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Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical Or Realistic?

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Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical Or Realistic? Eric J. Roberson ENG 3305 – Essay Writing Dr. JoAnn Pavletich – UHD Fall 2009 Semester 2 Dec. 2009 Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical or Realistic? By Eric J. Roberson Prepared for Dr. JoAnn Pavletich ENG 3305 Advanced Essay Writing Fall 2009 Semester Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical or Realistic? Page 1 of 17 By Eric J. Roberson Gay Men and “Barebacking”: Radical or Realistic? By Eric J. Roberson Sex is not a competitive sport, and if you are gay and think it is then you should listen up! “HIV is a serious long-term condition, and young gay men remain the group of young people most at risk” (“UK Same-Sex Relationships 1). Some gay men willfully and deliberately discard condoms in preference for unprotected sex. Regardless of your age, this essay will not convince you on what to do with your “hard on,” but it may help you decide to get tested and to put on a condom before your next casual sexual encounter. Consider these three simple solutions: communication before sex, compassion for others, and condoms for casual encounters. If you happen to be straight and are reading this essay, do not put it down. Straight people who have gay friends may learn about some of the challenges gay men face in leading fulfilling relationships. You may also gain ideas on how to be more supportive. Regardless of your sexual orientation, the goal is to expose how the internet has shaped the practice of barebacking and other mitigating factors that compel gay men to consciously and explicitly eschew condoms during anal intercourse – colloquially known as “barebacking” (Gastaldo, et. al. 172). This essay will present with clarity options that gay men have when presented with the decision to forego condoms. An open mind will help you better appreciate this topic. Defining several key terms is central to understanding the controversy. Simply put, barebacking is unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) between two men (Gastaldo, et. al. 172). All men who have sex with men (MSM) will be considered in statistical demographics, regardless of whether they identify themselves as purely homosexual. Personal accounts used herein may refer to barebacking as “raw” or “uninhibited” sex. Relating to HIV disease, the terms seropositive means someone who has the HIV virus, and serodiscordant is indicative of a couple of mixed serostatus, consisting of one person who is negative and one who is positive. An undetectable viral load means the inability to detect HIV virus in blood plasma, and undetectable viral loads are the modern gold standard for successful HIV treatment. Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical or Realistic? Page 2 of 17 By Eric J. Roberson These terms will be used throughout this essay, particularly while exploring the concept of serosorting, which is the process of choosing a partner of the same HIV status. As shocking and controversial as “bareback” sex among gay men may seem to most people, it is a prevalent practice which has been around since before the nexus of the AIDS epidemic in America, and it is an activity becoming more and more actuated through Internet communication. No community is better than gay men at mobilizing a response to crises of an “implacable biological peril” (Adam 334) as evidenced by the strides gay men made toward comprehensive and compassionate health care for HIV positive people during the 1980s. It is easy to lend compassion to any community that has been ravaged by an epidemic as gruesome as AIDS. Taking into account gay men’s experiences at the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, the decision to participate in bareback sex is complicated and requires thoughtful insight into the ideologies that encompass the thought process. The goal of this essay is not to disprove the recklessness of having unprotected sex with someone who is HIV positive, but rather to show the complicated decisions some gay men must make toward fulfilling sexual relationships. Having compassion will help you appreciate the personal accounts of HIV positive men that appear later in this essay. Before the advent of HIV in the 1970s, sexually transmitted infection (STI) outbreaks like syphilis and hepatitis B routinely occurred among gay men in major metropolitan areas, which indicates that men often had unprotected sex before the HIV epidemic began (Bimbi and Pearsons 277). As a result of these STI outbreaks, empirical investigations led to studies about sexual behavior and sexual expectations among gay men and how they utilized “sexually charged venues” such as bars and bathhouses for sexual encounters (Bimbi and Pearsons 277). Since then, a new era has been ushered in with the Internet becoming the first step in gay men’s quests for finding potential sex partners. Barebacking is becoming an increasingly common practice (Bimbi and Pearsons 277), and research reveals that there has always been a group of high-risk takers throughout the HIV epidemic (Bimbi and Pearsons 277). Most literature and media coverage attributes new HIV infections to men “slipping up” in the heat of the moment (Plant and Sheon 1), but “slipping up” is not always the case. Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical or Realistic? Page 3 of 17 By Eric J. Roberson This “understanding of unsafe sexual practices is superficial because it does not recognize several determining sociocultural and psychological factors” (Gastaldo, et. al. 172). Barebacking is distinguishable from the “unplanned, episodic, unprotected sexual encounters” (Adam 334) that some men have, and the practice is frequently attributed to a variety of circumstances such as the following: • “a resolution to erectile difficulties experienced with condoms” (Adam 334) • a “momentary lapse” or “ trade-offs” (Adam 334) • a result of “personal turmoil and depression” (Adam 334) • “a byproduct of strategies of disclosure and intuiting safety” (Adam 334) While on one hand knowingly HIV positive people are construed as the risk and the problem, the truth is that the “vast majority of HIV transmission occurs from people who have no knowledge they are HIV positive or are ignorant of how it is transmitted” (Adam 336). You may have met HIV negative men who foolishly believe they are immune from contracting HIV from a positive receptive “ bottom” partner, or HIV positive men who use their undetectable viral loads as a free pass for leaving condoms on the night stand. Also consider this: when was your last HIV test? Most people would agree that if you have not been recently tested for HIV, then you could unknowingly transmit the virus to your sexual partners. In a 2002 study, 22% of HIV positive men and 10% of negative men reported intentional participation in UAI. One year later, a similar study reported 61% and 42% of men, respectively, had bareback sex—intentional or otherwise (Bimbi and Parsons 278). Research also shows increased transmission of HIV between gay men over the past several years. Between 2001 and 2005, new HIV diagnoses increased 11% among men who have sex with men (MSM) overall in the United States, and between 2001 and 2006 new cases increased 23% in MSM aged 13-29 (Halkitis and Pollock 340). These statistics are indisputable proof that barebacking is a worrisome issue for the gay community since new HIV cases are rising rapidly. The data also proves that unprotected sex is still a prevalent practice among MSM and it substantiates that barebacking is increasing drastically among men under age 30 (Halkitis and Pollock 341). It is impossible to deny that living with the complications of HIV disease is Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical or Realistic? Page 4 of 17 By Eric J. Roberson disadvantageous for gay men; debating that fact is not the goal of this essay. The mission is to expose the seriousness of the issue and to identify possible compelling reasons why condoms are not used by some men and also to validate the potential solutions of communication, compassion, and condoms for casual encounters. Statistics also provide incontrovertible evidence that unprotected sex among older, white, and relatively affluent gay men in major metropolitan cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., is increasing, despite the fact that older gay white men have been the traditional target group for HIV prevention messages (Cox 1). If you are a gay man over 40, you have likely been bombarded with safe sex campaigns most of your adult life. The “recent surge in HIV infections. indicate that bareback sex is practiced by individuals from every sociodemographic stratum and serostatus” (Gastaldo, et. al. 172). Considering the data, we must accept that bareback sex is a serious issue facing the gay community that requires better understanding since unprotected sex is medically agreed upon as the primary mode for HIV transmission among couples both gay and straight. Introducing Neoliberalism Many people consider barebacking “ostensibly irrational behavior,” however many men dismiss their behavior using moral reasoning popular with the rest of society (Adam 334). “Barebacking raises some of the central issues of contemporary theory around risk, responsibility, and ethics, and poses new challenges for HIV prevention policies because barebacking discourse has adopted some of the major tenets of neoliberal ideology by combining notions of informed consent, contractural interaction, free market choice, and responsibility in new ways” (Adam 333). Defining neoliberalism is essential to understanding the bareback phenomenon and how men who bareback try to justify their behavior as rational. In an essay “Neoliberalism: origins, theory, definition,” Paul Treanor defines neoliberalism as follows: “Neoliberalism is a philosophy in which the existence and operation of a market are valued in themselves, separately from any previous relationship with the production of goods and services, and without any attempt to justify them in terms of their effect on the production of goods and Gay Men and Barebacking: Radical or Realistic? Page 5 of 17 By Eric J.
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