| abstract
| - Bareback is a term that originated in gay slang to describe acts of unprotected sex, especially anal sex. The term's usage, however, has crossed-over to more mainstream slang to describe any type of penetrative sexual act without the use of a condom. Before the mainstream awareness of HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, anal sex with and without condoms was not as prevalent in communications among men who had sex with men (MSMs). Sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention campaigns encouraged condom use but an urgency arose once transmission of HIV/AIDS was somewhat understood (see HIV for more information). Researchers encouraged condom usage as an effective way to reduce HIV transmission. Condoms are now known to be an effective barrier against HIV, as well as to herpes simplex, Cytomegalovirus, hepatitis B, chlamydia and gonorrhea. The gay male community, having been affected the most by the pandemic, mobilized quickly and the practice of unprotected anal sex quickly became taboo within the community. This was the time when the need for a term to describe the difference between "protected" and "unprotected" sexual acts arose. Barebacking as a practice is claimed to have become increasingly common again among MSMs in the mid-1990s. Reasons for this are varied, and include correlations based on: an "upswing" in the level of new HIV infections amongst gay men in younger age groups cited by the CDC and WHO, a more public presence of "bareback" literature, personal ads, and publicity of rebellious attitudes towards the practice; the increased effectiveness of HIV/AIDS treatments and the decline of people with AIDS being highly visible and physically compromised as a result of the disease. The later two rationales held in comparison to the 1980s in the gay community when those infected were often visibly sick and their health rapidly declining coupled with mainstream attention to the "new" disease. Gay columnists and editorialists in The Advocate, Genre magazine and Out magazine during the late 1990s and into the new millennium have made several claims as to why barebacking in first-world nation gay communities as a practice, re-surged in the 1990s.
* The advent and relatively noticeable success of protease inhibitors and other drugs for treating HIV infections has changed the perception of HIV infection from an untreatable terminal illness to a treatable chronic malady.
* Decreasing effectiveness of health education messages in the gay community fails to promote condom use (see condom fatigue).
* Methamphetamines have become akin to a "drug of choice" within gay male (and other) populations; individuals under the influence of meth are less likely to be concerned over potential hazards of their behaviour.
* Gay men with opposing beliefs about the practice of barebacking get "more publicity" about their feelings than in the past.
* Bareback pornography is available and contributes to the apathy, romanticising and eroticising of the practice.
* Online solicitation services for bare-backing partners has led to an increase in the practice.
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