The Gay Blade

After getting diagnosed with HIV in 1988, I spent most of the 1990s getting ready to die. I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed, down to just over 50 kgs at one point, miserable, angry and sick so often, bouncing between hospital and Herne Bay House, until the new drugs came along and I started to get better. But a lot of my time and energy was built around being HIV+, around medicine and illness, and the idea of death.  Even with the new meds though, and the gradual improvement to my health, I always had this sense in the back of my mind that it would all fall apart, that the meds would stop working and I'd go back to that time where my death seemed so close and obvious. And even now I still find it hard to trust the future, to imagine I have one. But logically I know that I do, and realistically the meds will keep working for me if I keep taking them correctly. I've been thinking about all this lately as I try and re-shape my life and search for a career - ag...

Turning 50 seems to have changed my online audience in a way I hadn't imagined. Suddenly I find 20 year-olds sending me lust-filled messages online - I guess I can now officially be put in the "Daddy" category. And I also get guys in their 60s getting in touch - I suppose I seem close enough in age that they feel more comfortable approaching me than they do a 30 year-old. It's been interesting, and some fun as well, and even though their skin is lovely at that age, 20 is just too young for me, it feels creepy somehow. 25 and up I can cope with. And I've had some wonderful hot times with men in their 60s too. Gay men and age though - we don't deal with it that well I reckon. We talk about "the gay community" a lot, but one thing about successful communities is they have links over generations, the older members pass down their experiences and knowledge to the younger ones, and we don't seem very good at that, we're not good at giving...

Gay men fuck differently. We do. No matter how many prissy or self-hating homos there are who don't like to talk about it, as a total group, gay men have much more sex, and many more sexual partners, than straight people. It's a fairly clear and simple fact, and it has no moral value whatsoever. If you like to fuck with strangers 10 times in a week, that's cool, and if you have only ever had sex with your partner in the last 10 years, that's equally cool. But overall, even gay men in loving long-term relationships have more sex than straight guys. Whether you're 20 or 50, this is the case. And we typically don't place the same value on sex as straights do. It's just a bit of fun with someone who's sexy and up for it. That's a pretty hard fact to get across to straights though. And I think it's even harder for straight women to get than straight guys. For a woman, sex has the possibility of creating a new life as well as the joys of ...