Bareback Cometh
The Rise and Rise of Barebacking
By Mikee dela Cruz

“Bareback tayo (Let’s bareback),” R. Reyes says to me, stressing how “we know each other, anyway, so...”

He’s like that, leaving his sentences hanging, as if prompting me to finish them.  Not that I needed to, since we both knew exactly what he meant – that we know each other enough to trust each other, particularly sexually, since, presumably, we’re both clean.

“No,” I say.

“Oh, come on,” R. Reyes says, smiling.

I shook my head.  “No.”

This isn’t the first time I actually encountered the asking of – demand, even – going bareback when fucking.  In fact, end-October (2008), when I accessed Guys4Men.com, a forum making waves was BAKBAKAN – BAREBACKAN, which attracted from 30 (and growing) number of chatters, all except for three were actually fearful of barebacking (e.g. they say: “Nakakatakot.  Pero masarap.” and “Ito ang wagi!” and “The best, bareback.”), just as I, a visiting chatter, was asked to join some orgies for “hot, hot barebacking action.”

And so the skin-to-skin experience continues to rise.

NAME GAME

While the term has long crossed over to more mainstream use to describe penetrative sexual act sans the use of a condom, bareback actually started as a gay slang that refers to “acts of unprotected sex, especially anal sex,” states Wikipedia.org, which, tracing the term’s earlier uses, adds: “Before the mainstream awareness of HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, anal sex with and without condoms was not as prevalent in communications among men who had sex with men (MSMs).  Sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention campaigns encouraged condom use but an urgency arose once transmission of HIV/AIDS was somewhat understood.  Researchers encouraged condom usage as an effective way to reduce HIV transmission. Condoms are now known to be an effective barrier against HIV, as well as to herpes simplex, Cytomegalovirus, hepatitis B, Chlamydia, and gonorrhoea.  The gay male community, having been affected the most by the pandemic, mobilized quickly and the practice of unprotected anal sex quickly became taboo within the community. This was the time when the need for a term to describe the difference between ‘protected’ and ‘unprotected’ sexual acts arose.”

Since the mid-1990s, the resurgence of the practice has been noted, particularly among MSMs, mainly credited to: increased apathy over HIV and/or AIDS transmission (“Some gay men no longer fear HIV and AIDS.  They may believe that the virus is unavoidable, or that the virus has been controlled, resulting in longer lives for those infected,” says Ramon Johnson in Gay Men and Bareback Sex, in About.com); anxiety over contracting HIV and AIDS (“An alarming number of men are either deliberately transmitting the virus or willingly receiving the virus. These men are called gift givers and bug chasers respectively. Bug chasers willingly try to contract HIV because they have such high anxiety over catching the virus anyway, believing it is just a matter of time before they are infected,” Johnson says); emerging frequency of drug use (drugs impair judgment, so that safer sexual practices are not put in action); and general lack of knowledge on HIV and AIDS (e.g. “Some HIV positive gay men believe that since they already have the virus there is no need to have protected sex with another HIV positive man. However, when two HIV positive men transmit and retransmit the virus to each other it is possible for them to create new strains of HIV,” Johnson says).

The most pervasive belief attached with barebacking remains, of course, this notion that “going natural just feels better – all the time,” R. Reyes says to me.  “With the skin touching the skin, you feel really, really close to the one you are having sex with; something that a condom, or any other similar (barrier), inhibits, thus ruins.”

WAY OF LOOKING

These days, the “normalcy” or barebacking may be partially attributed to the increasing number of pornographic materials on it – e.g. Jeff Palmer is as big a porn star as they can get, thanks to his cum shots in his numerous sexual partners’ asses, just as they do, too, in him; and Rocco Siffredi (for heterosexual porn) became a legend not just for his anal ravaging of women, but, yes, because he barebacks.

In fact, states Wikipedia.org, barebacking has become a subculture that “has developed its own slang terms, such as ‘breeding’ (ejaculation inside the rectum of the receptive participant), ‘charging up’ (the same as breeding, but the male doing the ejaculating is HIV positive), ‘Russian Roulette party’ or ‘conversion party’ (a group sex party attended by HIV-positive and HIV-negative persons, the latter taking the chance that they may become infected with HIV).”

In Guys4Men.com’s BAKBAKAN – BAREBACKAN, the notion is that barebacking is “understandable” – something that R. Reyes agrees with, thus his practice; and something that Rick Sowadsky (in Barebacking in the Gay Community in thebody.com) says is, well, somewhat undeniable, especially if the way of looking of those practicing it is considered.

In discussing the benefits of barebacking, Sowadsky enumerates:

1. Barebacking simply feels better, it's more enjoyable and more pleasurable, than protected anal intercourse.
2. Barebacking leads to greater intimacy between men during intercourse.
3. Barebacking is more spontaneous than protected sex. There is no need to bother with using condoms.
4. Barebacking is less expensive than having protected intercourse. Using condoms can be expensive, especially if you are on a limited income.
5. If both men are not infected with HIV, nor any other STDs, barebacking is 100% safe from infectious diseases.   In this case, barebacking falls under the category of "safe sex."
6. Barebacking can sometimes promote monogamy. If two men are monogamous and uninfected, the ability to safely bareback gives them an incentive to stay monogamous with one another.  Barebacking also strengthens the emotional ties between a gay couple.

As R. Reyes adds, with emphasis, trying to make me change my mind: “You can’t get any closer than when you feel each other completely, linked like that, skin to skin.  It’s like being one, truly.”

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