Staying Negative aims to emotionally engage, inspire and facilitate imagination in sexual health practices. The campaign profiles the real life stories of gay, bisexual and trans men who have sex with men (MSM). Men talk about all aspects of their life from coming out, relationships, sexuality and a broad range of other topics. While HIV and safe sex is an important part of all stories, it is not the exclusive focus.
Prior HIV prevention campaigns have traditionally focused on providing gay men with information that will encourage them to adopt safe sex behaviours. In reality, safe sex practices are influenced by a whole range of environmental and cultural factors. The campaign also provides an opportunity for HIV positive men to talk about their lives and discuss how their strategies to staying HIV negative were not successful. We understand that there is more than one way practice safe sex and adopt healthcare seeking behaviours, so let's be creative about it!
There are no real criteria for participants other than that they are MSM and happy to have their stories appear as part of the campaign. In addition to the personal stories, the website provides information on HIV/AIDS, sexual health, relationships and broad of the other relevant topics including domestic violence, drugs and alcohol and depression.
Doing anything for the first time can make anyone slightly nervous let alone something as intimate as anal sex. You may feel the pressure of needing to be amazing in bed or wanting to impress your partner. There’s no shame in communicating with your potential partner that it’s your first time and that you may be unsure or nervous about what’s going on. Everybody has had to have a “first time” once in their life so whoever you are sleeping with will most likely know how you’re feeling. If is the first time for the both of you, then this could be a fun experience of trying new things.
Your first time can be a big step physically as well as emotionally. Sometimes guys could feel emotionally vulnerable because it’s all so new and intimate. Having your first time with someone you care about and are close to can be a beautiful thing so embrace it! Doing it for the first time with a casual partner can be great too, just make sure you’re ready and be prepared for the possibility that he may be emotionally detached from you and just sees it as a casual lay.
It’s pretty common for guys to watch porn before they’ve ever tried anal sex but trying to fuck like a porn star or take a pounding like they do on your first try is probably not the best idea. That’s not to say that you could eventually work into those roles after some practice and becoming more comfortable with what you’re doing, but for the first time it’s really important to take it slow.
We’ve come up with some tips to help you out with your first time, whether you are topping or bottoming.
If you know you’re going to want to try anal sex, practice on yourself first with sex toys or with your fingers. Practice deep breathing techniques when getting penetrated or even holding your breath, whatever works best for you. You can start with your fingers and gradually move on to larger sex toys. Try and get used to the feeling of what it feels like and see if you like it. If you don’t really like how it feels, don’t feel pressured into doing it, there are heaps of other ways you can get off sexually with your partner. You may hear guys raving on about how amazing anal sex is but just try and manage your expectations as the first time can be painful or your may feel self conscious. Don’t worry, anal sex gets easier and more enjoyable with practice.
The entry to the arse is controlled by circular muscles called the sphincter. There are two sets of muscles in your arse, the internal sphincter and the external sphincter. The pain associated with anal sex can come from the pressure a cock sliding in puts on a tight external sphincter. The sphincter has a lot of nerve endings and is the source of a lot of sexual pleasure, so when done right, the sliding in and out should feel really good. Other sources of pain from anal sex could be from haemorrhoids, anal fissures or getting pounded too hard and fast. Make sure you communicate with your partner if you’re in pain and are not enjoying yourself. Learn to read body language and see if your partner is enjoying himself. Try different things and see what you like more or what he likes more to get turned on.
You’ll enjoy yourself more if your body is nice and relaxed as well as quite turned on. Don’t be surprised by a bad reaction if you just try and ram it in there without any foreplay. Similarly, it will probably feel pretty uncomfortable if someone tries to fuck you and you’re not relaxed. You can help each other relax by lots of foreplay such as kissing, massaging the cheeks around the arse, fingering or rimming one another. This will help the muscles in your arse to relax, making it easier for a cock to slide in there. The more relaxed you are, the less you have to focus on the mechanics of what’s going on and the more you can enjoy the sexual pleasure.
The arse doesn’t have as much natural lubrication as a vagina does, so lots of water based lube is important. The arse can be quite tight so using lots of lube will help a cock slide in and out with more ease. You can work this into your foreplay by first rubbing lube onto his cock and playing around with your hands then around and in your arse, or vice versa. Be generous with the lube, it’ll help increase the sexual pleasure of anal sex.
If you’re nervous about anal sex or worried about it hurting, be in control of the situation. Use your hands to guide his cock in slowly and see how that feels. Being on top whilst guiding it in is a good way to control how deep and how fast the penetration goes. If you like how it feels, by all means pick up the pace and get things as heated as you want them to. Remember that your arse can be quite a tight place for a cock to fit, so make sure you don’t get too excited and shove it in quickly because you could accidentally rip your banjo (the small elastic band of tissue under your penis that joins the head to the foreskin of the main shaft). Ouch! If this does happen, try not to freak out too much, a doctor can help sort you out. There will be a lot more blood than you expect but this doesn’t necessarily reflect the severity of the tear, there just happens to be a lot of blood flowing through your cock when you have a hard on. Stop whatever sexual acts you are doing and go and see a doctor as soon as you can.