Is bareback sex still a fetish if everyone is doing it?

If you’ve ever spent a bit of time immersed in the pornier side of Twitter, you might have come across the work of rawTop.

Through the online documentation of his real-world exploits, rawTop showcases and amplifies the world of bareback sex.

We caught up him with to talk about it.

What led you to start documenting your sexual experiences?

I originally started my blog just for personal reference. I didn’t think anyone would actually see it. Then, a few months later, I put Google Analytics on it and realised that people were seeing it, so that changed my approach to it a bit.

What is it about bareback sex and bareback porn that appeals more to you than sex that involves condoms?

There are a number of things. When it comes to actually having bareback sex, the most important thing to me is the sensation of it. Bareback sex just feels better. The second element is when the bottom takes the top’s load up his ass and all that involves. PrEP has changed what that means in some ways – less risk – but there’s still something to the bottom taking the top’s load.

When it comes to watching bareback porn – porn is fundamentally an exercise in fantasy. Condoms ruin – or at least distract from – the fantasy for most people. Barebacking heightens the fantasy.

If you’re in the camp that sees sex as an intimate exchange of sexual energy, then barebacking is more intimate and there is a literal and highly intimate exchange of cum when the bottom takes the top’s load up his ass.

On the other hand, if you’re in the camp that thinks sex is based on power and control, then fewer barriers between the top and bottom gives the top more power and more control. Back in the days before PrEP, the top literally had the power to infect the bottom. It was sort of an ultimate form of power and control.

One of the things about the HIV pandemic that surprised people was the emergence of ‘bugchasers’ and the fetishisation of ‘poz’ sperm. What do you think led people to embrace the virus in this way?

For starters, bug chasers aren’t something that’s new. They just got a name. Plenty of guys went to bathhouses back in the middle of the AIDS crisis and let complete strangers fuck them without condoms.

There are good articles by psychologists on this topic that can give a more well-rounded answer, but I personally feel that a ‘poz fetish’ comes out of a pretty normal attraction to risk. It’s really no different than most extreme sports – where people do dangerous things for the fun of it, simply because they’re dangerous. The danger and risk heightens the pleasure and thrill they get out of it. In our puritanical society, we stigmatise anything related to sex, but there’s really no difference.

What bothers me is the stigma we attach to bug-chasing. Yes, bug-chasers are asking for their health situation to be more complicated going forward. And there’s no doubt that being poz can be a hassle, but you’re far more likely to actually die from heart disease than HIV.

The bear culture is celebrated despite the fact that the vast majority of them are clinically obese and looking at a future with everything from routine erectile dysfunction, to heart attacks and strokes. So why do we celebrate the bear community with all it’s serious health problems, yet stigmatise bug-chasers?

Both are making conscious choices that can negatively affect their health, and the data say that the consequences are worse for obese folks than for poz guys – assuming the poz guys go on meds before they progress to AIDS.

The rise of PrEP and TasP – Undetectable = Untransmittable – seems to have normalised sex without condoms. Is barebacking still a fetish if everyone is doing it?

It’s definitely not a fetish like it used to be. That said, there’s still quite a bit of negativity by some people towards cum-dumps. The critics see them as vectors of disease, despite the fact that they get tested regularly. So, a cum-dump fetish is still not seen as kindly as, say, having a toe-sucking fetish, or even a piss fetish.

I think it should be mentioned that in countries without good access to PrEP or treatment, barebacking is still quite edgy. The PrEP and TasP revolution elsewhere has informed their perspectives – many of them understand their risk better. But neg guys, say in Mexico City, who are attracted to barebacking are still navigating the same minefield that we were seven years ago.

We seem to be seeing more guys who proudly identify as cum-dumps. Guys for whom sex seems to revolve around gang-bangs and taking as many loads as possible. What’s driving the emergence of this sexual sub-culture?

Being a cum-dump is an edgy sexual activity with some risk of STIs, but no significant long-term risk. Even Hep C can be treated these days. So, if you’re a bottom, it’s a way to show you’re not boring. I’ve even come across millennials who talk like they’re cum-dumps when I’m almost certain they aren’t really cum-dumps – at least not in the way some of the guys I know are cum-dumps. I think it’s popular because ‘it’s what the cool kids are doing’.

In a way, many gay men approach sex like straight men approach sports. Some watch, others play. Everyone seems to care about the score. The winner is the one with the highest score. If you see sex like sport, then cum-dumps – and prolific breeder tops – are the winners. People like being winners.

With the rise of social media and fan-subscription platforms, it seems as if many of the taboos around porn have been broken. It’s almost as if everyone wants to be a porn star. Have we lost our shame when it comes to having the sex that we want?

There are still way too many taboos around sex and porn. If the fan sites are breaking those down, then that’s a good thing.

Sexual repression is almost never a good thing and can lead to some really twisted, messed-up shit.

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