Yasss, I'm on Yeztugo?

Yeztugo ad from SpectrumMedicalCare.org

CW: Body stuff.

I don’t know what I look like to doctors but I must have a “freak bitch willing to do anything” sticker on my forehead, because they’re always wanting me to be their guinea pig.

I am somehow usually the first or one of the first patients to get prescribed a new drug, whether that was Truvada a few years back, the once-a-day pill that reduces your risk of contracting HIV by nearly 100% (horrible side-effects, though I kinda loved the nightmares… kidneys were fighting for their life but every sleep was a movie), or later Descovy (same once-a-day pill idea, super chill, but my health insurance stopped covering it), then Apretude (a shot in the ass every two months—you ever get on your knees and arch your back on a hospital bed, the paper crinkling loudly under your weight? SEXY), followed by DoxyPep (if you take this pill no more than 72 hours after sex you will be between 70%-90% protected from some STDs, will also absolutely nuke your stomach), and now the shiny new HIV fighting medicine: Yeztugo.

Because being gay in 2026 is basically like being in The Matrix. Red pill? Blue pill?

Yeztugo is also a shot, though you only have to get it every 6 months. I found out about it while waiting in my doctor’s office to get my last Apretude injection. I’d been sitting there next to the HAZARDOUS WASTE bin as my doctor tested my blood and prepared the needle. As usual, I slowly disassociated while staring at the wall: standard calming black-and-white photograph of ocean, standard clock with hands that makes the most dramatic ticking sounds with every passing second that you wait for your results to come in, poster listing various drugs that promise you all the (nearly) risk-free sex you could ever want. And there it was. Under the Truvada, Descovy, and Apretude. Oh, something new: Yeztugo. With a name like that, you can’t help but twirl a finger in the air and say, “Yassssss, I’ll take one to go! Bag it up baby!” Though it is in fact a very serious injection that should be administered by a health professional, and what I probably really said while lifting a limp finger to the poster was something like, “Oh, em, is that a new type of PrEP?”

That was all my doctor needed to hear, and within seconds she was on me: Yes, it’s new, but it’s been tested and is safe! Much more effective that other drugs, as it removes the “human error element” (meaning you don’t have to remember to take a pill every day)! One shot every 6 months, usually in the stomach! And minutes after learning Yeztugo existed, she was making my appointment for my initial dose.

A few months later, I went back to the clinic to get my first injection. This was March in New York. Usually it’s freezing unbearably in March—but it was one of those rare winter days when the clouds part and God’s warm light shines upon us poor, ugly mortals. AKA: a nice sunny day, maybe the first in a long time.

When I arrived at the clinic at my appointed hour at noon, the whole staff was sitting outside on lawn chairs and enjoying the weather like it was their front porch, eating ribs and corn. They seemed so happy. It was a lips smacking, sucking on their fingers type of meal, which I dared not interrupt. I awkwardly stepped around them, figuring I’d wait for them to finish in the reception area, and walked the few steps to the front door. It was obviously locked, since again, the whole staff was outside. They all turned to look at me like a crazy person for even trying to go in, as if they hadn’t been sending me texts all week reminding me not to be late and insisting I fill out all my paperwork in advance so I didn’t waste a second of their time! I didn’t know what to do, and was too embarrassed to speak up, so I just went to the apartment building next door and sat on a bench in the mail room for a few minutes, smiling like a true crazy person and hoping people wouldn’t think I was stealing their packages. I should probably talk to a doctor about my anxiety but this post is about gay sex!!!

Stay with me…

Anyway, eventually I returned to the clinic, all traces of the BBQ were gone, and a young-looking nurse took me into his office. I’d guess he was like 26, he was disarmingly friendly and kept saying fun gay things like “Oop!” when he looked at my STD history (mortifying, though I couldn’t help but laugh) and “So what’s the tea?” which was cute because I was literally drinking some of the free chamomile tea from reception. He told me he was from Barbados, and that before this job, he was a tattoo artist, “so you don’t gotta worry, baby, I’m good with needles,” he winked.

I love when nurses call me baby. I love the gay clinic.

“You have any questions?” he asked.

I told him about the Reddit post I’d seen about Yeztugo. Basically, the way it works is they inject you with a 6-month supply of the medicine either in your stomach or in between your thighs. In essence: they insert a pouch of it into a fatty area of your body, and it stays there for the entire 6 months, slowly being time-released and absorbed. The gays on Reddit said the shot (two shots actually) leaves you with a tangerine-sized lump at the injection site. I asked him whether that was true.

“It goes away,” Nurse Good with Needles assured me. “You just want to get it in an area where there’s some fat, to disguise it at first.” He had me lift my shirt and poked at a belly roll. “That’ll do,” he said, in a tone that I don’t think was meant to be aggressive but came across as Disney villain-esque. “That’ll do just fine.”

The shot itself wasn’t so bad. Nurse Here to Activate my Body Dysmorphia instructed me to lay down and lift my shirt, then rubbed some numbing cream on my belly (that’s that tattooing experience coming through!). He distracted me by complimenting the faux-alligator heels I’d worn day—they dangled off the edge of the bed like road kill—asked me where they were from, then quickly plunged the needle into me before I could answer. Five minutes later I was sitting back up again as he bandaged me up.

“So hairy!” he said.

Pic I took in the bathroom later.

“Yeah… sorry,” I smiled apologetically.

“Sorry to you when you take these off. How do you feel?”

There was some light pressure on my stomach, not exactly comfortable, but not horribly painful either. Beneath the bandages, I could feel the medicine, like two golf balls, under my fat, pushing my belly further out. The area was tender to the touch.

“It’s okay, I guess,” I said. “Kind of weird.”

“Yeah, it’ll stay like that for the first couple days, but it should get better over time.”

He handed me some Advil and two pills I had to take the next day to activate the Yeztugo. “Don’t be a stranger!” he said, then sent me away with a lollipop.

I had worn a button-up vest with no undershirt that day because of the warm weather, and as I left the clinic to go reward myself with a burger at one of my favorite spots a short walk away in Hell’s Kitchen, the bottom of the vest kept flapping open in the breeze and I could see people passing me on the street eyeing my belly, trying to be subtle but clearly thinking, “What the fuck is that?” The bandages made it look like I’d just gotten a C-section, the edges crusty with spots of blood that had started oozing out. I was already self-conscious about my body during sex and wondered what it was going to be like now that I had balls on my stomach. I remembered one of the gays on Reddit saying something about how one day, the Yeztugo lumps would be a way for people to signal to each other that they were on PrEP. Instead of carrying around your last STD test results, you’d have this physical proof that you’re protected. I remember thinking this was lowkey classist but not really interrogating that further…

The tenderness remained for a few days, during which I slept on my side and stopped wearing crop-tops. One morning about a week later, I removed the bandage and saw the balls with my eyes, whereas before I’d only gauged their size by how they felt with my fingers under the bandage. They weren’t terribly large, but they were still very noticeable and surrounded by purple bruises. I massaged the injection site a bit and found other smaller balls around my belly, similar in consistency to boba tea pearls.

It was kind of giving The Mummy when the beetles crawl under the dude’s skin, but if all the beetles concentrated in my stomach area. When I buttoned my jeans, the balls pressed against the waist band like after eating a large meal. For a second I was like, “Hmm, maybe I should have thought about this more, maybe I don’t like this feeling, maybe I don’t want to feel like a pregnant salmon,” but what was done was done.

I’ll be honest. I hesitated to write about this because I am well aware of how lucky I am to have been born during a time when this type of drug exists. I remember before PrEP the constant fear I lived with that any hookup could lead to HIV, the stories I’d heard about from older gays who lost so many of their friends during the AIDS epidemic. A pill a day, an injection every two months, a shot that left me with a few extra balls… that’s nothing; that’s easy. These drugs are saving lives.

That said, I am also one of many, many gay bitches who has felt bad looking at my body in the mirror, and I can’t lie: feeling this new pressure in my stomach, like I was constantly bloated; having strangers on the street gawk at my belly; the nurse prodding my rolls… I will spare you my entire disordered eating history but if I said to you, “I think I was kind of triggered,” would you think I’m annoying or vain or petty? Because I’m a little annoyed with myself for caring too. I wish I had perfect self-esteem and an infinite reserve of confidence; alas, America’s Next Top Model was my bible as a kid and now I am fucked up in the head and admittedly had to tell myself, “This is fine, this is fine,” a few times before I accepted my new belly nuggets. It was like the opposite of being Yassified. I was Yezzified :(

A Yeztugo ad I got on a treadmill at The Marriott. At this point I’d rather be in The Matrix.

It’s now been a little over three months, and the lumps are for the most part faded (though even now, as I write this, I reached down to squeeze my belly and I can feel the drug there like tiny tumors, floating around in my belly fat).

On one hand, that’s good, because it means my body is still slowly absorbing the Yeztugo and I’m protected.

On the other hand, as much as I had to remind myself how trivial carrying a little extra baggage is, I wonder if other gay people will choose not to go on Yeztugo because of their own body shit. (According to another Reddit thread, some apparently won’t.) Does that mean they’re not grateful this life-saving medicine exists? I wouldn’t say all that… It’s just something to consider before deciding what drug to take. I’m fine with the side-effects now that I’m in my thirties, but when I think back to teenage me, or even early twenties-me, I’m sure I would have had a harder time.

My current insurance only covers shots, so my options are either Yeztugo every six months, or Apretude every two. Beetles in my belly or a sore ass. Since I move around a lot, I’m probably sticking to the Yeztugo. It’s undeniably more convenient and effective, and I’m comforted by the fact that the lumps mostly stop being visible in around 8-12 weeks. It’s a small thing when you consider the over 40 million people who have died since the AIDS epidemic began, or the folks across the world who’ve lost access to their HIV meds since Trump defunded USAID. Keeping things in perspective helps remind me how profoundly privileged I am to even have a choice.

Next time, I’m thinking about getting the injections in my thighs. I wonder if the balls will be more visible there, where there’s less fat, if I’ll feel them pressing against my shorts, what weird comments people will make, or if I should just keep having them inject my belly.

I am lucky as hell to have so many options: Truvada, Descovy, DoxyPep, Apretude, Yeztugo. For me, for six months of risk-free sex, I think it’s worth the shot(s).