Aaron Lawrence is a 26 year old escort and porn star from New Jersey. He's also got a college degree in Psychology and is the author of The Male Escort's Handbook and Suburban Hustler both of which he published himself. Aaron answers your questions in this regular OutUK column on being gay, sex and relationships and any other stuff you might want to ask. He says "My advice is based on my experiences in the sex industry, academia, and life. In no way am I a medical doctor, licensed psychologist, trained sex therapist, or God. Please read my advice with those limitations in mind".

Aaron 'sez: I agree! Long-time readers of this column may recall that I once included a link to the site in response to an question. Having used the stuff myself I can say that it does work and does help. It's not a miracle-cure for after-shaving rashes, but can do wonders. My own strategy is to trim rather than shave, thus no rash appears in the first place.

Aaron 'sez: What can I say? I agree! Everyone has their different "formulas" for what sort of guy they find attractive, but I can safely say in mine that dick size scarcely enters into the equation at all. Two inches or bigger? Fine - no problem in my book.

Aaron 'sez: There is no public health warning regarding the mixing of Viagra and pot. Viagra has lots of complications with other chemicals though, such as nitrates/poppers and protease inhibitors. If you use Viagra and are on HIV or any medications, be sure to talk to your doctor. It may be necessary to adjust your dosages. As far as I know, you don't have anything to worry about as far as mixing Viagra and pot goes, but this really should be a question you address to the doctor who prescribed the Viagra. Just be sure to make your "safety choices" in advance as far as condoms are concerned though. Once you light up your brain isn't quite functioning at 100%, and your judgment may be slightly impaired when making the decision whether or not to play safe.

Aaron 'sez: I called out the cavalry (read: my medical consultant) to answer this one. According to Dr. Goldstone...

It is difficult to say what is going on. Clearly he should be tested when he gets the burning for gonorrhea, chlamydia and herpes. The fact that he has herpes antibodies may make it more likely that this was a herpes infection. I do think that the two month time lag makes it unlikely that it was something he caught from that particular escort. He may have had it from before and the infection just surfaced.

So there you have it. Next time you have any symptoms, head back to a doctor and have those symptoms examined. Don't overconfuse your doctor by giving him lots of information that may cause him to second-guess himself. Just give show him your symptoms, say that you have reason to believe that it may be gonorrhea, chlamydia, or herpes, and let the doctor test you and take it from there.

Aaron 'sez: Possible? Yes. Good idea? Perhaps not. Someone once said that "having anal sex with haemorrhoids is like giving birth to a set of broken china." I don't know if it's THAT bad, but certainly it can be painful for some people.

There are many types of haemorrhoids that can occur on both the inside and outside of your body. Some are painful, others are not.  Some will go away on their own, others will require treatment or even surgery. There is no "one-answer-fits-all" suggestion for your questions.

Generally speaking, it is not a good idea to have anal sex when you have haemorrhoids. It certainly won't make them any better, and very likely will aggravate the problem. If you have any pain you should certainly not have anal sex. Rather, if you have haemorrhoids you should see your doctor and avoid getting fucked until you have a clean bill of anal health.

Aaron 'sez: Hehe! Not surprising they can't answer that one. &amp is the html-code for an ampersand ("&" symbol). It means the webpage is slightly screwy and you should smile before you move on to the next ad.

Aaron 'sez: You very well may be bi. Then again you may be gay or straight and just going through a phase. Part of being a teenager is sorting through a lot of confusing feelings. Are you sexually attracted to well-built men? Or do you just identify with them and want to be like them? Only you can answer those questions. It certainly does sound like you are attracted to guys though. Only you will be able to decide how strong that attraction is, and how it compares to your feelings for girls.

What I can say though is that what you are experiencing is totally normal. All of your friends are (or soon will be) going through similar sorts of issues. Maybe not exactly about well-built men, but about their own feelings and attractions. So rest assured, you are normal.  You're just sorting out your feelings of who you are, who you have been taught to be, and who you will become in the future. Not an easy task by any means.

So hang in there and don't rush into having sex.  You will get plenty of opportunities to explore the bodies and kiss the lips of guys as you grow older. And no, you don't have to have anal sex with them if you don't want to. There are plenty of guys that enjoy sex with other guys that don't have anal sex so that won't be a problem for you. Oh, and your dick is actually a bit bigger than normal. I'd guess you'll be sporting a 7 or 8-incher by the time you are fully grown. Something for you to look forward to.

G'luck! Drop me a note again in a year or two and let me know how your life is coming along.

Aaron 'sez: Cranberry juice has an interesting ability to help clear out urinary tract infections. I have never heard, however, anything about it making cum taste better. It certainly couldn't hurt though. Have your lover drink a few glasses of cranberry juice the day you have sex, and drop me a note if it does you any good. I suspect the effects will be minimal, but I'll be curious to hear your story.

Aaron 'sez: The "skinny" is that the effects of those pills are pretty "skinny". There is no magic pill that can make your dick grow bigger. Viagra can make it fully hard for an hour or two, but no pills provide any sort of long-term increase for the size of your dick.

Aaron 'sez: As you already well-know, everyone is wired differently when it comes to their dicks. Some get rock hard and jut out at attention, while others have dicks that go up almost parallel with their body and hurt if you pull them back more than an inch or two. Still others have dicks that hang straight down. These variations are because of the tendons between their cock and their body. The less they are connected, the more flexible your dick becomes. The upside of this is that your dick becomes slightly bigger because it is less attached to your body. The downside is that it has less connection strength to the body and so their dick has more difficulty supporting its own weight, hence why it hangs lower.

In your case (and mine as well, actually), our dicks hang down low. That's... well, normal. As long as one's sexual functioning isn't impaired, there isn't any "better" or "worse" way to be. It's just a matter of personal physiology and working around the pro's and con's therein. Not much you can do to change yourself, either. It's a lot easier to sever tendons (which they do in some penis enlargement surgery) to make your dick hang lower than it is to reconnect them to make your dick stand more out of the body.

Bit of homework for you: Next time you see models posing in a magazine, look to see how many of them are holding their dicks out of their body. In my own case you will almost always see me doing it. I just can't hold my dick straight out for more than a couple of seconds otherwise. Many models in the magazines are the same way. So do you have a low-hanging dick? Shrug your shoulders and move on. You're in good company and some of the biggest porn stars in the business are the same way.

Aaron 'sez: My advice is to be up front about it with your partners. If they start making a move down there with their face, just urge them to keep working on your dick instead. Say with a smile that you love to rim but hate having it done to you, but that you love being fingered and fucked. I have discovered over the years that men during sex are like children playing with toys. They may want to play with something, but if you distract them with another equally-flashy toy they are usually as happy to play with that instead. So next time a guy makes a move for your balls, ask him to work on your cock and balls instead... and be sure to give him a few extra-loud moans for doing so.

Aaron 'sez: People who actively seek conversation are few and far between. If someone truly wants to convert, they go out and do it (often while drunk or high) and don't make a public spectacle of it. I believe that 99.9% of "bug chasers" who advertise for HIV+ tops to seroconvert them are full of crap.

People intentionally seroconverting was more common in the 1980's when one might see their friends and lover all becoming HIV+ and wasting away. To be HIV- was to live in fear of the constant threat of becoming HIV+. Some people decided the fear was worse than the disease itself, and converted so they could resume their relationship with their lover or friends and more fully enjoy the time left that they have together.

The rise of protease cocktails and AIDS medications in the western world has dramatically increased the life expectancies of people with AIDS. As a result it is rare that anyone seroconverts for the same reasons done so fifteen years ago. Rather, people convert now out of a paradoxical set of behaviours. They bareback and play unsafely (often while on drugs), yet they seek to cheat fate by avoiding HIV-testing. In that way they can safely say they have never been diagnosed with HIV. They minimize the risks in their own mind in much the same way that smokers and overeaters completely disregard the health dangers associated with their habits.

Moral of the story: Few people set out with the express intention of becoming HIV, but the behaviours of many often expose them to a series of risks that walk them well down the path towards testing positive.

Aaron 'sez: I have to ask - did it taste good? I have been known to have a wild stream from time to time, but the idea of eating week-old cum never appealed to me. Perhaps he Fedex-ed it though so it wasn't that old. Did you at least microwave it first to warm it back up?

Medically speaking, you are in surprisingly good shape as far as your risks are concerned.  The HIV virus cannot live for more than a few minutes when exposed to air or when lowered to room temperature. It is actually a very fragile virus that does not survive well outside of the human body. Nor is hepatitis a big issue. Hep is traditionally based on by contact with traces of infected fecal matter. So unless you drank out of a condom which had been used for fucking, it is unlikely that it had been exposed to hepatitis. Perhaps the only way would be if the guy was dildoing himself while beating off, resulting in traces of infected material on the dildo and on his hands. In that case he might have put some on the condom when touching it, resulting in a risk for you since Hepatitis can survive for up to a week at a time outside of the body. That is an unlikely scenario, however, and one you might be able to check on by asking the guy.

Your primary risks are probably bacterial in nature, such as gonorrhea or syphilis infections. In that case you will know because you will suffer from sore throats within a week or so. Assuming your throat is nonsymptomatic, you are probably fine there. Herpes is another risk, either increased or decreased depending on whether he actually wore the condom before he dumped his load into it.

In short, you're probably fine, but eating out of a condom can have its risks.  Fortunately they aren't the worst diseases around so you probably won't be keeling over anytime soon.

(PS, You have had your hepatitis A and B vaccinations, right? All men who have sex with men should be vaccinated for both. It's cheap, easy, and your doctor can do it on request. Best of all, once you have been completely vaccinated you will never have to worry about those STDs ever again).

Aaron 'sez: If by bugs you mean bacteria then your pharmacist is correct that the rectum is full of them. If he was referring to roaches then either he needs to go back to school or you need some serious help with your personal hygiene.

Seriously, the rectum is filled with bacteria. During anal sex without a condom (or oral sex for that matter), occasionally some of that bacteria can get up in your urethra causing a non-gonococcal urethritic (NGU) infection. It's characterized by a painful burning sensation during urination, and is often accompanied by a white or clear discharge seeping out of your dick. This is nothing embarrassing to see your doctor about though, as NGU infections can occur on occasion for seemingly no reason at all.

Fortunately treatment is a simple matter.  A simple course of antibiotics can clear the infection up in a week or so, with symptoms vanishing after just a couple of days. You'll want to abstain from sex until you are done with your antibiotics, just to be on the safe side that your infection is completely gone.

So yes, your pharmacist is right. But I wouldn't give up anal and oral sex because of this. A condom is a sensible precaution during anal sex anyway, and if you are truly worried about urethritic infections, it is a simple matter to use one for oral sex as well.

Aaron 'sez: When gay guys talking about douching, they are referring to enemas rather than women's douches.  While a woman's douche would probably not be harmful, I have never heard of anyone actually using one. Most guys who use occasional enemas buy Fleet brand (or a generic equivalent) disposable enemas. Those that use enemas more regularly often buy a small portable enema bottle that can be filled with warm water in any sink. Some have elaborate attachments that hook up to a faucet, but I have always thought that was a bit overdone.

Aaron 'sez: You generally don't have to.  Left to their own devices, your sphincter muscles will return to mostly normal behavior within a few minutes after anal sex. By the next day they will be completely back to normal unless you were doing something really off the wall, like extreme fisting or playing with huge dildos.

Generally speaking, getting fucked regularly doesn't stretch one's ass out. It does cause the muscles to become more adapted to getting fucked regularly, so that the person is better able to handle a dick the next time they are fucked. When you combine that with experience in muscle relaxation and picking a position that works for them, bottoms who practice regularly can become quite adept at going from tight to super-fuckable within just a few minutes, and yet be back to their usual tight-assed selves by the next day.

So no, bottoms who get fucked regularly don't have problems with bowel control. They might have to use the bathroom right after they get fucked, but that's more a matter of the colons being stimulated by all the movement that occurs during anal sex. The stimulation causes everything to "move on down," and thus they need to head to the bathroom for a few minutes. It is not actually a product of having a super-loose ass.

Aaron sez: I receive many submissions of questions I have already answered. Aaron's Advice is published every couple of weeks in OutUK and you can see my past OutUK columns in the OutBack archive.

Bedtime Reading

Aaron's bestseller which graphically reveals his businesslike approach to the world's oldest profession. Available at Amazon.

Aaron sez :
For more information about gay health, check out Dr. Goldstone's book, The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex.

Suburban Hustler - Memoirs Of A HiTech Callboy is Aaron's first bestseller which has sold more than 200,000 copies at AmazonUK alone. Available here.