This article explor a cril moment of gog bareback the reer of arguably the biggt gay porn performer of the 2010s, Johnny Rapid. The analysis
Contents:
- ‘PUMPG’ IS DANGERO NEW FAD AMONG GAY MEN
- BENHAM BROTHERS N’T STOP THKG ABOUT BEG SEED BY GAY MEN
- PRECISELY WHAT BREEDG REQUIR – CROWNG TIPS GUI FOR GAY BOYS
- GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER
‘PUMPG’ IS DANGERO NEW FAD AMONG GAY MEN
Among the people ad om jectg silin were Dovak who died last November, a Miami trans woman who died om jectns to her butt (Oneal Ron Morris, the woman who jected her, was sentenced to 10 years for practicg medice whout a license), and last month, Tumblr gay celebry Tank Hafertepen — the partner of the man Dovak allegedly went to for advice — died of a lung hemorrhage ed by, part, silin jectn syndrome, acrdg to his ath certifite obtaed by Rollg Stone. Lt we fet the potential ser nsequenc of havg sex whout ndoms, I clu the latt rmatn about the health risks of ndomls sex, discsg the relative safety of HIV-posive men who bareback wh other fected Men Are Takg Sexual RisksThere are abundant theori but no five answers about why gay men take sexual risks. To those who have not been workg the gay men's muny for the past 25 years, this statement might seem absurd, but is te that HIV-negative gay men face unique challeng that make seem almost easier to Francis Bay area psychologist Walt Ots (1995) was one of the first mental health profsnals to qutn why gay men who had th far ped beg fected wh HIV were placg themselv at risk for beg so.
The unfected men's growg visibily triggered old childhood feelgs of beg an outsir, and for some, ntributed to an acute psychologil crisis that often created a nfluence of behavrs and thought patterns that placed them at risk for ntractg have suggted that durg the '80s, gay men unnscly llud wh the general public's equatn of a gay inty wh an AIDS inty (Ots, 1995; Rof, 1996). The dynamics scribed by Ots and Ball are part of the munal and psychosocial reali that early the epimic played a role ntributg to the spread of 1988, I wrote about how fear was one large ponent of what propelled gay men to change how they were havg sex (Shernoff & Jimenez, 1988).
BENHAM BROTHERS N’T STOP THKG ABOUT BEG SEED BY GAY MEN
Gay men who were recently surveyed about their failure to e ndoms durg anal sex repeatedly told rearchers that current AIDS preventn msag do not feel relevant to them and do not nvey an urgency about why ndom e is important (Halkis, Parsons, & Wilton, 2003; Carballo-Dieguez & L, 2003; Mor et al., 2003).
Crossley suggts that is impossible to evaluate the efficy of safer-sex msag and of themselv sce ncurrent to when they first began appearg, gay men were overwhelmed by the terror that they might be fected by the then-new disease that was rapidly killg their iends and lovers.
The clu:Negative attus toward ndom e (Ots, 1994; Flowers, Smh, Sheeran, & Beail, 1997; Hays, Kegel, & Coat, 1997; Kelly & Kalichman, 1998; Van Ven et al., 1998a; b; Appleby, Miller, & Rothspan, 1999)How beg a mted pared to a nonmted uple relatnship affects whether a ndom is ed (Elford Boldg McGuire & Sher, 2001; Vcke, Bolton, & DeVlechouwer, 2001)Strongly intifyg wh or feelg alienated om the gay muny (Hospers & Kok, 1995; Hays et al., 1997; Seal et al., 2000)Internalized homophobia (Meyer & Dean, 1998; Can, Dolci, & Adler, 1999)A sense of the evabily of beg fected wh HIV as a gay man (Kelly et al., 1990; Kalichman, Kelly, & Rompa, 1997)The effects of substance e (Stall, McKick, Wiley, Coat, & Ostrow, 1986; Stall, Pl, Barrett, Crosby, & Be, 1991; Leigh & Stall, 1993; Stall & Leigh, 1994; Hospers & Kok, 1995; Woody et al., 1999; Royce, Sena, Cat, & Cohen, 1997; Chney, Barrett, & Stall, 1998; Ostrow & Shelby, 2000; Halkis, Parsons, & Stirratt, 2001, Halkis et al., 2003; Halkis & Parsons, 2002; Kalichman & Wehardt, 2001) are probably a multu of other issu at play as well.
PRECISELY WHAT BREEDG REQUIR – CROWNG TIPS GUI FOR GAY BOYS
As psychologist and former rearcher at the CDC Ron Stall was quoted as sayg an article the Manhattan gay newspaper Gay Cy News, "There are studi that monstrate a variety of psychosocial health issu, cludg prsn, antigay vlence, childhood sexual abe, or substance abe, n lead gay men to have unsafe sex" (Stall, quoted Osborne, 2002, p. In my own practice, I have intified several factors that appear to lead to sexual risk-takg: lonels, beg HIV-posive, havg unmet timacy needs, feelg alienated om the gay muny, beg love, and a cravg for eper timacy and San Francis, Mor and lleagu (2003) intified a number of issu that ntributed to the cisns gay men make to bareback.
Even when gay men posss a sophistited unrstandg of how HIV is transmted and accurate perceptns of how dangero risky sex n be, many gay men unrtimate their vulnerabily to HIV fectn (McKick, Horstman, & Coat, 1985; Bman & Siegel, 1987; Richard et al., 1988) (2003) also discs a tegory of barebackers that he labels irratnal risk takers. "That way, once happens I will no longer obss about whether or not I am fected, " he explaed, slumped and miserable on my Exchange and Emotnal ConnectnVcke and lleagu (2001) found that "the rporatn of semen is an important value for many gay cultur, a means of showg votn, belongg, and onens. In ntrast to the rearchers above who have shown that for some gay men barebackg is a ratnal activy, there are social scientists who have tried to terme whether men who bareback have a documented higher level of mental disorrs than do men who do not take sexual risks.
This seems to speak directly to at least part of the functn that sex general and sex whout ndoms served for Toby pg wh his everyday sadns, lonels, and other nonpathologil of the most mon symptoms of prsn is creased libido, so is cur that sex drive, paradoxilly, seems to crease some prsed gay men. Even though a rrelatn has been shown to exist between high sensatn-seekers and impulsivy, this alone do not necsarily mean that all gay men who are high sexual sensatn-seekers exhib characteristics that would em them diagnosable as havg a personaly disorr, though obvly some do. Jt bee a behavr entails risks do not make facto pathologil and the mental health profsns' long history of diagnosg gay men as psychologilly abnormal and disturbed bee of their homosexualy, is important that the simple fact that a man has high-risk sex do not bee the sole crern for him to be diagnosed as exhibg psychopathology.
GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER
This is where astute diagnostic skills and cultural sensivy to particular reali the liv of gay men are required orr to not appropriately pathologize men who are behavg a manner that the society or clician is unfortable wh or se as appropriate, whout nyg the possibily that for some gay men their sexual risk-takg may be part of a nstellatn of symptoms that jtifi a psychiatric From BarebackgThere are a lot of reasons not to bareback.
In discsg the multiple meangs and implitns of sex, Frost (1994) expands upon Carballo-Dieguez's fdgs, statg, "For many gay men, sexual behavr is a statement of their sense of beg gay, an affirmatn of their right to be gay, an exprsn of love, a vehicle through which to achieve timacy, and a repudiatn of the felt prohibn by the greater society.
Speakg specifilly about gay men, Yep, Lovaas, and Pagonis (2002) suggt that for many gay men the ternnectn between the sexual and emotnal or psychologil aspects of their psych speaks not only to the realy that some gay men e sex as an attempted "panacea" for their problems but also ntribut to active ristance to changg risky sexual behavr.