barebacking, trust and emotions

I wrote this piece a while ago, but just had not published it yet.  I am actually in a space now where i always use condoms for fucking.  I am dating now, casual and open, but it makes me think differently about the risks i take. I also am still doing hook ups but less so.  However, this piece is still very real to me and very much a part of who i am.

I also have been thinking about Brandon Lacy Campos, who passed earlier this year, as this is his birthday weekend, his honesty and need for us to be real with each other about sex and safer sex was rooted in love for our community and an understanding that it is the only way we can survive.

TQ

this is another piece about unsafe, risky sex.  somewhat of a continuation of a previous post 'transfag barebacking'.  that said once again i am not at all advocating fucking without protection.  though i again feel the need to be real about my experiences doing so.

i had reached a point in my hook ups where i felt i was pretty in control of how i fuck, meaning i wasn't randomly giving into a desire to fuck raw.  i had reached a point where i acknowledged the desire.  I very rarely fucked raw and only with regulars who i've know for a while, have some trust for and have discussed std/sti status, testing status and safer sex practices ahead of time.  i would make a decision about fucking raw before i was in someones bed.  again very very rarely.  however even this i know is not safe and is risky.  (and to be honest there was one exception to this - a total alcohol induced fuck up)

however i recently ended up in an unhappy health situation.  Found out i had an STD, curable, which was clearly a result of these decisions i made.  i was talking to my best friend about it all, he's another ftm of the queer variety, and i was saying that I was going to stick to condoms at all times now, no exceptions.  he said, 'i think that's a good idea and its not like it feels different to you to fuck with a condom or without', meaning yeah for the dude who's fucking my pussy i assume it feels a hell of alot different, but for me as the person getting fucked, its questionable, my best friend has had his own experiences with barebacking so has first hand knowledge and is not judgemental in his statements.

at the time i said, 'yeah ur right'.  but then i was thinking about it and i know for me at least sometimes it's no different condom or no condom, but other times, at least for me, the raw fuck on a purely physical level is very very different.

what i've started to reflect on though is while this desire to fuck flesh to flesh is about a physical and sexual desire that i have, there is clearly also an emotional level to it.

there is this dropping of boundaries when it comes to fucking raw.  i was thinking about how with one dude who i've known for a year, nice guy, interesting, laid back musician, i really like him as a person and we hook up quite often every week sometimes, after the first time we fucked raw there was this new openness to our post fuck chat, a new level of connection.

this blog tells tales of fucking, of anonymous, i don't even know your name fucking.  these encounters are most often purely physical, while there may be some chat you both (or all) know that this is just about sucking some cock (trans or non trans), feeling each others bodies, kissing (most of the time) and fucking the hell out of each other.  sometimes it can become a fuck buddy situation, but even then we are not going to the movies together or hanging out with each other's friends, while we may like each other as people - in the end its about fucking. 

yet if i'm honest with myself i can't deny an emotional element to it with some of my repeats.  the regulars i fucked raw are all good guys, at good places in their lives, nice people who i have known for in some cases over a year.  we had conversations ahead of time about testing, std/hiv status, and safer sex practices, but a level of trust is inherent in that conversation.

i realize what it comes down to is that i want to live in a world where we can trust each other as fuck buds as people who are dating as partners.  I want that world to exist.  yet i know that we do not live in that world.

when i think back on the times i've slid onto a cock raw sometimes i wanted a raw fuck and thats it, but sometimes, as problematic as it is, i wanted to feel the connection that comes with two people agreeing to trust each other enough to live with the risk.