If you're talking about penetration (vaginal or anal) in public play, it's a matter of law in San Francisco.... fluid bonded or no, you better use a barrier if you do it at a sex or kink club.

If they have syphilis in their throat, you can get it from being blown, as I understand it.

The same goes for getting oral sex with a condom on.

Oh sure, because E.Coli isn't ever an issue.

There are more factors than just regular STDs when it comes to rimming.

I must say that I am very on the fence about the issue of barriers. I am fluid bonded with my partner because we both know we are clean and have a bond of trust and love. I don't like to be denied that, even in public play spaces but I understand why the barrier requirement is necessary.

Few people DO, but more people SHOULD. Do you want syphilis? You can get it through uncovered oral in either direction.

San Francisco was the core of the AIDS epidemic. These laws were made to protect people in the public arena. No one is telling you what you may or may not do in private.

I don't think it is a challenge to ones freedom to have laws on barriers in public spaces.

Many cities and States have laws that outlaw sex clubs, period.

Which law is a bigger threat to your freedoms? No sex in public spaces with out the use of barriers or no sex clubs?

I've done my share of riskier sex, and I feel fortunate to have not gotten anything, although I easily could have. In the future, however, I plan to be more careful should I engage in sex on a casual basis. I know that that will limit my choice of partners, and that's the consequence I face. I am just hoping that barrier use for the prevention of STIs (not just HIV) would be considered more acceptable in such situations.

Like Dave, I hate using barriers (except for anal), so I'm in a closed, fluid-bonded poly relationship. I'd rather not have to use barriers at dungeons with my poly partners, but if that's the policy, I'll abide by it. It is my understanding that at at least one dungeon in SF the policy of using barriers for sex (between/among anyone, whether fluid-bonded or not) came out of a request from the gay men's community.

I'd like to add that in the case of poly relationships, if people aren't careful with barrier usage, they expose not only themselves but also their partners to risk.

Certainly, people can take the argument about barrier usage to its extreme, as Dave and others have done (plastic bubble sex) to make the points seem ridiculous. But that's a false strategy to me because decisions about safer sex are not made all in the extreme. Every time we have sex, we make a series of choices about what we will do with whom in what holes and with what body parts or toys, etc. And people can elect to use barriers or not at every one of those choices. I am in favor of it being more acceptable to use barriers in more of those choices between partners engaging in casual sex.

One final comment: Part of my thinking on this subject comes from the recognition that, generally speaking, women and men are not equal in our society in terms of power. So if a woman is negotiating casual sex with a man in a male-dominated world, his norm likely has a better chance of determining what will happen. As Dave has pointed out, it is much more preferable to a man not to use a condom. Now if it is two men negotiating sex, gender inequality is not a factor. In the case of the female and male couple, if she wants the man to wear a condom for oral sex, she'd likely be considered a prude or into bubble sex (or told to "chill out"). However, if our societal norms were different, she might not face those criticisms and instead be thought of as a smart woman who knows how to have a good time at reduced risk of infection with STIs.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.
Meryl

"Driving a car or taking public transportation is way more dangerous than unprotected/barrier free oral/manual sex"

And.....

"statistically you're more likely to get in a bad/fatal car accident than get HIV from giving oral sex or from getting HIV from rimming/fingering an anus, or from mutual masturbation"

So Dave do you happen to have a statistics or mathematics degree? Based on your rather naive statements I have serious doubts. Let's deconstruct your response for the audience and show where your logic is flawed.

#1: Driving ....is way more dangerous than......
How are you describing "danger" there Dave? Are we looking at fatalities per person, per hour of activity, per occurrence? For that matter are we talking about fatalities or injuries? You are likely to find an incredibly low number of injuries or fatalities at the time of occurrence for nearly any sexual act. Typically the consequences are observed much later for sexual activities.

#2 Statistically you are more likely to......
Same kinds of questions on this as well Dave. Are we comparing using the same denominator? Yes, there are more people injured and killed driving cars than having sex. What a big surprise, if you look at the total amount of time spent driving compared to sex of any kind you can see how this logic falls apart. The population of people driving every day is likely to be much higher than the population having sex on any particular day. The population that is only engaging in oral sex and or rimming and fingering or mutual masturbation as the only componentsof such sexual activity is smaller still.

Lets try a simple example to demonstrate your faulty logic......

Which is more dangerous driving to a hang glider- paraglider flying site or hang gliding-paragliding?

According to the NHTSB there are 1.52 fatalities per 100 million miles of driving in 2001. That equates to one fatality for every 66 million miles. making the likelihood of dying in a car crash equal to 0.00000001520 per mile driven. Now lets assume the average pilot drives a round trip of 100 miles to engage in their sport. (hint - just drop 2 zero's from the prior #) and we will have the likelihood of getting killed to or from the flying site of......... 0.00000152 per trip.


Now lets look at the flying. There are roughly 15,000 hang gliding and paragliding pilots that are members of the USHGA (the governing body that most pilots are a member of) Out of these 15,000 pilots there are typically 7-10 fatalities per year. Let's take 8.5 for simplicity sake. Divide 15,000 by 8.5 for an annual fatality rate per pilot of one per 1765. Now let's assume the "average" pilot flies 50 days a year which in common sense means once every weekend except Christmas and Easter which is probably unrealistically generous but we will work with it. Multiply 1765 times 50 you get to 88235 (I didn't do any rounding) now divide 1 by 88235 to get to a risk per day trip of 0.00001133

We now have a standard way of comparing the risk of driving to a site 50 miles away and back against the entire day of flying that happens.

Ready for the big leap......divide 0.00001133 by .00000152 and we end up with 7.456 which in common english means that you are 7.45 times more likely to be killed by flying than by the drive. The number gets even larger if you put shorter average drives in or reduce the number of flying days the "average" pilot is likely to participate in.

Try comparing the risk per event Dave and you will start to understand why your peers are telling you that your statements are inaccurate and potentially harmful to the community. While us as a society are likely to have much fewer total fatalities from hang gliding-paragliding or unprotected oral sex, the logic falls apart when you look at level of risk PER INDIVIDUAL or PER EVENT. Those numbers tell you what your likelihood of having an adverse event are, not what the society at large is experiencing. On average there are far more people killed in automobile accidents on their way to church than there are people killed while standing in the middle of the 101 freeway in the middle of the night singing Don Giovanni while dressed in all black clothes. Care to start practicing your opera singing? You are welcome to go to the NHTSB and the USHPA and validate my numbers if you don't believe me. Your sloppy assumptions and intellectual dishonesty mask the true level of risk you are subjecting yourself and your partners to.

A very disappointed BlueEyzz