TW: How did you survive?

[BuckCanucked]

I've noticed a lot of members here came of age during or before the HIV/AIDS crisis, when transmission was not well understood, infection was high, deaths in the community soaring, and spreading to hetero and drug using populations. Gays and bis my age (60) and especially slightly older found themselves in a world of misery around them. I came of age just as the scare was at its peak, so I opted for abstinence (via suppression of m2m attraction) and hetero LTRs saw me safely through it. 

How are you here?

Luck? Abstinence? Partnered? Just fortunate it didn't develop to AIDS until treatments came along? How is everyone living with it/around it now? Are we all on prep? More demanding about condoms? 

I knew of related deaths well into the early 90s. How are you younger guys, especially providers, living with that spectre, or are you really even cognizant of the world-changing impact of the virus in a post-prevention and treatment world? (Like black death, even measles and polio, I think our memories of such scourges are short).

[+ PhileasFogg]

My story (and age) are similar to yours.  Suppression of interest, pursuit of my wife, and all was well for decades.

i still think that younger guys today feel invincible and don’t factor in many risks that exist.  I actually had one escort that wasn’t on prep until I pointed out that the risk is high and the cost of mitigation is low…meaning it’s stupid to not get on prep…he did within the week.

But unbridled promiscuity still brings risk of HPV, HSV, and even drug resistant infections.  

[Nue2thegame]

I vividly remember measles, polio, the advent of the 1980s HIV pandemic, and then COVID -19 in 2020. I lost more close friends in the last one than in all the others combined, so I have a keen appreciation for the risks OP speaks of. I survived the HIV pandemic because I was in a 30+ year monogamous, heterosexual relationship. I’m living my best life now but I’m navigating uncharted water.  I’ve learned that most males have an appetite for some risk but the risks they choose to accept and the way they attempt to mitigate them or not varies enormously.  Complicating the equation now, what we choose to read, believe and accept also varies enormously and I see the result it in all kinds of hard to explain behavior - including my own. 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

59 minutes ago, PhileasFogg said:

...I actually had one escort that wasn’t on prep until I pointed out that the risk is high and the cost of mitigation is low…meaning it’s stupid to not get on prep…he did within the week.

I have a gay friend in his 50s who has been in a 30 year monogamous relationship.  He confided to me that he recently started having extra-marital sex whenever his husband traveled out of town (he told his husband he was going to do it).  He wasn't on prep either and I, like you, pointed it that the risk is high and the cost of mitigation is low.  I don't know whether or not he headed my advice; but, he asked me more questions about it. 

So, it's not just the "young, dumb, and full of cum" that believe they are invincible.  Even those senior citizens who lived through the height of the epidemic but are now re-entering the "market" are clueless how to take the reasonable safely measures available to them now.

[+ JamesB]

I’m always surprised by how many people who are sexually active on the apps or hiring aren’t taking PrEP, let alone Doxy. It really boggles my mind.

[BuckCanucked]

43 minutes ago, Nue2thegame said:

Complicating the equation now, what we choose to read, believe and accept also varies enormously and I see the result it in all kinds of hard to explain behavior - including my own. 

FunFact: Raw milk and hot tubbing in denim cures all, unless you take Tylenol. I saw it on the interwebs.

[mike carey]

3 hours ago, BuckCanucked said:

FunFact: Raw milk and hot tubbing in denim cures all, unless you take Tylenol. I saw it on the interwebs.

Scientifically Proven™

[ShortCutie7]

4 hours ago, JamesB said:

I’m always surprised by how many people who are sexually active on the apps or hiring aren’t taking PrEP, let alone Doxy. It really boggles my mind.

I wouldn’t call myself “sexually active” since I do it like 3 times a year, and always use a condom for anal, but I’m not on PrEP because (among other reasons) I don’t want to be on any medications that aren’t 100% necessary. I had been a “mask and vaccine police” of sorts during the pandemic and do think that the vaccines and prolonged mask wearing negatively impacted my long-term health. I’m definitely not opposed to getting on PrEP eventually, but I would have to be in a situation where I at least have the time and resources to be sexually active, and by that point PrEP will have been around long enough for there to be more research on long-term side effects, efficacy, etc.

[+ claym]

In the early 1908s I worked at a hospital and went to its library to find out more about what was then labeled GRID (Gay-Related-Immune-Deficiency).  The first scientific studies identified receptive anal sex as the riskiest sexual activity by far.  While I did not reduce the frequency of my sexual activity which was as much as several times weekly, from that point on I have been 99% top.  At that time I knew nothing about the behavioral modification approach of harm reduction.  I however intuitively decided against high risk activity.

There have been two longer-term monogamous relationships.  Now my sexual activity includes oral sex and deep kissing.  When I anticipate sexual activity I follow the medication management guidelines researchers advise for those who are less sexually active. Truvata and doxycycline are in my medicine cabinet and my friends.  To this day I do not wear a condom. 

Edited 1 hour ago by claym
clarity

[mtaabq]

8 hours ago, BuckCanucked said:

How are you here?

Luck? Abstinence? Partnered? Just fortunate it didn't develop to AIDS until treatments came along? How is everyone living with it/around it now? Are we all on prep? More demanding about condoms? 

For me, one word - luck. Truthfully, given my activity and proclivities, I am at a loss to explain how I am still here and how I survived relatively unscathed. (For context, I “came of age” to mansex in the early 80’s when I turned 17. And to be honest, I was probably too stupid to understand the incredible risks that I was taking. Alcohol, I am certain, clouded my judgment.) Condom use was hit or miss, yet somehow I remained HIV negative. Abstention from sex left a great deal to be desired. The clap? Yes, a couple of times, but I usually knew a doctor who could get me the antibiotics so I was spared a visit to the “free clinic”. I started taking Prep when it was suggested to me by a provider whose opinion I highly respected and when I learned it was available to me for zero co-pay. At 62 and overweight my pool of suitors these days is greatly reduced, but those who favor me with their attention are on Prep and I tend to avoid those who are not. I do not take it for granted that I was spared when so many were taken from us.