Dear Sexpert:
I have a question that I probably already know the answer for, but here goes anyway. What kind of safe sex can you have with a guy is HIV+, if you are HIV-. I never bareback, so hopefully that part is covered, but my question concerns oral. I am a very oral guy and love to deep throat a guy, but I was wondering about the fluids. I have talked to several guys who are in the medical field, and they tell me that if you don’t have any open sores in your mouth, that “fluids” will not hurt you, since the HIV virus is very weak, and probably wouldn’t make it past the acid in your stomach. I don’t know about all this medical stuff, but I hate to reject a really hot guy, just because he is HIV+. I am sure a lot of guys out there would like some advice on this, since the HIV+ guys are probably getting tired of being treated like they have leprosy. Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated. The answer you will probably give me is “it is safe to email or talk on the phone”.
LOL.. Thanx for your help.
Hey Bob,
Thanks for writing in. Your joke at the end of your email is a gentle reminder that no sex is really safe. That being said, sex is a basic human need and we all have it….even if it is just with ourselves. Our best bet in this imperfect world is to navigate the landscape of sex and sexual behavior in a way that feels good and comfortable and right. This decision making process is a very individual and personal thing.
Some guys have oral sex with a condom. Many guys choose to get or give blowjobs without using a condom. Some men let guys come in their mouths. Some guys opt to have their partner pull out before coming inside them. Some guys choose not to have anal sex at all. Some guys choose to fuck with a condom. We have all witnessed the dangerous trend of barebacking where guys choose to fuck without a condom. These are just a few of the myriad of choices out there for gay men. Sometimes the choices seem overwhelming and confusing.
The basics are that you are reasonably safe if you give a guy a good blow job and don’t let him come in your mouth. If they come inside you, the best bet is to spit it out. If you do swallow, there is some evidence that the fluids in your mouth and stomach will help to kill the virus. However, I think your other question is more pertinent. How to treat your fellow gay men, HIV+ or not, as human beings rather than objects to be desired or reviled. We all love a hot ass or a big dick. This objectification is normal on some level. However, our thrust as human beings is to see and know others for their “human-ness”. This means to see inside a person and know more about him than just his body part.
This can even happen at a bath house or sex party. Ask your partner’s HIV status. Talk with him about it and have a discussion about what sexual acts feel comfortable and which do not. The goal is to not judge or shame either person. The goal is to provide a safe environment where both parties can feel comfortable about enjoying and expressing their sexuality. Good luck.
Hi Mark!
I was having a discussion recently with my best friend about fucking. One of my favorite subjects! We hit on a couple of topics that we disagreed strongly on, as usual. I am hoping that you might find these questions somewhat interesting and perhaps worthy of being answered in your Sexpert column. I truly value your time and consideration. Is there such a thing as, for lack of a better term, an “auto-orgasm”? My best friend and I were having this discussion recently about anal sex. He contends that if you are bottoming for a guy that you are really in to, and he is fucking you in a way that stimulates the prostate in a deep, steady and rhythmic fashion, that he can make you cum without any manual stimulation of the penis. Is this for real? Sounds like an old wive’s (er…..old queen’s) tale to me. If it is possible, that would be fantastic! Now I feel that I may have really missed out on something.
My buddy claims that most of the stimulation is actually mental, hence the prerequisite of really being in to the guy that your with. This also relates to why sometimes it is more difficult to dilate the anal sphincter adequately to avoid a painful experience. I can remember being with some pretty big guys who put a lot of time and effort into their foreplay (a rare thing usually), and I was so excited by the anticipation that when it came time to enter me, I didn’t feel a thing. Well, nothing bad anyway! Please tell me how much of “doing the deed” enjoyably depends on mental stimulation, as well as manual stimulation. How does all of this work?
Hi Bob,
Thanks for writing in. I spoke with some colleagues and some friends of mine. I also did a bit of research. The first thing that came up for me are those great Kristen Bjorn movies where the guys who are getting fucked come without touching themselves. I believe that is a perfect example of an auto-orgasm. The concept of the prostrate being massaged in such a way that it could stimulate orgasm with no external manual help. Barring direct counsel from Mr. Bjorn and with little written information on the subject, I had to rely on the experiences of my friends and myself. Nothing like a little grass roots experimentation.
The consensus is that it can and does happen all the time. The X factor in this does not lie in the physical component of a sexual connection. You are indeed right on target when you hypothesized about the mental/emotional component. If a guy really is “into” another guy it greatly heightens the possibility of an auto-orgasm. The stories seem to center around fulfillment of some sort of fantasy for the guy who is bottoming. I have heard stories like being in a group scene where the person in question is bottoming for a number of men. One man told me about fulfilling his fantasy of being tied up and fucked in a sling. Another told a story about always dreaming of being with a very muscular black man with a large dick. He recalled that while he was having intercourse with the man he continued to play out his long held fantasy in his head. The orgasm came when he moved from his fantasy, during the act, to realize he was actually participating in the fantasy. This realization caused, according to this gentleman, the most intense orgasm he had ever had….all without touching himself. Some of it may have had to do with the size of the top’s penis or how hard he was fucking the bottom. These factors could have played into the stimulation of the prostrate. However, the key seems to be getting what you always dreamed about.
This sort of fantasy fulfillment has been the common thread in most of the stories I have been told. They all involve some level on intensity that is not present in other sexual connections. The other factor that has come up in the stories was the presence of amyl nitrate or “poppers” during these sexual encounters. Possibly the dilating of the blood vessels which stimulates blood flow contributes to the success of an auto orgasm. Hope this helps in some sort of way.
Hi Mark,
Since I posed my question to you about auto orgasm, I have been asking friends, and friends of friends about it. I recently attended a rather large cocktail party here that was thrown by one of the City’s more prominent politicos. Well, I brought the subject up and before I knew it, there were about 30 guys gathered around and all talking about it. Some claim to have experienced it once or twice, but with no real regularity. The consensus seems to be that, A) the do-ee has to be EXTREMELY turned on by the person that he’s with, B) it takes a really long time to achieve, and C) it goes without saying that the do-er has to be a very skilled lover, and D) many contend that it has a lot to do with controlled breathing. Yes, they were talking about that thing I saw last season on Six Feet Under…..you know, where the guy was masturbating and had this noose around his neck, but something went wrong and he ended up killing himself. Shit, I can’t think of the technical term for it, but I am sure that you know what I’m talking about. Apparently, there is something about holding one’s breath that brings on a more intense and perhaps an easier orgasm. However, I am not sure how, or if, that ties in with an auto orgasm. I can’t wait to see just how you handle this question in your column! Take care. Bob Marker, San Francisco, CA