California man on PrEP medication acquires HIV on the Kyle Phoenix Blog

California man on PrEP medication acquires HIV
It’s thought to be the sixth case of a man acquiring HIV while on PrEP, but experts say the medication remains more effective than condoms


Hundreds of thousands of people now take PrEP to prevent acquiring HIV


Health care experts have been informed of a US man contracting HIV despite being on PrEP. He’s thought to be the first man in California – and only the third in the US – to contract HIV while adhering to a daily PrEP regime.

PrEP is medication that mimimizes the chances of someone acquiring HIV, even if they do not use condoms.

News of the case was presented at the annual IDWeek conference in San Francisco, which concluded over the weekend. The conference is run by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The man was HIV negative when he began taking PrEP in San Francisco in late 2016. He continued to diagnose HIV negative when testing at three, six and ten months. Blood tests also demonstrated he continued to take his medication consistently.
HIV positive after being on PrEP for a year

After just over a year on PrEP, he received a HIV positive diagnosis in early 2018. He was immediately placed on HIV drugs and has maintained a suppressed viral load since that time.

Doctors were able to accurately diagnose the exact strain of HIV he picked up. It’s one identified with people who have taken HIV medication in the past but no longer take it. It was then revealed that the patient’s main male partner was HIV positive but no longer taking medication.

The partner was tested and found to have a high viral load of the resistant-strain. He has resumed taking medication.

Researchers say it was the fact the patient came into contact with a resistant strain that led to him acquiring the virus. They believe he stuck to his PrEP regime well. They could tell this from analyzing his hair, which he happened to grow long.

Dr Robert Grant, of the University of California San Francisco, said, ‘[The patient’s] long hair allowed us to test by centimeters, which allowed us to go back and read drug levels from six months ago.’
Previous cases of men becoming HIV positive while on PrEP

There have been five previous reports on men acquiring HIV while on Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). The first two occurred in Toronto and New York in 2016.

In 2017, there were three more cases. One involved a man in North Carolina, one in Australia, and a fifth a man in Amsterdam.

The first four cases are believed to be due to the person on PrEP having sex with someone with a high viral load of a rare, resistant strain of HIV.

The fifth case is not believed to be linked to a drug-resistant strain of HIV. The Amsterdam man had an ‘unusually high number’ of sexual partners – averaging 50-70 a month – and several other sexual infections. Researchers have speculated he may have repeatedly exposed himself to HIV, which took a hold in his body after a slight dip in Truvada levels.
‘Greater than 99% effective’

Health experts say despite these rare cases, PrEP remains highly effective. The medication is taken by more than 350,000 people worldwide.

Dr Grant said, ‘We know PrEP is greater than 99% effective. There are some cases where HIV will break through. We only have a handful of cases now, and next year, we’ll probably have a handful more. Fortunately, these cases are caught early, treated, and suppressed quickly. The person goes from taking one pill a day to one pill a day. The biggest difference is stigma.’

Matthew Hodson, Chief Executive of HIV information organization NAM, agrees.

‘We estimate that PrEP is more than 99% effective at preventing HIV. By comparison, a recent meta-analysis of the efficacy of condoms found that they prevented nine out of ten cases, this was a better result than previous analyses.

‘PrEP is still better than condoms at preventing HIV. PrEP failure makes news. Condom failure doesn’t.

He said that in the UK, 93% of people diagnosed with HIV have suppressed the virus to a point where it cannot be passed on ‘in any circumstance.’ This is regardless of whether it’s a drug-resistant strain or not.

‘It’s vital to acknowledge that PrEP, just like other safer sex strategies isn’t 100% effective. It is also vital not to let isolated cases obscure how effective it is. PrEP has played a significant role in bringing down new HIV infections in London, Sydney, New York, San Francisco and other cities around the world.’

H/T: The Body Pro
See also


Another man on PrEP has reportedly acquired HIV: So does it work?

Kyle Phoenix Answers: With so much knowledge disseminated on prevention, why are gay men still the most heavily affected by HIV infection?

The CDC has done a psych evaluation of the population to answer their efforts and thereby their funding needs around HIV/AIDs.

Here’s how it shakes out:

If you have an HIV-Safe Sex Message which basically explain what the disease is and it’s transmitted and it goes to 100 people, we process it in 3 ways.

45 people “get it” and regularly practice safe sex, buy condoms, even enjoy it (I used to have a bowl of about 200 condoms on my living groom table). They drink the Kool Aid as it were and internalize the message. If they get infected it’s by accident, rape, or the most common way, from exposure in a long term relationship (which is how well over 60% of people become infected.)

45 people “don’t get it” and simply don’t give a fuck. They will continue to do as they will and it’s a chore, an effort, a hit and miss, a space they will readily lie to partner’s about, when in sexual congress. They fall into the category of people who don’t get tested, don’t know if they’re infected or who can pretty much assume by amount of sexual activity that they are positive and don’t care. They also assume that it’s a partner’s responsibility to protect themselves and if you optioned into the sex, you optioned in to the risk.

10 people “are on the fence”—-this is whom the CDC is aiming for, trying to sway, to convince, to get to drink the Kool Aid, to believe the stats, to see the truth. When they would come to the LGBT organization I worked for an explain this, my mind was blown. Then they dropped the next bomb—-70% of the newly infected over 30 something are generally——people who work in LGBT agencies, HIV testers, counselors—-the idea being that we were desensitized to the danger because we saw our HIV+ clients regularly and therefore saw them living normal lives. HIV no longer appeared unconsciously “bad” to us.

The 10% the CDC is aiming to sway are thought to be the population that will maintain relationships and force safe sex upon the 45 who don’t care. That a majority will be created and the majority will over whelm the unsafe majority.

Okay, it gets deeper. I’m reading this behavioral economics book, More Sex Is Safer Sex , and he’s worked out that the problem is how the 45% who are Safe Sexers already, do so because they are more sexually conservative. If they were more sexually active then they would cross convince the 10% who would then overwhelm the Don’t Care 45%.

That those of us who are not rampantly sexual when single, are essentially not flooding the dating pool with our “responsible way of thinking and acting sexually”.

That instead of PSAs and ads that talk about simply Safe Sex, they should include encouragements to have more sex.

I’ve also always thought from the work that I did, that even if Dynamic Duos Alpha Beta—-15%/85% held—-our targeting ads should be to Bottoms who are the highest risk of infection as they are the receptive partner.

“How to be Safe As a Bottom”

“Is Your Bottom Safe?”

“Yo, Bottom, we’re talking to your ass”

You know, subtle like.

Infection rates continue to skyrocket because we don’t have enough incentive towards the other 55% to practice safe sex and teh remaining 45% to be sexual. This can of course be tied to social acceptance. If men are more accepted for their non-heterosexuality—-space made i teh social domain—-marriage, equality, job safety—-they can literally have sex from a healthier place than furtive, frustrated, rushed, clandestine. The more normed same sex relations are, the more STI rates will plummet. The opposite occurring is because it’s still in a transition period where some areas of teh country/world are liberal and accepting and others are not. It generally takes 10–20 years form when something is legalized for it to socially shift the population as a norm. You can also see the limitations in the roles in entertainment around sexuality. Most of teh times it’s about sexuality, the role.

When the action hero is just incidentally not straight, then we’ll be somewhere.

Marvel Studios? Can we get a Northstar movie?

Now THAT I would go see as progressive. I still haven’t seen Black Panther, that was just to capture the Black Audience, in a totality net.

Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com

The Kyle Phoenix Show 

 LIVE STREAMING on MNN.org 1130pm, Spectrum Cable Manhattan, NY 

Channel 56 & 1996, also FIOS 34 and RCN 83. 

You can Like or; Follow Us on Facebook or;Twitter

Or Click Below to:

·                     Stay In Touch with Kyle Phoenix by receiving updates, newsletters and free gifts by clicking HERE 

·                     Kyle Phoenix Website

·                     The Kyle Phoenix Blog

·                     Check out Kyle Phoenix Products on Amazon .com

·                     Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVESTREAM on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) Thursdays 1130pm

·                     Email: KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com

Kyle Phoenix Answers: Why are Black people in America 8 times more likely to get HIV than White people in America — and 8 times more likely to die from AIDS?

CDC LINK TO Study

Having worked in agencies for years, the answers are complex and therefore most all answers are true even if sometimes contradictory.

Power dynamics affect male and female infection. Poor females and males are pressured to have unprotected sex for survival.

Women of color share more partners with other women, sometimes knowingly with females and with males ,less unknowingly, due to the inequality of male resources and education due to systematic racism. Women of color have historically been given more access to work than men but men are more prized. So men can "get away" with more in both straight and gay relationships. Work and resources inform and constructs identity, healthy identity builds internally, self confidence and from the external to the individual, self esteem. We have less self esteem so we wrestle with our external worth which leads to healthcare engagement.

People of color as a mass have less private insurance. Its not the quality here but the mentality of engaging the medical community.

I've had a private doctor for over a decade on the upper east side because I chose the better neighborhood assuming higher capita would ensure a better doctor. They regularly call me, ask me question, see me in 10 minutes of arrival, its a beautiful townhouse. It occurred to me to tell her pointedly of my work and sexuality a couple of years in because I read there were other tests etc for msm that we might ignore or doctors didn't know to do. She took it in stride and promptly snapped on a glove and told me to bend over. I said to the mirrored wall, wow this is the first time this has been done to me on the upper east side. We laughed. She inserted her Asian finger.

I'm receiving rich/affluent medical care and a level of social acceptance that even me, someone out as a cloud has to remember to notify medical folk about. Most black/latino people dont have their career alerting them and making them comfortable to broach medical topics, ask for special care or feel comfortable. People of color tend to distrust the medical field, doctors are quacks but want to be given magic pills instead of seeing doctors as learned employees who can only be good at their job based on your management and honesty with them and receptiveness to their advice.

Msm have a smaller network of sexual partners. Privilege and entitlement make it easier to cross as white men and women racial lines and not feel social, financial, emotional, racial pressure positive and negatively. So brown stays with brown but imagine this: 10 guys in a brown neighborhood over time without knowing each other will have accessed each others sexual network. A white man or a brown one dating all over the state and others, will dip into networks but the 1 in 10 for white and intrepid brown black is then 1 in 20 chance of infection on the merry go round will miss him more often....unless he's you know a superwhore or the wrong kind of lotto winner. Brown to brown odds are 1 in 4.

Brooklyn neighborhoods Crown Heights, Bed Stuy and Brownsville have such a high HIV infection rate that it's only beat by sub Saharan Africa HIV II infections. The Bronx is no 60-70% full of HIV infected adults because HASA, the social services special division for benefits for the roughly 200,000 on their dole, only pays up to $999 for rent for a single person-----where are those rents cheapest? Bronx, Bed Stuy, Brownsville, Harlem so all of the HIV infected adults are herded into a tight geographic area.

I teach in workshops to ask where a man or woman lives in NYC because their address can intimate higher infection possibility.

A smaller community with less men/women sexually educated and liberated to explore outside of our immediate environments, we're more likely to catch a permanent"ride". Besides safe sex one of the best preventive measures, as counter intuitive as it sounds, is to fuck around, in bigger social circles.

Bigger kicker, systemic racism and discrimination like world war II when whites were able to take advantage of free college and mortgages, translated for minorities as 1200 college seats available for 100, 000 plus returning hence the doorman, train porter and hotel bellhop surge of black men in the 1950s thru 1970s.

But how does this affect black folk now? Being denied the uplift that millions of white folk got in education and property ownership affected their children and their grandchildren because there was no transferable knowledge or material wealth to pass on in a very specific area---pensions. Disqualifying a group meant that they couldn't pull their sons or grandsons into pensioned jobs therefore each generation is starting from near scratch resource and intellectually if you fall into about 2/3 s of the less educated people of blacks, etc. Obama announced in 2009 that in order to make $15 or more in the 21st century you'd need a minimum of an associates degree, two years of college. Your granddaddy couldn't get a degree, your daddy didn't, how you going to know how, learning is a middle class skill.

Wait for it.

So you're young, black in NYC, basic high school education, gay, trans, bi, str8 and HASA pays $30,000 a year for life in rent, cash, food stamps, healthcare for a chronic, no longer terminal disease, that may or may not kill you in 27 years.

Instant pension, no matter your age and all you have to to be eligible is fuck, a lot, maybe even in your own neighborhood and then you get to do nothing, maybe work under the table for stores or bars or uber.

Sounds insane?

I have many a student and older adult client who've bug chased and purposefully gotten positive because its a lifetime lotto of on average $600,000 per person.

The infected don't know or don't care. Racism has created a fatalism to people of color, hence the above. The power of the church comes from the faith and blind hope that life will be better elsewhere, never here. In a broad way, racism and inequality pushes us to believe this earth is hell so it gives way for less health monitoring and self controls. Not being fully integrated into the world system of government we don't both see and feel the impact of medical costs, pharmaceutical costs, lost resources lost workers, lost genius, lack of progress predicated on the existence of others....because racism has ironically taught us to devalue ourselves. Devalued people want sex pleasure but why practice safe sex if it is all unequal?

Racism sexualized us as a mass, the social reaction by the black and brown masses was a sexual conservatism internally within our communities. White people have Caitlyn Jenner (who I finally saw, heard, video of on Celebrity Apprentice ----officially hmmm wow and what the fuck?), now what Asian, Latino, black transgender has Diane Sawyer interviewed? Bruce Jenner's fame has propelled attention but Jenner having been a white man affords him the privilege to drop being male in his SIXTIES and entitlement allows him, sitting in a dress, designer dresses on your huge magazines , full makeup, having had multiple children and multiple wives to look Ellen Lesbian DeGeneres in the face on national TV and say he opposes gay/same sex marriage. No, really. Blew her mind because she has never experienced white male power, privilege and entitlement wrapped in liberation so intensely before.

People of color, as wacky and hubristic as Jenner may be, we don't have the powerful of our communities exampling power, entitlement, privilege,liberation and identity control because our history is in direct opposition to such.

Caitlyn Jenner is a hero, gets an Espy, Dennis Rodman was just crazy. Because white male occupied sexuality, trans or gay (ala Matthew Sheppard) is to be taken seriously ----how about Rashawn Brazell. Same difference, neighborhood dude killed him, had known him for years, lured him into a pick up situation, killed him by hacking him pieces. We wont even talk about the visibly drugged Laotian brown boy who was running down the street naked that despite black neighbors protest was delivered back to his boyfriend...Jeffrey Dahmer.

White people, socially are in high school around sexuality, brown folk have some prodigies but en masse, we're graduating from elementary school to middle school. That gap means less sexual education about identity, experimentation, sexuality and therefore safe sex in our communities.

The church is fundamentally based on our oppressors ontology of reality. In order to have a church for other social needs we've had to take the mental and spiritual rape of the Bible to establish community in front of our oppressors. The church is therefore its own dialectic trying to appease and comfort while moving towards a center of humanism. That consistent spiritual dialectic keeps people of color not stuck but wandering around the mall parking lot, some in line, others not, some trying to escape the parking lot mentality. We're at a Juncture of about 40 years out of oppression/slavery---we are masterless trying to build viable communities. the multitude of community needs, jobs, food, water, property rights, education, retirement plans, childcare, ending misogyny an d misandry, ending crime, domestic abuse, elder care, mental healthcare put HIV behind heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, when we run through major to minor issues. HIV prevention isn't a big enough problem because it doesn't kill as fast, 5 years in rural places like Charlotte, 27 years life expectancy in Harlem, that time disparity lets all them other community maladies push it to the fringes so the community hasn't been able to respond as effectively as the white community.

The white communities initial mass infection were what-----go to the Caitlyn Jenner image---white men who were raised to see their perspective as the center of the universe in entitlement, power and therefore demand with their greater financial and social resources, better attention, health care and research. People of color are still advocating about racism based on race----we're yelling in the parking lot, white gay men are in the mansion having tea then going into the other room and arguing for same sex marriage rights, inherent, historical institutional change before the Supreme Court....folk of color....could you let us beyond the lobby to start working on our grievances? Please? Pretty please?

Historically black, Latino , native and Asian value is connected to white decision of value. There's a famous story by Thurmann and recounted by Derrick Bell of aliens coming to Earth offering cures for diseases, wealth, technology....all they want is all the black people.

There is no inherent value to blacks and others NOT being 8 times more infected to white people. The world, in the story, unites to round everyone darker than beige up.

As HIV parable say 50 to 75% of black folk died of HIV in the next 30 years, 50% latino-----what do you think say someone like Caitlyn Jenner, expressing a deep identity desire in a Dior gown, hair long and shiny, make up flawless, having been a white man for sixty years and now jumping fence but opposed to equal rights for all in historical institutions, after having indulged emotionally, social and financially benefited from said institutions historically, would do, say or feel about the minorities going poof?

More land. More resources. More jobs. More opportunity to structure the society and institutions to ego suit.

White men being blind and partially lacking profit from the survival of others, within America and other places is the fundamental reason why the World Health Organizations has forced countries to sign accords, over 120 so far, to keep a single, level pricing for HIV meds.

Kyle Phoenix

You can Like & Follow Us on Facebook & Twitter

Or Click Below to:

• Stay In Touch with Kyle Phoenix by receiving updates, newsletters and free gifts by clicking HERE 
• Kyle Phoenix Website
• The Kyle Phoenix Blog
• Check out Kyle Phoenix Products on Amazon .com
• Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVESTREAM on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) Thursdays 1130pm
• Email: KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com

Sexuality: STUDY: 5 WAYS TO LOWER THE HIGH HIV RATES OF GAY AND BI MEN BY: DANIEL VILLARREAL

STUDY: 5 WAYS TO LOWER THE HIGH HIV RATES OF GAY AND BI MEN
BY: DANIEL VILLARREAL
12.21.2012


This week an HIV report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave us some bad news — HIV infections among young gay and bisexual men rose 22 percent between 2008 and 2010.

During that same period, the number of new infections among all gay and bi men rose 12 percent. Now gay and bi guys represent 63 percent of all new HIV infections in the U.S., with 29,925 gay and bi men newly infected in 2010 alone — that's roughly the entire population of Helena, Montana.

Of course, we already knew about our high numbers, which is why we asked your opinion about the cause of our community's high infection rates.

Your top five answers were as follows:
- 21 percent claimed that current medications make living with HIV seem like no big deal.
- 18 percent said "We need a national HIV awareness campaign to remind people of the continuing epidemic."
- 16 percent said that that America's poor sexual education standards were the culprit.
- 10 percent blamed bareback porn encouraging men to have unprotected sex.
- Nine percent said that drugs like meth and alcohol cause regular disregard for safe-sex.
Another 11 percent blamed a general sense of nihilism for the rise in HIV rates.

On World AIDS Day last month, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton laid out a five-point plan to raise an "AIDS-free generation," but she didn't mention too many specifics.

And that's where we come in.

Using your poll feedback, we thought of five ways to counteract the causes and attitudes driving up our HIV rates.

Our suggestions would take a lot of community coordination to implement, but aren't we worth it?

1) HIGHLIGHT THE FINANCIAL AND PHYSICAL COSTS OF HIV MEDS

Basically, HIV meds have turned the disease into a manageable illness, giving it the non-lethal allure of something like diabetes.

But even though people with HIV are living longer, the financial and physical costs of HIV meds can still take a toll on HIV-positive people lives over the long haul.

An effective PSA campaign could highlight the cost of living with HIV as a deterrent to those who think that contracting the disease won't really hurt them.

2) START A VISIBILITY CAMPAIGN FOR CELEBS AND PEOPLE WITH HIV

The last high profile person to disclose their HIV status on the national stage was Magic Johnson in 1991. Since then, it seems that we've only heard about having HIV from reality stars and porn actors.

But perhaps it's time to encourage celebrities to come out of the HIV closet and share their stories alongside other HIV-positive people. The goal would be to share stories on how they got the disease and what they're doing to prevent others from doing the same.

Star power could really help kickstart a national HIV awareness campaign that reminds people that the epidemic isn't over and that preventing its spread helps families, friends and the greater community.



3) DEMAND BETTER SEX EDUCATION NATIONWIDE

Everyone — no matter your HIV status or sexual orientation — can agree that sex education in American schools sucks.

In the U.S., 38 states don't require public school sexual education and many of those states often push "abstinence only" programs that leave students literally holding their dicks when it comes to preventing diseases and finding sexual health resources.

The LGBT community would do well to team up with other HIV organizations to lobby Congress for a national sexual education curriculum with a stress on disease prevention rather than abstinence.

In addition to that, there should also be an easy-to-use government website of sexual health guidelines that provides the basics about STD prevention and local sexual health resources. It should be nationally accessible to students of all ages with information presented in a straightforward, but age-appropriate way.

4) SPEAK OUT AGAINST BAREBACKING

Since American sex education sucks so much, most of us end up learning about sex by watching porn. Bareback (or condomless) porn is an undeniable money-maker catering to a fantasy of "sex without barriers."

But most guys don't realize that it's much easier to catch HIV through anal rather than vaginal sex. That's partly because the digestive tract is like a sponge, reguarly absorbing nurients from the foods that pass through it.

It also has lots of blood vessels and tissue far more delicate than the vagina, tissue more prone to injury and bleeding.

In short, anal sex yields much higher rates of HIV transmission than any other types of sex.

Some HIV-positive guys think they can bareback without fear of catching infection, when in reality even poz guys can contract different strains of HIV as well as STDs like syphillis, which can really debilitate an already taxed immune system.

But taking the allure out of bareback sex will take a multi-pronged effort in environments with large gay male populations.

First, we should make sure that every citizen knows where to get free condoms (and how to use them). Second, businesses should promote HIV testing with annual discounts or promotions for customers who get tested on National HIV Testing Day (June 27).

Third, personal sites could start a campaign encouraging users to display their HIV-statuses and discuss safe sex preferences before hooking up.

Lastly, HIV organizations could spearhead a viral ad campaign (no pun intended) warning HIV-positive men about the dangers of bareback sex or portraying unsafe sex as uncool and irresponsible.

The real challenge would be figuring out a way fresh intelligent way to discourage unsafe sex without making sex seem scary or shaming HIV-positive men.

5) FIGHT FOR NEEDLE EXCHANGE AND ANTI-METH PROGRAMS

While needle sharing between intravenous drug users newly infect thousands of new people every year, so do tweakers who have unprotected sex on meth.

Meth abuse is an epidemic all its own, as its low costs and rural availability keep young and homeless gays hooked on the drug without many ways of getting un-hooked.

Until we can reform U.S. policy to de-criminalize drugs and treat addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal one, the push against meth has to occur in a multi-pronged community-level strategy that prevents use, closes meth labs, discourages selling and help addicts get sober — a tall order, but doable.

As for needle exchange programs: they work. But we'll need to convince skittish voters and anti-drug legislators to support such programs first, seeing them as public health initiatives rather than ways to promote drug use.

Enjoy!!!
Thank you for reading,
Kyle Phoenix
Email: kylephoenixshow@aol.com
Website: http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Blog: http://kylephoenixshow.blogspot.com/2012
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us on Facebook or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast

Barebacking, Pt. 2: 5 Reasons Why Men Do It To Each Other by Kyle Phoenix

Whoooooooooo, doggie, the previous blog essay about barebacking really got me a wave of responses, emails and such.  That's a good thing because it immediately forced me into conversation with some men to discuss myself, themselves, their sexual practices mine and to bounce back and forth the reasoning for raw sex (sex without protection---condom, dental dam, female condom, etc.).  I'd previous done several episodes on this topic on The Kyle Phoenix Show but in the emails I get from that audience, their emails had included issues, comments and questions about barebacking.

The main questioning came to why do men do this?  I went back to one of my work/television sources Barebacking: Psychosocial and Public Health Approaches, an excellent book (purchase link on this blog--- ) to get some survey data that would specifically ask and answer that question.

Reason 1: Anger/Self Destructive/Fatalism

Universally accepted, however you choose to perceive sexualities outside of homosexuality, there is a greater chance for depression.  I have a whole series of blogs and YouTube videos and TV shows about it it's so prevalent with MSM (men who have sex with men----a proud net generalization I'll use to encompass everyone).  Shame turned inward becomes depression and self destructive behavior.  Shame turned outward can manifest itself as destructive actioning towards others.  Essentially I don't like myself, I don't agree with my lot in life, I'm assuming that my sexual identity and "normal" society will never jive together, I'm alone, I'm hurting, I feel alienated and ostracized so why practice safe sex?  The ultimate fuck it.


Reason 2: Pleasure seeking/Risk Taking/Escapism

Sex, around for hundred sof thousands of years for humans, is fun.  It can be adventurous, stimulating, relaxing, intense, intimate and the prospect of having to stop for: THE SCIENCE OF SAFE SEX---excuse me one second as I was nibbling your inner thigh we are at the pre-penetrative stage, let me lean over, bend down, roll over there, open the drawer, my pocket, your pocket, that box get the condom packet out, open it, get the lube, put the condom on, a little dab of lube within more lube within you anally, lube then onot the condom------okay, where were we?

Not easy, pleasant or romantic.  It's easier to be wild with this incredibly passionate hottie (known or unknown) who you've had a crush on for awhile or a night or who you've been dating for a week or a year and just be close, be free, be spontaneous!  Because passion, the passion of touching you, being touched by me, the smell of you next to me and your lips, oh, God, your lips!!!!!!!----there's no time!  Take me!  Take me!!!!  Reason be damned!!!!

Reason 3: Intimacy Needs/Rational Choice Making

Human beings, especially those who believe or are in love, want and assume this is the forever love.  Or this is the true love.  This is the good love.  Let's ratchet it back from love and say I tell you I'm negative, you promise me you are and you're trustworthy, right and so am I?  We're not like those others.  We're both employed, rational, respectable, employed, educated, loving people.  We can be close without a condom.  In fact our love, or just our humanness needs to feel closer, no barriers, no artificiality between us.  I love you.  I really, really do.  I would never intentionally hurt you.  I loves you, Porgy.  I want to feel youuuuuuuuu.  Don't you want to feel meeeeeeeeeee?

Reason 4: Erroneous perception of Risk

Look at what great shape he's in.  Look at what great shape I'm in.  You can tell when someone is infected.  Their skin seems ashen or glistens or has less collagen.  The meds do that to them.  But you, you look like the perfect specimen of health. There's no possible way you could be HIV+ at your age, you're too young.  I can tell just from sight.  I didn't think some of the things we were doing, just rubbing that against this, just a little bit of insertion, just oral was risky.

Reason 5: Erectile Related Dysfunction.

Condoms don't fit me right,  Condoms are too tight.  I'm allergic to condoms.  I can't stay hard/maintain an erection with a condom on.  I can't get hard in a condom.

Here we are---several thousand men answered surveys and I licensed it up with some fun language but those were their reported actions and reasoning.  I want to add as a caveat to this that women too roll through these 5 Reasons or hear them as well and as infection of women skyrockets, particularly women of color, we're seeing impact of such reasoning.

But I promised I would consider the information from my own perspective with you, reader and I have.  In approximately 1995 I wrote a magazine cover story on AIDS, it was a big thing getting the cover to be in color, red, the AIDS ribbon as I was spinning off of an AIDS conference that was occurring in Buffalo. A year or so later a former girlfriend of a lover came up infected.  Ok, she was a bit of a----------extremely sexually liberated, physically generous young woman with a public...reputation.  Yeah, I could've worked that out with just one word but let us not judge the past.  Around the same time my mother's close friend, Walter died of HIV related complications.  They'd known each other close to a decade and it left a deep impression on her, even surrounding funerals and death.  My mother was very vocal/engaging around safe sex, afraid that I would become infected, that I was infected, that infection was only a hairs breadth away.

Suddenly HIV wasn't simply TV and Red Hot cd compilations and free condoms in night clubs, it was really, really real.  Then I started volunteering places in, seeing death upfront---here today, gone tomorrow and I thought about the future, my future.  I thought about marriage and children.  I thought about ok, I might meet a partner who was HIV+----would I maintain the relationship longterm or just find a way to fade to black within a date or two.  Logically, statistically, even if my sexual partners had reported as negative (or thought they were) I'd been sexual with someone who was HIV+ and may've had the other multitude of STIs. Most importantly to me---children.  How would I parent children if I was sexually negligent around risk?  Biologically parent children first (yes, I know there are other options) but then what about child rearing?  How long did I want and need my own parents in my life?  How long would my children need me?  If the outside range of HIV survival is 20+ years and I were to get infected in my 20s or 30s wasn't I then also voluntarily perpetuating the usually social force of men of color dying early?  Is unsafe sex a way of men of color being removed from the community, the community that needs them during their highest wage earning/educational/potentiality fulfillment years, regardless of their sexuality?

I know, a lot to think about, right?

Here I am, brown as the floor, safe sexing it, in LTRs and not because of the future.  Because of to some degree my family, my children, not wanting to impact my parents negatively, not wanting to be in my community, giving of my skills over a shorter period of time.

When THE SCIENCE OF SAFE SEX moments happen for me---what flashes through my mind what makes me crack jokes and try to make what is the oddest commercial break on my personal passionate moments---are the above reasons.

How though does one negotiate that no matter how fine, how trustworthy, how in love we, you, I am that I'm taking this precaution?  That seems to be the rub.  We know how to prevent HIV.  But 30 years in, prevention strategies/tips/mandates are not working.

Next: Raw Sex/Barebacking, Pt. 3: Black, White, Puerto Rican, Is Everyone Freakin'? , Part 3


Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Time Warner Cable, Verizon Fios or Comcast or the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Raw Sex, Pt. 2: 5 Reasons Why Men Do It To Each Other by Kyle Phoenix

Whoooooooooo, doggie, the previous blog essay about barebacking really got me a wave of responses, emails and such.  That's a good thing because it immediately forced me into conversation with some men to discuss myself, themselves, their sexual practices mine and to bounce back and forth the reasoning for raw sex (sex without protection---condom, dental dam, female condom, etc.).  I'd previous done several episodes on this topic on The Kyle Phoenix Show but in the emails I get from that audience, their emails had included issues, comments and questions about barebacking.

The main questioning came to why do men do this?  I went back to one of my work/television sources Barebacking: Psychosocial and Public Health Approaches, an excellent book  (purchase link on this blog--- )  to get some survey data that would specifically ask and answer that question.

Reason 1: Anger/Self Destructive/Fatalism

Universally accepted, however you choose to perceive sexualities outside of homosexuality, there is a greater chance for depression.  I have a whole series of blogs and YouTube videos and TV shows about it it's so prevalent with MSM (men who have sex with men----a proud net generalization I'll use to encompass everyone).  Shame turned inward becomes depression and self destructive behavior.  Shame turned outward can manifest itself as destructive actioning towards others.  Essentially I don't like myself, I don't agree with my lot in life, I'm assuming that my sexual identity and "normal" society will never jive together, I'm alone, I'm hurting, I feel alienated and ostracized so why practice safe sex?  The ultimate fuck it.


Reason 2: Pleasure seeking/Risk Taking/Escapism

Sex, around for hundred sof thousands of years for humans, is fun.  It can be adventurous, stimulating, relaxing, intense, intimate and the prospect of having to stop for: THE SCIENCE OF SAFE SEX---excuse me one second as I was nibbling your inner thigh we are at the pre-penetrative stage, let me lean over, bend down, roll over there, open the drawer, my pocket, your pocket, that box get the condom packet out, open it, get the lube, put the condom on, a little dab of lube within more lube within you anally, lube then onot the condom------okay, where were we?

Not easy, pleasant or romantic.  It's easier to be wild with this incredibly passionate hottie (known or unknown) who you've had a crush on for awhile or a night or who you've been dating for a week or a year and just be close, be free, be spontaneous!  Because passion, the passion of touching you, being touched by me, the smell of you next to me and your lips, oh, God, your lips!!!!!!!----there's no time!  Take me!  Take me!!!!  Reason be damned!!!!

Reason 3: Intimacy Needs/Rational Choice Making

Human beings, especially those who believe or are in love, want and assume this is the forever love.  Or this is the true love.  This is the good love.  Let's ratchet it back from love and say I tell you I'm negative, you promise me you are and you're trustworthy, right and so am I?  We're not like those others.  We're both employed, rational, respectable, employed, educated, loving people.  We can be close without a condom.  In fact our love, or just our humanness needs to feel closer, no barriers, no artificiality between us.  I love you.  I really, really do.  I would never intentionally hurt you.  I loves you, Porgy.  I want to feel youuuuuuuuu.  Don't you want to feel meeeeeeeeeee?

Reason 4: Erroneous perception of Risk

Look at what great shape he's in.  Look at what great shape I'm in.  You can tell when someone is infected.  Their skin seems ashen or glistens or has less collagen.  The meds do that to them.  But you, you look like the perfect specimen of health. There's no possible way you could be HIV+ at your age, you're too young.  I can tell just from sight.  I didn't think some of the things we were doing, just rubbing that against this, just a little bit of insertion, just oral was risky.

Reason 5: Erectile Related Dysfunction.

Condoms don't fit me right,  Condoms are too tight.  I'm allergic to condoms.  I can't stay hard/maintain an erection with a condom on.  I can't get hard in a condom.

Here we are---several thousand men answered surveys and I licensed it up with some fun language but those were their reported actions and reasoning.  I want to add as a caveat to this that women too roll through these 5 Reasons or hear them as well and as infection of women skyrockets, particularly women of color, we're seeing impact of such reasoning.

But I promised I would consider the information from my own perspective with you, reader and I have.  In approximately 1995 I wrote a magazine cover story on AIDS, it was a big thing getting the cover to be in color, red, the AIDS ribbon as I was spinning off of an AIDS conference that was occurring in Buffalo. A year or so later a former girlfriend of a lover came up infected.  Ok, she was a bit of a----------extremely sexually liberated, physically generous young woman with a public...reputation.  Yeah, I could've worked that out with just one word but let us not judge the past.  Around the same time my mother's close friend, Walter died of HIV related complications.  They'd known each other close to a decade and it left a deep impression on her, even surrounding funerals and death.  My mother was very vocal/engaging around safe sex, afraid that I would become infected, that I was infected, that infection was only a hairs breadth away.

Suddenly HIV wasn't simply TV and Red Hot cd compilations and free condoms in night clubs, it was really, really real.  Then I started volunteering places in, seeing death upfront---here today, gone tomorrow and I thought about the future, my future.  I thought about marriage and children.  I thought about ok, I might meet a partner who was HIV+----would I maintain the relationship longterm or just find a way to fade to black within a date or two.  Logically, statistically, even if my sexual partners had reported as negative (or thought they were) I'd been sexual with someone who was HIV+ and may've had the other multitude of STIs. Most importantly to me---children.  How would I parent children if I was sexually negligent around risk?  Biologically parent children first (yes, I know there are other options) but then what about child rearing?  How long did I want and need my own parents in my life?  How long would my children need me?  If the outside range of HIV survival is 20+ years and I were to get infected in my 20s or 30s wasn't I then also voluntarily perpetuating the usually social force of men of color dying early?  Is unsafe sex a way of men of color being removed from the community, the community that needs them during their highest wage earning/educational/potentiality fulfillment years, regardless of their sexuality?

I know, a lot to think about, right?

Here I am, brown as the floor, safe sexing it, in LTRs and not because of the future.  Because of to some degree my family, my children, not wanting to impact my parents negatively, not wanting to be in my community, giving of my skills over a shorter period of time.

When THE SCIENCE OF SAFE SEX moments happen for me---what flashes through my mind what makes me crack jokes and try to make what is the oddest commercial break on my personal passionate moments---are the above reasons.

How though does one negotiate that no matter how fine, how trustworthy, how in love we, you, I am that I'm taking this precaution?  That seems to be the rub.  We know how to prevent HIV.  But 30 years in, prevention strategies/tips/mandates are not working.

Next: Raw Sex/Barebacking: Black, White, Puerto Rican, Is Everyone Freakin'? , Part 3



Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Time Warner Cable, Verizon Fios or Comcast or the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Raw Sex: Anything Goes, Part 1 by Kyle Phoenix

The challenge of dating in the 21st century or even working in/with groups tht involve particularly men who have sex with men is the shadow of STI---Sexually Transmitted Infections (HIV, HIV-2, HPV, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Mano, HCV, Syphilis, Herpes, etc.) because the population one is dealing with is ground zero.  The deeper, social challenge is not simply the risk but the what can feel like sheer insanity around non-protection. Unfortunately, as statistics suggest, from Black and Latino men,  Somehow, some way along the road of sexual liberation there has come the mentality that unsafe sex---exchange of bodily fluids---is cool and the gang.

As I write this I contemplate how to be both honest and at the same time sound reasonably non-judgmental but maybe it's about time that someone said: "Hey, are you out of your fucking mind?" to risky sex.  When someone calls me brother and suggests we engage in unsafe/raw sex they are literally offering to fuck me to death.  Now that may sound extreme but how else can another human being literally strip you of your immune system?  There are cases of partners unknowingly infecting one another, drugs and blood transference but to actually willingly, willfully give or take the risk with another human being---have we become sociopaths to pleasure?  Can a man of color talk to me about Martin Luther King or Malcolm X or Obama or hegemony or racial struggle while capitulating to infect other human beings?  Better yet, is it racially motivated?

Can we look at race, men of color, sexually involved with other men of color, and say---the weight of homophobia coupled with racism drives, otherwise, seemingly sensible men to actively, consciously try and infect or get infected?  Has oppression and disdain, violence and prejudice, driven us so insane that I'm talking about the "need for love and healing in the  Black community" in one breath and infecting with the next?  Is it such  lack of value for men of color, men of color who may be homosexual or bi-sexual (or even heterosexual---don't think your straightness excuses you from unsafe sex) by other men of color that we have to lynch each other with bodily fluids?

Or, if we expand the scope, are men (and women---gender does not excuse you from exposure) of any race so self-hating, other-hating, homo-hating that infecting another is plausible?  That "breeding" parties is normal?  That wanting to be bred (HIV infected on purpose) is acceptable?  Not just acceptable to the individual seeking but more importantly to those of us who watch them.

In this work I do, education, identity, sexuality, I frequent a lot of dating sites, for all genders and sexualities, and what I see is terrifying.  Too many men of color without a regard to being infected or infecting.  I'm often eschewing two out of three out of hand just for their risky profiles.  But now a trend I've started to notice---White men, particularly over 30 seeking Black and Latino men for raw sex---pointedly as the Caucasian, HIV+, insertive partner.  So it's a minefield---Blacks and Latinos (45% under 30) infecting one another and now White men seeking out particularly minorities to infect.  Now I could lash into a rant about racism and entitlement and the capacity of someone in dominant culture feeling oblivious to moral conventions around infecting people of color but when I see/am offered infection by people of color, I must ask: whose holding the rope and who's doing the lynching?  Has racial liberation lead us to sociopathic hatred of ourselves rather than racial love?

But I don't want to wholesale judge or condemn, in fact I write this to educate so next time I'll run down the 5 factors of why men report they bareback and more importantly, I'll search myself for where I'm at in this debate, hitting myself with some of the above questions as I hope you will too.

Coming Next: Barebacking: Top 5 Reasons Men Do It To Each Other


Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
www.kylephoenixsite.com

Barebacking: Anything Goes, Part 1 by Kyle Phoenix

The challenge of dating in the 21st century or even working in/with groups tht involve particularly men who have sex with men is the shadow of STI---Sexually Transmitted Infections (HIV, HPV, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Mano, etc.) because the population on is dealing with is ground zero.  The deeper, social challenge is not simply the risk but the what can feel like sheer insanity around non-protection. Unfortunately, as statistics suggest, from Black and Latino men,  Somehow, some way along the road of sexual liberation there has come the mentality that unsafe sex---exchange of bodily fluids---is cool and the gang.

As I write this I contemplate how to be both honest and at the same time sound reasonably non-judgmental but maybe it's about time that someone said: "Hey, are you out of your fucking mind?" to risky sex.  When someone calls me brother and suggests we engage in unsafe/raw sex they are literally offering to fuck me to death.  Now that may sound extreme but how else can another human being literally strip you of your immune system?  There are cases of partners unknowingly infecting one another, drugs and blood transference but to actually willingly, willfully give or take the risk with another human being.  Have we begun sociopaths to pleasure?  Can a man of color talk to me about Martin Luther King or Malcolm X or Obama or hegemony or racial struggle while capitulating to infect other human beings?  Is it racially motivated?

Can we look at race, men of color, sexually involved with other men of color, and say---the weight of homophobia coupled with racism drives otherwise, seemingly sensible men to actively, consciously try and infect or get infected?  Has oppression and disdain, violence and prejudice driven us so insane that I'm talking about the "need for love and healing in the  Black community" in one breath and infecting with the next?  Is it such  lack of value for men of color, men of color who may be homosexual or bi-sexual (or even heterosexual---don't think your straightness excuses you from unsafe sex) by other men of color that we have to lynch each other with bodily fluids?

Or, if we expand the scope, are men (and women---gender does not excuse you from exposure) of any race so self-hating, other-hating, homo-hating that infecting another is plausible?  That "breeding" parties is normal?  That wanting to be bred (HIV infected on purpose) is acceptable?  Not just acceptable to the individual seeking but more importantly to those of us who watch them.

In this work I do, education, identity, sexuality, I frequent a lot of dating sites, for all genders and sexualities, and what I see is terrifying.  Too many men of color without a regard to being infected or infecting.  I'm often eschewing two out of three out of hand just for their risky profiles.  But now a trend I've started to notice---White men, particularly over 30 seeking Black and Latino men for raw sex---pointedly as the insertive partner.  So it's a minefield---Blacks and Latinos (45% under 30) infecting one another and now White men seeking out particularly minorities to infect.  Now I could lash into a rant about racism and entitlement and the capacity of someone in dominant culture feeling oblivious to moral conventions around infecting people of color but when I see/am offered infection by people of color I must ask: whose holding the rope and who's doing the lynching?  Has racial liberation lead us to sociopathic hatred of ourselves rather than racial love?

But I don't want to wholesale judge or condemn, in fact I write this to educate so next time I'll run down the 5 factors of why men report they bareback and more importantly, I'll search myself for where I'm at in this debate, hitting myself with some of the above questions as I hope you will too.

Coming Next: Barebacking: Top 5 Reasons Men Do It To Each Other


Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
www.kylephoenixsite.com

VideoLOG: Dealing with Depression-Your Eating Habits

Thank you,

Kyle Phoenix

kylephoenixshow@aol.com

http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us on Face Book or Follow Us on Twitter!  Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/