For gay sex worker Lyle Muns, his profession actually helped him examine his sexuality and create healthy boundaries. He is licensed in Amsterdam — even a business taxpayer and Chamber of Commerce member — and has taken every opportunity to educate clients.
Since Lyle is living with HIV, that education often includes lessons on what it means to be undetectable.
Related: Gay guys from around the globe talk sex and personal safety in Amsterdam
Queerty contributor Mark S. King tells us his time in Amsterdam at AIDS2018 has proven that this fascinating city is certainly more “sex positive” than most. If Lyle’s story is any indication, that approach has definite public health benefits.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The interview was conducted at the gay sex club “Church” in the center of the gay-friendly city. Coming up in Mark’s video reports: a tour of the club, and an interview with a self-described “kinkster” who believes his sexual creativity has been a risk reduction technique.
StraightnNarrow
Glamorizing and glorifying male prostitution? No way! I can sympathize with women who, for the sake of supporting their children and family, fall in a bad way and end up a prostitute selling their body and soul but for able bodied men, male prostitution is simply wrong and should not be legalized in this country.
RobtheElder
Personally, I take no chances with HIV. If it’s possible to remove every opportunity to contract HIV, that’s where I want to operate. What this nice young man from Amsterdam suggests is that HIV positive people, as long as they’re on an appropriate course of prophylactic medicine, don’t have a viral load sufficient to transmit the Aids virus. This statement has several flaws that I’d like to share with you for your consideration. My perspective says that I’m only comfortable when the means of HIV prevention rests entirely in my own hands.
Let’s say I decide to trust a man I meet when he says he’s always entirely up to date with his prophylaxis, and that his doctor’s testing confirms that prognosis, that his viral load is near zero (too reduced to reach a level to support transmission). If he’s horny, and he lies, I contract HIV. At this point, I must go on a course of prophylaxis that will limit my activities for the rest of my life (at least at this point). He can lie about his treatment, about his viral load, about anything that affects his (and therefore my) health. I could also be more susceptible to HIV than is the average mook, and the low viral load is enough to push me over the top.
I was 38 years old in 1980, when HIVAids was just discovered, and there was no treatment, and young people were stricken and were dying like flies. I lived through that time by being careful, and I was actively defensive. I transported victims to their doctors (they’d spent every penny they had on treatment or medicine to try to get well). Their families shunned them, were afraid of them, thought they could catch the contagion. I’m making meals, spooning soup into their mouths, cleaning up their urine, their feces. I figured that my God wouldn’t strike me, if I was doing his work… And He didn’t. No matter what I hear, or what I read, I take no chances. If I contract HIVAids, it won’t be because I didn’t try to avoid it. … RobtheElder