While Condom Nazis, the medical profession, and the mainstream and gay presses are still running amok with hysteria over the idea that men bareback in the era of AIDS, Jack has remained a steady voice of reason within our community.

Because of his no-nonsense attitude and sensible stand on the issue, he's been invited into interviews on the subject by the domestic and foreign gay press, a television documentary producer, and Time Magazine.

Now you can read some of these interviews in their unedited form. Choose from the list of selected material below to see why Jack is one of the bareback community's most outspoken, controversial, and respected representatives.

TIME Magazine | Arizona Community ECHO

TIME Magazine
Sept. 06, 1999.
Interview conducted by William Dowell,
contributing reporter.

Q) Even though bareback sex (sex without condoms) is probably more stimulating, why would someone take the risk of contracting HIV and other diseases when it is so easy to use a condom? Why would the risk be worth taking?

A Risk is something we deal with on an every day basis.
Certain risks tend to be downplayed because of their relative infrequency, and others are focused on by society, perhaps in part to keep us from focusing on our other daily risks. In the case of focused risks, they are often the ones that we purposely take, ie: the stock market, sky diving, and sexual intercourse. While some would understandabaly argue that bareback sex is not in the same category as the stock market or skydiving, all three can have unfortunate outcomes. The market could crash and leave its players penniless. A parachute could fail to open and the jumper could perish upon hitting the ground. And HIV could be transmitted in the act of sex.

The other type of risks, the assumed risks as I will call them, are to be found all around us. One could get in his car to go to the store and be killed or severely injured by a reckless or drunken driver. A simple walk down the street could end in receiving a stray bullet fired by a careless or maniacal gun-owner. In these types of instances, the power to decide the outcome of an individual’s life is taken from them by a person they may never know, see, or have any kind of personal contact with. However in unprotected sex, the decision to engage (outside of rape) is in the hands of each participant, just as the decision to fling one’s self out of an airplane belongs to the skydiver. It is a risk taken because it is within that individual’s scope of acceptable risks.

What is interesting to note is that depending on the circumstances, men who routinely tout safe sex will abandon their usual adherence to the condom if one is not conveniently accessable at the moment. In parks, bookstores and bath houses, or after a few drinks anyway, if the opportunity for anonymous sex is present but a condom isn't, I have witnessed as men engaged in unprotected sex... and sometimes beat themselves up over it afterward. What is most odd to me about this is that the same men, when meeting in a more social environment like a bar, and having the opportunity to go through the usual introductions and pick-up routines, will be more likely to use condoms if they go home together than if they meet in a dark room and know absloutely nothing about each other. That's weird. It seems backwards to me. The risk management is working in reverse.

Q) What is the difference between sex with a condom and sex without one? Is there really a noticeable difference? And if so, is there anything beyond just the sensation?

A) It is mostly a matter of sensation. Condoms provide a barrier between you and the other person.
Before HIV, I think condom sales were primarily for men who used prostitutes and people on the road looking for a fling. Psychologically there is a barrier that comes of using a condom. It acts as a means to insulate you from the natural bond that occurs during sex. It's a way of saying "you don't mean anything more to me than a means of achieving an orgasm". Get it up, cover it in plastic, put it in, get off, take it out, slip the plastic off, and toss it, semen and all, into the trash. It's very sterile, very cold, actually. And yet this is how we've been treating our partners... like prostitutes. Remember, prostitution is really a business transaction. Most "johns" don't want an intimate relationship with a prostitute. They simply want to pay someone to get them off without unfriendly evidence afterward.

I think condoms have made sex even more mechanical and meaningless over the last decade, and it's showing in our relationships with each other. I think this lack of intimacy has spilled over into other areas of our daily lives. We are less involved with each other, more apathetic and self-loathing than we have ever been. Part may be due to other societal influences, yet to some degree, I think the way we treat our sex partners and our lovers dictates how we treat acquaintances and strangers, and vice versa.

Q) What about the subject of "conversion"? Does sero-conversion mean infecting oneself with HIV? Isn't this desire self-destructive?

A) Sero-conversion is simply the act of the body assimilating the HIV virus and changing from HIV negative to HIV positive.
There are those who are referred to as "bug chasers" who intentionally seek infection. That's a whole other ball of wax and something that involves a lot of psychological discussion.

On the surface, it appears as though conversion is solely about self-destruction. I cannot claim to understand why someone would willfully want to contract HIV. Because of my position in the bareback "community", I have had many opportunities to discuss conversion with those who seemed intrigued by it. There are several reasons that manifest themselves over and over again.

The first is one of resignation. Most of the men I have talked to have indicated they wanted the fear of being infected over and done with. This attitude is consistent in men who bareback as well as men who practice safe sex. The barebackers are tired of worrying after every encounter if this was the fuck that might convert them. The routine condom users are tired of fearing the likelihood of a torn or punctured condom. Fear has been a very powerful motivator throughout the AIDS crisis, and it has also been capitalized upon. Some people are simply tired of living their lives in fear when they so desperately want to enjoy sex without fear. These men don’t see any other way of releasing the fear of HIV other than by resigning to the virus. And since there have been a few stories available on the internet that romanticize "gift-giving", they see conversion as something possibly wonderful and meaningful.

Some men look at conversion as a way to have more sex without barriers. Worry-free AND guilt free fucking, like in the days before HIV. In urban areas where there are high concentrations of HIV+ men (like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City), they feel they will have the sexual candy store open to them if they share that common affliction. It seems a number of these men appear to be regular users of drugs like crystal meth, herion and ecstasy, and their overall judgement may be impaired.

Then there are those who find conversion the ultimate kink ~ to be given the death fuck is their idea of the pinnacle of sadomasochism. Some of these men look at this as some kind of masculine ritual that should be carried out by a “brotherhood” of men. Of course, pricking one’s finger and doing the old Boy Scout “Blood Brothers” ritual might be as effective, but to these men, the lure is to be inseminated by a group of infected men.

In the category of shared intimacy are a few negative men who are in relationships with positive partners, and who feel as if, by allowing their partner to infect them, they are demonstrating their love for that man. They often feel as though sharing the virus equals out an uneven playing field within their lives and not just in the bedroom. I can understand this, for I have had 3 HIV+ lovers in the last twelve years. No matter how much we loved each other, there was always that underlying sense of inescapable and unfortunate inequality in our relationship.

It should be pointed out that a number of the "conversionists" who advertise may be men who are already aware they are infected. Since the underlying commonality among the above seekers of infection is the desire to exercise control over how and when they become infected, it stands to reason that a good number of these men may be creating a fantasy in which they would have “control” over an event that quite probably occurred without foreknowledge. This fantasy extends two ways… the "convertee" (who already knows he’s infected) gets the power of control during the act, and the "converter" feels a sense of power in infecting a man who “wants” his disease. Although I believe the bulk of conversion scenes are strictly fantasy, I have no way of knowing for certain.

Q) Have you ever had sex and used condoms, or have you always been reluctant
to use them?

A) Certainly, I have used condoms in the past. I did that for the first few years of the panic.
But they were always frustrating in their application. They were uncomfortable, strange-feeling, awful-smelling and foul-tasting. They came in rather unflattering colors that I suppose the manufacturers believed could be promoted as a feature that would bring more excitement into the bedroom. But to me they were wrong. A green penis is rather unappealing looking, and if a plastic-coated colored penis is what makes sex more interesting, for God's sake, buy a strap-on or a dildo. Coloring or flavoring condoms is like coloring band-aids and flavoring cough syrup. Those actions don't make wearing the thing any more exciting or having to take an elixir any more pleasant, really...

Even from the beginning, the word "condom" was something I disliked. When I found there were other men who still enjoyed sex without condoms and they too were HIV-negative, I decided to put the enjoyment and pleasure back into my encounters and shunned condoms when possible. Now I only have sex with men who agree beforehand to go bareback. I don't leave that up to question. Because of this, there is more communication now between my partners and myself than there was at the beginning of the hysteria. Whereas people tend to like to assume their sex partners automatically use condoms these days, barebackers are obligated to open up to their partners and affirm their common disadin of the gratuitous condom if they are to have sex.

I was at a naked cocktail party recently where a number of the guests were in a dither because there were no condoms handy, and people were frustrated, wanting to fuck each other. While these men stewed in their frustration, I shrugged, said, "Oh well...", grabbed a barebacking friend of mine and proceeded to get into some hot action, while the others could only bring themselves to watch. Eventually, though, a number of guests overcame their anxieties and joined in, and had a rather good time too.

Q) Do you see the bareback movement growing, and if so, why?

A) Yes, I see it growing.
I think that there are several reasons. Of course, the Internet has sparked a renewed interest. But that's the vehicle by which the "movement" (and I really dislike calling it that) is growing. The reasons behind it most likely include the obvious. First, the safe-sex movement was doomed to fail from the start. Historically, it couldn't work. Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking even though it was made a criminal offense. It was repealed after 10 years. That was booze. This is sex. And the safe-sex movement has been asking men to compromise their pleasure in sex voluntarily for the last 15+ years.

Second, there's the defeat of the gay Marriage Bill. While it may not be directly tied in to the upsurge of barebacking in this country, the defeat of the bill seems to have kicked barebacking out of the closet. The opponents to the Gay Marriage Bill expected too much. They didn't want gays to enter into legally binding relationships, and at the same time they didn't want us to be promiscuous. Realistically, it isn't going to work both ways.

Third is the population increase over the last ten years which has not been confined to the two-parent family. With all the teen pregnancies and single motherhood going on, it is rather obvious that sex without condoms does not necessarily mean a death sentence. The hysteria and the media hype has bullied us into sticking our penises into plastic bags for the last fifteen years or so, but I think a lot of men are seeing that heterosexuals aren’t dying as a result of "unsafe sex" and are beginning to put it all together. It’s a double standard… if two fags fuck without rubbers, it’s "unsafe sex". If two heterosexuals fuck without rubbers, it’s "natural and beautiful". HIV does not discriminate (and frankly, neither does God). Gay men aren't blind. We see the double standard, and many are beginning to refuse to live by that.

Q) On the website, you mention the "freedom to choose intimacy". But is "intimacy" really what barebackers are looking for, since many of the ads are for anonymous group sex at parties?

A) Not all men who enjoy bareback sex seek out bareback parties.
Many are actually more cautious in their pursuit. While my site has catered mostly to the people who enjoy frequent, kinky, and group oriented sex, I have also recently added an ad category for men seeking life partners. Hopefully this will become a popular place to meet for the more conservative men who prefer unprotected sex.

Now, if you confine intimacy solely to the concept of two people enmeshed in some sort of committed relationship and ignore the rest of society, your question has merit. However, I would first ask, "what is intimacy?"

I think sexual intercourse is the single most intimate experience two (or more) people can share. It doesn’t matter whether it is anonymous and brief, or something that is part of a long-term committed relationship. For each moment that one person is joined inside another, there is an intimate feeling that is being exchanged between the two ~ even if subtly (the only exception being when sex is forced upon another against their will). And the act of inseminating your partner seems to bring up some kind of ancient human connection within us. I think that’s pretty basic.

One unique quality that exists in gay-male coupling and nowhere else involves certain gay men who are versatile (meaning they like to be on top and on bottom). They have an advantage in that the act of insemination and the bond that comes of it can be shared equally with their partner. I don't think heterosexuals can grasp that concept fully.

Incidentally, not all bareback sex ends in insemination. Some men will pull out of their partner before ejaculation in an attempt to make barebacking "safer". However, I will attest to the fact that inseminating your partner brings you together in a way that external ejaculation doesn't. If you're a married man, I suggest you try pulling out before ejaculating in your wife next time and see if that connection is maintained or broken. It's very hard to be objective if you are unaware of what other people are experiencing.

Gay men, like everybody else, want the ability to enter into a marriage. I think many of us DO want monogamous, committed relationships. But when you disallow us the blessing of marriage and the other amenities which come of marriage, you open the door to promiscuity to us while limiting our options. In a materialistic society, there is no incentive given homosexuals to be monagamous. What do you think would happen if you took the ability and the expectation of marriage away from the heterosexuals? You have to consider that before you make judgements that gays can't be monogamous.

Also keep in mind that many gays have been shunned by the people and organizations that brought other intimacies into their lives before they "came out"... their families, peers, churches, and governments... if you take those loving and caring relationships away from people, they will try to find replacements for them in any way possible. Most gays come out as adults or young adults. They have had the benefit of being loved by their families and friends throughout their young lives. Many times, that love vanishes because of prejudices within the people who they were close to, and for no other reason. But this knowledge is also a curse, for we know what it felt like to have that love, and lost it by virtue of our sexual orientation. With "safe sex", I believe we have set up another wall against intimacy between ourselves and our brothers, and made being gay nothing more than an exaggerated fashion sense. Look at the young gay men today and see if this is not true. We need to bring intimacy back into our relationships and our sexual encounters. It's the only place we have left to find it anymore.

Q) What about the new drugs available in the treatment of HIV? Do you feel they are helping justify bareback sex even though the possibililty of "reinfection" may exist?

A) It is important to remember I am not a doctor, so I hesitate to comment on the subject of reinfection.
I will say that "cross-infection" is probably a more appropriate term, as "re-infection" indicates the virus was eliminated and subsequently contracted. And to my knowledge, although viral load may be reduced in some to extremely low levels, it is not my understanding that there are any true cases in which HIV has been eliminated from any person's bloodstream entirely. "Cross-infection" is, I believe what your question is about, since there are supposedly different strains of HIV present that are resistent to certain anti-virals. This is not an area of expertise for me, and I would recommend seeking the information from someone who is more knowledgeable in that area of research.

My opinion on the protease inhibitors is that I see all the anti-AIDS drug therapies over the years as similar medicine to types of chemotherapy in that there are some awful side-effects involved, and also because their entire purpose is to keep people alive by killing the thing inside them that wants to kill them first. It’s somewhat tragic that these forms of treatment are all that are available at this time, however there have been tremendous improvements in drug therapy as compared to when my first lover died in ’88, and AZT was the sole therapy available, and far too expensive for most to afford.

While I think that research should continue into perfecting protease inhibitors or creating new, effective, and less harmful therapies, I think more funding and attention should be given to the vaccine studies. I am a part of one of these studies, and I see the benefit as being tenfold to what "safe-sex" programs and protease inhibitors could ever do. "Safe sex" is a practice of denial… that won’t work forever (as we are seeing). And drug therapy is merely putting a temporary bandage on a fatal wound. A vaccine could prevent the transmission of HIV by immunizing people against it. We wouldn’t see an end to HIV for many years after the creation of a working vaccine, but I think eventually it could have the same effect on HIV eradication as vaccines for rubella, smallpox, polio and others have since the beginning of this century.

So far, science has spent a lot of money trying to devise medications to help people with AIDS, and while that is not intrinsically evil, they thought by getting men to don condoms and creating aggressive safe-sex awareness programs they would keep people from doing what comes naturally. Actually, a vaccine should have been researched in tandem with the antivirals from the start. The concept of vaccination has been around for decades. But scientists overlooked it in their effort to heal the already infected; they didn't really work on the thing that would prevent transmission to the uninfected population which wouldn't rely on people's personal behavior.

Barebacking is considered taboo even though it is the most natural act of intimacy two people can enjoy. As a result, we barebackers are the villians today. There is something wrong with that outlook. I would hope that the people who have vilified us could have the strength of character to volunteer for such programs and do something good for humanity rather than point fingers and act horrified. I don't know... maybe all the hostility is driven by a certain jealousy. Maybe it is still driven by a general prejudice against gays, even within the community. But if the research is conclusive and the vaccines work, barebacking will cease to be an ill-thought-of word because we will be able to return to sexual relationships the way they were meant to be enjoyed without fear or guilt.

Arizona Community ECHO,
July 18, 2002
Interview conducted by Matthew Heil,
Assistant Editor

Q) First, I should know how to refer to you--exclusively as Bareback Jack, Jack, or some other name. I assume Jack is a pseudonym, but that's fine for my purposes. Also, if there's any particular reason you go by Jack rather than your given name on the Web site, that might be worth mentioning.

A) Yes, "Jack" is a pseudonym.
I chose it for no special reason outside of creating a persona for the site and because it went so well with "Bareback". Not being much of a country music fan myself, I was unaware when I created the persona of Bareback Jack that there was also a ballad by Chris LeDoux about a cowboy named Bareback Jack. And you know, I still have never heard that song...

Having the persona of Bareback Jack has allowed me to be more personal with my audience. Even though Jack isn't my given name, my viewers find comfort knowing that there is a real person connected with that site. And they've asked me everything from their most personal questions to whether or not they can buy my underwear. They've confessed their fears and told me of the peace they have found by coming to terms with their sexuality/HIV status/drug addictions... I guess by giving them a personality on the site, regardless of the identity, I've given them a representative, a counselor, an ear to bend, and most importantly a friend.

Q) As to the Web site, I had some general questions: why you started the site, where you run the site from (I believe it's local to AZ, or Phoenix?), how many members, if you have any idea of age range of members, if you've seen numbers increase/decrease lately.

A) The site was created back in the summer of 1998, first on AOL, then moved onto its own domain.
I had joined a few bareback listgroups and noticed people posting bareback party ads on the lists. It seemed very disorganized and I was just experimenting with web authoring, so I created a page on AOL that would act as a 24 hour bulletin board for sex party notices. Guys started sending me their hot amateur photos, and out of them grew a few galleries. I added a bio page about myself in hopes that I'd get laid, and then came a menu page to tie all these various and sundry pages together. It was now getting a little too risqué to keep on AOL, and by November of '98 the domain barebackjack.com was born.

I've been a local to Phoenix for the past 5 years, so the site wass created and is currently being run from within the Valley of the Sun. Currently we have approximately 700 active members on the site, and they run the gamut in terms of location, age, ethnicity, and sexual identity. I have seen the number of men who openly admit (online) to having at least an interest in unprotected sex grow over the last several years, but I have noticed these increases more in AOL member profiles than on my site. Of course, many people who visit the site do so out of curiosity or to live vicariously through the writings and photos of others. I haven't gotten a sense that the amount of curiosity out there has waned at all. And various polls I've conducted via the site have indicated the majority of interest in barebackjack.com comes from gay men followed predictably by bi men, and some occasional straight men who find something of interest to them on the site.

It's hard to tell, since there's no way of accurately assessing how many people who visit the site actually practice unprotected sex and how many are just fantasizing. For all its good points, there is an awful lot of BS going on on the internet. It's easier to gauge the rise in acceptance of barebacking through AOL profiles and others. Once a person puts it in writing in their profile, they more or less commit themselves to being addressed by every barebacker out there.

When I started barebackjack.com there weren't many people in Phoenix identifying themselves as 'barebackers'. Maybe 20 at the very most. Now there are over 100 Phoenix area gay men's profiles on AOL. That's a 500 percent increase in the space of 3-1/2 years. Again, without the proper survey material it would be rather impossible to tell how many of these 100+ AOL barebackers have recently come out of the closet about something they've been doing all along vs. how many have switched over to barebacking from safe-sex practices in the last 40 months.

Also not known are statistics covering frequency of barebacking vs. safer sex. Some men might only practice safe sex unless they find a steady partner they can trust. Others (like me) only engage in unprotected sex. There's a broad range of statistics in between these extremes. And another factor for which there is no concrete data involves age and ethnic groups. In time I will try to find some of these answers from more polls. And the information I gather is usually available to persons and organizations that could benefit from these results.

Q) Does barebacking have a "culture" for you, or a community beyond simply the gay community? It seems to me like a lot more barebackers seem to be leathermen than not, but that may just be my skewed research. Any thoughts you have on the suitability of the Internet for barebacking partners to meet as well.

A) I think originally barebacking was more associated with the leather community, not just here but abroad as well.

In Europe, it appears as though this is still holding somewhat true. But here in the US I think the reason that the leather community received such quick association with the barebacking "movement" (if you can call it that) is due to the more open nature of the leather community as a whole. Leathermen tend to be pretty upfront about their kinks and fetishes and more open to trying edge behavior.

I think it is important to remember that HIV is not still present in this world solely because of a somewhat small, leather-oriented subculture in gay society. HIV is evidenced in every cross section of our community and the greater community, and has been for some time. This indicates to me that, while the leathermen may have been more upfront about barebacking, it has been going on in every facet of our culture all along.

As for the suitability of the internet as a pick-up place for barebackers, nothing could have been more tailor-made. There have been only crude identifiers that barebackers have had as means of signalling their interest to each other in the usual public venues. I created a bareback pride "flag" as a means of identification so that men could go out in the same public they wear all their rainbow flag paraphernalia and find each other without the uneasy questions and sometimes hostile rejections. On the internet, with the ability to create names that suit us, various forms of bareback jargon are creeping into screen names and profiles... thereby acting as beacons to other barebackers and red flags to the safe-sex set. The problem remaining is weeding out the BS-ers from the honest guys. But all in all I would say the internet is pretty much home ground for barebackers, and I also think it helped facilitate more interest in returning to natural sex.

Q) I think it's really important to give folks an understanding of why you yourself bareback, and why other people on the site do. I have, in searching the 'net and elsewhere, found a variety of folks involved, from those who are barebacking in monogamous relationships, to those who bareback in sex encounters with total strangers. Motivations for the practice have also ranged from those who are simply looking to understand and commune with people better, to those actively seeking HIV infection. Where do you fall on those continuums? Do you think there's a particular prevalence toward one category or another in your membership. It might be good to give people a sense of your idea of responsibility, which was fairly clear in your columns on the site.

A) I really can only answer for myself, as every person has his own level of comfort with barebacking and his own personal reasons for entering into it.

I bareback because I enjoy sex as sex was designed by nature to be, complete with the intimacy (no matter how brief) and the obvious exchange of semen, spit and sweat (if you're doing it right!). Condoms were always a problem for me and sex came (and still does) relatively infrequently. So I try to get as much pleasure out of it as I can in those rare instances. Of course, there's the "bad boy" lure of it all as well. Let's not forget that. But I made some conscious decisions about how I would play sexually, based on my other experiences in life.

I have had 3 lovers over the last 14 years who have been HIV positive. In each of those relationships, unprotected sex was the norm for us. Throughout it all, I have managed to remain HIV negative. As far as my personal outlook, I don't consider myself to be at too much risk of sero-converting. But then I am a top in the scheme of things and I also have made certain decisions about how and with whom I have sex. I don't use poppers, I don't bottom, and I don't have sex with tweakers. These three rules have perhaps contributed to my remaining negative. However I should caution that these same practices may not guarantee anyone else an HIV-free existence. It depends on many factors, not the least of which might be heredity. We don't know all those factors yet. Better not to second guess them.

There is an assumption made that all barebackers are possessed by some sort of death wish, that we all want to become HIV positive, or spread the virus. That's almost entirely fallacious; a product of the same kind of hysteria that allows straight people to believe we all are out to recruit their kids. Initially, most of the bareback scene was made up of men who were already positive and tired of feeling guilty and repressed by the stigma over the virus. To them, barebacking was taking back their sex, going back to the source of their HIV in most cases and embracing it. Now, with the glamming-up of bareback sex through videos, stories and porn sites, and with the popularity of party drugs and the natural magnetism of all that is taboo, the HIV conversion scene has become somewhat intriguing to some men. I don't stand behind intentional HIV conversion at all. But the reasons that people have given me for even so much as discussing the idea are covered on the site. Not all of them are what you'd think, and the percentage of men who openly claim to want HIV conversion is very small indeed.

One of the things I have tried to do over the years, thanks to my persona, is to educate and sometimes browbeat my audience. No other bareback site on the net that I am aware of offers education, safer unsafe-sex practices, health information, and my perspective on barebacking, personal responsibility, responsibility toward others, and more. Last month I added an entire page on the subject of crystal meth, complete with links to 12 step and rehab programs around the country.

Perhaps the reason Barebackjack.com is the only site to offer these kinds of things is due to the fact that I am HIV negative, and therefore have created this site from an HIV-negative perspective. Most (though I am not qualified to say 'all') of the other bareback sites have been created by and for the HIV+positive crowd. I don't see the responsibility on those sites. I never have. I introduced the concept of icons in personal ads denoting HIV status. Prior to that, ads ran with no visible identifier, and some men ~ most men ~ weren't discussing their HIV status in their ads. I post reminders on the site about the risks of barebacking, viral load figures, and personal responsibility. And while it sounds more like a digital Principal's office, I've managed to make all this heavy stuff exciting and entertaining. HIV doesn't get shoved into a corner somewhere on my site as it does elsewhere. I couldn't live with myself knowing that I didn't at least make the effort to keep the fantasy balanced with reality.

Q) Of course, the question of protection, and AIDS prevention, naturally comes up. Is it just old hat at this point and unnecessary? Or is it something even barebackers should consider from time to time? Do you think that gay men have been "driven" to bareback by distaste of current prevention efforts? Is it somehow a hypocritical standard which heterosexuals aren't held to, or preached at, the same way? Is barebacking somehow a political action, or rebellion of sorts, against prevention efforts?

A) There are many individual reasons why people elect to forego protection during sex: personal preference, drug-produced behavior, the 'bad boy' thrill, a penchant toward kink, anger at society and the political machinery of our government, denial of the facts, a false sense of invincibility. Also, you have many HIV-Positive men saying, "Well, I'm already positive. Why bother with condoms?"

You also have a small group of people who, for reasons I am not sure of, believe that there is a governmental conspiracy factor involved in HIV, that HIV and AIDS are unrelated, and I suppose that the world is flat, too. These few are more politically motivated and anger-driven than most of the run-of-the-mill barebackers you'll encounter.

Still, the government, the medical profession, and the media have spent 20 years pounding safe sex hysteria into our heads and by contrast, TV personalities such as Jenny Jones, Maury Povich and Jerry Springer have spent the last decade inadvertently proving these safe-sex messages wrong. I think Povich now does at least half a dozen shows per month on the topic of paternity testing because there are a lot of young mothers out there who apparently don't know who the fathers of their children are. One is left asking where is the death? Why aren't these people, who are apparently exchanging body fluids left and right without any apparent concern for the "danger" of it all, not dying? Not getting ill?

The point is that the messages the CDC, the media and the government have thrown at us the last ten years have been largely scare tactics and their effect is breaking down. Whether or not this is part of any conscious decision-making that leads gay men to dispense with condoms is not certain. But I do think that subliminally, factors such as unwed mother statistics have some sort of effect on our society as a whole.

Certainly, barebackers should always have the thought in the back of their head that there is risk involved in unsafe sex. Once they lose that voice of conscience, they start believing in their imagined invincibility. And that's when they open themselves up to HIV and many other problems.

Q) I'd like to know, as an offshoot of this, how you deal with the possibility of HIV infection. Is it something that just doesn't worry you, or something you work your hardest to avoid, while practicing bareback sex? Do you have any thoughts on positive and negative folks having sex, etc.? What about laws that would criminalize infecting other people with HIV without their knowledge, which seems targeted at barebackers specifically.

A) Well, I have just completed the VaxGen AidsVax trial, a 3 year study for an AIDS vaccine.

That is one of the things I did to provide a little more protection to myself, as well as contribute to something I felt was completely worthwhile. Since safe-sex programs have always been based on scaring people into taking the responsibility of wearing condoms, it was automatically doomed to fail. I'm surprised it's lasted this long. I recognized the vaccine as being the better answer. It would take the personal responsibility aspect out of the picture and allow people to be human and have their lapses in judgement and behavior, hopefully without continuing the spread of HIV.

As for "working hard" to avoid HIV, that's a task only a celibate person could achieve. Not all men who have HIV know they have it. I think it safe to say that nearly every sexually active gay man has either had sex with, or will someday have sex with a man who is HIV positive. And neither of them may know. I prefer to know my partner/s' HIV status beforehand so that I can make adjustments to how I'll play with them in bed. It doesn't matter to me if they are HIV negative or positive, though in all honesty I'd rather play strictly with other HIV-negative men. In the world of bareback sex, that is currently not possible. I also like to know my partners' statuses whenever I am asked to put together a gang-bang in order to minimize the risk to all the players. I do my best to partner HIV-compatible men in such circumstances, but the final decision is always left up to the individual and what level of risk he is willing to take.

Incidentally, I have never been party to, nor have I had any interest in being party to a conversion scene. While a conversion party can be an intensely kinky and very twisted (and therefore totally hot) fantasy, I disapprove of the thing in practice and have tried on several occasions to talk people out of doing it.

As for legislating against 'infecting other people with HIV without their knowledge', the notion is problematic. First, one has to prove that the accused knew he was HIV positive before the encounter. Second, it has to be proved that the plaintiff was indeed infected by the accused, and I don't know that there are any tests available at this time which could determine that kind of information. As broadly put as your question is, the answer could be inclusive of anything from needle sticks to lovers' quarrels. And would this law include penalizing an HIV-positive man for having unprotected sex with someone who hasn't sero-converted? Date rape is easier to prove since biologocal evidence (semen, hair, saliva, etc.) can be found on/in the victim. By the time HIV has incubated, the incriminating evidence is long gone. Again, Jones, Springer and Povich show us that people are quick to point an accusing finger without certainty of proof that their charge applies. It's proved every time one of these hosts states, "So and so, you are NOT the father of the baby." A law such as you mention could potentially ruin more lives than it saves.

Where I think the focus needs to be placed right now, however, is among the "party" set. I have seen an alarming increase in Phoenix of "partiers", crystal users mostly, who engage in sexual behavior when high which they would not engage in when sober. These are not, by and large, people who are making sober, rational decisions about their sex lives let alone their lives in general. They are getting tweaked, then going on sexual binges and opening themselves up for God-knows-what over the period of 2 or more days at a time. The largest increase I have seen in barebacking comes from this group... and this group is both the largest, most socially and sexually active, and generally youngest of our community. There's a sword of damacles hanging over this group. It even frightens me in its scope.

On one of my last VaxGen appointments, conducted locally by Body Positive, I asked (unofficially) if they had noticed any correlation between the ages of newly poz guys and party drug use. Unofficially, there seemed to be. With conversion rates among partiers being extremely high and the likelihood of contracting HIV while using party drugs being considerable, I foresee the majority of 18 to 32 year-olds in this area will probably have to deal with HIV in their own lives before too long. While it is easy to point fingers at barebackers for the continuation of HIV in our world, it is going to take examination of the party scene, and what drugs like crystal meth and ecstacy are doing to contribute to the problem.

Q) I think that's pretty much everything I could think of. If you'd like to add anything on another topic I've missed, or more information about something important, please do so.

A) There are responsible barebackers out there. I count myself among them.

And barebacking carries with it a responsibility... a fact I believe other webmasters have ignored. The key is in remembering that, outside of the kind of situation in which someone you trust, a lover for instance, betrays that trust and infects you... outside of that, nobody gives you HIV. You get it as the result of your own actions. And if you choose to have unprotected sex because you think it's cool or radical, or for any other reason, you should be prepared to deal with the possibility or probability (depending on how you play) of living with HIV. If that's something you don't want to face, it's best to keep playing it safe.