"WANTED": Real Friendship, Non-sexual.

Looking for someone I can talk to on the phone about random things…just how our day was…

Someone that I can walk down South Street with, go shopping, go out to eat, not be sexual with each other and both be satisfied…

Someone I can hang out with, go to a club with, really enjoy each other’s company and not have anything attached to it.

Why take ourselves through wondering if we want to sleep with each other or if we really want to be friends? Let’s just be friends from the beginning…

*******************************************************************************

I’m writing this because it seems like a lot of guys want to start the friendship off with sex. It’s like you hook up with someone first, then if it went all right you can be friends. If you’re both into each other, then it’s a relationship…but the sex always comes first. That’s not what I’m looking for here.

We never seem to meet someone and think they might be really intelligent, or creative, or funny. They have a nice ass. Everyone needs to dress the best, look the best, have the best body. You have to be really masculine or really muscular…you have to look the part.

It’s hard to come back from that and see a person for who they are. I’m guilty of it sometimes and I don’t want to be. It’s just how gay men learn to be I guess.

For me, it’s a trust thing. A friend should be someone I can trust completely and know they’re THERE for me no matter what. There shouldn’t be any hidden agenda.

But if I’m ONLY talking to guys I’m into…and guys are ONLY talking to me cause they’re into me…then how am I gonna trust them? Are they just being nice to me cause they want to sleep with me, or do they really want to be my friend? If you don’t know what someone wants from you, how do you trust anything that comes out of their mouth?

There’s not enough trust between the gay men I know. We’re all supposed to put up this front, like we’re happy and horny and beautiful and aloof ALL THE TIME. Maybe we’re so good at putting up these fronts we hardly ever see another person for who they really are.

That doesn’t make it easy to make good friends. Friends should be people we can let our guard down around. We shouldn’t need to have a front around them. They should be people who won’t judge us or cut us down.

We make up these categories and labels. We want to get away from those judgments everyone else puts on us, but then we start judging ourselves. We long to be perfect and not be outcasts, but sometimes it’s like our community makes its own outcasts.

Why can’t someone who you’re not attracted to be really fun to hang out with?

Why can’t someone who doesn’t look PERFECT still be a great person?

I try to give everyone a chance now. If I feel there’s something interesting there, regardless of what someone looks like or dresses like, I’ll talk to them…and it’s actually been working.

If I carry myself in way that tells people this is just a friendship…like if I’m not always touchy-feely with them, or using that flirtatious language that we sometimes use without thinking about it…people pick up on that. It seems like they like it too, cause they know there’s no pressure and that I’m not out for something.

I do want a relationship one day, but right now I’m into how nice it can be having some friends around who AREN’T there for sex. Hoping someone out there can relate?

Dorian, 22

www.getrealphilly.org

When I needed help myself, I felt like I had no one to talk to.

I felt like a hypocrite. I felt ashamed. How am I gonna work in HIV, teach someone about safer sex, tell them to use condoms, and then not do it myself? What’s the point in working here if I can’t practice what I preach?

It’s hard, because you have to set an example but you have to live your own life too. I’m know I’m not perfect. Still, it feels like that’s what people expect. How am I gonna go to work and be honest with people, and not tell them I’m doing the same things we’re telling our clients not to do?

A little while ago, I messed up. I met this guy, we got a rapport around each other and it felt like a great friendship. At first I didn’t want to take it further than that, but eventually we did hook up. There were condoms right there but I wasn’t thinking about it. We were friends and I let my guard down.

Right after we finished he started giving this weird vibe, like there was something up with him. Something told me to ask him if he’d been tested. Oh yeah, he told me, 6 months ago. I was negative.

Then he starts avoiding me, not calling me back, not answering my texts. I couldn’t figure out what was up. A few months later, we ran into each other on the street. I asked him what was up and he tells me yeah, he’s positive. He said he didn’t tell me earlier cause he was afraid I wouldn’t be into him. I knew I had to get tested, but I was scared.

It’s weird, I work in HIV, but when I needed help myself, I felt like I had no one to talk to. I’m looking at it all day, hearing about it, listening to cases…and then I’m secretly a possible case. How do you deal with that?

I got depressed, lost a lot of weight, slept all the time...basically gave up on everything. I started to drink a lot and I’m not usually a big drinker. I stayed in my apartment most of the time. During the day, I would just come to work, try to do my job and not think about stuff too much, then go right home and start over again.

I know we’re supposed to be these experts, but in the back of my head I still couldn’t face it that I might be positive. My father died of HIV and it was this big family secret. No one talked about it but everyone kinda knew what had happened.

Somewhere inside me, I felt like if I was positive I wouldn’t be able to finish school, or have kids, or spend time with my family, and no one was gonna want to be around me. I would be another “family secret.”

What really helped me get over it was this kid I met while I was working. I gave him some condoms and we started talking. He was the same age as me. He had just found out he was positive, and what really surprised me was his attitude. He was saying, oh yeah, I’m on medication, the doctor told me I’d be fine.

He had friends with him, he worked a job, he was leading a normal life. You hear it from websites and stuff, but when you actually see someone doing it, and you see that they’re living well, and you see they still have plans and friends and that they’re happy, it’s different.

After talking to him, I started changing my mind a little about what it would be like to be positive. I was still scared, but I knew I could make it through. That’s what it finally took for me to get tested…to think okay, I think I might be positive and if so, that’s not the end of my life. I can do this.

I went to get tested and came back negative, which was a huge relief. I remember I cried a lot, I was so happy. Afterwards, I started realizing exactly how much pressure I’d been under those past few months, and how much of it was because of the expectations on me. Just because I worked in HIV, it wasn’t any easier to think that I might be positive myself, and it wasn’t any less scary to get tested.

I do feel more educated because of this job, but I’m also more understanding than I used to be. I can see why someone might not get tested even if they know they should. I can see why people in this field are still turning positive, and I understand the guilt they feel when they’re out there being imperfect people.

It’s not always about how many HIV facts you know, and it’s not a “family secret” that HIV workers still have their own lives and mess up sometimes. But I don’t think we all have to be perfect. It’s good enough to try to understand someone and be sympathetic…to be a person.

Sean, 25

www.getrealphilly.org

POZ - POZ Magazine - POZ.com - News : Obama Launches National HIV/AIDS Community Discussions

POZ - POZ Magazine - POZ.com - News : Obama Launches National HIV/AIDS Community Discussions

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It's obvious to me that I had a problem with sex. I wonder sometimes if it's from what happened to me when I was a small kid.

My neighbor started molesting me when I was seven. I wasn’t the only one in my neighborhood that got molested. He got to one of my best friends too. The difference between us was that he actually told his family about it. Unfortunately no one believed him and he got into big trouble. He got his ass beat because they thought he was lying. I guess seeing what happened to him when he told people scared me enough to keep my mouth shut. So it continued for a couple of years.

When I think about it now I see what happened in the third person. Like I don’t feel it happening to me, I see it happening to me. Like I see myself from a distance bent over the couch staring at the pictures hung on the wall. Thinking about it, I don’t ever remember feeling drunk but get a visual of him pouring liquor into a glass and giving it to me.

The most fucked up part about it was that one of the neighbors across the street from us was a cop. His kids weren’t allowed over the pervert’s house. And the old man that molested me, his grandkids never came to his house either. To this day I wonder why the cop never said anything to the other families living on the street. I believe that would have prevented a lot of shit from happening and maybe I wouldn’t have been so fucked up about sex.

Sex is definitely an addiction for me. When it comes down to it, it didn’t matter if it was with a man a woman or a trans person. I never discriminated. The only thing that I would not negotiate on is that I had to be the top. I never wanted to have the submissive role. Again I wonder if I preferred having the dominant role because of being molested.

I wouldn’t even be able to guess how many sexual partners I have had. I used to go to the bathhouses a lot and not leave. It was at the bathhouse that I was first introduced to Crystal Meth. I can remember having sex literally all day while I was on Meth. I think I came fifteen times in one day. Physically I felt like superman when I fucked. My dick would stay hard for 48 hours. The only problem was that my dick would always get chafed from all the abuse I put it through. That didn’t stop me from fucking though. I had this one friend I would go with all of the time. He was a bottom and he liked it raw. I am sure that he would go through about 50 partners in one day easily. He refused to get tested. I don’t even know where he is today. Somehow I have been lucky enough to avoid contracting a life-threatening STD.

These days I try and stay away from the bathhouses and the drugs. I started going to therapy to work out these issues. It really helps to be able to talk to someone about what happened to me. I recently told my family about it and to my surprise they were really understanding. I think they feel guilty about what happened but it wasn’t their fault. I don’t hold any resentment towards them for what happened. Right now I am feeling pretty hopeful about resolving these issues and being able to move on with my life.

Alex, 23

www.getrealphilly.org

Instead of feeling miserable all the time, I was content feeling nothing at all.

I go to a clinic for Methadone and now my days are spent in therapy and drug treatment. It’s been six days since I used heroin. For some that isn’t a big accomplishment. For me, it’s six steps in a different direction; a direction I desperately need to continue to follow if my life is really going to change. Before entering the clinic my time was spent doing drugs, tricking myself out on the street and searching for a safe place to sleep.

When I think back to when I was a kid I guess it makes sense. You know, why I started using drugs. Growing up I went through all kinds of hell. My stepfather was abusive. I can remember one time when I was twelve and he thought my pants were too low. He picked me up and choked me until I passed out. No one seemed to care.

That’s when I started drinking and getting into drugs. I was hurting a lot inside. I remember walking up and down Castor Ave in Northeast Philly. There would be bottles of whiskey on the street and I’d polish them off behind buildings. They were dirty bottles. God only knows somebody could have pissed in one and I was drinking it.

At thirteen I was prescribed Percosets for migraine headaches. Within two weeks I had gone through half of them. I loved the way they made me feel because they made me numb. They made me numb physically but more importantly, emotionally. After that the drug use increased tenfold. Anything I could get my hands on I would take. Eventually I was offered a free sample of heroin. I loved it because naturally it numbed me out. I sold all of my stuff so I could buy drugs. If you’re gonna feel like shit what is the point of having all of those things? Instead of feeling miserable all the time I was content feeling nothing at all.

I eventually ended up on the streets. I was introduced to trading sex from one of my best friends who was also homeless. I started tricking with him to support my habit. We worked the area between 12^th and 13^th and Spruce and Locust Streets. We basically lived out of a backpack and shared everything including underwear and socks.

At one point we were living with a meth-amphetamine dealer in exchange for sex but my stupid friend got caught stealing from him. I promised I would stick by him no matter what but when he was really messed up on cocaine and stealing from me I had to step away from him. He was going too wild for the drugs. He was robbing people left and right downtown in broad daylight. He eventually overdosed. I never even knew about his funeral until months after. I think that was the first time that I wondered why I was still doing this. I know trickin is unsafe. I mean besides the risk of getting “fag-bashed” or kidnapped there is the risk of getting HIV and other STD’s. I make a rule not to bottom and I always use condoms but the truth is, I am a small guy and if someone bigger than me wants to force sex on me with or without a condom they will.

You know it is one thing to be a kid and make bad decisions. I was dealt a shitty hand and chose to escape from reality. Things just spiraled out of control. But I’m not a kid anymore. Eventually I really want to get married and have a family. I want to be a good father. But before I can take care of anybody else I have to take care of myself. It’s sad but I can count on one hand how many times in the past fifteen years that I have been able to have fun or interact with people without having to be on drugs. But it was during those times that I thought I was really capable of getting clean. I still have hope. I mean I have my health and right now my freedom. Like I said, I just started treatment and have been off of heroin for six days. I know getting clean is going to be brutal but for the first time in a long time, I am ready to feel again. I am actually looking forward to day number seven…

Kendall, 29

www.getrealphilly.org

Jackin How-To

MASTURBATION (MAS-ter-BAY-shun) is one of the delights of human existence. Unfortunately, masturbation is not always thought of or mentioned in positive terms, and sometimes it's difficult for people to get good information about masturbation and how to get the most out of it. That's why we put together JackinHow-To — to give beginners a guide to the joys of self-pleasure.

Panel Takes a Raw Look at Barebacking: Why We Like It, Why We Still Do It :: EDGE Philadelphia

Panel Takes a Raw Look at Barebacking: Why We Like It, Why We Still Do It :: EDGE Philadelphia

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Safer or Stupid? Some Gay Men 'PrEP' for Sex :: EDGE Philadelphia

Safer or Stupid? Some Gay Men 'PrEP' for Sex :: EDGE Philadelphia

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