It's Our MAN-iversary!

Perspective, December, 2001

As we cruise into December and out of year 2001, Barebackjack.com celebrates the end of our third year on the internet. And this birthday, like every other birthday, causes us to reflect a bit on the 3 years past, as well as take a look towards the oncoming future.

It certainly has been a rollercoaster, and while the ride has been just as full of ups and downs, thrills and disappointments, it continues to leave me with the exhiliration one gets when the coaster stops and your feet hit solid ground again.

For those who don't know the story of barebackjack.com, it began kind of as a fluke. It was summer of 1998. I finally decided to overcome my resistance to technology, so I plugged myself into the internet to see what the big thrill was... and found myself before the door to a whole new life. I don't know exactly what it was. Probably many things. But this internet thing sucked me in. As a graphic designer by trade, I had found a new, big, blank canvas to play on. Cool.

It also happens that I didn't like using condoms during sex, but finding guys to fuck raw was not all that easy and highly taboo. Shortly after losing my cyber virginity I discovered Ed Stevenson's Bareback newsgroup. This was to be the road home to my soul (which had, for quite some time, been dark and lost in sorrow). I also quickly discovered that there was a lot of cross-posting going on through these newsgroups by horny gents hoping to host bareback parties. The promoter in me (he's just a midget) realized that a central location on the net to post and reply to party information would be a welcome solution to all the cross-posting and time and effort put into getting the word out. I came up with a page, put it on AOL, adopted the persona of Bareback Jack, and let it be known.

I had no idea what I was getting myself in for.

Soon, as the party page filled up with ads, I added personal ads and a bio page. And then a couple of galleries. More and more guys came to check it out, and sent me photos and stories, which I added to the site. By now, this little website was getting a little too racy for AOL, so I bought a domain and moved into my new dot com.

And then I opened my mouth.

Well, actually, I just wrote a bunch of stuff about barebacking and shit like that.

Next thing I knew, the site had over 50 pages of content, over a thousand ads, the name was popping up all around the internet in controversial articles, and I was getting requests from papers around the world to do interviews. (Jack takes a silent bow to humbly acknowledge his Time Magazine interview). That was rather exhilirating. But a question remained: was I doing the right thing, and was this website making any societal contributions apart from getting men horny and helping them connect so they could have unprotected sex?

The answer was, yes. In fact, I recently received a letter re-confirming what others have written me over the past couple of years. In it, the author says:

"I was thinking about the true contributions that the 'bareback jack' site has made to our society and helped in the life-giving SELF ESTEEM issue of HIV+ people..."

Well, thank you. I have tried to help bring passion and joy and love back into the sex and lives of men who are POZ. Three of my lovers have been HIV-Positive. Two have died. One of them was so terrified of being alone and not being loved that he bullied those around him until they did leave out of frustration. His fears and his sadness have stayed with me. I am perhaps a bit more aware these days of the social discomfort HIV-positive men face, the rejection and the prejudice that accompany discovery, and the illogic of the fears that fuel these reactions.

Most HIV-Positive people are, to my mind, like houses caught in a sudden hurricane. The circumstance happened upon them... not without the knowledge that this could happen, but unarmed as to when. How the hurricane leaves them is per chance: part luck, part integrity, part storm strength. But even with severe damage, these houses are still homes, and within each home is a heart. I am glad beyond imagination if the stories, pictures, ads and articles have contributed in raising the self-esteem of HIV-positive men. I also hope that our presence on the internet has helped bring barebacking into the consciousness of society and erased some of the knee-jerk hysteria that has existed over the subject of sex without condoms.

While social impact might seem like enough to be proud of, we hold even more pride in the scope of this site. Please allow me to toot my horn for a moment.

I think we've made Barebackjack.com the most personally interactive bareback-oriented sites on the internet. Oh, we may not have all the bells and whistles some other sites do. But here you can send in anything you want pertaining to bareback sex and get it put online. Pictures of your best physical attributes and your hottest sexual encounters, and stories you write about your sleazy sperm-laden rendezvous are always welcome contributions. You can ask for sex advice, contribute your opinions, make suggestions, and enter or vote in contests.

We created the Bareback Video Awards to shine a spotlight on the companies brave enough (and twisted enough) to produce condom-free videos, and as a way of allowing you to give your feedback to the studios as to what you like best.

We have also given viewers the opportunity to live their fantasy of being in a professionally produced porn video when we held the "World's Hungriest Cumhole Contest". But the contest couldn't have been held without your interaction.

We also provide health information, exciting links, homepages from other barebackers... all in all, a lot of things you can't get elsewhere. Quite a bit of it has been by your suggestions.

We're proud of these achievements and offerings. We like to think they keep the site fun to visit. And we have more unique features coming up (as we're working on them). Periodically, we'll be conducting polls about sex, drugs and videos. We do have a new ad system on its way (honest, we do) that we think is pretty damned dynamic. There are more contests, giveaways, and pornstar opportunities we plan on implementing in the next year. What other bareback site offers you so much, with or without a membership?

Many of you have stuck with us during this long year of change. In fact, many have stuck through the challenges we've faced over the last three years... from attempts to shut us down to the banning of our domain by AOL, a move spanning three servers, overloaded bandwidth, fundraisers, membership and software woes, etc. Yet we have continued on together, undaunted, surviving all the cyberworld could throw at us. Pretty remarkable, eh?

For your support, many letters of praise, contributions, suggestions, and more over these last three years, I say THANK YOU!. We wouldn't be celebrating this man-iversary if not for your interaction. So raise your glasses high and have a toast of virtual champagne in celebration of what has passed and what is yet to come on Barebackjack.com!

We'll be here as long as you need us,

Bareback Jack