Commentary (The Receipt)
This one started with a really simple tension in my head:
I know exactly how good sex feels.
I also know exactly how fast that can blow up in your face.
I didn’t want to write a pamphlet. I wanted to write the thing the pamphlets can’t say:
“Yeah, this is hot as fuck.
Yeah, you still have to live with whatever happens after.”
Why this one is so blunt
I’ve heard a lot of STI / HIV talk over the years in scenes and kink spaces, but it often falls into two buckets:
- Scare tactics – “Have you seen the pictures? Never do anything risky, ever.”
- Cool detachment – “Whatever, it’s just a thing, everyone gets something eventually.”
Neither of those felt honest to me.
I’ve talked to people who live with HSV, HIV, HPV and more—who did everything “right” and still got blindsided, or who took one stupid risk when they were lonely or manic or just done caring and ended up carrying something home they never planned on.
What always hits me isn’t the diagnosis—it’s the way they still want connection.
They still want sex.
They still want love.
And the ones who tell people upfront? Who put “here’s what I’m living with” on the table before the clothes come off?
That’s brave as hell.
That’s part of why this piece refuses to paint them as dirty or doomed.
If anything, the people who disclose clearly and early are doing it more “right” than half the allegedly “clean” folks who won’t even get tested.
Why I talked about gangbangs when I’ve never done one
Short answer: because I’m not going to pretend I don’t get why the fantasy hits so hard.
No, I’ve never been in a gangbang.
No, I’m not out here raw-fucking strangers at parties “for research.”
My real life has been mostly:
- dynamics
- relationships
- a brain that needs control and ritual
- and a body that would love not to die of something preventable
But the part of my mind that loves porn, that loves sluttiness, that gets off on excess?
Yeah, it absolutely understands the appeal of:
- multiple partners
- being the center of a room
- being wanted and used from every angle
So I wanted that section to be honest:
“This is hot. I get it.
Now let’s talk about what it actually costs if no one is honest or careful.”
If you’re queasy about group stuff, that paragraph might have grossed you out. That’s fine. You’re not the “failed” audience for it. But even the people who feel sick thinking about it still deserve honesty and testing and consent.
Also: if anyone ever does invite me to watch their gangbang on FaceTime as the sober safety contact?
I’m not saying no.
I’m just saying I’m muting my mic until you’re done.
My own “reckless” line
I’ve never been the one bouncing from stranger to stranger.
Most of my risk has happened inside dynamics:
- “We’re working it out.”
- “We already know each other.”
- “We deserve to feel good again.”
That’s why the cheating story is in there.
Not because I’m proud of that choice.
But because it’s the closest I ever came to saying:
“Fuck it, I know the odds. I’m doing it anyway.”
about being intimate with someone I already knew had recently cheated on me.
No condom. No testing gap. No pause. Just that sick mix of hurt and hunger and wanting to reclaim something that felt stolen.
If everything had come back positive after that?
It would’ve been on me.
I knew better. I still lit the match.
That’s really what this whole piece is about:
- not “never do anything risky”
- but “own the fact that you chose the risk if it bites you later.”
I can say:
- I haven’t done group scenes that could spin off in six directions.
- I haven’t said yes to every opportunity that walked past me willing and ready.
- I have always been the one way more worried about my own health than I let on.
Not because I’m morally above any of this.
Not because I’ve never wanted to say “fuck it” and dive in.
Because I’ve seen the fallout up close, and I’m not interested in collecting consequences I can’t walk back.
COVID, fear, and feeling “unclean”
The other thing that shaped this piece was getting COVID late in the wave.
Not early-pandemic, not “we don’t know what this is yet” — more like:
“We know what this is.
We know what it can do.
And I still managed to get it.”
I felt disgusting.
Not in the sexy way.
Just… contaminated.
My brain kept going, “What if you never get back to normal?”
I worried about long COVID. I worried about my heart. I worried about what damage I couldn’t see yet.
I went more than five days without masturbating, which for me at the time might as well have been a religious fast. I had so much more energy just from not jerking off I almost felt like a superhero—until I tried to stand up too fast.
That stretch messed with my head.
Not because I thought I was evil.
Because I realized how fast your relationship with your body can change when something invisible moves in and decides to try stay.
That feeling, for a lot of people, is what an STI diagnosis is like:
- “I’m still me… but I’m not just me anymore.”
- “What do I have to say now, every time I want to be close to someone?”
Part of why I wrote “you’re still a person I might want to touch; the diagnosis just tells me how” is because I’ve watched people wrestle with that post-diagnosis identity crisis.
They’re not less human.
They’re just living with more variables.
Why I cared enough to make this one so precise
This isn’t a kink-shame piece.
This isn’t a “close your legs, go to church” piece.
This is:
“I know why you want to do this.
I also know what it looks like when the bill shows up later.”
I’ve heard too many good, brave people tell me:
- how they got sick
- how they weren’t told
- how they had to learn to say the words out loud
- how terrified they were to tell the next person
And I’ve also watched ambitious, horny, beautiful people roll the dice like they’re invincible, because the feeling of being wanted right now screams louder than the idea of meds, paperwork, and awkward conversations later.
So this piece is the bridge:
- between the fantasy brain that loves filth
- and the part of you that has to live in your own skin afterwards
I’m not asking anyone to become a nun.
I’m asking you to remember:
You only get one body.
You only get so many throws with the same set of dice.
If this piece nudges even a handful of people toward:
- getting tested,
- disclosing honestly,
- or saying, “condom or we’re not doing this,”
then it’s doing its job.
And if you’re already on the other side—with a diagnosis, with letters, with meds—
you’re not the warning.
You’re the proof we all live in the same real world.
You’re still allowed to be hot.
You’re still allowed to be loved.
You’re still allowed to be fucked silly by someone who knows exactly what they’re saying yes to.
That’s what I wanted this one to hold.
On the companion track: “Positive” – Spearhead
“Positive” sits right in the middle of that word I’m playing with the whole piece.
On one side, you’ve got positive as in:
- vibes
- mindset
- “think good thoughts”
On the other, you’ve got positive as in:
- blood work
- test result
- something that might change your life
The song lives in that tension: how a single word can carry both hope and fear, both community and stigma. It’s about what it means to walk around with something in your body that other people are terrified of, and still insist on your own humanity, your right to be loved, touched, and seen beyond a lab report.
That’s exactly what I wanted in this piece:
- not “disease as horror movie”
- not “disease as cute aesthetic”
- but “this is real, this is heavy, and the people carrying it are still people.”
Where the track leans into the politics and the human cost of a virus, this piece leans into the everyday version: STIs, scares, pregnancy, the way “positive” can either be a celebration or a gut punch depending on what you just peed on or got drawn from your arm.
They’re both asking a similar question in different lanes:
“What do we do with the truth once we have it?”
For me, “Positive” is the right soundtrack because it refuses to reduce anyone to their status. It holds the fear and the dignity in the same breath. That’s what I was aiming for here too:
- sex is still hot
- risk is still real
- and no test result gets to decide whether you’re worth loving.
Cycle II – Coming of Age · 07 · Commentary (v1.00)
Go Deeper with This Piece
Continue Cycle II
- Previous: Cycle II – Coming of Age · 06 · Commentary
- Next: Cycle II – Coming of Age · 08 · Commentary
- View Cycle II: The Commentaries Index
Try Something Else