Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…
As far as AIM and the privacy issues go, we do have a federal law in the US called HIPPA which protects medical privacy, but a person can voluntarily waive it and allow their medical records to be released. I assume that’s how AIM handles it. I don’t know if, when you get tested by them, you have the option to “opt out” of having them track your results and share the information; perhaps we can get somebody from AIM to post here and explain what they do.
RawTOP, I could be wrong, but I don’t think AIM dictates that a poz person cannot work with a neg person; I think that the studios make those decisions based on info from AIM, but I can’t imagine why a responsible studio would allow that because, regardless of releases signed to the contrary, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen if a model becomes positive and it can be shown that the studio knew about it. Not to mention, as Bill from HDK has pointed out, the CalOSHA regulations that would undoubtedly be used to come down hard on a studio if something like that became public.
Tony, I think times are changing. CCBill, for one, tried to assemble a panel of knowledgeable people on the bareback issue for the last Gay Phoenix Forum (as part of the Phoenix Forum) but fell a little short on the pro-bareback side; it was not by their choice. I will suggest your name next year.
The other thing is… I agree with rawTOP that trust is a HUGE issue in barebacking with a boyfriend; I can’t tell you how many times a model tells me that he’s barebacking with his BF, and he trusts the BF completely… only to find out the BF is fooling around on the side after they promised to be monogamous.
I do think that most of the young people who bareback are in denial about the risks in the same way they are convinced when they start smoking that they’ll never get addicted, or that they can do crystal meth occasionally and “always keep it under control.” They’re always convinced that it “won’t happen to them” and somehow they’re “different” from the statistics.