood, no matter what I did, no matter how many conferences I went to, no matter how many papers I read ... I felt like a loser, like a failure -- really, they call us "failure patients."

Watch Nelson's full "Day in the Life" video.

Bernadette Berzoza, Denver, Colo.; Diagnosed in 1989 

Over the past few years I have really fought and struggled to get my viral load down. It's been 23 years that I have been positive, and in the beginning it was just keeping your T cells up. Then the viral load was added. I was so freaked out when they told me my viral load was in the millions and we needed to change my meds to get it to undetectable. I did what was recommended but it wasn't working for me as they thought it would.

Read Bernadette's full story of getting her viral load down after many years.

Joe Ohmer, Bronx, N.Y.; Diagnosed in 2002

Eight months after I was diagnosed with HIV, my gastroenterologist that was taking care of my liver issues did some blood work, and my HIV viral load was undetectable without any medication. I didn't realize that that was anything significant or insignificant at the time, until maybe eight or 10 years later when my GI doctor mentioned it to me. I went on a regimen of Epivir (lamivudine -- also used to treat HIV, in different combinations with a higher dose) and Hepsera (adefovir) for my hepatitis B, which since I've been on it has been undetectable as well. Except for one blip, my HIV viral load has been undetectable.

Recently, my GI doctor, who's the same one who saw me initially, brought up that I was undetectable before I went on any regimen.

Read the rest of Joe's unusual story of being undetectable without medication.

Melissa Baker, Mechanicsville, Va.; Diagnosed in 2007

I was diagnosed August 2007. By January 2009, I made the count-dependent decision to start meds. It took me longer than three months to become undetectable. If it had taken me any longer my provider was going to change my regimen, fearing a possible resistance. The day I heard "undetectable" finally came before he had to, and my virus has remained undetectable since. :) I was ELATED!

Reggie Smith, Atlanta, Ga.; Diagnosed in 1984

After being sick in 2005, I have been taking the antiretroviral combination that has kept my virus at undetectable levels, and allowed me to enjoy really good health. With God's grace, and enough desire to live well, I have been able to adhere pretty well to this regimen. My oldest granddaughter was 2 years old at the time. Now she is 9, and I have two other granddaughters, a grandson, and a set of boy/girl twins! I play softball and golf, take flying lessons, I am of service to my community, and I am blessed to share my experience and hope with you.

Read Reggie's full story of coping with being tired of taking HIV meds.

Lillibeth G., New York City; Diagnosed in 1992

When I was told my viral load was undetectable I felt 100 pounds lighter. My greatest challenge was getting to an undetectable status. I had multidrug resistance so getting to undetectable was a milestone.

I was diagnosed in 1992 and it was difficult for me to adhere to my treatment since I was in denial and angry at myself (I should've been more selective of my partner). During one of my doctor visits he found a clinical trial I was able to join for both Isentress (raltegravir) and Intelence (etravirine). I was determined to bring my viral load to undetectable since I have so much to live for; I needed to live for my son, my mom (she was alive at the moment), myself most of all; I have things to do, people to educate. After a 17-year fight, I got the GOOD news: "I'm undetectable!" It makes me feel so alive.

I have a whole new look at life: I'm going to live; I have a fighting chance. Now I can talk to others about the importance of getting to that point -- it gives you hope. I'm always smiling and laughing; life is so different for me now -- I have HOPE.

Pastor Andrena Ingram, Philadelphia, Pa.; Diagnosed in 1989

THAT was another day, I remember with clarity. Waking up and dreading my doctor's appointment, because I knew I was going to get my blood-work results, and because I was about sick and tired of injecting myself. I was tired of Fuzeon (infuvirtide, T-20), I was tired of medication, I was just tired of it all.

I sat down in her office, and she pulled out my chart and looked at the labs, and smiled. I was like ... OK, what is my CD4? And it had been explained to me months before that they were beginning to look at this thing called "the viral load" ... and how that was more important than the CD4 count. She told me what my CD4 count was, which had peaked a bit ... but she was still smiling. And then she said: Guess what Andrena? Your viral load is under 50 copies! She was cheesin'! Grinning from ear to ear! I still didn't understand what that meant, until she stopped grinning long enough to tell me. That it meant that the virus in my body was undetectable …

Even though she explained it to me, I still didn't quite get it, until a few days later ... my mind had to process it. It meant that the Fuzeon was working. It meant that I was NOT gonna die (anytime soon). ....

I was ecstatic!

Read Pastor Ingram's full story of getting to undetectable.

Shannon Southall, Denver, Colo.; Diagnosed in 1992

February 1996, four years after being given my HIV diagnosis, I found myself lying in a hospital bed, and hearing that I now have AIDS. My CD4 count was 131. I needed to add more medication. When I was initially diagnosed in 1992, I had 896 CD4 and my first doctor put me on AZT monotherapy. After a friend found an infectious disease specialist I was switched to Zerit and Epivir.

Now lying in the hospital my doctor came in and said there was this new drug available called Crixivan and he strongly recommended that I add this to my current regime. My viral load was 159,000 and these new meds show that they can reduce the virus in my system, therefore prolonging my life. So of course I said yes. By August, my viral load was undetectable, less than 200, and my CD4 count was finally up over 200. ...

A few years ago I started to wonder about switching or stopping meds for a while. Then I met the man who would become my husband. He is HIV negative and I know that keeping my viral load down is crucial to maintaining a healthy sex life and reducing the risk of transmission to him.

Read Shannon's full story of 21 years on HIV meds.

I hadn't talked to my cousin David in close to fifteen years.  This phone call was a flashback to when we were both living in Manhattan in the 1980’s and our frequent dinners eating cheap Chinese, talking non-stop and laughing with our mouths full of food. 

We had an unusual way of deciding who would pay for dinner. He was a commercial photographer and we'd meet at his studio in Manhattan’s Photography District, near the famous Flatiron Building.  

We’d hang out on a corner of Broadway for five minutes and have a contest. Whoever spotted the most cars filled with Hasidic Jews heading downtown to Brooklyn would get a free meal.  No doubt this sounds odd if you don’t know Manhattan, but there are lots of Hasidim especially in that part of the city and because of their close-knit community – both at work and back home – cars filled with bearded men in black hats were not quite but almost as common as taxicabs. 

On the phone we spoke for nearly an hour, catching up on the last fifteen years. Work, his kids, my writing, our parents, the old days, the recession - and then he asked about my health and I told him how good it was.  

"Do you know how lucky you are," he said, repeating it twice. I readily agreed, knowing that he too had many other friends who died hard deaths. We acknowledged the unfathomable randomness of life.  We discussed my great fortune and other friends, those who had it all only to be struck dead, without warning – Jake while windsurfing, Stan a vicious type of brain tumor, others from car wrecks, kidney disease and other maladies.  

I don’t always feel lucky so the reminder was a gift, one that I’ll take as I head back to New York for my 30^th college reunion in June.   

I’m excited to go. I’m looking forward to it, but wish I had more on my resume. Among the friends I’m excited to see for the first time in decades are a U.S. Congressman, a lawyer who is one of the leading activists in the fight for marriage equality, successful artists and professors too.  

And me, a writer who spends too much time not writing, with declining freelance revenues that have led me to anxiously scour Craigslist looking for more catering work, gladly serving and bartending even though I’m making the same hourly wage I made when I catered between jobs in the late 1990's.  

Swiss Chard Beggar’s Purse, Maam? 

I like the work if not the pay, but passing kobe beef sliders, swiss chard beggar's purses or pouring cocktails isn’t a bad way to make things happen. I’m proud of my resilience, my ability to put things together to pay the rent even while I am occasionally embarrassed by seeing people I know who are surprised to see me holding a tray of champagne at a wedding reception.   

After all I’m the guy who drove a taxicab in New York City after graduating from college with honours. The guy who never worried much about earning money for the future, a creative sort, who didn’t fit in the box.  

Sometimes I can’t sleep and lie awake worrying about everything from the NY Mets bullpen to what will happen when I’m too old to work. I wish I’d done things differently, made more money and saved it, bought a house, wore suits to work, could take vacations every year. Was my lack of concern about money because my upper middle class upbringing left me deluded that things always work out or because I thought I’d be dead before I reached 40? 

Would whoever threw up in my bed clean it up? 

A month ago I lost my black necktie, the one I need for catering and was enraged at my carelessness. It would cost me another $7.99 at Ross Dress for Less to get a new one; that’s half an hour’s pay. I berated myself for the stupidity. My fury got worse. The only one Ross had in stock cost $16.99, $18.48 with tax. Determined not to spend that much I spent two hours scouring half a dozen thrift shops looking for a bargain before I returned to buy it.  I found the missing tie the following week.   

I frequently joke that I have my retirement plan almost in order. It has four parts, and three are taken care of. The three pieces in order are a hot plate, a space heater and an inflatable aero-bed. The only thing missing is a friend with a garage I can live in that has an electrical outlet that can support all three appliances without blowing a fuse. I'll be the old guy sweeping the sidewalk in front of their Victorian, whom the neighbors bring leftovers too and kindly listen to my stories about the old days, before getting away relieved. 

In college, early in my freshman year, I earned the nickname "Ralph". If you don’t know the slang, to ralph is to vomit. By October I had twice thrown up and blacked out.  When I was told I was the one who puked in the shower I thought it wasn't true because the guys in the dorm figured I was wimpy and would clean it up without much debate. The second time I woke up on a Saturday morning smelling of vomit, furious about the fact that someone threw up in my bed. 

When my roommate said it was me I didn't believe him.  After all I wasn’t a big drinker, had never listened to Neil Young before college and wasn't a sloppy drunk. 

Of course I was the culprit.  But lucky for me, my stomach couldn’t handle too much booze and despite the roster of world-class drunks on both sides of my gene pool I was spared the family affliction of alcoholism.  

Though spared the fate of becoming a drunk, the nickname lasted all four years of college. There were people who thought that was my name, including Fran, one of the nicest of the sweet ladies who worked in the dining hall. 

On graduation day she was beaming as she gave me a hug. 

“Ralph you were one of the nicest kids I ever met.  I hope life treats you well.” 

It has. Even if I’m passing trays of champagne and sleeping on an inflatable mattress in someone’s garage when I'm old it has treated me very, very well.  

Oh yeah and if you need to borrow a black necktie, let me know.  I’ve got an extra.