Barebacking and social responsibilities of older gays

I was sitting in my favorite little coffeeshop in San Francisco the other day. It was about 7:30AM on a Sunday morning (I had just gotten off a red eye flight). There were two 30-something's sitting next to me chatting about various things. I was bored and kept tuning in and out of their conversation. So sue me, I'm nosy.

They started talking about the current barebacking craze amoungst the 20-somethings in San Francisco. For those of you that are isolated and "out of the scene" (like me), barebacking is having unprotected sex. I was pretty dumbstruck the first time I heard about it a few years ago. Apparently, now this is a pretty common thing for "younger" guys to do; not only do they do it but they take out personal ads and postings on Craigs List indicating that they are in to that.

These two 30-somethings were blaming the older generation of gays (I guess I fall in to that category) for not continuing to place enough emphasis on safe sex. I seriously doubt I could walk up to one of these trendy 20-somethings and say "put a hefty bag on it before you put it in!". In my limited experience, younger guys think us older guys just don't know how it is to be young. Yep, surprise, I was young, too. Once. Fortunately, I lived long enough to look back on it.

I think the problem is two-fold. When I was a 20-something, I had several friends that were HIV+. A few of them wasted horribly away and died a horrifying death. Most younger gay guys have never seen the horrors of what happens to someone that gets sick.

The other problem is that people think if they get sick that medications are easily available.