Results showed overall agreement with a basic definition of bareback sex as condomless anal intercourse, but considerable variation on other elements. Using in-depth, face-to-face interviews with an ethnically diverse sample of 120 HIV infected and uninfected men, mainly gay-identifying, and recruited online in New York City, this study explored respondents’ definitions of bareback sex, the role that intentionality and risk played in those definitions, and whether respondents identified as ‘barebackers’. The terms bareback and bareback identity are increasingly being used in academic discourse on HIV/AIDS without clear operationalisation.