Roll Over, Randy Shilts

On the one hand, I am very fond of fucking. On the other hand, what is it with all you faggots wanting me to fuck you without a condom? Of course, I understand that barebacking is a hot porn genre at the moment--after all, mere fornication no longer titillates; prurience can't exist without taboo. That said, AIDS is, like, totally real y'all.

Most curious: many would-be barebackers seem to have a deep, Victorian confusion about the difference between pathology and hygiene. "Are you clean?"--in the parlance of our times. This is in part a euphemism, but only in part. My partners, especially (unfortunately) the younger ones, seem to understand HIV as the sole provenance of the old and decrepit, and since I shower daily, maintain my obliques, and look like I'd charm your protective Jewish mother, ergo I cannot possibly be HIV positive. Well, I'm not, but know this only because I play safely and get tested. But I've also had sex with hundreds of different men, and being well-scrubbed is not a factor to consider here. Yes, we live in a first world country--for now, dudes, for now--with access to retrovirals etc. etc. blah blah amen. "AIDS is no longer a death sentence." Right, but even if such state indefinitely obtains, it still really, really sucks.