BAREBACKING CELEBRATES UNPROTECT SEX AND RAISES DIFFICULT ISSUES ABOUT AIDS PREVENTION They call themselves "barebackers" and they grasshook up on he Internet.

BAREBACKING CELEBRATES UNPROTECT SEX AND RAISES DIFFICULT ISSUES ABOUT AIDS PREVENTION

They call themselves "barebackers" and they grasshook up on he Internet, at private parties, and end an extensive network of contacts across the rural parts Unlike men who, for a. laundry list of now-familiar reasons, slip up occasionally into unprotect sex barebackers have made the conscious, repeatedly political decision to have latex-free sex each time and usually with multiple partners. on what account do they do it?

Given the risks involved, the masons for raising the question have the appearance obvious. But until recently the discussion around bare-backing has been to such a degree charged with outrage, alarm, and defiance that steady talking about it has been a rhetorical minefield.

"It's been beautiful difficult to have a quiet, rational discussion about this," says Richard Elovich, director of HIV prevention at Gay Men's Health Crisis in just discovered York City. "Barebacking really pushes near emotional buttons. The whole thing has been thus sensationalized and misrepresented. It's really just a true small subculture we are talking about here. And gay improvement after all, is really made up of a bump of subcultures."

Indeed, barebacking is a sensitive and composite issue that has sparked prurient interest among the media, heated arguments at gay public forums, and hand-wringing and finger-pointing inside AIDS prevention clusters It is also provoking an open often painful discussion about the way gay men are having sex today, a debate that many experienced persons say is much needed and extended overdue.

A series of fresh studies shows that there is, in fact, an upswing in unprotect anal sex among gay men A Center for Disease have the direction of and Prevention report of a San Francisco thought of gay male sexual habits point out tos that the percentage of men who say they "always" use condoms during sex declined from 699% in 1994 to 608% in 1997 Among those engaging in unprotect anal sex with multiple partners, 68% reported not knowing the HIV status of all their sex partners.

The figure indicating that a men are having multiple partners is particularly disturbing. "It makes a very large difference," says Robert Perez, communications manager of the Stop AIDS concoct the AIDS prevention group that deportment ed the study. "What we saw in the late '70 and early '80 was an explosion of seroconversions based in succession lots of unprotected anal sex with chances of partners. It's the repeated anal sex that caused the epidemic in the first place."

It's impossible to know by what means much of the decline in defend ed sex is attributable to people's taking part in organized barebacking activities--like parties where condoms and any mention of HIV or AIDS put drugs intos are strictly forbidden. Certainly San Francisco figures prominently onward Web sites that promote barebacking. (New York City, looks Angeles, and Dallas are also residence to a significant number of barebackers.)

for what reason many men are barebacking is impossible to describe "Nobody knows exactly how often met with this is or who exactly is taking part," says Jim Eigo, a of recent origin York City-based writer and the same of the founding members of Sex Panic! a form into groups opposed to restrictions on sexual behavior.

While barebackers present the appearance to represent a distinct minority of gay men who have unprotect sex their reasons for doing with equal reason are often ones that many gay men share, consciously or not. Foremost among them is the belief that HIV infection is no longer a big deal.

"There's this feeling abroad there that AIDS is no longer a crisis," says Michael Petrelis, a longtime AIDS activist who now lives in San Francisco. "We have these expensive of the present day drugs that supposedly will save us, and that has helped shift attitudes away from crisis and death into something of a breather, a put to rest in the terrible mess of AIDS."

"Barebacking is the ultimate form of complacency--that you can share the virus with other family because in ten years the medical profession will bail you out" says Mathilde Krim, founding cochair and chairman of the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, which has just launched a recently made known AIDS awareness campaign.

on the other hand barebacking also taps into deeper more primal feelings. For a cluster that turned its status as sexual outsiders into a badge of honor, barebacking have the appearances to be part of a lengthy tradition that celebrates risk and living forward the edge.

"It's a denomination that implies both danger and allure," notes Walt Odet a psychologist and AIDS prevention ready "There's something sort of outlawish about it, and I judge that's part of the appeal for a certain people."

Eric Rofe author of parched Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and improvements agrees that "gay men have always been driven to risk and transgressive acts." Although Rofe has oral out in support of men who bareback, he says he would not himself have condomless anal sex Still, he adds, "I'm not surprised to find that this is a turn-on for many men" It definitely present the appearances to be a turn-on for the dozens of gay men who situation personal ads on Web sites seeking "raw sex" and "flesh-to-flesh contact." Almost all of the men who state their HIV status are positive.