Fridae

Sweat trickled deliciously down our thrusting bodies. Shadows of lust reflected from flickering lamps dappled our faces. Breaths were caught, shared, expelled. We'd been at it for some time, and it was going great. Then he whispered softly to me.

"You want to take the condom off? I don't mind".

He was worried that I wasn't enjoying the sex fully.

"Just withdraw if you're close".

I faltered. I was speechless. More to the point, I was tempted. And terrified.

It's been so long since I've done it unprotected. Aside from the occasional moments of weakness, most of my encounters have been with protection. Most.

I'm not saying it's better or necessarily safer. There are, after all, people who bareback as a norm.

True, unprotected sex is often the result of indiscretion, intoxication, and sheer horniness. But for many, it's also a deep expression of trust. An expression of commitment deeper than mere words. It boggled me that anyone could so blithely gamble their lives on the roll of a night's cruising.

Then it dawned on me, he didn't know. He truly thought withdrawal was safe enough.

When I was younger, I had joined an HIV-awareness workshop sponsored by the Library Foundation and funded by a multinational group. While some saw it as merely an excuse for a bunch of gay men to party and pair up, in truth, it was highly informative.

Unfortunately, funding ran out some years back, and I believe the workshops have stopped. Pity. I'd like to think that the information and experience I picked up there has helped keep me clean. And perhaps, alive.

Not that the workshop gave me a total pro-safe sex attitude. It helped, but it didn't always stop me from poking my er� finger into the fire. One of the first encounters I had while in Singapore was unprotected. It was fun. Biting your nails at the testing centre, and then waiting 6 months to have another test, wasn't.

At that time, I had resolved never to do it again. And of course, I lied to myself. The experts always tell us that the best way to avoid infection is to avoid casual sex. Charmingly na�ve, isn't it?

Maybe it's the lure of the illicit. Forbidden fruit tastes better and all that crap. But who, in this case, is forbidding who? Is it the guilty child within us, who, already committing a "wrong act", decide that we might as well go for broke? Is it the mindless, lust-driven beast in every one of us? Is it, at that moment of passion, our sheer arrogant assumption of invulnerability? Or is it just, plain, simple, selfish fleshly pleasure, the limiting of which we all find disturbingly unacceptable.

I dunno. Do you?

After all, it's inconvenient. You pause the act. Interrupt the action. Fumble at the wrapper. Slip it on. Slip it off again because you put it on upside down. You feel silly. So does the man in your bed.

You finally get it on, and get it on. Then you worry about what to do with it. And then there's spillage.

But what price a life?

---

I've always believed that safe sex was an invention of the modern world. It was only with the onset of the HIV epidemic that people began to take it seriously.

For many people in the third world, using protection is still strange and unnatural. And therein lies the danger. They say ignorance kills. Wish they'd spread the word that it also murders.

For a country with a thriving pay-for-play industry and a very large poverty sector, reported HIV incidences remain surprisingly low.

Barely 30,000 registered cases, and of this, only 17% are gay (it's still a little known fact that most HIV victims are straight women). And no statistics are yet available on lesbians, both for those at risk of infection and those already infected.

Most people in Asia still equate condoms with birth control. Ironic, really, when condoms are really so much better at death control.

It's a male driven culture, after all. And the male's pleasure is paramount, is it not? You've heard all the excuses: It's like making love with a raincoat on. It's too impersonal. I can't feel a thing. It's not real sex. It's a sin - I actually overheard one typical straight I'm-still-a-stud-even-if-I'm-a-married-man say, with all virtuosity, that he can't wear a rubber because it's against the will of the Church.

As if his extramarital indulgences weren't. For the majority of HIV cases in this country, it's often the male's unwillingness to forsake his pleasure that results in viral transmission.

The simple, selfish, uncaring need for gratification, even if he knows he's possibly risking his own or another's life. Now don't shake your head. Gay men are just as guilty.

I told my friend about what happened - a close friend who happens to be a highly-educated and well-paid professional. He looked at me with complete nonchalance and told me that he never makes love with a rubber. "Kills the pleasure."

I finished my newly lit cigarette in 3 puffs. And lit another one. Thinking of the man in my bed last night. Who'd also shared my friend's bed not that long ago.

Oh, and if you're wondering. Did I do it? Did I give in to temptation?

None of your business. Go find your own answers.

Glenn Chua has been writing for the last 11 years, 7 of which he spent in the advertising arena in Singapore. So far no one's caught on to him yet. He claims a natural affinity for dogs, which is why his best friends are bitches.