Serosorting and the Trouble with Numbers

Okay, so the safety in numbers approach really isn't working out so well. I'd thought that by making HIV a mathematical problem that could be dealt with in terms of prognosis and flowcharts would make it all make more sense - or any sense at all, if I'm honest - but I'm realising the dangers that come with it. First of all, it's perverse knowing the CD4 counts of loads of my friends and swallowing the sad knot in my throat when one guy was complaining that his count dropped by 40 since his last test. His lower result is still twice mine. If I continue using CD4 count and Viral Load as measures for health then I know I will go insane, if there's not already a danger of me heading that way anyway. There'll always be people with more, always people with less. I need to step back from that and actually look at the non-numeric side of it and stop feeling like I'm counting the grains in the hourglass. I'm healthy. Hell, I'm in damn good shape right now, if nightclub attention is any measure of bodily health.

One thing I'm noticing in myself though, probably a manifestation of toxicity anxiety, is that I'm really wary of sex with guys whose HIV status I don't know. Actually, that's not entirely it, I'm cruising guys and in my mind I'm making judgements about their HIV status without any basis in fact - looking for Antiretroviral side-effects, lipodystrophy and such like on the grounds that I couldn't bear the thought of infecting someone. Not that I'm planning on barebacking, even if there's no evidence to substantiate the dogma about re-infection making you more HIV+ than you were before, somehow, but just because it's a done deal.

I recognise, though, that serosorting without knowing for sure that someone is positive presents a real danger. If, say, I have it in my mind from someone's behaviour that they're probably positive, say, from comments they make that I interpret in a certain way, or if they push their arse against my cock without mentioning condoms, then I'm much more prone, particularly if I'm drunk or high or just depressed, to fuck without condoms. This would be a bad idea for several reasons.

If I'm assuming people are positive, I may well be wrong in my judgement, their comments could have been about something else, or their pressing themselves against me could be an incitement to fuck but with the assumption that I'm negative, or with them placing the responsibility for safe sex with the guy fucking.

If it's the other way around and they're fucking me, it might be that they don't think you're likely to catch HIV from being a top, because literature says the danger is from getting fucked without a condom, rather than pointing out that it works both ways, so they'll assume that I know they're negative and think it's fine that they fuck me.

Unprotected sex is just that and it's not like both being positive makes you immune to other infections or problems - I think that people assume that because HIV is demonised so much it's the worst case scenario, so fuck it, what is there to lose, you're already positive. The mathematics of how having the clap messes with your CD4 count aside, a dripping cock and green stains in your calvins really don't make for a good way of life.

Of course, the biggest and most important factor making me think I should not get into barebacking is, well, the shit-cock thing. I'm not sure I'd suck someone's cock straight after they've been barebacking someone - scat really isn't my scene - and getting shit on your cock is not really something likely to inspire passion in anyone.

So, for now, it's another trip to the clinic to pick up a carrier bag full of condoms, I think, and stop getting tempted by the supposedly increased intimacy of barebacking and think seriously about the clap and shitcock as good reasons to play safe as much as not wanting to transmit HIV.