He said she was relentless about sharing her views on Toby's "sinful affliction," even after Toby asked her not to raise this subject every time they spoke. He said he was frightened - what if what she said was true? - and sad that their relationship has become so combative. I asked Toby what he thought about his mother's views of his sexuality. Toby sounded bleak when he described the Christian literature she regularly sent him about the evils of homosexuality and how gays were being plagued by AIDS as punishment from God. She also told him that he was going to get AIDS because he was gay. She told her son that being a homosexual was going to land him in hell unless he repented and changed his ways. She did not react well to the news, retreating into the condemning language of her church. Toby came out to his mother after he finished graduate school and moved to New York. Toby was an only child raised in the Midwest by a devout Baptist single mother who had been deserted by Toby's father shortly after Toby's birth. Ostrow and Shelby (2000) describe psychotherapy with men like Toby who use drugs to enable them to lose inhibitions and engage in fantasy sex that they might otherwise have difficulty engaging in without guilt or remorse. When I explored this passivity toward using condoms, he explained that he worked such long hours and so intensely that when he did have time off it was essential that he be able to stop thinking and just go a bit wild and lose control. It was clear that he was well informed about HIV transmission and about the risk he took of becoming infected by barebacking. But if the other fellow never brought up the topic of condoms, neither did Toby. If the other man wanted to use them, that was fine with him. Again, his attitude toward condom use was passive. On the weekends when Toby stayed home, he either met men in online chat rooms for sexual hookups or went to sex parties.
Toby was sexually versatile but preferred to be the top. Toby almost never made a date to see any of these men a second time. But if the other man did not bring up the topic, Toby wound up going along with whatever the other man wanted to do sexually, even if it meant having UAI. If a sexual partner initiated the use of condoms for anal sex, Toby said he felt relieved and gladly used them. He said he never discussed HIV status with the men he went home with unless the other man initiated the discussion. Toby did not seek out barebacking, but he allowed it to happen if the other man wanted to do it. At the end of the night he would usually end up going home with someone he had just met. He said it helped him lose his inhibitions and cut loose on the dance floor. Typically, during those outings, he would take MDMA (Ecstasy) and smoke marijuana. He did have a group of people with whom he would go to clubs to dance a few times a month. Because of his intense focus on work, Toby had not taken the time to cultivate deep friendships. His last relationship ended during his final year of graduate school, after 2 years, and he had not had another partner in almost 10 years. A successful and ambitious architect, he worked exceptionally long hours to make partner in his firm. Toby is a white, 35-year-old, HIV-negative gay man who came to see me because of depression and loneliness. Octave, The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir, 1939 Toby, a Passive Barebacker When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online."The terrible thing in this world is that everyone has his reasons." Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers Other steps you can take to protect your children are: More information about the RTA Label and compatible services can be found here. Parental tools that are compatible with the RTA label will block access to this site. We use the "Restricted To Adults" (RTA) website label to better enable parental filtering. Protect your children from adult content and block access to this site by using parental controls. PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography).