As I re-entered the world of singledom, after the South African, some things became disturbingly clear

I realized that I have a post break-up habit.  Some people get a drastic hair cut. Some people gain or even lose 15 lbs. For me, after a relationship ends I tend to become a true believer in free love.   During which I made good use of all of my gentleman’s socializing networks. I could be found chatting with guys at the gym, at work, at home.  I would even travel the length of Manhattan to partake in an extra long lunch break. Just to clarify, this was NOT my prior lunch date.  Within the midst of my newly rejuvenated spurt of free love, there were a couple observations that shocked and confused me. 

Way before the South African existed in my word, I chatted with this handsome Brooklyn Boy. We met on OkCupid and we tried to set up a really real date on a couple different occasions. Unfortunately it never really worked out, so we both just gave up. While on sowing my newly found wild oats, I came across the same Brooklyn Boy, on a slightly different website, Manhunt. We chatted again and this time we were determined finally to make our date happen. Since we were chatting on a site that had the byline of “Get on, Get off” I thought I should come clean with my status. He quickly became excited and he said, “So am I, now you can fuck me raw!” Clearly, I should’ve given him a different nickname with the initials B. B. I politely declined and then literally got off. 

There was another guy, who I chatted with for quite some time.  We talked about everyday random stuff and not just about a mutual love for our freedoms.  Finally, we decided to finally set up a time to meet. Again, because we didn’t meet on Manhunt and I wasn’t sure what his intentions were, I told him my status and lo-and-behold he said he was also poz. Ok, great. There should be no weirdness. Oh, was I wrong. I also told him that I always play safe and he proceeded to tell me that he never uses protection and he basically apologized saying that he hates “rubbers” and he would never have sex with someone who insisted on using them. 

I was baffled. I know I talk a lot about my disappointment and frustration with negative guys who turn me down because of my status, now I was turned down by a positive guy who didn’t date me because I always use a condom! I felt like I had just stepped into some bizzaro universe. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the allure of this particular practice, especially with another positive person.  But forgeting  the personal risk factors involved, I think people tend to forget that there are other STDs out there. I have a hard enough time expressing my status to a prospective date; imagine adding Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Herpes, or Syphilis to the mix! 

Another thing that completely perplexed me was the amount of people that ask me if I "parTy". I am not that naïve that I am completely unaware of this practice and on prior occasions I have been asked if I "parTy and play". And I would be remiss not to mention I did try meth once. Luckily for me the only addictive substance my body will let me consume is chocolate.  But day after day, I found myself bombarded with that question, “Do you parTy?” No, “Hello.” No, “How are you?” Just “Do you parTy?”

I would respond: “Why yes I do! When my niece turned five, you should have seen me tearing up that Disney karaoke.” 

I love my oral fixations too much to give myself meth mouth and I love my penis way too much to swing it around at every Tom, Dick, and Harry without any protection. You can call me a fuddy-duddy, but I still head the advice given to me Mr. Jiminy Cricket and I always let my conscience by my guide.

Cinco de Mayo (May 5^th) for most is a day of celebrating the anniversary of the Mexican army’s victory over France in 1862 during the Franco-Mexican War. Everyone gets together with all of their closest friends and consumes obscene amounts of Mexican food, margaritas, Corona beer (don’t forget the lime) and far, far too many tequila shots. It’s all fun and games till someone ends up with their face in the toilet with an Armageddon of vomiting, wondering "what the hell did I eat that had corn in it?” AHH yes, good times for sure!

For me, May 5^th is a whole different monster. It is a vicious reminder of loss and the most unbearable pain one could, not even in their most horrific nightmares, ever fathom. May 5^th is my late husband Kyle’s birthday. This year he would have been 45 years old. Kyle died almost 4 years ago and there is not a moment that goes by that I do not think of him and miss him terribly.

We had twelve amazing years together filled with lots of love, laughter, and friendship, and that is something I wouldn’t trade for the world. But know this: if it would bring him back, back to this world, back to his mother, his brothers, his nephews, I would gladly lay down my life and die for that to happen.

Over the last four years I have had un-yielding support from friends and family who are always there for me anytime I need them. But I know essentially, deep down in my heart I am alone in this.

I wake every morning knowing that I will never see his smiling face again, never hear his laugh, and most heart wrenching of all, never know his sweet kisses again. These truths haunt my dreams and every waking moment. They say time heals all wounds. Well  - either time has forsaken me or it has decided to take its sweet ass time, because everyday hurts just as much as the last.

The reality is people we love die without our permission, and we are left to muddle through life trying to figure out how we are going to live without them. How do we do that? We do the best we can with what we have.

Sometimes we move on, find someone else, as I have. But it’s not the same. I now find myself in a hopeless relationship that I know eventually will end badly (for him). He is a wonderful man, and I do love him, he treats me so well, and I think he realizes that he will always be second to Kyle and accepts it. Yes, I love him, BUT I am not now nor do I ever think I will be IN love with him. I wish I could, but alas no. My ability to be IN love with anyone died with Kyle. Besides, it’s so much easier to be in love with someone who’s dead; you make so few mistakes.

Now you ask, “If you’re not in love with this guy, why are you with him?” Well that’s an easy one to answer. I’m with him because he is comfortable and because I don’t know how to be alone. I never have. I have always been in a relationship. I just simply don’t have the skills to be single. And I know this is unfair to him, because he is truly in love with me. This probably makes me a bad person, but right now this is the only person I know how to be.

I keep myself busy, trying to do as many positive things as possible; I try to life a full and happy life because I know that is what Kyle, wherever he is, wants for me. And yes I have found some things that bring me a certain level of happiness, but they are few and far between and it seems to need too many anti-depressants to achieve them. But for Kyle… My love… My friend.. My husband  - I take it one day at a time, one step at a time until I see him again, and  I will see him again, I dunno where or how, but I have to believe it to be so. Happy birthday my love, I miss  you desperately.  Thank you for reading.

XXOO Danny 

You know that thing that ardent ornithologists do? You know, writing down their sightings of each different variety of bird they have laid eyes on, where and when. This post is not about that. It's not about looking, and it's not about birds.

No, when I was a fresh-faced young gay, just out of the closet, I briefly kept a little list of the men I had slept with. No euphemisms: I had had sex with them, usually with very little sleeping involved. My WASPy prudishness caught up with me a few months in and I stopped with the list after a few entries where I didn't have names, but only situations or the make and model of the car that picked me up… Who am I kidding?! It was probably only the colour of the car, which pretty much exhausts my knowledge of cars! 

Even with this abrupt end and the short experience of my list, I was already up to about fifty entries when I stopped. Such a shame I didn't keep it up, as it might have been a very interesting sociological artifact by now. This came to mind in a conversation recently, as I also discussed filling out an online "How gay are you?" quiz with a friend. My friend got to the question about how many different men he had had sex with and he said, "There were only three spaces, so I put 999." I, much more modestly, put 500 at the time.

Now are you seeing how my list might have been interesting to revisit after a lifetime of encounters? 

You might actually be wondering aloud why I should be so proud of being such a slut, whore, whatever, and thinking smugly that you now know why I turned out HIV-positive. I have two answers to share on that topic. First, it isn't that I'm necessarily proud; it's that I refuse to be ashamed. Second, as I frequently assert in meetings with public health types in the context of my work, it really doesn't matter how many partners you have, it matters what you do with them. So clearly, I am on the sex positive side of this debate. 

The other thing that I feel the need to express is about the source and timing of my HIV infection. I don't know, and I have a smidgen — but not really more — of intellectual curiosity about the answers to those questions. They do not preoccupy me. 

I am a gay man who started having sex before we knew about HIV. This is not in any way to suggest that I was or wasn't infected before we knew, or that that would really matter. I was as human afterward as anyone who might be infected today. We aren't machines making cold rational decisions based on available data, we are humans who sometimes don't think about what they are doing or just need some human contact at the moment, or don't always make decisions about our pleasure based on fear of risks. 

When we found out about HIV with my sex life already underway, there was some adaptation around the equipment or the acts, but not around the attitude. I think that changed for those coming of age and coming out post-HIV, at least until recently, which only makes it more of a shame that I didn't maintain my life list. 

I could have written my autobiography as a thesis.

Recently I found myself having to end an on again off again long distance connection.  Two years was a long time to remain uncertain, but we did try and it really was a more off than on situation.  Still such a time can leave feelings raw and emotions high.  I was sorry for my own indecisiveness and even more so to inflict that on another on an ongoing basis. 

Over the past seven years I have been an importer, if you will, of boyfriends and paramours from the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)  and beyond.  I don’t want to imply that the fair city of London does not offer up their own share of eligible bachelors … I’m sure they do, but for me importing importants and impromptus insured a certain distance that I felt necessary for both my own comfort as well as my denial. 

There is also the whole serosorting aspect of my thought process with regard to dating that quite honestly has me shopping in the big city in part because I see the stigma less then I do in my own backyard.  When you add that mind set, and for me it is the mind set that makes me most comfortable when dating, the fields narrow … but I digress.  I am talking in the more general sense with regard to long distance relationships. 

With the recent change in my personal life I spent the better part of Easter weekend spring cleaning and rearranging my home, my thoughts, and in some ways my life.  Part way through the extra long weekend I spent the Saturday evening with friends for a fabulously festive feast.  Two of the gents attending that evening had also recently embarked on a long distance connection and the coming together of friends and food were in part to celebrate the recent union of men and minds. 

Sadly, all good things must come to pass … distance being a factor. 

Are relationships that start from afar doomed to fail?  I pondered this thought throughout a sleepless night of late and I decided that yes; they are doomed! 

I can’t speak of course for my friends but I do mourn what I would have thought a good match of these two unique and wondrous worlds.  I can only bring my own thoughts to bear on the subject of love from afar.   

Relationships for me, when they start, are so often this explosion of feelings and dreams,and I statements … “I want to see you, I want to be with you, I want to hold you”.  When we are mere blocks away we can savour and soak up this blooming love fest; but when there is travel and waits and schedules we so often have to quell those initial thoughts with the mundane act of planning spontaneity. I can still recall asking a florist if roses and cheesecake will last for 2 hours in the back seat of a black car on a summer day as I navigated my way to the big city and my latest beau; she suggested keeping the air on.

Add to the initial distance aspect the weather, mode of transportation, and last minute changes and we then need to rethink the simple act of planning dinner and a movie.  Successful long distance relationships, I have come to believe, begin with two who live with or near one another. Then distance doesn’t become a factor.  Most I would think are more relaxed about a loved one who is far, but not far, for long.  To start off a relationship with needing to “understand” when all one wants to do is enjoy and share and simply snuggle is the beginning of a downward trajectory…this is at least what I have found to be true for me. 

That is not to say that if some handsome, passionate, compassionate, semi sane suitor from who-knows-where calls and asks me out that I would say no … but that’s a whole other story. 

 "...The fact is HIV is now a part of who I am, and as such, a part of my barebacking journey"

Such a simple statement it seemed, written on my blog in response to a reader who had emailed me to say that he was no longer logging on to read what I had to write, as I was now writing about HIV issues, despite himself being HIV+. 

It could have fallen into the archives of the blog, like so many of the postings I have made in the 6 years of writing Confessions Of...except that it caught the attention of others.  What's more, as a result of my commenting on an article on PositiveLite.com, it caught the attention of Bob Leahy, the Editor, and after a couple of emails back and forth between us, I had agreed to justify my statement from the perspective of both pre- and post- HIV diagnosis.  Whilst I knew what I meant when I wrote the words above, I had never sat down and thought long and hard about what exactly my "barebacking journey" was. Not for many years anyway.

My journey began aged 18 years. I was fresh out of 6th form college, not heading to university, finally coming to terms with my sexuality and in the process of coming out to all and sundry.  Temptation was all around me, each day brought new sexual encounters, new guys to be adventurous with. My libido was at its peak.  It was around this time, that I became aware with condoms, I was unable to get an erection, or maintain one once a condom was applied. I also knew that as someone who liked to get fucked, I wasn't happy with the sexual experience.  I somehow felt cheated, that the sex hadn't been fullfilling or as rewarding as it might otherwise have been had condoms been forsaken.

Of course I was aware of the risks, sort of.  The sexual education I had received at secondary school wasn't what one could call extensive. But somehow I knew that sex without protection exposed oneself to a whole miriad of STI's, some of which could be treated with a quick trip to the local GUM (sexual health clinic), others, such as HIV/AIDS, carried with them a "death sentence", as I'd been told to beleive, growing up in the late 80's and 90's with the tombstone adverts extolling "don't die of ignorance".

As time went by I took the decision not to use condoms, and in doing so, my exploits led me to the GUM clinic on various occasions to get the odd itch or spot treated.  With my early 20's, came a slightly increased level of maturity.  I took the time to look further into the risks associated with fucking without condoms.  I educated myself in the areas that the State had left me lacking.  What exactly was HIV? Was it a death sentence? What were the real life odds of being infected?  I knew what CD4 meant, what the phrase Viral Load indicated.  I knew that there were various medications available to treat HIV, that the arrival of HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Treatments) in the mid 90's had drastically increased the prognosis for those diagnosed with HIV from a death penalty to what is today coined a "chronic managable disease". 

With this level of awareness, also came a level of self questioning.  Was I truly happy with the risks I was taking?  Did a rewarding sex life, truly mean that I had to expose myself to the risks of HIV in the future?  It was a difficult time for me.  On the one hand, I wanted a rewarding, fulfilling sex life.  On the other, I didn't want to willingly contract a disease which would lead to a life time of complications and medication dependancy.   My desires and logic were at odds with one another.  A war raged in my mind.  It took a good year or so to reconcile the risks with myself.   

At first, I asked people their status, I'd only sleep with those who said they were negative.  I now know, that this is essencially sero-sorting - matching partners of the same HIV status together, in a bid to reduce the risk of transmission. But it didn't always work.  Many of my encounters took place in anonymous settings; bath houses, bar dark rooms, public restrooms etc.  Places where discussion about each others status just didn't occur.

During this conflicted period, I continued engaging in condomless sex, but each encounter would leave me concerned that I'd broken the camel's back. I'd stress and worry right the way through to my next HIV test.  Each time, the test would come back negative.  The negative tests, together with my risk-taking behaviour, combined to create a mild feeling of invicibility.  I guess a simple analogy would be that of Russian Roulette.  Except in my case, the barrel didn't have 5 empty chambers, it had hundreds, if not thousands.  Each sexual encounter put me at risk, but time and time again, the tests came back negative.

Eventually, the inevitable happened.  A guy I had just had sex with explained that he had lied about his status.  He wasn't negative, he was positive. I paniced.  I waited nervously until my next HIV test, where despite being convinced that it would be a positive result... once again, it came back negative. This all reinforced the (misguided and incorrect) conclusions that I was coming to in my own mind.  That whilst it was indeed a risk, it was a low risk.  More importantly, it was a risk that I as an individual was more than prepared to take.  Condomless sex was more rewarding, more intimate, more satisfying. It was also more spontaneous, more "heat of the moment" stuff... it was the sex that I was looking for. The risks, whilst very real, had over time been reduced in my mind by a continued negative test result.  

 In 2006, a close friend broke the news that he had been diagnosed HIV-positive after only 10 or so sexual partners.  Over the following couple of years, more of my friends who also engaged in unprotected sex tested positive. However my results constantly came back negative.  I was being open and honest to the test centre about the sexl I was engaged in.  They tried to change my behaviour, but the warnings were pointless, as I already knew the risks.  I wasn't doing what I was doing because I didn't know the dangers, I was doing it because I knew the dangers, and accepted them.  To many this is sheer wrecklessness. And I agree, to a point.   

To better understand my acceptance of the risks, it's important to look at the sort of person I am.  I've always been a risk-taker.  Aged 16 I got into rock climbing and hanggliding.  Aged 21, despite my parents' pleads for sanity, I got myself a sports motorcycle, racing around the roads of my native Yorkshire with wreckless abandon. Where most people see danger and instinctively retreat from it, I, like a moth drawn to the flickering backyard light, have always been attracted towards risky things.  Thus it was somewhat inevitable that as soon as I discovered risky sexual behaviour, I took an attraction towards it.

The clinic considered it strange that despite my continued encounters with people of unknown and positive serostatus, my tests always came back negative.  They began to talk about a natural resistance, a possible level of immunity to the virus.  One such avenue they wanted to explore was the CCR5 Delta 32 mutation. There has been much research done into this gene, and those with certain characteristics of i, have demonstrated a natural resistance to the HIV virus.  They wanted to perform tests for this; unfortunately funding wasn't available at the time.  It would have proved somewhat fruitless anyway.

 On a cold September day in 2011, I went for what had become a routine HIV test. I knew the workers there on first name terms.  Entering the room, we talked small talk while they prepared the test.  We skipped past the usual pre-talk of councelling, what you expect from the results etc. A small prick later, my blood was on the test, and we had gone outside for a cup of tea and a cigarette whilst the reaction took place. Twenty mins later we returned to the room, and the worker came in.  His face looked a ghostly white.  Straight away I knew that it had happened.  He looked choked as he explained that it had been a reactive test, and talked me through what the lines meant.  At 130pm on the 21st September 2011, I tested positive for HIV.

I had thought about this moment for years.  How I would react, had I really accepted the risks entirely in my mind, or was I kidding myself?  It seems that I had indeed adjusted to the reality I was living, and when the news was broken to me, I seemed to take it in my stride.  The poor worker was more upset than I.  An appointment was made at the local hospital for confirmatory blood tests to be carried out, and they came back a week or two later.  I had indeed contacted HIV.  My viral load was 105,000 and my CD4 was 971.  Quite a high number on both counts, but the consultant at the hospital was pleased with the CD4.

Over the next few days and weeks, I carried on as normal.  Until one day, walking through town during my lunch break, the reality of what had happened suddenly dawned on me.  The world I was living in, suddenly seemed a lot larger, a lot lonelier.  The people around me going about their daily business, oblivious to me.  I stopped dead in the street, and sat on a bench.  I didn't cry.  I wasn't scared.  But my mind was suddenly racing with the truth of what living with HIV now meant.  What about drug resistance? What about medication adherence? Who do I tell? Do I need to tell anyone? So many questions, so few answers.  The busker across the road carried on playing his set, the shoppers milled by, yet I sat there.  Motionless, quiet. Staring into space, a million miles away from where I was.  

That night I sent a close friend a text saying I wanted to meet up with him, and had something to tell him.  He's considerably older than me, and, having lived in London during the 80's, I figured he was a safe person to tell my news to.  I just felt that I needed to tell someone.  We had a few beers in the local gay bar, before moving away from listening ears, and finding a secluded corner of a real ale pub in the center of town.  It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.  Remarkably, he took it as I'd hoped he would, and has been the most amazing support since.  In a world full of gossip merchants, where people enjoy trading in salatious tit-bits, this friend has demonstrated his worth in gold, and not told a soul. I've no idea how I'll ever repay his kindness, generosity and trust.  

Time went by, Christmas 2011 came and went, and my desire to live as normal a life as possible grew.  I decided I didn't want to hide my status.  Sure, the manner in which I caught it may leave much to be desired, but, as Josh Robbins puts it so well, I'm still Josh. If people ask me, I'll tell them.  There have been great improvements in HIV medication over the last 30 years, but the stigma of HIV still remains, perhaps as a result of, not despite of, the AIDS awareness campaigns I talked about earlier on.  I personally beleive that by talking openly and honestly about living with HIV, what it means to us as individuals, then we can collectively go some way in dispelling the myths and stigma of this virus. Thats why sites such as PositiveLite.com are so invaluable. 

They say that every journey begins with the first few steps, and my journey began all those years ago in deciding not to practise safer sex. The path I've trodden so far now has a fork in it.  Do I start using condoms, or do I continue on the journey as it began?  I've already made that decision, and it continues in the direction it began.  The painful truth is that condoms and I just do not get along.  I've tried in the past, and I've tried again recently... but it just isn't to be.  Many reading this will no doubt be aghast to read this.  Mine is a barebacking journey.  

I do however, now inform every sexual partner of my status.  I have no intention of lying or mis-guiding anyone about having HIV.  I have added sections to my website where I discuss HIV openly and honestly, I've added links to the main organisations which provide HIV and other sexual health awareness.  

As my condition progresses, I'll write more about living with the condition.  I'll write about my first medication experiences, I'll write about the side effects (this particularly is a worry of mine already). I'll write about rejection, as a result of being HIV+.  I'm aware, as I was of the risk of HIV in the first instance, that there is now a risk as a HIV positive person, of re-infection with a different strain, or of superinfection with a drug resistant strain.  I also understand that whilst I am not on medication, and my viral load remains unchecked, there is a real risk of passing the virus onto other people.  This latter point is something that sticks with me the most.  I have thought long and hard about it, before moving fowards in my journey. The circles I move in, the people that I have sexual relations with, are themselves other people of my nature.  People who are HIV positive, who have also accepted the risks of continued unprotected sex.  

Unprotected sex is risky, it is dangerous, and in most cases it will lead to HIV infection.  For me the risks were and continue to be acceptable, However for many they are not.  The work that organisations the world over are doing to raise awareness of HIV, to spread the message that condoms are the single most effective prevention of the onward transmission of HIV are to be commended. I support their work entirely.  I also follow with interest the current debate which is raging regarding the possible use of anti-retroviral medication in HIV positive people as a form of preventative treatment. Perhaps I'll expand on this in another posting, If PositiveLite.com will have me back.  

I personally beleive that if people are aware of the risks they are taking, they should be allowed to make the decisions they wish without hate, fear or attack from anyone else.  If someone is truly, totally and wholly aware of the risks of unprotected sex, then who are we to enforce upon them the use of a condom? Who are we as a society to belittle them, to make them feel badly for their choice of sexual practise?  

I understand that mine is a challenging and controversial view which many will take issue with. I don't write to upset, or anger anyone.  I write merely to explain that there are people like me out there. Other people starting out on a journey, many of whom are also taking the decisions not to use condoms.  Some of them are aware of the risks they're taking, others are painfully unaware.  We can not however pretend that people like me do not exist.  I think it is important that we ALL get a voice, and help to raise awareness of HIV and reduce the stigma of living with it regardless of our sexual practises so that people can make informed, educated decisions about the sex that they have. 

Many people write blogs about having HIV, many more people like to pretend that despite getting HIV from unprotected sex, if they don't say as much, it some how goes away, somehow makes it less "sinister", less controversial. 

The fact is, HIV is now a part of who I am, and as such, a part of my barebacking journey.  

Josh Landale is a 29yo blog writer from Yorkshire, England. Writing openly and frankly about bareback sex and issues affecting that community, he was diagnosed HIV+ in September 2011. He now also writes about his living with the virus, and how it impacts his life.

You can follow Josh on twitter @JoshLandaleXXX (NSFW)

This article first appeared in Sam’s blog - the life and times of a twenty-something living with HIV in the UK -  here.  

In my previous post I talked about my use of technology to aid my quest for love. Dating technology has evolved over time; from dating agencies and singles ads in newspapers, onto phone chat lines, texting services and onto dating/hook-up websites (such as gaydar, fitlads, manhunt etc). The latest technology to be adopted for this purpose is the smartphone – there are countless apps promising to help you find love, make friends or just get a little action.

The most popular one of these (amongst the gay community at least) is Grindr. For those of you who are unfamilar with Grindr – you create a profile with your stats, add a photograph and a short welcome message and in return Grindr shows you other guys logged in near your location by use of GPS. You can message the guys, swap pictures etc. All very cool. I’ve been on Grindr since it was launched. I’ve always been at the cutting edge, trying new apps and gadgets as soon as they come out. My profile has remained largely the same, my age has changed with the years and my photograph has been updated a few times.

I started wondering last weekend (25th Feb 2012) what kind of responses someone would get if their profile said that they were HIV+. So I created myself a second profile on Grindr, almost identical to mine in (but different enough to look like a different person), still looking for “Friends, fun and dates” – but this time I mentioned my HIV status in the profile text.

Over the course of the week (25 Feb – 03 Mar) my existing profile received messages from 74 users. On the other hand my (almost identical) profile that mentions my HIV status had 11 people message it. Four of those eleven messaged purely to ask me questions about HIV and one felt it necessary to send me foul mouthed abuse for seemingly no reason. Which leaves me with six people actually showing an interest in me.

Let’s look at that for a second shall we? That’s a 92% reduction in interest purely by mentioning my HIV status. It was this realisation that led to a few miserable tweets on Saturday night, sorry if you had to put up with those. I thought we were really making progress. The more things change eh?

 Best,

 Sam

You can find Sam on twitter at @UKPositiveLad