As we try to maneuver through this dangerous sport we call dating, we all create rules for ourselves. Rules that help us define the guys we will date. Rules that help us to know when is the appropriate time to reveal our status. And even rules that help us when pants are down, literally. Those same rules that can save us can also hinder us. 

As you may have noticed, I have fallen off the map. There are various reasons for this, but the main culprit is that I just wasn’t dating. This was not because I didn’t want to - I was trying, I was just hindered by my rules. 

I was chatting with the guy on OkCupid for some time and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to actually meet him. But one Saturday night I was out with one of my best friends and we ran into him. Sometimes this city can be smaller than you can imagine. We started chatting and I actually was having a good time with him. So we set up a date for the following week. 

We met at a wine bar and talked and talked and talked and drank. Then he said that his favorite singer was Celine Dion. Now I know this is being published in Canada, so I might get some hate mail for this, but that was an affront to all of my rules - so I vowed that was the end. 

When I expressed this to various friends, they all laughed at me. One in particular said something I’ll never forget. Paraphrasing: We have friends to share our commonalities with. If you truly like this guy don’t let some French Canadian singer stop you from seeing him. With that sound advice, I promptly set up another date with the Celine lover and even though we didn’t work out, it made me stop and think about all of the other potential dates I stopped because of some offense to my various rules. 

I used to have a litany of rules – enough that could fill up a novella! Not just a disdain for guys who have an opposite taste in music than I have.  But with age, comes knowledge, or so they tell us, and I have since whittled my list down to a precious few. One of those is age limit. I have always had this rule that if I can vividly remember the year of your birth, I will not date you.  I was born in 1976 (yes, I am a bicentennial baby) and can vaguely remember images from when I was roughly six years old.   It’s a stupid rule, I know – but I have since cut off anyone over six years younger than me.. It is one rule that I have followed for sometime, but since I had made exceptions for other reasons I thought, “What the hell!” and lowered my age bar. 

A week later I had gone on a dates and ‘dates’ with a couple guys in their 20s. It was extremely weird having a conversation with people who never watched the Jem and the Holograms or who never wondered who would win in the epic musical battle between Debbie Gibson and Tiffany (I am full away of the irony of these being my musical tastes). But I managed to get over their intrinsic lack of knowledge of the things I hold dear to my heart and tried to enjoy them for who they are.  Surprisingly enough, some passed the test and some did not (we will touch more on that later). 

As fate would have it, I randomly saw that wealthy guy I dated last year but ended it mostly because I didn’t want to feel like a kept houseboy.  He asked me if I wanted to hang out again and  I was over the “youngins”.  As I took stock of my rules, I said what the hell.  And just like Foreigner tells us, it feels or felt like the first time. Like before, there was just something missing. It wasn’t the fact that he had money and he was a III^rd, there was just no proverbial spark... outside of the bedroom, that is. So maybe it wasn’t the fact that he had money that was turned me off originally -  it still wigged me out a little, but I came to realize  we were incompatible in so many other ways. 

So I vowed to keep my rules a guide but never let them hinder me from the potential of something great happening. The following week I got a text from one of those “youngins” that read, “Bad news. Just tested positive for syphilis. TTYL.” Ain't that a kick in the head  - or should I say a shot in the ass! 

I leaned my chest against a door in his apartment and slid my jeans and briefs down over my ass and presented my hole to him. “Fuck me” I whispered. My boyfriend didn’t move towards me. “I want to feel you inside me with no condom. Fuck me,” I repeated. “No,” he softly said back. “Don’t ever ask me that again.” He walked away from me, angry. I stood there silently for a moment and then slowly pulled up my pants.

We didn’t have sex for a long time after that.

My partner told our mutual friends I had ended it, but truthfully, he left me no choice. There are things you should never say in a relationship, things you can’t un-hear, and your partner telling you he is afraid of you sexually is one of them.

I cried when he said it, and then I cried for an hour in the shower afterwards thinking about it.

In the beginning our sex life was fun, mildly kinky, and I was confident that as our intimacy grew and our relationship strengthened, our sex life would become more adventurous. But then I told him I wanted his cum in my ass, and suddenly I could feel him looking at me differently. Whatever narrative he had constructed about me in the beginning of our courtship was being challenged by my acknowledgement that I loved barrier free sex, the exchange of fluids in my rectum, and the sense of intimacy it brings. He felt I shouldn’t want those things, nor ask of them from him. Condom use was not open for negotiation he said, and what right did I have to suggest otherwise he wanted to know? I was HIV-positive and he was HIV-negative.

In his eyes it was clear. Me wanting to bareback with him made me a ’bad’ person, maybe even a criminal.

In serodiscordant relationships there is sometimes a surprisingly low general knowledge about harm reduction and HIV. From the very beginning I made sure we talked about PEP, PrEP, viral load and infectiousness, sexual positioning, and a myriad of other risk reduction techniques. I offered to take him to meet and speak privately with my HIV Specialist. I made space for him to talk about how he was feeling about being in a "magnet" couple and his identity as an HIV-negative man. I wanted him to be as educated as possible about the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. And then I wanted him to fuck me raw.

The San Francisco State University‘s ‘You And Me’ Study , surveys by the University of New South Wales in Australia, numerous Swiss sex researchers, and so on, are all showing that gay men are increasingly practicing harm reduction techniques in the face of condom fatigue and the changing nature of HIV in the West. They're rejecting the traditional one-size-fits-all Public Health approach and weighing the pros and cons of a life taking pills. A recent Australian study from 2010 estimated that my circumcised partners risk of transmission from topping my HIV-positive ass was 1 in 909 or 0.11%.

Somewhere in the last few years HIV had become less a gamble, and more a numbers game, but my HIV-negative boyfriend still wasn’t willing to play. 

In my relationship I could tell my boyfriend almost anything. I could tell him how I wanted to be treated, my dreams, the meanings behind my tattoos, and how my parents divorce had hurt me, but what I couldn’t tell him was how much of a risk he should find acceptable in our sex. I had to respect his decision, I told him, but he also had to respect mine. At 30 years old, I wasn’t ready to never again experience the joys of condomless sex.

It must have felt like an ultimatum to him, but to me it felt like a stalemate. Then, coupled with issues within the relationship, and his confession of fear, it ultimately became a deal breaker.

Two weeks later Tom stood over my bed and yanked off my briefs. He poured Gun Oil down the crack of my ass and then slowly worked his bare, uncut, HIV-negative cock into my asshole as I clenched my fists and bowed my head while grimacing. I sucked in air through my teeth. He smiled proudly at my discomfort.

Tom and I had met at a local queer pub named Swizzles. I told him I was newly single, HIV-positive and really wanted to get fucked raw. He asked me what my viral load was, I told him it was undetectable, he smiled at me, and then we went back to my apartment and fucked without a condom.

It felt like a healing act to get fucked raw again. To be treated as wholly desirable. As Tom’s cock rammed my prostrate, I thought of my ex, and imagined it was him that was inside of me bare, as I jerked myself off onto the sheets. Tom reached down, scooped up my jizz on his fingers, and then put them in his mouth. “Delicious” he said.

Up & Coming  is a sex magazine published independently in Toronto, Canada. On April 2nd, at swingers sex club Oasis Aqualounge (231 Mutual St, Toronto ), the third issue will be launched with Dj Scooter, queer porn icon Courtney Trouble, Burlesque star Axel Blows and others in attendance. Pre-sale tickets for the event are $20, or $25 after March 29th. You can purchase your tickets at www.off-the-record.ca or at the door the night of the event

Michael Burtch has previously contributed to PositiveLite.com as the columnist The Tattooed Activist between 2010 and 2012. 

I don’t know what possessed me but it was a Friday night and I’d been stuck inside for what seemed the whole winter. I had a severe case of cabin fever and had to get out. It was nine thirty in the evening; a time when I’m normally fixated on the box and longing for my bed because the feet are playing me up and I feel like crap. Then out of nowhere came this urge to go out and meet people - gay people.

There was another motive. I’d been contacted via the internet by an attractive man just a couple of years younger than myself. Cultured, interested in the arts, music, seen a bit of life and wanting to get to know someone at least superficially before hitting the sack; you know the type. He’d expressed interest in a meeting and said that he was in the bar on Friday nights and specifically, this Friday night.

Now despite my dotage, I’m not stupid and fully realise that that is not a date under anybody’s definition. He hadn’t arranged a time, so clearly wasn’t so interested that he wanted it contractually bound. It was a vague, ‘maybe I’ll see you there’ sort of thing. Nevertheless, it was the deciding factor and I decided to give my need for social contact and the possibility of something more a go; you should never give the needy half a chance!!

The last time I’d been to a bar in Amsterdam was probably two or three years ago. I can’t be more specific because my memory about that sort of thing’s shot to pieces these days. One of the reasons is that the bars are soulless deserts until about ten thirty at night and don’t get busy until after the witching hour. By that time normally, I’m in a medication-induced half-sleep and battling the demons in my feet and legs. This particular evening however, I was wide awake; in less discomfort than normal and seized by the need to take advantage of every window of opportunity my neuropathy gives me. Nevertheless, I knew that just getting to the nearest bar wasn’t going to be easy, requiring some walking and a tram ride and taking the walking stick wasn’t an option, so I took an extra pain killer just in case.

Now I’ve learned a thing or two over the years and in preparation, gave myself a serious talking to. I awarded myself ten self-confidence, bonus points to start off with, with the aim of hitting more before the evening was over and knowing that point zero was the time to come home. For those who don’t understand, these are the single guy’s imaginary boosts to his confidence designed to make him feel good enough about himself during the evening ahead and help him through the first hour or so, or at least until drunk enough not to care anymore. 

Then came the hour of primping and preening in the bathroom. Don’t laugh, the older you get, the longer it takes to achieve even looking your real age! So nose hairs, ear hairs, wayward eyebrows, goatee and side burns were all dealt with. Showering, scrubbing, hair washing and personal hygiene all scrupulously done. 

Clothing was the next problem. It’s still winter, so showing off the hairy chest under the T-shirt ‘V’ wasn’t an option and I needed a top jacket that would have enough pockets to stuff the cap, gloves and scarf in when I got there. I settled for good-fitting jeans and a shirt big enough to hide the spare tire. Both jeans and shirt were dark coloured. I wanted to blend in, not stand out like a geriatric peacock. So, finally satisfied that no matter what I did, I wasn’t going to improve the best I could be, I set off on my little adventure.

I was heading for a bar that I thought would be the most comfortable and least intimidating for a first venture out in a long time. From what I remembered, the patronage was a mix of bear types, bar flies, bored tourists and Asian boys with their mentors, plus the odd complete psycho to liven up the proceedings. More importantly, it was generally a slightly older crowd and I wasn’t going to expose my fragile ego to a bar full of narcissi (is that the plural of Narcissus?)

When I arrived outside the bar the feet were playing up, the butterflies were doing the fandango in my stomach and I nearly turned around and went back home. I had to lecture myself; ‘For God’s sake, you’re 63, not some virgin teenager hitting the scene for the first time!’ The virgin teenager in me was screaming to get the fuck back home but bravado won out and I walked in.

Now body language is everything during the first two minutes when you walk into a bar. I knew this and had rehearsed the casual confidence and natural half smile that were necessary but still stumbled in with two left feet; fixed my rabbit-in-the-headlights stare on the row of stools at the bar and flew, jet-fuelled onto the nearest vacant stool. One of my ten self-confidence bonus points already gone and the evening hadn’t even begun. Not a great start and the disinterested glances that greeted my arrival seemed to go on for hours. Nevertheless, once ensconced on my stool, I felt more at ease and ordered a beer from the grizzled barman. The last time I’d been here, this barman was on my wish list for Christmas but time takes its toll on us all,l I guess.

A beer wasn’t a good idea considering my medication but it was ordered before my rational brain kicked in. Oh well, one wouldn’t harm. Actually, after five minutes, most of my fears were ebbing away. One thing about gay bars in Amsterdam is that they never change, never! The bar owners are too tight to invest, the few tourists that still come find it quaint and the local clientele is not that demanding. The only thing that moves with the times is the price of drinks. Three and a half euros for a small beer; good grief!

My favourite begin to an evening had always been perching on my stool, with my back to the wall and with a good view of the circus. Taking time to case the joint and see what, who and where was essential, especially if I was on my own. See but not be seen was the motto, at least in the beginning. I began by looking around to see if internet guy was here and then realised I wasn’t entirely certain I’d recognise him if he was; there’s a certain generic look that I find attractive but lots of guys have that look and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t really recall his profile face clearly. I had to hope that he would find me first. Actually, the bar that Friday was not exactly teeming with ‘my types’, so I was pretty sure I hadn’t missed him.

There were two guys whom I recognised from twenty years ago. The difference being that now they were both bursting out of their T-shirts like Arnold Schwarzenegger and were probably just as old. Always intimidated by muscle Mary’s, I bitchily concluded that these guys were steroid queens but nevertheless still slumped over my bulging stomach on the stool. One more point lost!

There was a clique of a few really young guys acting like humming birds round a feeder. They were hyperactive and alternating between frenzied chatter amongst themselves and flitting to the bar to flash impossibly long eyelashes at whoever might buy them a drink. 

Another group was gathered round the pinball machine. These were lads in their late twenties; smartly dressed, short hair and street savvy. These guys are at the peak of their game and know their own pulling power. I used to be like that for a few short seconds in time. However, that didn’t shake my confidence; I’ve never been into younger guys so I didn’t see them as intimidating, until that is…

…I’d been staring for too long. I realised it at the very second that one of them turned to meet my gaze but it was too late. The lip curled into a Presley sneer and the eyes narrowed, gimlet-like, into bullets of sheer venom. As he turned to inform his friends that the perv in the corner was eying him up, another self-confidence point bit the dust. The collective group glare that followed nearly lost me another point but by that time I was ordering another beer I shouldn’t drink and considering flight.

For the next few minutes, I counted all the spirits bottles hanging behind the bar; fixated on the mechanical porn on one of the TV screens and tried to regain some self-control. Luckily I was rescued by a tap on the shoulder. Thinking it was the guy from the internet, I turned optimistically to greet my saviour. It wasn’t that guy but it was someone else that I half-remembered from years ago and he looked pretty good! After confirming mutual recognition, I bought him a beer and he sat down next to me. My twenty five year old internal man-about-town, returned and the next half an hour was spent chatting, catching up on mutual friends and subtle but unmistakeable flirting. The restoration of a point to my confidence chart came from the fact that he was also flirting with me! And he wasn’t drunk and didn’t seem to have any hidden agenda; yippee!

Okay, to cut a long story short; I’d repressed my needy gene, brought about by a long time without this sort of contact and was playing it cool. I was proud of myself because everything was in control and we had clicked. You know that feeling when it’s just right and you know you’ve read the signs and body language correctly. It got to the point where I was musing on the evening’s end and what I’d do if internet guy walked in. Overconfidence; fatal!

He asked me if I’d like to get out of there and go back to his place nearby. I contained my excitement and feeling like that teenage virgin again, demurely accepted. Trust my rational mind to choose that moment to poke me in the conscience…’Ahem, aren’t we forgetting something!’ I swear to God, I got icy chills but came out with it anyway. Lowering my head close to his, I uttered the words!

“By the way; I think you should know; I’m HIV positive; is that going to be a problem?”

I honestly thought it wouldn’t be but that was completely my own fault. By his look and his conversation, I’d sort of assumed he was too. Big mistake; never judge a book by the cover! He recoiled as if I’d thrown my beer over him and I could see him struggling to remain politically correct:

“ Uhm…yeah, well you see…I didn’t realise…uhm… no I can’t do that, I’m sorry. See you around.”

Two immediate confidence points lost right after the look he gave me and one more after the excuse and I felt as though someone had hit me with a sledge hammer. I was furious but not at the fact that it actually was a problem; that’s a risk we all have to live with but at the lily-livered, cowardly response! This was a guy who had lived in Amsterdam for most of his life; was not much younger than me and must have lived through the HIV/AIDS years and yet he couldn’t get away fast enough, despite apparently finding me sexually desirable just five minutes before. Talk to me damn you!

Only five bonus confidence points left and they were barely keeping me from running out of the bar in hysterics. I decided to wait another half an hour to see if internet guy showed up and had prepared every available barrier to that being a potential disaster too. This time, I would ask him right out first but even then I knew that I’d still have to confess sooner or later. The eternal optimist kicked in then and the third beer was ordered. I was feeling somewhat woozy but nevertheless perversely proud of myself. I hadn’t always disclosed at the right time and realised that I’d overcome a subconscious barrier without really trying. I felt I’d be telling every time from now on; not that the opportunities were falling at my feet but there you go, three beers can work wonders and blunt edges.

It was getting busier but it remained the same eclectic mix that I was comfortable with. I accidently caught the eye of the younger guy from earlier but this time my lip curled first and he got ‘the look’ full in the face. Revenge is a sweet bitch, however small the victory.

Suddenly my sixth sense alerted me to the fact that I was being watched. It was a guy at the other end of the bar and he was staring unashamedly. Not bad looking, if a little worn around the edges. Now I knew I looked more than a little rough around the edges too, maybe there was a match here. I casually picked up my glass and putting on my slightly tipsy, ‘come hither’ look, stared back, more meaningfully. I think the penny dropped when his head suddenly lolled forward. He recovered quickly but the glazed eyes gave him away and when he dribbled as he leered at me, I got the message; he was completely out of it. Another point lost; I was being seduced by someone who needed to be blotto to do it; great boost to the ego that!

Okay, enough already. I looked at my watch and realised I’d been there for less than two hours. I got up, put on my coat and headed for the exit. Of course, internet guy chose that very moment to arrive and despite looking me full in the face, he walked right on by. With my remaining confidence points falling to the floor like leaves in autumn, I stalked out and went home.

It was okay, really; c’est la vie. It sounds like a good old, self-pitying rant but the evening had actually been good for me and I quickly realised it. I’d confirmed my place in the world at that snapshot in time and was okay with it. You’ve got to laugh at life sometimes, because it can never be a Hallmark greeting card: it wouldn’t be so interesting if it were.

In 2004, I fucked a young, HIV-positive leather guy at the G.I. Joe bathhouse on Montreal’s rue Sainte-Catherine. I heard that he had committed suicide weeks later—hardly reassuring. Once, I impregnated a man in his fifties who later, panting and with a bizarre smirk, told me he had lied to me about being HIV positive. I have met men who first swear they have no addiction and then hide in a lavatory to inject, emerging all sketchy. I’ve touched the arrogant and pneumatic bodies that only play with equally gorgeous boyfriends, and who only fucked a troll like me because they slipped up—at 2 am we all “slip up”. I think in Canada we’ve got a huge problem with good gay men doing stupid shit out of shame and lack of self-awareness. We like to tell ourselves we are liberated, that we know all about our being gay, that we are tolerant of each other. We have antiretroviral medications that extend our medical lives and sustain our precarious greenhouse produce suppleness. I have lost friends and lovers equally to loneliness, depression, and AIDS. In this scenario, safe sex only confounds things.

We’ve had twenty-some years of safer sex education, risk reduction, and begging guys to get tested for HIV with uneven and inconstant support. Is safe sex a feat or a failure? The upside: gay men know mostly one thing, that anal sex without a condom transmits HIV. Abstinence? Oh, please. We know dick about safety because we accept little about taking risks. Do we have intentions of keeping safe? Yes. Do gay men keep safe when fucking or even meeting with each other? No.

The environment does not and will not exist for safety, only for protection. It’s difficult to raise awareness and change behaviours related to HIV infection when we know everything kills us: food preservatives and colouring, traffic, environmental poisons, toxic personalities of those around us, and auto-immune disorders—the list is long. It seems counterintuitive to ask people to use condoms when buxom speakers like Elizabeth Pisani tell us that HIV prevention should be focused on whores, gay men, and persons who inject drugs while all the others are fucking their brains out without condoms and brimming with body affluence. The message for gay men—that sex kills—has been camouflaged, embellished, eroticized, and in Canada, legally sanctioned.

Individual and selfish protection is still our response to HIV and other anxious infiltrations of our bodily state. Why would I want to protect my junkie trick when all I want is a piece of ass for an hour and I feel embarrassed of him in public, anyway? Why would I want to practice harm reduction when I have not healed my past and myself first? When I have no community at large to celebrate me with all my deficiencies and mistakes at the same time as everyone seems to be accepting the limitations of others? Straight couples can go and have babies; gay men must protect themselves from each other.

We dangle between shame and precarious male self-entitlement that sex is owed to us, a modicum of which is given by a liberation-in-progress. Like all men, we are still socialized to believe that the sex of others is available to us, that we as males have more or less free access to it. Gay liberation instead of tempering those arrogant thoughts to understand that sex is not free even when it is a smorgasbord, creates the expectation that gay males should have even more interesting and radical sex than the average straight suburban boys. We think we have the right to access unbridled, glossy magazine sexuality. Speaking on the other side of our mouths, gay men judge each other harshly: “you have no right to infect others.” Minorities can be contradictory, self-indulgent, vicious, and self-deluded. However, I refuse the guilt of it. I want you to know that we “play” with our self-entitlement and we are also prey to it. Unlike the sexual righteousness of straight men, ours is deeply ambivalent. Gay men can be at times sexual radicals, patriarchal machistas, and wounded children. It took me until my forties to own this: that I could be both good and bad, that my perceived right to have sex with whomever I want (I can), to take risks, to infect others, was not permanent. My self-entitlement wavers, it coaxes, it misleads me and it sometimes vanishes into thin air, leaving me desolate.

Sex is not sex anymore, it’s a constellation of brands on the supermarket shelf. When you’re fucking with someone, you don’t even know if that particular brand will hit the spot, get you pregnant, or kill you. I read peer-reviewed science journals that state that gay men have not been doing the nasty safely all along, and that it’s the HIV pills that make us un-infectious. But no one wants to talk publicly about gay men with HIV possibly being un-infectious; it doesn’t sell death, precaution, or shame. For pharmaceutical companies, this wishy-washy discourse will continue to sell pills. For public health workers and policy makers, it helps them keep gay men towing the line. For AIDS service organizations, it keeps us all employed (for now, not for long).

Our cultural medium tells us to stop consuming junk, while it simultaneously lures us to supersize it. We are reminded that catastrophes will soon change the face of the earth as e know it, that earth will continue to exist but without us and what we have built, while telling us to live hoping for the future, reproducing and prospering. Gay men living with AIDS are nicely embedded in this Armageddon/Paradise bewilderment, were good poster girls for the conundrum. Pharmaceutical companies tell us to get well, showing gentle, diverse bodies with HIV in their advertisement, while reciting a litany of very negative side-effects which they know little to nothing about. The side effects of any pharmaceuticals over time are bad, very very bad.

What’s a queer to do? I’m a recovering Catholic. I commit sins everyday that surely incite war, weather calamity, and plane crashes. Every time I get a load of warm cum up my hole, I have to redress the intensely intimate pleasure by reminding myself that I’m a poor role model to other gay men, that I’m a pricey liability for public health, and that I might be prosecuted for infecting others.

It gets juicier. They say that shame is on its way out, like good manners and civility. We peddle our petty personal business on memoirs, blogs, and television, the age of too-much-information. I say that shame is alive and well for HIV-positive gay men and for a large number of gay men overall. It is a time of conflict of ideas and attitudes. Some days I feel shame, other days bravado, and some I’m so darn confused, I wish I had been born straight. It is a maddening way of living, living with HIV. I dance in a space between my guilt and the envy of others because I can fuck without condoms, especially the envy of my HIV-negative gay brothers; a space between self derision and the pity of others, between the manufacturing of gay and the consciousness of who I really am.

“Don’t smell it or touch it; certainly don’t put it in your mouth.” Our idea of safety is attached to repressive mothering, misguided I-am-what-I-am individualism, and stigma, but I think violence or epidemics are the result of group neglect and fear. AIDS organization have gone from advocacy and politics to AIDS service organizations to put to the sole use of public health everything we first did to promote collective notion of sexual ethos and have turned it into individual irresponsibility—way to bend! We make terrorism happen every day, in the violent, growing disparity between the rich and poor, in the arrogance of the (temporarily) healthy and in the acquiescent (self)victimization of the diseased and disabled. No one can protect us from the paltry cruelty of the everyday.

Against a backdrop of viral terror (picture Monica Lewinsky grimacing, not wanting to suck a presidential nine-incher), banal scandal (a Christian politician has a meth lover), medical porn (you and your specialist discuss your anal warts screened on high definition), and potent street drugs (your latest licit/street combo that catapulted you into the stratosphere), runs yet another repressive tale: sex must be romantic, gentle, and benign, or a combination of the three. Sex between men is aggressive and even violent (more so when the swishy, frustrated queen has to top the gigantic, eunuch bodybuilder one more time).

Sex is supposed to be sober and pragmatic: suck with condoms (yuck!), quit smoking, stop eating too much and too spicy (which may resulting in an addiction to gruff, smelly armpits and ass), and stop using street drugs to escape your gloomy reality. They praise queers on their adherence and compliance, while having made each HIV-positive gay man into an adherent and compliant drug user since the initial 1996 Canadian dispensation of anti-HIV drugs. See the contradiction? If you’ve never gotten drunk or high to withstand the battle of sex, you haven’t been out much. If you’ve never deluded yourself into thinking that his disdain is interest and his roughness love, you’re one of the few. Safe sex body popular mechanics tells us little how to hedge our bets in the complexity of risk.

We must interrupt the banal piousness and the contradictions of prevention, the negation of the irate flesh. While I probe into my fear to age as queer in a society that only likes queer as young, clever entertainment. While I still have breath in me and as I become a lecherous old man, I’ll reduce my carbon print by overtly negotiating unsafe sex. I’ll seduce one of those geeky, white boys selling memberships for global causes at the corner (not without a good scrubbing under the drizzle first) and fuck with his head, his ass, and my membership to his cause. I will felch the dregs of others while someone pummels my back with a cat-o’-nine-tails. I'll perform fellatio on toys imported from China. On every virtuous World AIDS Day I will ooze fluids and lick my wounds with my raw tongue. I will take the risks.

When I heard that that strapping, young leatherman had killed himself in Montreal, that he was depressed about being HIV positive and I thought of the intense, intimate, and dangerous sex we had together, I didn’t feel cavalier; I felt sad I was part of a community that didn’t protect him but kept on spewing safety. Who knows what services and supports weren’t in place for him along the way. I didn’t pity him either.  Those who play with fire don’t pity others—we just watch the flames lap the sky with the fright and famine of an arsonist.

******

About Giving it Raw: In tragicomic blows that span twenty-five years, I, with the aplomb and ingenuity of a postmodern Scheherazade, aim to stay alive by telling you one story about living with AIDS at a time. In Giving it Raw, I use my quirky accent and uncanny ability to switch missionary positions to turn my story on its head. In memoir storytelling, I tackle city traffic, flight turbulence, barebacking, cyber sex, and eating manners. I dish out street insight about infecting some and protecting many. I go from science and bureaucracy to backroom and bathhouse in a swish of the pen. The reflections in Giving it Raw are about ‘taking’ it all in, learning from challenges and ‘giving’ it back to the reader as bite-size, full-mouthed wisdom, a raw ceviche of sorts, sometimes tangy, sometimes bitter.

About the author: Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco’s novel ‘Flesh Wounds and Purple Flowers” was published in 2001 by Arsenal Pulp Press, “Killing Me Softly”, a collection of short stories was published by Suspect Thoughts Press in 2004 and he regularly publishes creative non-fiction and academic essays in the US and Canada. Find a bit more about him in this PositiveLite.com video interview and the CATIE interview here. 

Read an earlier excerpt from Giving it Raw here.

The last few weeks have been exhausting. My mood has been constantly up and down. One day I feel happy go lucky, have a positive outlook on life, and then the next day I wake up hating the world. It’s like I’m on a constant roller coaster ride. It drains my energy and I end up sleeping a lot of hours.  This blog post will probably be all over the place - just like my mood. Hop in, buckle up and hold on, folks. 

I think part of it has to do with my anxiety about returning to work full time. In February 2012 I went on short-term disability for three months because of stress and depression. I went back to work in May working part time hours, four hours a day on modified duties. On Monday February 11^th, I will start working towards full time hours. I will start off working five hours a day next and then adding an hour each week till I’m back to full time hours. It’s like I’m a plane getting ready to take off, I’m starting my ascent into full time work. I’d better reacquaint myself with the emergency exits. 

Technically I’m ready to work full time. I found out why I was tired and short of breath all the time, I have severe asthma. I’ve been on inhalers and my breathing is much better. I completed a four-month group therapy program to deal with the stress and depression. So then why do I have anxiety about returning to work full time? 

There are several reasons why. One being I am not a fan of my manager. I would rather cheer for the Calgary Flames than like her. (Maybe that’s taking it too far. I don’t think I could ever cheer for the Flames, ugh.) When I returned back to work part time on modified duties, my manager gave my desk away while I was gone. I came back to see all my belongings in a box and I was shoved into our mailroom with two other people. It felt like I was in a can of sardines. Also when I returned, I was denied my merit increase because I was on disability. As you can imagine, I was quite angry. 

Another reason I am anxious about returning full time, is because I don’t like my job. There is nothing new for me to learn, I have been an Accounts Payable Clerk for just over two years now. Sometimes I think giving myself paper cuts on my balls would be more fun than posting invoices. Maybe I can get my own Jackass show. I could call it Gay Jack Ass. Actually that sounds like a porno damn it. Ooh maybe I can get into porn? Oh wait; I’m about thirty pounds too heavy. 

What I’ve always wanted to do was complete the radio and television program, but I can’t afford it. A few years ago, I ran up a lot of debt because of my depression issues and ruined my credit, so no student loans for me.  And unfortunately I don’t poop out hundred dollar bills so that’s not an option.  Could you imagine if I pooped out hundred dollar bills? With the amount of times I have to go to the washroom because of my HIV meds, I would be rich! I have no desire to move up in the Accounting Department; numbers and I don’t get along. Thankfully, the computer figures all the math out. 

The good news about returning to work full time, is I will be able to apply for jobs in other departments. I like the company I work for and the people I work with, I just don’t want to be in Accounting. One of my issues is making excuses and holding myself back. I am amazing at that. It’s a hard behavior to break. How am I supposed to a change a behavior that I have been doing for a couple of decades? Not easy I tell you. 

Enough bitching, time for some good news. 

I went on two dates a couple of weeks ago. Our first date went well, We met at Starbucks for coffee. We chatted for a couple of hours and got along really well. I didn’t feel attracted to him, so I kept convincing myself he was really cute to go on a second date. A guy doesn’t have to be an Adonis for me to date him, but there does need to be some sort of physical attraction. He was adorable, but not in “I find you hot and want to tickle your bits” kind of way. We were going to go for dinner and a movie for our second date. He wanted to cancel because he was tired from work.  I told him that’s no problem we could reschedule. He then said he didn’t want to be that guy and said let’s just go for dinner. Fine just make up your mind I’m hungry, betch! 

He listed some places to go to, and I told him I had never been to the Ale Yard so we went there. He complained about how everything is expensive nowadays. He just ordered the steak bites appetizer to eat. I asked him if he wanted one of my fries and he responded with “I am totally not eating carbs right now.” I know this is shallow but it totally turned me off. Then I noticed something. Out of the corner of my eye, was something shiny, glistening. It was his lips! They were very shiny and very pink. I think he was wearing lip-gloss! Another turn off for me; I don’t mind a man who is a bit effeminate, I can be too. But I am not into men who use woman’s products. I just can’t get into it. Then he was telling me about his cologne addiction. I can tell buddy, I can smell you from over here. Did I mention I have severe asthma?? Puff puff, I need my inhaler now. 

The next day, neither of us ended up texting each other. We haven’t talked since. I was at Superstore the other day, and I heard a high-pitched voice. I thought to myself, that voice sounds familiar. I looked over; there he was standing at the till with a friend, awkward! Thankfully he didn’t see me, so I did what I do best. I ran away, fast. I ended up in the toilet paper aisle; a man gave me a strange look. He must of thought this man needs toilet paper stat! 

Looking back, was I being too shallow? So he wears lip-gloss, so he wears too much cologne, so he has a high voice. Was I telling myself these were a problem because I was worried about having to disclose I’m HIV positive and because I’m a commitment phobe? Or were these legitimate items to be turned off about? That’s for me to figure out, I am new to dating, and I can either dwell on it and look at it negatively or I can learn from it and pull out the positive…no pun intended. 

“What’s love got to do with it?” 

Tina Turner

Last year I attended the Positive Gathering here in BC and I went to a workshop for gay men about gay sex. Or that’s what it was supposed to be about. Very quickly the discussion turned to intimacy. The men in the room were more interested in developing emotional relationships than just talking about “hot sex”. 

While I’m one of those men more interested in sharing ALL of me (with deference to Billy Holiday here), I think there’s still a divide for many gay men about what exactly sex and relationship are. I came out in 1979 when the divide was clear: you could have sex or you could have a relationship, but you couldn’t have both. Or the “both” you got was muddied with non-monogamous encounters on the side. In the early days of HIV we made the assumption that gay men weren’t interested in dedicated relationships – perhaps that was true, perhaps not, but we talked about safer sex as play, not as a loving expression of intimacy in a relationship. 

Sex is not a minefield: it’s more like a maze. If we’re searching for sex it’s for that perfect guy with the perfect abs and perfect teeth and perfect cock. He doesn’t exist and so the search is ultimately a never ending story – the hunt goes on and on… 

Intimacy isn’t much different. We’re hoping to meet “him” – whoever “he” is. And he must be as perfect as the sexual conquest. He must have the nicest smile, best manners and the same political leanings as I do. He must be handsome and he must be smart. He must be secure and he must be sane. He doesn’t exist either and so the search continues. 

Younger men seem to (and I clearly state “seem” to) have it a little more rounded than my generation. Today I hear about more young men finding boyfriends and settling into relationships rather than engaging in park sex and bath sex. Perhaps they’ve learned that you can be sexual with your partner and enjoy it. My generation didn’t quite get that – but it was the party era: discos and drugs and sex were all a part of the “scene”. Of course young men have the problem of living their lives online – a place that lacks intimacy and closeness, but gives the illusion thereof. 

That’s why I think I found the discussion at the workshop so intriguing. Men my age were finding “just sex” to be less than satisfying: there was a greater longing for intimacy and closeness. I read a quote from a man on the Internet some years back. He wrote “sex without meaning gets old pretty fast”. I think he’s right – and here remains the dichotomy of wanting to be close while being inundated with hookup sites and casual encounters. We purchase ideals where no ideals exist. 

Sex is intimate in and of itself, but when the act is simply a means to orgasm, it’s an empty gesture. You get something, I get something, we spurt and someone goes home. Relationships on the other hand require tending to: they are a lovely garden and you can’t let the weeds get hold or the whole thing is lost. We can find our gardens with each other and we can have sex too. We can choose to be in monogamous or we can choose to be open. But we have to accept that there are many ways to express ourselves intimately and propose the most healthful ways of doing that. We have to be honest about who we are and what we want in our lives and we have to make space for those things to develop. Failing to accomplish that, we fail our true selves. 

While being “sex positive” is a good thing, I think we also need to understand and embrace that “relationship positive” is an equally good and beneficial path.