My perspective on risk just changed

[PeterWatson]

Warning this is not a hot post that will fuel your sexual mood. Maybe quite the opposite so skip this post if that's what you are hoping for.

So here I am as I type this post, sitting in the hospital recovering from an infection so severe that it requires days of intravenous antibiotics. No, I did not acquire this from a sexual act with a stranger. This is more like food poisoning on steroids, but this has made me reflect on what risks I would take to live out a sexual fantasy.

There has been a lot of pain and suffering over the last five days and a major disruption to mylife and the life of my family. I cannot imagine any 60 minutes of pleasure that would convince me to live through this again. I have thought about trying to find a local guy, getting to know him until I trust him, and then having oral sex with him ending in him ejaculating into my mouth. Here are the reasons I am changing my mind.

1. How well will I really know this person?

We will chat online, he will tell me his story, and we will become friends. But did I grow up with this person? Does his family interact with mine? How badly does he want this sex? Has he ever made an error in judgment that he doesn't want to tell me about? He may not be malicious but he could still be dangerous. I heard one story where a guy came out to his wife and she made him expose his partners or she would divorce him. She was just so angry that she wanted to hit back and felt that letting the guys partners wives know was a just and honorable response. Holy shit, world explodes. So now I have to trust my partner and everyone he has had sex with or confides in. Maybe he is just careless and his wife reads his phone messages. Lots of ways for this to blow up. Once you meet someone face to face, you take risk to a whole new level.

2. I will take it slow and pull back if I start to feel uncomfortable.

I don't know about you, but once I get aroused, my judgment and assessment of risk is affected. I have done things in the heat of the moment that I told myself I would not do going in. Once you are stroking that hard cock intending to only give a hand job, do you have the willpower not to put the head into your mouth. And if you have gone that far, then in for a penny, in for a pound, you might as well blow the guy. I can definitely see this happening to me.

3. Will the experience live up to my dreams?

All my life I have dreamed of one thing or another and the longer I dream, the more incredible the place or activity becomes in my mind. When I have finally gotten a chance to live the dream, more often than not the experience has fallen short or even been a complete disappointment. I think this is the nature of our dreams and they have driven men over the centuries to achieve miraculous things, but for every Christopher Columbus, 1000 men died pursuing their dreams, some alone and in agany.

4. Post experience anxiety

Right after having sex, I expect to go into a period of anxiety waiting to see if I develop any symptoms. A cold, upset stomach, or any small real or perceived symptom will send me into a period of extreme worry and if I do get sick, I will likely imagine the worst and attribute it to the experience..

Like playing the lotto, maybe the best dreams are the ones you imagine in vivid detail and experience via fantasy where everything is unrealistically perfect. You know, where the beautiful Trans girl actually wants to fuck me and my wife is too unobservant to notice the two of us slipping up to her room. I can discuss my fantasies with my friends, write stories of sexual adventures, but never actually execute them. That way, they never disappoint and my world is safe.

I am not preaching or telling other people how to live their lives, but sitting in the hospital right now, this is how I see it.

[SUBBI]

A lot to digest there Peter. My overriding thought is "get yourself well". All th best with your recovery

[Don Williams]

Sorry to hear about your health incident, Peter. I hope you recover, quickly.

FWIW: That seems pretty close to your perspective, before, except for the potential for a FWB possibility. In the end, though, none of us can ever trust another person, completely, any more than we can trust the local Dairy Queen to, consistently, properly clean their soft-serve machine, or the meat plant to thoroughly sanitize their meat grinder.

[BrokenQuill]

Thanks for posting this Peter.

My first reactio is - get well soon!

Secondly,I agree, there is a huge issue with trust and the balance betwen risk and reward. Like any relationshi you need to be able to feel comfortable with your partner, but when engaging in a bisexual/homosexual relationship the risks become much higher. If youre single, it may only be you that is affected, but if you are having an extramarital affair then theres much more at stake, notwithstanding the risk of passing on unintentional infections.

The risk of exposure to your peers is very real - as I mentioned in another thread - even mentioning that you have tendancies can blow things up in the air. I know, it happened to me. and once that particular pandoras box is opened it will never be left behind.

If youre lucky enough to be in a situation where you have a partner who is not only on-board, but encouraging you, then life can be a little easier, but thats only cool as long as you dont pick up something itchy - or worse.

Get tested

Keep getting tested

Trust no one

[Don Williams]

My most intense fear is not what happens to me, but what I could, potentially, bring home, should my wife and I ever become physically intimate, again. Every ounce of anxiety that I experience revolves around this possibility, and it exists without regard to the gender(s) of the outside partner(s). That is what stops me, dead, in my tracks. That would only leave fantasy - which poses something of a problem for me. I don't want to die with any answerable questions unanswered.

That fear of becoming the proverbial "cat," chastised by fate, is what consumes me, at this point - moreso after reading this thread. But there is another part of that phrase that leaves me equally anxious - the "satisfaction" part. Cats are said to have nine lives. Therein lies my struggle.

"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back." Sadly, I've (to a great extent) moved beyond curious. The problem is that there are, now, so many more doors that have piqued my interest. To some, I already have the keys. The question of when or not to use them is what's got me stumped, today.

[StarroftheNite]

I hope that you're feeling much better now. Food poisoning can be extemely painful and disabling and I sympathize with your discomfort and worry. There are at least 5 or 6 bacterial and viral infections which one can get from food. When I go to weddings, funeral wakes, bar mitzvahs, and graduation parties I usually stay away from the buffet line and concentrate on the bar because of the risk of contaminated food. It's much easier to recover from a hangover than campylobacter or salmonella.

I wrote about my attitude towards STD and safe sex in one of the early threads on this message board, and don't have much to add. It comes down to the individual's choice about whether to have sexual relations with others, the people who are selected and the process of selecting them, and the decision about whether to insist on condom protection. The decision to eschew recreational sex with semi-strangers is reasonable, and I see nothing to criticize in your position and the logic behind it.