"Letting my ‘guard’ down" by Anonymous from Pretoria

Shortly before my 28^th birthday,
I discovered that a friend of mine was HIV positive.  He wasn’t a very close friend, but I knew him
quite well and it came as a shock to me because he was well educated, intelligent
and financially established in the world, and I believed that people like him
did not get HIV.  I couldn’t understand
how someone like that could be “dumb” enough to have unprotected sex.  In the nineties almost every gay movie I
could get my hands on was about gay men struggling with HIV or AIDS.  How could he not have known to wear a
condom?  It was constantly drummed into
us.

 After a few years I moved to the big city
and met other clever, educated people with HIV, and assumed it was drug or alcohol
related.  Why else would they have had
unprotected sex?

 I found myself packing on a few kilos as I
crossed over into my 30s.  My “Twink”
days were over, and I was heading quickly into “Bear” territory.  The hair on my head was thinning, but then thickening
everywhere else. The only problem is that I am not attracted to “Bearish” guys
and am only really attracted to well built guys.  This was a problem because fewer and fewer
well built guys were giving me the time of day, and no matter how much I went
to gym, I would always end up chowing down at braais or at restaurants and
drinking too much beer and wine.  I
couldn’t get my stomach flat or my biceps big enough.  I didn’t have the hot body that I wanted from
my lovers, and so I was beginning to feel terribly low and insecure, which just
made me eat and drink more.  I opened
some dating profiles and downloaded a couple of apps onto my phone, so that I
could increase my chances of meeting someone well built, who wasn’t necessarily
looking for someone else who was well built, but I wasn’t winning.

 I got messages from guys, but they would go
quiet as soon as they realized that my body wasn’t up to scratch, and I was
terrified that I would never have sex again – never mind ever having another
relationship.   

 One day I was at work and I went onto an
app on my phone just to see if there were any messages.  There was one from this unbelievably hot guy,
without his shirt on.  He looked like a
model.  He was blonde, blue-eyed tanned
and ripped and I assumed it must be a fake profile.  We started chatting and he sent me more hot
pictures of himself and I was still not convinced.  He told me he was from New Zealand and that
he was an aeronautical engineer.  I told
him that I didn’t have a hot body like him and he said that he didn’t
care.  We chatted for a few minutes and
then he invited me to visit him in his hotel room, which happened to be just a
few blocks away.  I decided I would pop
in during my lunch break and just leave him at the door if he didn’t look like
he said he did.  Superficial, I know, but
there are so many of us in our community.

 My heart was pumping as I made my way
through the hotel, feeling guilty and naughty but also very excited.  I got to the door, took a deep breath and
knocked.

 He opened the door and my eyes nearly
popped out.  He looked incredible.  He was shirtless in just tight fitting
tracksuit pants (with no underwear on) and I immediately panicked, because I
thought he might send me away.  He was
that hot. 

 I walked in and said ‘hi’ and he just
grabbed me and kissed me, I thought I was dreaming.  In seconds he had me naked and he pushed me
back onto the bed.  Before I could stop
him he climbed over me and sat on me, forcing me into him.  I couldn’t believe what was happening.  I couldn’t believe that he would do that
without putting a condom on first, or at least asking me.  I couldn’t believe how amazing it felt.  It was so good to be with a beautiful man
with absolutely nothing between us.  It
felt amazing because the sensations were so much more intense, and also because
I knew how dangerous it was, and just how miserably lonely and unhappy I had
been until that very moment.  I wanted to
stop him and push him off me, insist he use a condom, but he was so beautiful
and it felt so good I didn’t want it to stop.   
I was scared he would stop.  I was
scared he would tell me to go, but for those few moments I was not scared of
HIV.  And then it was over.  I showered and went back to work.  Everything looked the same as before.  Everything seemed the same as before, but it
wasn’t.

 Now I know how an educated, sober, clever
and successful man can have unprotected sex. 
Now I know.

 Health4Men
is a project of the Anova Health Institute NPC, funded by USAID through PEPFAR.
This article represents the contributing writer’s personal views.

 Health4Men
would like to hear from you too! Gay and bi men from throughout South Africa
are welcome to submit articles about their own lives, primarily regarding
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will be published in print and online. For submissions please mail
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