So I get an email from my best friend last night, from a gay personals site. It is a screenshot of my ex (of a couple years) and his ad for a sex party, involving “seeding and feeding” his slave, who happens to be HIV-positive (the ex is not.) Now, I feel like this is a bad idea, because “seeding” involves all sorts of unprotected sex with a known HIV+ person.
I’m VERY liberal about bedroom behavior, and the idea of a sex party is not unusual, the slave thing is adventurous, but whatever. I am bothered by people being irresponsible about it and making us all look bad.
The ex and I don’t talk, except for acknowledging each others’ existence when we happen to see each other out at the bar or what have you, even though we live in the same apartment building, so it’s not like we’re terribly close. (We have been separated for about a year and a half). And I’m clearly not going to actually SAY anything to him about this.
So my question(s):
A) Am I a big creepy stalker for even caring about this in the least? Is it weird to be disappointed when your ex decides to take on some kind of destructive behavior?
B) I see stuff like this on craigslist sometimes, and that seems silly to me, but people do their own thang. Is this just weird to me because I know the person?
I think that many people, even though they had to dissolve a relationship still have residual love, and that is fine. Nothing says you have to hate an ex.
That being said, I would have the same worry about a total stranger [with regards to the hazardous nature of seeding and feeding] and I don’t like seeing self destructive behaviors in anybody, friend or stranger.
I know i’ll regret asking this, but what is seeding and feeding? I tried google, but none of the results were sex related.
Showing interest in/concern about the affairs of people who have dropped out of your life isn’t wrong or even - so i’d imagine- uncommon. It’s like celebrity gossip, except you actually care about the people involved :-P.
It’s not even like you dug this up, someone referred it to your attention.
I think that sums it up. It’s not about your ex or you being judgmental, it’s about you being really disappointed in people who make a group you belong to look bad.
I have to admit I’m kind of wondering the same thing. What gay man in his right mind, who doesn’t have a death wish, knowingly wants to have unprotected sex with a person infected with AIDS? I don’t get it. This isn’t a news flash, I thought gay people were up to speed on how AIDS is contracted and spread.
We are up to speed. Well, most of us. The thing is, there is a subset of gay men who just…don’t care. The usual thinking is that people live with HIV or AIDS for decades nowadays, so it’s really no worse than herpes…you take your pills to keep things from getting too bad and you’re good to go.
And there is also a subset who get a thrill from barebacking that they don’t get from safe sex.
Not saying it’s not stupid, just saying it’s not terribly uncommon.
Many of them are, themselves, HIV+ . . . and feel that they have nothing to lose. There’s a kind of fatalism among many poz people, that since they’re already infected, it no longer matters what they do. Plus . . . if they’re already taking all the meds, they figure it can’t do any harm. I don’t know how valid this is from a medical viewpoint; probably not very.
I have heard of bugchasers. I’m sorry but that is a public health issue. I mean SHEESH! I really do think that bugchasers need to be put in mental hospitals or something. I mean HIV and AIDS are chronic illnesses which can be controlled by pills by now…but STILL! I mean by now HIV is 100% preventable.
I just hope the subset of this is very small.
Could you …I dunno call the cops or public health officals on this?
In Spain separation isn’t seen as a step prior to divorce: many couples separate and stay separated for years without ever attempting or considering a divorce.
A friend of my mother’s separated from her husband in 1980; the husband had always beaten her up, but the day he lifted his hand to their eldest daughter (I think she was 4), she packed the kids and left him.
He died last month. I had to grab each of my wrists with the other hand when my mother would refuse to acknowledge that it was perfectly fine for her friend to mourn her husband - who she hadn’t even seen in more than ten years. And yes, she is in mourning.
I don’t think it’s weird to still care about someone you used to be very close to, even if it ended in tears, fists against the wall and a slammed door. That was an example, but I know many others.
ETA: in 1998 there was an article in a local newspaper in Miami about guys who were doing their darnedest to become infected because, one, they liked the James Dean line, two, medication was already available, three… among the medication, you got steroids, so if you were HIV+ and taking your meds you actually got mure buff. I just hope none of them were semen donors, it would be nice if Stupid of that caliber killed itself off.
Oh, and I don’t think you’re weird. If I knew someone doing that, I’d just wonder why they wanted to hurt themselves/put themselves in danger like that. Sure, it’s their body, but it’s normal to care and to question they feel the need to do this.
It’s reasonable to be disappointed in your ex. While you no longer associate with him, you did for a period of your life get to know him and that’s not going away.
Around here, it’s colloquially known as a “Get Off My Team!” moment. You look at someone who is a member of a demographic or group with which you identify, and you just want to scream “Get off my team! You’re making the rest of us look bad!” at them.
Yes, it’s judgmental. Yes, it is in many ways intolerant. And yes, it is a totally normal reaction to seeing stupid behavior out of people whose behavior will reflect on you in the minds of others. And of course, by normal, I mean “I do that shit all the time, so it must be normal.”
And when the person you want to kick off the team is someone that you at one time had strong feelings for, believed you respected and who you believe respected you, shared enough of your values to enter into some sort of relationship with (even if its just a friendship that involves no protected or unprotected sex) it hurts more. Because now your judgment about that person is in doubt. Was he always kind of an ass? Was unprotected sex always ok with him? (and what does that mean for my health?)
I’d feel much the same, ex or not, that this person is a self-endangering fool. Maybe there is a death-wish or at least a kind of punishment-wish. Prejudice runs high and can easily be taken onboard. I’ve seen something similar with some promiscuous girls, a tendency to go for the men nobody else will touch and could be dangerous. I’d think of them as being immoral, not amoral, that they have never really overcome feelings of being bad and shameful and come to accept themselves as they are.
