Recently, I started engaging friends, associates and blog readers in honest, non-judgmental conversations about black gay men, HIV and unprotected sex. Maybe, then, we can start taking a bit more responsibility for our actions and the effect those actions have on our community. We might not want to hear it, but sooner or later, we are going to have to stop living in denial and at least start talking about it. The percentage of black gay men, who are HIV positive and the rate at which black men are seroconverting(becoming HIV positive) in the USA, means that there is quite a lot of unprotected sex going on, even though there are other factors, which come into play when it comes to the high rate of HIV in the black community (higher rate of STDs, poverty, poor access to health care, homophobia etc). However, the focus of this article is on black gay men, bisexuals and MSM. Before some of you rush to comment, I am not saying ALL black gay men are having raw sex, nor am I saying we are having more raw sex than the heterosexual black community, or gay men of any other race. It has been brought up in other blog posts and comments, but the purpose of this article is for us to start asking ourselves why we are having so much raw sex.
You can’t mention HIV and AIDS without thinking about gay men, who have been the hardest hit by the virus, and you can’t discuss the disproportionate number of black people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, without talking about black gay men, bisexuals and MSM. Black Gay Men’s Blog peeks into the world of raw sex (aka bareback sex), black gay men and HIV.