Live and Let Fuck (Raw)

At least since Marcel Mauss, anthropologists have understood gift exchange as a way of making and consolidating relationships, and it is no different with H.I.V. In the idiom of bareback subculture, H.I.V. is the gift that keeps on giving.

- Tim Dean

The quote above was taken from Tim Dean's recent post for The New Yorker, titled "For Some, H.I.V. Is Embraced, Not Avoided," a post meant to sparkle a debate within the larger context of posts written under the slogan "How Will AIDS Be Eradicated." Dean, a professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, has done research in the field, and has recently published a book titled Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking. His article seems to shed light on a population of gay men who do not regard HIV with the stigma normally associated with it in the larger culture but choose to eroticize it, and particularly how unprotected sex, even (for some, especially) when it includes a POZ person, creates a space of intimacy and connection.

Pretty unsurprising stuff, I'd say. Certainly, throughout my web surfing I've come across countless barebacking and POZ-centric blogs and communities, where people found meaning in, and got off to, "breeding," "gift-giving," and "seeding." It is certainly not a highly visible staple of gay culture, but I find it unsurprising simply because of its transgressive qualities. In a general climate where queerness has rapidly become normalized, even hetero-normalized (look no further than the recent TV show The New Normal for a good example), which results in a queerness that is sanitized, de-eroticized and, in a manner of speaking, censored for the purposes of the mainstream. And while I certainly do see barebacking and particularly "gift-giving" as an extreme response, its position is more than obvious.

The stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS that Dean mentions is more than apparent in the comment section of his article. It is, at times, a violent reaction to Dean's piece, and an obvious case of "shoot the messenger" mentality. Certainly, HIV is a virus and AIDS is a disease that has been deadly and that is incurable; but the commenters attitude towards it reveal a deeper fear and loathing, directed not only at the disease, but also at the diseased. How else could one explain such a vehement reply to the author of the article, who has but pointed in the direction of a subculture?

And after all, who's to say that all should fear the disease? The debate surrounding the article essentializes the gay man as one who is responsible and smart - in other words, one who wears condoms and fears the gay disease, as it is subtextually coded (one commenter even goes as far as to say that when he fucks a woman raw, the "deadliness" of a disease is lower since it's straight sex - an argument so stupid it should require no further comment). To hell with that, I say. I have the right to any disease I may expose myself to if I so choose. And while HIV and AIDS is not something I'm necessarily adding to my to-do list anytime soon, I reserve the right to fuck however I want with another informed, consenting adult. Similarly, I have no need for behavioural moralism. We are our own models of sex and living, and to those who will only fuck bareback and who get off on breeding and being bred and seeding and being seeded - you do you.