For 37 years I’d altered my actions so as to keep myself healthy and I was okay with that. It wasn’t necessarily the altered behavior that was a challenge – it was the emotional toll having to explain it to others, along with the back story, that led to the fatigue. It was my 37th year of living through the pandemic.
On the outside no one would have suspected that an emotional toll had been taken by having spent so long navigating the avoidance of the pathogen. But on the inside, I secretly wished I could participate in the same type of activities as many of my friends.
Medications had arrived on the scene to mitigate the possibly of contracting the infection and while many people I knew had begun taking them but I’d chosen not to because of the cost. With a price tag of $20,000 per year and although my insurance would cover the cost, I felt as though having eluded the infection thus far, I shouldn’t burden society with another addition to the ongoing rise in the cost of health insurance.
In talking about my dilemma with a friend he commented that he understood my stance but at the same time, he said, I’d been denying myself the full experience of being human for thirty-seven years and he asked if I’d thought about the cost of that. Despite others having suggested I take the medication, no one had ever put it in such basic terms. I’d spent my entire adult life avoiding the human experience.
In January of 2023 at age 57 I decided to begin taking a pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV.
Thirty-seven years earlier in the spring of 1986 I became terribly ill. High fever. Night sweats. Diarrhea. Weight loss. Friends and colleagues were dying due to AIDS and I had put myself into a couple settings where I could have contracted the virus. I was sure that I had it.
While 1986 was a few years past the time that New York and San Francisco were experiencing the peak outbreak of HIV infections, I was living in Utah. Life there was more sheltered than it was on the coasts and when I went to my HMO for testing, I had to explain to the nurse what an HTLV-3 test was. She didn’t know.
I walked the three miles home in the rain that day. Humiliated, emotionally exhausted, and now soaking wet, I went to bed hoping it would all be over soon but I still had to wait two weeks for the test results. I had no one to talk to about this – so I buried my anguish and soldiered on, putting on the social mask that everything was just fine but knowing inside that I may have to realign what could be the last year or two of my life. I was 21 years old. I wasn’t supposed to be having these thoughts.
The test results came back negative.
That day I made the decision to never put myself in a situation where I’d have to go through this again and I stopped having sex.
A decision such as this was not out of the ordinary at the time. There was no known treatment for HIV then and a life without sex was better than no life at all. Sure, sex was still possible but navigating honesty with those who may or may not have been tested and what their behavior had been since being tested was still too risky. Condoms were an option but I’ve never been able to maintain an erection while wearing a one. It was all too much – so I settled upon abstinence.
Coming out as gay less than two years prior this is not how I thought my life would proceed. I’d been raised in a progressive mid-western city and I had intentions of living the ‘white picket fence’ life with a good man in a good home in a good neighborhood. Getting to that point meant dating and avoiding sex didn’t preclude dating, but it didn’t make things easy.
It wasn’t a term used at the time but serosorting was how I went about determining who I might date. Serosorting is the selection of dating / sexual partners based upon their HIV status. It was just one criteria – there were others. Social status. Financial security. Decision making quality. Attitude. Looks. But all of the other criteria was secondary to their HIV status.
Navigating this was tortuous. Living in Utah made it even more difficult. In a state where conservative minds and religious zealously dictate social norms, there were men who lived dual lives, who wouldn’t admit their orientation, who were likely to be timid or elusive with their health care providers, and would be reluctant to testing out of shame. I wasn’t raised in Utah and didn’t subscribe to any of this but still, being the brunt of an outlier group in a conservative place is unavoidable.
Getting to know a man and then sussing out his HIV status was not pleasant – and it had to be equally difficult for anyone I may have met that was HIV+. I had to approach the line in the sand cautiously and with tact. I had to tell myself that I wasn’t discriminating against anyone but rather I was being discriminating towards my needs. I had to be friendly but not too friendly. I could never really say what I felt for fear it would lead someone on prematurely. I had to ask circuitous questions in hopes of self-disclosure. Essentially I had to keep every man just out of reach of me until I could validate his HIV status.
I’d always felt that I was keeping my distance from a pathogen but in fact I was distancing myself from intimacy. It’s a fine line but a huge distance conceptually.
Not intentionally but I did date both a doctor and an nurse – and felt relatively safe in this environment due to their exposure to information, but there was still no penetrative sex. I’d learned to be somewhat comfortable with oral engagement with negative partners knowing that the risk remained but was very minute.
A friend of mine with whom I palled around with became someone I’d considered asking about taking the friendship further. Over time I became fond of his character. We talked regularly. I’d met his family. We took occasional road trips together.
I was mustering up the courage to talk with him about dating when he called to tell me about his diagnosis. I was crushed. He was a small-town guy from Idaho, a diligent worker, and an honest and straight-forward man. This was not something I’d ever imagined happening.
Our friendship remained but I no longer considered pursuing him as a partner. Admitting this is not something I’m proud of. I’m fully aware of the level of scorn making this admission can bring. It is however where my mind was at the time and a peek into the world where I found myself confronted by a reality that I wished hadn’t existed.
A sense of relief was felt when AZT and more elaborate cocktails of multiple medications arrived and the number of deaths began to dwindle. It meant my friends would be around longer but it didn’t change my approach to dating.
Like any young man that was out exploring the world there were nights of drunken fun where I found myself making out with a man at the end of the night, back at my place or his. Times when I wanted to be completely free and do the things that every man would have wanted to do. Times when I all but begged for an opportunity to get as physically close to another as possible. But I couldn’t do it. I’d have to stop and excuse myself, knowing that I’d made a promise to never go through what I’d been through that rainy day in Utah.
I have no evidence and perhaps that is evidence enough – but I don’t know how this impacted the men I was with only to say that I was never successful at dating for periods of more than a few months. Yes, sex is an important part of any relationship but more so is trust – and under the circumstances, I trusted no one because my life depended upon it.
Even when regular testing and status disclosure came into vogue amongst gay men there was still no way to be sure. Reports had been written that many new HIV infections were in men who were in relationships because one of them had had something going on the side, or had not been faithful to their partner and had contracted the infection and then brought it home. There was no safe space outside of using condoms.
I had had sex when a partner had agreed to wear a condom. I wasn’t particularly fond of this for two reasons. First, I was unaccomplished in receptive penetration. It wasn’t comfortable physically and I wasn’t prepared for it emotionally. The latter likely influenced the former. Secondly, I didn’t feel it was fair to a man to expect something from him – sex with a condom, when it was something I was unable to do myself.
The advent of the VCR and access to viewing porn at home gave me ample time to attempt to change my physical response to condoms. I tried for years to no avail. Different brands. Different textures. Different lubes. I kept trying because I wanted to fully engage physically with a partner.
Of the guys I dated over the years none of them made fucking a requirement. We’d usually made a cerebral connection and found other ways of being physically intimate. I did, however, date two men who could not get off without penetration. One would get downright cranky if he couldn’t fuck. The other found other guys to fuck. Despite all the other things we had in common, I often wondered if my inability to perform in this way meant that the relationships could only go so far.
Last fall I visited a friend who had moved a few hours away, across the boarder into Iowa. A visit to his new place was a good excuse to get out of town for the weekend – and he and I had always had a solid connection over a variety of topics. We’d fooled around a few times over the years, but it was never that that kept us connected. We simply enjoyed the company of one another. He is HIV+ and I knew this from the first day we’d met.
After a night out we were back at his place and were messing around when he said he wanted to fuck me. I explained my reasons why that couldn’t happen. He told me he was undetectable and that he could not transmit the virus. I really wanted to go through with this but I couldn’t because of the promise I’d made to myself years ago.
My buddy honored my request but not until after he told me all the reasons why my decision was not necessarily logical. What he stated was true and essentially documented medical fact – the likelihood of being infected by him was virtually zero. Still, like many times in the past, the discussion completely destroyed the mood of the evening.
To have had this discussion with him in an emotionally safe space was monumental and was so because we’d known one another for over a decade and both respected one another in many other aspects of life. He didn’t have this conversation with me for his own benefit. He did it because he cared about my well being and wanted to have accurate information. On the drive home I decided to explore PrEP.
A buddy in Phoenix recommended an on-line service that offers navigating the insurance industry so that PrEP can be delivered to one’s home following both a tele-health visit and proper testing. I visited the web site, answered a series of questions and then booked a tele-health appointment. From there, and following the visit, I was sent a testing kit that required blood samples, a urine sample, and both oral and rectal swab samples. The kit arrived within a few days, I prepared the requested samples and sent it back for testing.
One month into taking PrEP nothing really changed. I hadn’t really dated much over the past ten years and I didn’t feel compelled to run out and look for a fuck buddy. I did know, however, that if I met someone I’d not have to dance around the HIV question any longer. My expectations for potential dating partners surrounding financial stability, social status, decision making quality, etc… remained the same.
A couple months in I’d met up with a guy from the neighborhood whom I’d been aware of for years. We’d occasionally say hello via the Scruff app over the years and we’d finally set up a time to meet for a drink and talk in person.
While I had no expectations one way or the other, he was an entirely different man than I had thought he may have been solely based upon the pictures he had on Scruff. With a great job, a robust hobby that also brought in some income, and having successfully immigrated to the U.S. we had plenty to talk about over drinks. To save money I suggested we go to my place to keep the conversation going – it’s always cheaper to drink at home.
One thing led to another – and we were making out on the sofa. Off came the shirts. Then the pants. Eventually we ended up in bed and after extensive foreplay he fucked me. He was the first man to fuck me without a barrier.
When he came I could feel the gentle spread of the warmth inside of me. In that instant I was momentarily removed from the personal connection between he and I and was focused entirely on greeting the sensations inside of me. I turned inward briefly to rationalize what had just taken place.
The entire evening with this man was organic, unscripted, fun and exploratory on many levels – and for the first time in my life I did not have to run a possible play book in the back of my mind at any point but rather, I was able to stay completely present in the moment.
One day after work day and before a long weekend I stopped by the neighborhood bar rather than walking straight home from the train. It was one of those days when I wanted to be a bit social, see who was around, and not just sit in front of the TV for the evening.
The bartender – also a guy from the neighborhood engaged immediately. I’ve known him for years. A few other folks stopped in, a casual after work crowd which is anything but a crowd but most likely like myself, men with no desire to go home to an empty house.
A short time later a man I’d been wanting to meet sat down a few spots away. Every other time I’d seen him here he’d been with friends, and never alone. Tall and stoic atop the bar stool just like every other time I’ve seen him, he always appears calm and metered, tidy and pressed. His actions deliberate. This time he was here alone.
Determining that there was no better time than the present, I leaned toward him, put out my hand to introduce myself and said that I’d been hoping to meet him for some time. He extended his hand as well and I asked if I could join him. I explained that I would have done so in the past but felt uncomfortable interrupting his time with friends.
We talked for hours, commenting on the news stories that were on the TV when we arrived, then on the music videos that were playing later. We talked about how we never thought that Madonna would be 64 years old and commented on songs that played on the jukebox. He spoke as I had expected he would – exacting and deliberate.
I invited him over so we could continue talking without the noise. We continued our conversations over a playlist I put on, about music, careers, and summer plans. Later in the evening he fucked like he was removing parts of the runway at O’Hare with a jackhammer. I wouldn’t have expected from a man so calm and collected. Or maybe that’s the way it is with guys like this, inside the beast waiting to escape.
It was late, we’d been drinking and neither of us could keep up. We decided to call it a night, exchanged numbers, and agreed we’d find time to hang out again over the coming weeks. Despite each of us having two too many it was an evening where once again, I had no predetermined script from which I’d eventually have to read.
Somewhat bewildered with my new found freedom, I contemplated my actions not because I had some new super power – I still had a specific taste in men, but I curious if I was feeling more inclined socially because I knew I would not have to hit the brakes sexually. Was social freedom the thing that kept people happy – happier than me, over the past few decades?
For months prior I’d been spending an occasional evening with an architect I’d met in the fall of 2022. He’d reached out on the Scruff app and suggested we meet up. I’d suggested we meet socially for coffee or lunch. He replied that while he had no objections to that he was specifically looking for a sex buddy, going on to say that he was in grad school with a busy schedule that included both classes and a job and that he preferred to have a regular sex buddy so he could maintain the efficiency with time that was required for a demanding schedule.
After a week of back and forth chats, he suggested I meet him at his place. It has never been my practice to accept at in-home visit from a stranger however, this man was from a culture where an invitation to ones home was a form of endearment and trust.
From that day on and and about every month or so he and I would rendezvous for a couple of hours of intensely connected physical time together. He was smart, handsome, far more sexy than any man I’d ever been with, and together, we could taunt and tantalize one another in ways that I’d only ever seen in porn. It was porn and the best kind. But we never fucked and didn’t need to because everything else was so good. We’d suggest it to one another as a means of ratcheting up the desire. We’d present ourselves to one another in such a way that would intensify our lust. We’d approach the point of entry with other tactile delights.
We’d talked about fucking from the perspective of health and safety, the architect telling me that he was negative and on PrEP. I told him that I was negative but not using PrEP. It was never something other than that because both he and I were very adept at extended foreplay and other forms of stimulation.
But during our last sexual encounter together we went there because we were both on PrEP. He slid into me effortlessly, holding one leg over his should and gently moving in and out – smiling and evening giggling at times. ‘It just feels so good and I want to continue to enjoy this’ he said. And I was enjoying it too because he and I had built and maintained a level of intimacy and trust over the months.
I came first which caused contractions that made him cum – which he did inside of me, and this made me cum again. This was exactly what I’d always wanted but couldn’t. This was what I’d always desired but feared. This was exactly the person I’d wanted to be for years and years, but had never been.
We collapsed and sunk into sweat soaked sheets. We talked. He told me about his plans to move to San Diego – which I had known about from the beginning but had hoped would never happen. He wants to leave Chicago winters behind. He told me about the man there that he’ll be moving to be with, a man I ultimately knew existed but whose presence was never mentioned.
After he left and when I returned to looking at the photos of he had sent, it is clear that they were taken by someone other than himself. His smile in these photos is broad and his cheeks are dimpled. His eyes glisten with delight. It became obvious they were taken in San Diego by the man whom he adores.
A month before my third prescription renewal for PrEP was needed the home testing kit arrived. Once again I’d prick my fingers and drip blood onto the sample paper. I’d swab my throat and rectum as well as provide a urine sample. I’d repackage the samples and put them in the mailbox down the street. The online service tracked all off this, including the expected arrival dates of the samples to the labs, and would send a text message to confirm that everything was where it should be.
Ten days later I received a text from the service stating that my telemed doctor had sent a message – it was behind my log for the sake of privacy.
The telemed doctor said that he was renewing my prescription for PrEP but that my rectal swab had tested positive for chlamydia and that I should seek immediate treatment from my primary care physician.
God damn it!
I had spent 58 years of my life without a sexually transmitted infection and look what just happened. I emailed my doctor immediately and included the testing data and within hours he had a prescription for doxycycline ready for me at Walgreen’s.
My mind raced back to each of the previous encounters. Each of these men were fine, upstanding citizens that seemingly presented responsible behavior. Each of these men and I had discussed HIV statues, and each of whom I would now have to contact.
Chlamydia is a bacterial infection. I’ve had many bacterial infections in the past, most notable strep throat, but also food poisoning and skin infections such as athlete’s foot. None of these were treated as something for which I was responsible, but rather simply common issues with living in a world surrounded by other people. It was even the case that I’d passed COVID on to one of my colleagues at work (not a bacterial infection but still) for which not even she held me responsible. It was just how things turned out that at that time. Still, I had to talk myself through this and how I’d talk to the three other men about something I may have passed on to one of them.
I’d assumed the transmission occurred from the architect as he was the most recent. I sent him a text asking him to call.
I texted the stoic man from the bar and asked if he could speak by phone. He agreed and I called. He thanked me for telling him but said he’d recently completed his lab work prior to his PrEP refill and his results on all tests were fine.
This essentially eliminated the first man – because that meant that I hadn’t had it when the man from the bar entered me.
The architect called and asked if everything was alright. We had never spoken on the phone before – our communication was always by text. I told him. He said he’d get tested the next morning and thanked me for telling him. A few days later the architect texted to say that his test was negative as well.
These two negative tests seemingly eliminated the first man though I reached out to him as well. He’s in the business of counseling men and is directly connected to testing for HIV and ensuring men on PrEP continue to use it properly. He said he’d recently tested and all tests came back okay.
Whatever the case, it was what it was and what it was was essentially the same as having picked up athlete’s foot from the locker room. There was also the likelihood that I’d received a false positive. Or perhaps someone was not telling the truth.
But there was a fourth man I’d have to talk to this about. A man with whom I was planning my third date on the upcoming weekend. A man whom I found incredibly alluring, attractive, and cuddly. A man who was accomplished in his career and who was making good financial decisions. A man who writes and performs his own music as a hobby. A farm boy turned school teacher in a good suburban district. A man with a value systems that I valued myself.
As in all cases, honesty is the best policy and I decided to tell him exactly what had happened as well as the timeline for when it may have occurred. I arrived at his home and after we talked about his weekend away I motioned him over to the sofa and wrapped my arm around him as he leaned into me. I wanted there to be a physical connection between us as I told him what had happened.
No one wants to hear that the man their having their third date with has chlamydia, but he said he was thankful that I’d told him, and he booked an appointment on the spot to get tested the next day. After the initial conversation he told me that he had had a sex buddy that he’d later had to stop seeing because the guy was on a merry-go-round of contracting sexually transmitted infections.
The fact is, regardless of who might be a part of our lives today, we all have a past – even if it is a recent past, and as gay men there are few if any of us that can say we’ve not had a past with regular sex buddies. And as a friend of mine once said, ‘even our regulars have their regulars’.
The penance of abstinence dictated by the antibiotics lasts only two weeks this time but I feel as though I may extend it voluntarily.
Intellectualizing all of these things takes practice and removing societal stigmas is not easy. For the sake of checks and balances I reached out to a man I know, my age, who is now retired from the school system, a previous principal, and asked for his take on all of this. We were not tightly connected socially, but rather have some mutual contacts in common – we knew of one another.
His eyes widened when I brought up the subject of PrEP. As it happened, not more than a few days earlier he had been lectured by a man he was seeing for not being on PrEP. The man doing the lecturing had wanted barrier free penetrative sex and my friend denied him the opportunity.
In talking with him further about his he admitted that at age 57 he’s completely inexperienced with sex as he too spent decades refraining from any form of risky behavior. He said that even with a condom and the use of Viagra he cannot maintain an erection because, as he puts it, ‘my mind is more influential than the drug’.
This is a man so accomplished that through programs and curriculum raised his school’s standards such that property values in the area increased due to the demand of families wanting to get their children into his school. No one would have ever guessed that he was insecure about any aspect of his life. But here he is – here we both are having our horizons expanded in ways we would had not anticipated.
I spoke with a man from San Francisco that I had met on vacation about the types of activity that we see taking place in younger, sexually active men. The man from San Francisco is slightly older than me, has lived in San Francisco all of his life, has remained HIV-, and said that he simply cannot condone any form of non-protective sex because of what he’s lived through. Even with PrEP as a form of protective sex, he said he cannot get past it emotionally.
A man I know in New York who is using PrEP asks that his sexual partners take the rapid test for HIV, Orasure and wait the 20 minutes for the results prior to engaging.
My buddy in Phoenix uses PrEP, and had made the recommendation to me, is not fond of penetrative sex but is prudent in his choice of activities and partners said he likens sex to his fondness for his road trips on his motorcycle.
He said he prepares in advance with better nutrition and rest. He maintains an ardent maintenance program for his bike, has purchased the best protective gear, and only rides with others who do the same. He said for him, both what he does on his bike and what he does sexually is about risk tolerance. He admits that there is greater risk in being on his motorcycle than there is in sex – but that for him, it is an emotionally barrier as well.
These stories as well as mine are examples of how the lives of gay men have changed – or have been given the opportunity to change thanks in part to decades of activism, research, and science. As we share these stories with one another and with others that we know we grow in our ability to process new information and expand our experiences. It is however, not easy to accept that what once was a key threat to our existence is not necessarily the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago.
We lived through what could have damaged us and are now emotionally damaged from the survival. In no other terms, it is post-traumatic stress and we now must embark upon the mental exercises that take out of the internal talk tracks – and if nothing more for the sake of starters, make the talk tracks external – to share them, examine them, and learn from them together.
Post Script:
This was written in August of 2023 and an abridged version was sent as a submission to the New York Times ‘Modern Love’ editor. Because of their guidelines, the story could not be published elsewhere. Recently I received my rejection letter from the New York Times which enables me to publish this here, now.
Since it was written the story has remained essentially the same. I’ve not engaged in unprotected sex since the chlamydia episode. The man that I had had a few dates with ended things shortly after our fifth date.
I continue to take PrEP and doing so as a meant of protecting myself and a future partner from having to talk through all that you’ve read in the proceeding chapters
The 36 Broadway 
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