PIP: Public health messages aimed at checking the sexual spread of HIV call for an end to unsafe sex practices. This goal, is however, unrealistic. The position is neither sustainable nor epidemiologically necessary, but is an unnecessary restriction on the desire and action of individuals and couples trying to create a sustainable combination of safety and pleasure based on a thorough understanding of what is safer sex. Focusing exclusively upon the practice of anal intercourse between men who have sex with men, the author argues that while unprotected anal intercourse is unsafe, it is not always and in every circumstance equally unsafe. For example, 2 men may be regular sex partners who enjoy an honest, trusting, and steady relationship. When and if 1 of the men has casual sex with a 3rd men, he does not engage in anal sex. While this behavior is not absolutely safe, it is safer than having, for example, unprotected anal sex with both his regular partner an casual partners. Humans function under heuristic rules where risk tends not to be eliminated but simply minimized. This behavior is an extremely deep feature of human interaction and should be encouraged instead of condemned. A high proportion of recent returns to unsafe sex among these men involves this sort of negotiated instead of absolute safer sex. These emergent strategies of negotiated safety must be encouraged and facilitated instead of condemned as irresponsible. Finally, the author recommends caution in translating epidemiological markers into prescriptions for individual behavior; he also recommends trying to reflect the complexity of what is happening in study populations in epidemiological categories and recognizing the robust humanity of men under study instead of seeking out their weaknesses.