Some Staggering Statistics

Now, you know me. I’m not the one for waving around lurid statistics about death rates amongst gay men or the incidence of STDs in various sub-groups. In fact, I’m on record for criticising those who seem to constantly do nothing but that.

But……

Look at this slide that has come from a CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) presentation on HIV prevalence amongst young males.

CDC - HIV amongst Young MenNow I want to help you to get your head around this. In the USA, 91.2% of all HIV infections in young men aged 13 to 24 are amongst those men having male to male sexual contact (with no other aggravating factors like needle use) and only 4.1% from men having sex with women. If we assume the Kinsey figure of 1 in 10 people being “gay”, then that means that a young gay man is 222 times more likely to get HIV through his sexual activity then someone who doesn’t have sex with someone of the same sex. But of course, the Kinsey figure is way too high, so let’s apply the more reasonable figure of 2% of the population being homosexual. Now the factor is 1,112 times more likely to acquire HIV if you have sex with someone of the same sex.

Over 1,100 times more likely to acquire HIV if you’re a young man and you have sex with someone who is male then if you have sex with someone who is female. From the US Government’s own figures.

I’m lost for words. How does one go about fixing this? Is it a case of better sex education, better information about preventing STD transmission or something else? Someone tell me.

56 Comments on “Some Staggering Statistics

  1. What kind of fix are you looking for? One which enables them to go on having gay sex but without getting AIDS? Or one which brings them under the lordship of Jesus Christ?

    Would you see the discovery of a way of achieving the former as a good thing? Perhaps this is an instance of the larger question: how much do Christians attempt to rescue unrepentant people from the consequences of their own sin? I’m not sure I know the answer to that.

    Related question: where do you see the hand of God here? Is the truth that these figures show a form of judgement, or not?

  2. I don’t think the younger generation (under 30) of gay men particularly care. I say that having listened to a few (otherwise responsible guys who make a big fuss about “commitment”) talk about HIV as something that can be “dealt with”. Which it can be – and they don’t want to use condoms. Simples.

      • Well it is – from their perspective. The only complication is that the gay press (under the influence/control of a slightly older generation) doesn’t want to publish articles that more or less agree with the “irresponsible” attitude of the younger generation. I give it 10 years (max) before Pink News starts publishing “I don’t give a flying fig” articles about HIV – unless HIV does become unmanageable again.

    • A more complete picture of what “managing” HIV really looks like would be in order. Currently there is immense pressure to print and say only positive things about living with HIV. I get that nobody likes a stigma, but we have to balance that with the responsibility to give young people an accurate picture and realistic expectations. Once infected, not everybody lives with HIV the same way. Some people’s side effects from treatment are so unpleasant that they stop the treatment. Not to mention that the treatment can be exorbitantly expensive. Diabetes, Lupus, even cancer – all these things are also “manageable” but we don’t tell people it’s ok to gain 250 pounds because it’ll all be ok somehow. Telling half-truths about HIV are part of what is perpetuating the problem, and I work for a health care company and we do it ALL THE TIME, with one innovative campaign after another about how to make being infected “more positive”. I think it’s wrong headed, but they keep doing it full steam ahead.

  3. The thing is, you don’t get HIV from having sex with someone of the same sex, you get HIV from having sex with someone who has HIV. So these figures are surprising. One reason could be that women are more careful than men about protection, but actually, quite a lot of women take the pill and trust their partner to be faithful – which isn’t going to prevent HIV.

  4. ‘better sex education’. Don’t make me laugh! My parents did their level best to stop me getting hold of teenage magazines and even I knew from an early age that protecting yourself from HIV was an important part of sexual health. The warnings are on almost every page! Together with stories of women living with the illness because they trusted the wrong person. Even if you never turn up to school and don’t listen in class when you’re taught about these things you can’t POSSIBLY be part of teen culture in the West and NOT know that condoms stop HIV.

    Or is this teen girl culture? Do men not talk about these things?

  5. Yes, they are staggering, but not surprising. On the assumption that UK stats are similar to those produced by the CDC (and there is no reason to suppose that they would be markedly different) we can blame all those who have covered up the dangers of homosexual activity for decades when the evidence was there for all to see. We can hold to account all those who actively promote this lifestyle, and I don’t just mean gay activists but also the likes of David Cameron and all the sycophants and unprincipled toadies who go along with it in the hope of furthering their careers. The evidence was all there. They were provided with it in some of the submissions to Parliament. Yet they crashed ahead with the ludicrous same-sex marriage bill, giving the young the impression that gay is good. Of course the media must take its share of the responsibility.

    Young same-sex attracted men are not afraid of HIV/AIDS because they have not lived through the epidemic. They think that a few antiretrovirals will keep the problem under control. But they
    are wrong; this medication is toxic and debilitating; they will never be properly well; a 20 year old men contracting HIV will have a life expectancy shortened by up to 20 years. And the actual
    cost (to the rest of us) is staggering – currently treatment and care for HIV is £858 million per annum in the UK, or £320k lifetime cost per person.

    As for education, don’t make me laugh – when we pour money into agencies like the Terrence Higgins Trust, which from what I read on their website describe in graphic detail on how to carry out many sickening homosexual activities with the advice ‘wear a condom’! We only have to look at the statistics to see how effective that advice is.

    The only way to stop this is to change the culture. Stop pretending that gay is good and normal. It isn’t. The state bullies us into eating our five a day, to stop smoking and to lose weight, but gives its tacit seal of approval to homosexual activity, which, while it only affects a small proportion of the population, causes untold harm. THEY are the ones who I would describe as homophobes.

    • Jill, you are right. You are absolutely right. The solution is staring us in the face, and it’s so obvious that I wonder how anyone can fail to see it: abolish homosexuality. How? Simple! As you say, change the culture. Just tell people that gay isn’t good and normal, it’s bad, and that no-one should be sexually attracted to anyone of their own sex, and hey presto! – no-one will be any more. “Same sex attraction” will simply fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.

      And when we’ve dealt with that, perhaps we could then give consideration to abolishing opposite sex attraction as well. We can do this by ceasing to promote the heterosexual lifestyle. We can stop telling young people that straight is good and tell them sternly that they shouldn’t be attracted to people of the other sex either – and they won’t be! It’s as easy as falling off a log. That should put the kibosh on heterosexuality for ever and a day. Just think of the problems that will be solved thereby: no more rapes, no more unwanted pregnancies – and hence no more abortions – and no more sexually transmitted diseases, not to speak of an immense reduction in the incidence of cervical cancer, which is largely caused by heterosexual intercourse (lifelong virgins and “pure” lesbians seldom contract it).

      Yes, I know, I know: people are going to say that all this is unrealistic. But I really do think that we need to get rid of this trendy fad of believing that we have to be circumscribed by the facts of life. Where is the freedom in allowing ourselves to be prisoners of reality?

      Oh, and your mention of those who haven’t “lived through the epidemic” reminded me of a valuable lesson to be learnt. When the AIDS crisis broke in the 1980s, those countries where homosexuals were still legally punished and/or socially persecuted and ostracized didn’t have an AIDS problem at all did they? Not bloody much, they didn’t.

      • Okay, Guglielmo, let’s hear your explanation as to why the rates of HIV/AIDS are going through the roof – new cases doubling in ten years – and how you propose to put a stop to it.

        • Jill, I hate the fact that we have HIV/AIDS. It is a terrible tragedy, and if I could wipe out the problem tomorrow, of course I would do it, just as I would with any of humanity’s other numerous headaches. And if I knew of any new and effective way of halting the spread of HIV, I would reveal it. I am not like those people whom I can still dimly remember saying on the radio, back in the 1980s, things such as “I do hope that they never find a cure for AIDS.” (I can’t find the words to express adequately my opinion of that mentality, and if I could, I am sure that they would lead to this post being deleted.) But no, I freely admit that, while I wish to God that I had the definitive solution, I haven’t. Neither have you, since a Cloud-Cuckoo-Landic solution is, for all practical purposes, exactly the same as no solution at all; it’s just a silly distraction.

          I realise that you and the rest of your brigade are still smarting over the introduction of same-sex marriage. I have never been in favour of it either, although for rather different reasons. But it is of little or no relevance in this context, and your “We-told-you-so” comments on it are absurd. The implication that declining to introduce same-sex marriage (or rescinding the legislation now before it comes into effect) would have halted the spread of HIV/AIDS or would lower the rates in either the near or the distant future is devoid of any rational or factual basis.

          • The implication that declining to introduce same-sex marriage (or rescinding the legislation now before it comes into effect) would have halted the spread of HIV/AIDS or would lower the rates in either the near or the distant future is devoid of any rational or factual basis.

            In fact, one of the key arguments in favour of same-sex marriage was the opposite. The Policy Exchange, in making its case, claimed:

            It is argued that marriage, by encouraging fidelity and lifelong relationships, acts as a ‘commitment device’ – being a powerful enough institution to alter behaviour. It is argued that marriage, by encouraging fidelity and lifelong relationships, acts as a ‘commitment device’ – being a powerful enough institution to alter behaviour.

            The problem is that, if this were applicable, civil partnership would have had a significant impact on the surveyed levels of multiple partner, unprotected high HIV transmission-risk sex among MSM. The fact is that a commitment device holds little attraction to those diagnosed HIV-positive men who report high rates of unprotected sex with casual partners, half of whom do not disclose their HIV status on such occasions (as described in EMIS 2010: The European men-who-have-sex-with-men internet survey).

            Perhaps, a faithful monogamous homosexual relationship is the only witness to which some of those high-risk sexual activity will respond. If that saves lives, so be it.
            At some point, we need to get beyond our polarising fits of righteous indignation and mutual suspicions of schadenfreude to discuss what sort of united societal Christian action would mirror the God who ‘makes His sun to shine upon the just and the unjust’; whoever you or I conceive those to be.

            Here’s a thought about the Rechabites (Jer. 35) While they lacked pedigree according to Jewish orthodoxy, they over-achieved in unerring faithfulness to the code of life set down by their ancestor, Jehonadab. Through Jeremiah, God, in turn, promised to perpetuate their tribe more than the apostate Israel, who had squabdered his providence, because He values faithfulness above empty protestations of pedigree.

            • ‘Perhaps, a faithful monogamous homosexual relationship is the only witness to which some of those involved in high-risk homosexual activity will respond. If that saves lives, so be it.’
              No such thing! Well, there probably is, but even Changing Attitude admit it is unrealistic to expect fidelity between gay couples. It has been found that their relationships have a better chance of lasting if there is a certain amount of – shall we say – flexibility in the monogamy aspect.
              One of the problems is that whatever the Christian way of dealing with the problem is, nobody actually takes any notice of Christians any more when it comes to lawmaking.
              Another huge worry is that gay activists are already in some of our schools (Schools Out, Terrence Higgins Trust, Rainbow Project etc) and while they do not (yet) actively promote homosexual activity their websites are pretty explicit, and with the law on their side who knows what our children are reading? I have seen for myself some of the THT material, which is actually endorsed by the NHS. I am at a loss to see how state approval of homosexuality is going to reduce the incidence of HIV/Aids. How does one explain to a young person that certain sexual activities are dangerous when their teachers and the NHS give tacit approval?

              • Well, Jill, I have to admit that you do have a point. No question about it. After all, if it were not for information such as the THT provides, gays would simply never have a clue how to “do it”, would they? (Just as straights would never have a clue how to “do it” if they weren’t given information promoting heterosexuality.) In fact, the very thought of “doing it” would never even enter their heads. Furthermore, randy teenage heterosexual boys, who are sexually attracted only to girls and who regularly pore over “lads’ mags” like “Loaded”, will be so thrilled, after reading THT material, that they’ll promptly start being turned on by other boys instead. We all know that that’s how human sexuality works, don’t we?

                • Er – one hesitates to point out the blindingly obvious, but straight couples are just as capable of anal sex, and while it was an obvious no-no it wasn’t a problem. There is some evidence of HIV/AIDS spreading to straight couples, and it is not difficult to see why.

                  • Jill, are you seriously suggesting that straight couples simply didn’t have anal sex before the advent of the THT and similar organizations, and that they needed those organizations to put the suggestion into their heads or to give them permission to try it? Even I, as a gay man, know better than that!

                    • Well, I thought that it was what you were implying. If I am wrong, then I fail to see what you were getting at, or how your post had any relevance to the present discussion. But no doubt you can elucidate.

                    • Oh, come on, Guglielmo, do I really have to labour the point? Sodomy needs a Public Health Warning, and instead it is being normalised, as in the Big Lie of ‘Equal Marriage’.

                      Were these statistics splashed across the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post? I would be willing to bet that they weren’t. But everyone has heard of Equal Marriage. Some equality, when one is open to new life and the other to sickness and early death.

                      We are frequently told that young people are not fazed by gay ‘marriage’ but nobody seems to question why this should be. Well, they are only being given one side of the picture, which makes sense to them in these self-indulgent times. When you get statistics like these, which I doubt many know about, I would say that this is little short of criminal.

                      Then of course to be factored in are Big Pharma and the huge AIDS industry, whose money source would dry up if people stopped getting HIV, but that is another subject.

                    • Jill, I’m sorry but I find your reasoning difficult to follow. AIDS took off, so to speak, decades before same-sex marriage was even on the cards. I realise that you disapprove of same-sex marriage, and you have every right to do so, but do you really think that its introduction is now actually going to accelerate the spread of AIDS? If so, please explain how. Do you think that not being able to get married is going to stop gay people from being gay, or that if gay couples can’t get married, gay sex will come to an end, or at least go out of fashion? If so, perhaps you will kindly reveal to us the name of the planet on which you are currently residing.

                    • I think the key word Jill is using here is ‘normalise’. Sure, people had anal sex in the past, just like people took drugs, looked at porn, had abortions, had sex outside marriage and nicked things from other people’s houses. The difference is that now (apart from the nicking things from people’s houses part) these things are being introduced to children at a younger and younger age as a normal part of life that they’re expected to participate in, based on the argument that they should learn to do it ‘safely’. Yes, they’re told that they should do it ‘when they want to’ and ‘when it feels right’, but there’s quite a strong message from society that if they don’t want to and it never feels right (as in, they just think it’s plain wrong) that there’s something weird about them – that they’re uptight and socially awkward. You pay a very heavy social price for saying ‘no’. Say ‘no’ too often and the guy will just go off and find someone who will. That’s certainly true for girls, and I’m guessing it might also be true for gay men (although I’m sure some partners are more understanding).

  6. Briefly side-stepping the searing hyperbolic arc of flames that have scorched this comment thread, what I don’t get is why the authorities have such difficulty in creating a campaign, promoted by those belonging to high HIV risk categories, like MSM to be more socially responsible about high HIV transmission risk behaviour.

    Why aren’t AIDS charities, like THT, employing those high-profile homosexuals who are sexually responsible to front a prevention campaign deploring HIV-positive sexual partners who engage in unprotected anal sex?

    Should respect for a protected characteristic limit the public scope of any new targeted prevention strategy, especially when it’s patently obvious that MSM have been significantly more resistant to previous efforts?

    On the basis of protected characteristics, I can’t see why unprotected HIV-agnostic anal sex should be treated by societyas any more intrinsic to homosexuality, than marijuana is to Rastafarianis

    • That’s not how it works in gayworld, David. The high profile homosexuals are more interested in calling us homophobes and demanding more money for clinics, testing and treatment. Read Pink News occasionally! Everybody else is too scared of them to stand up and demand more responsible behaviour.

  7. The only way to reduce infection is to encourage less sexual activity. For some people condoms may work for them individually to avoid infection. But if you look from the societal perspective, the fact is that condoms simply do not work. We’ve pushed condoms to the max and it simply doesn’t work – the infection rates are virtually unchanged for decades. The reason (I think) is simple and one social liberals don’t want to admit: making condoms available and otherwise leading people to believe one can have the thrill of sex with no down side also tends to encourage more sexual activity. To me this is a no-brainer. But Social Liberals always tend to presume this is not the case, which is why they cannot fathom why the condom strategy continues to fail. Social liberals come back with “well we just have to make sure everybody uses condoms properly and carefully each and every single time, etc…”. If sex were a laboratory experiment, maybe that would be possible. But it isn’t. Condoms, on the societal level will never stop HIV. The numbers tell us they haven’t even slowed the infection rate appreciably. Even if you could just get a few percent of young men to abstain, or even just wait until they are older, anything that reduces sexual activity would also reduce infection rates at the societal level. The church needs to trumpet this message because the media never will.

    • This is the fallacy of social liberal approaches to sex in general. They start with the assumption that behaviour will remain the same and that people will simply act more safely. They forget that people are deterred from doing things precisely because they are unsafe – abortion being a clear example. Having said that, it’s a bit difficult to say ‘well, let those who are determined do it unsafely and die’ without sounding utterly heartless.

      • True. Another part of the problem is that gays hear the bad messaging no matter how subtly you try to sell abstinence.

        • Part of the problem is that nobody is trying to sell abstinence, either in gayworld or straightworld – only people of faith, and we are sneered at and derided for it. And just look at the result!

          There is not one single word in the Terrence Higgins Trust website about abstinence. (I have checked.) There are graphic descriptions of how to carry out the act which causes all the problems (well, all of them, actually) so we are throwing money at this organisation – among others – to tell people how to get HIV, basically. As you say, William, the condom culture has proved to be an utter failure, and we are betraying our young people by colluding with the Big Lie of ‘safe sex’.

          • And the solution is so straightforward and obvious that every liberal has to devise a way to ignore or deride it… I am at zero risk of contracting HIV or any std because I and my wife abstained from sex before marriage, have been faithful within it, and intend to live in lifelong monogamy. If everyone lived like that we would eliminate all STDs in a generation.

            But instead our liberal friends want to increase the pressure to see promiscuity as good. Children are taught that sex is a normal if people feel romantically attracted to each other and that the only criteria is ‘whether you are ready’. And that’s how most teenagers now think and act….

            So stds are booming. HIV may be huge among young gay men if they are promiscuous, but male-female promiscuity is also causing a lot of suffering due to STDs, unwanted pregnancies and broken relationships etc….

            All completely predictable if you aren’t blinded by the great liberal god Sex.

            Promiscuity is a wrecker and a killer but rather than risk discouraging promiscuity, liberals would rather risk everyone getting stds.. Some fatal.

          • There is nothing wrong with abstinence, but when you talk of trying to SELL it, we’re back in your world of Nephelococcygian fantasy. One thing that abstinence doesn’t do is sell. It never has done. Sorry, Jill love, not even Saatchi and Saatchi can manage to sex that one up.

            No, of course there isn’t one single word in the Terrence Higgins Trust website about abstinence. What would be the point of that? The THT doesn’t exist to advise those who are willing to consider sexual abstinence, so they are hardly likely to consult the THT website for advice in the first place. It exists to advise those who aren’t. Whether or not it does this well and effectively is, of course, another matter.

            • Well, I think you can ‘sell’ abstinence. You can publish frightening figures like the ones above on gay websites (I must check to see if they appear on the THT website – I am sure they don’t) and keep publishing them until some notice is taken. You can also bang on about how the condom culture has failed and in fact his increased the problem many times over.

              But of course nobody will do that. Society seems to have bought into the idea that young people are weak-willed sheep who have absolutely no control over themselves, and should not need to have. There have been occasional noises from ministers about people having to fund their own treatment if their ailments are self-inflicted – that might do the trick.

              The THT was set up, as I understand it, to prevent other people dying in the way that Terrence Higgins did. It has signally failed to do that as rates have doubled in ten years. So why are we pouring money into it?

              • “There have been occasional noises from ministers about people having to fund their own treatment if their ailments are self-inflicted – that might do the trick.”

                We really can’t do that, you know. Many illnesses are ‘self-inflicted’ in the sense that we could have looked after ourselves better – any illness related to smoking, obesity, bad nutrition, stress etc.

                • Yes, that’s why these ideas have usually fizzled out. Where would one draw the line? The suggestion was rather tongue-in-cheek – an antidote to the constant demands for more funds from the gay lobby. A warning of that kind might just make them stop and think that they should in fact take some responsibility for their actions.

            • See my comment below. (I’ll reproduce it here). Though perhaps blaming THT for the anti-abstinence culture that’s grown up around us isn’t entirely fair. Although these things are always presented as factual, non-judgemental, non-value driven, the fact is that if sex guides are designed to reassure people that sex between uncommitted partners (not just talking gay partners here) is natural, the implication of that is that there’s something very unnatural about abstinence and monogamy.

              “I think the key word Jill is using here is ‘normalise’. Sure, people had anal sex in the past, just like people took drugs, looked at porn, had abortions, had sex outside marriage and nicked things from other people’s houses. The difference is that now (apart from the nicking things from people’s houses part) these things are being introduced to children at a younger and younger age as a normal part of life that they’re expected to participate in, based on the argument that they should learn to do it ‘safely’. Yes, they’re told that they should do it ‘when they want to’ and ‘when it feels right’, but there’s quite a strong message from society that if they don’t want to and it never feels right (as in, they just think it’s plain wrong) that there’s something weird about them – that they’re uptight and socially awkward. You pay a very heavy social price for saying ‘no’. Say ‘no’ too often and the guy will just go off and find someone who will. That’s certainly true for girls, and I’m guessing it might also be true for gay men (although I’m sure some partners are more understanding).”

  8. It used to be that gay men in the UK were about 50 times as likely as the rest of the population. If it’s got worse I don’t our liberal elite will want to advertise the fact. There aren’t supposed to be any differences.

  9. Actually, I think you’re on to a key differentiator. Women have historically had to be careful about the prospect of pregnancy and that has been the principal reason for using condoms, rather than HIV infection risk.

    Before the advent of AIDS, with the societal stigma and criminalisation removed from homosexual acts and most STDs curable by a relatively short course of antibiotics, the future appeared to promise the unfettered pursuit of sexual pleasure and copulative variety.

    So, uninhibited by the prospect of either an unexpected child or chronic lethal illness, homosexual copulation permitted the worship of conscienceless sexual ecstasy by appearing to offer the immense variety of casual sex without long-term consequences.

    The reality is that those who persist in sexual acts that knowingly exposing themselves and others to potential HIV infection, just don’t want that party to stop. Frankie say Relax is still their mantra.

    Remember God’s message to Judah: ‘And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?”— it is because of your many sins that your skirts have been torn off and your body mistreated. Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. (Jeremiah 13:22, 23)

  10. One of the best statistical modelling studies of heterosexual vs. MSM STI epidemiology was conducted in 2007. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598698/pdf/458.pdf

    Rather than focus on relative level of heterosexual vs. MSM (mem promiscuity, which is debatable, the study modelled two key differences:

    ‘At the same time, at least two factors inherently distinguish MSM and heterosexual epidemics, regardless of relative partner numbers. First, heterosexual individuals are a two-sex population and MSM are one sex. As a result of this fundamental demographic difference, heterosexual individuals are necessarily ‘‘role-segregated’’ (men always insertive and women receptive) for sexual acts with high transmission probabilities (vaginal and anal sex), whereas MSM can be versatile. Previous work has demonstrated that role segregation can have a strong dampening effect on the efficient transmission of HIV through a population when there are differences in transmissibility for insertive and receptive roles.

    Second, the predominant form of high-risk heterosexual contact (penile–vaginal sex) has a lower risk of transmission than the predominant form of high-risk MSM contact (penile–anal sex).’

    In short, in a same-sex coupling, the fact that either partner can be receptive and the heightened risk of infection through anal intercourse significantly increases HIV-transmissibility. By way of comparison, the study claims: ‘Fixing the fraction in each activity class and the ratio of partner number for high and low-activity individuals, we find that achieving the same equilibrium prevalence as MSM requires heterosexual individuals to average 4.9 UVI (unprotected vaginal intercourse) partners annually, 2.7 times more partners than MSM.

    Another key finding was that ‘Our results differ from those of some previous models, and several limitations affect our work. In contrast to other models of heterosexual HIV, our base model did not generate a significant heterosexual epidemic. This partly reflects the fact that we modeled vaginal heterosexual sex as a self-contained risk network, excluding injection drug use, heterosexual anal sex, and the bridging role of bisexual individuals. Recent data suggest that most heterosexually acquired HIV cases in the United States can be directly linked to a sex partner who is either an injection drug user or an MSM, and these bridging relationships have been important in generating and sustaining heterosexual HIV epidemics in developed nations.

    So, even the epidemic levels of HIV among heterosexuals can only be attributed to secretly bisexual partners who maintain a heterosexual relationship in public while secretly participating in high HIV transmission risk activity that exposes their straight partners to infection.

    Let’s be clear, HIV may affect gay and straight people to differing degrees, but its epidemic levels of transmission, even among heterosexuals, can only be attributed to a form of sex that allows either partner to switch to receptive roles, to both incur a higher rate of HIV transmission than any other, even exposing the straight partners of closeted bisexual men to infection.

    Forget the lack of abstinence, the HIV epidemic is sustained by the normative sexual act of unprotected anal intercourse between men who have sex with men.

  11. Here is a clue, from Canada, about attitudes of young gay men, and why the agencies set up to supposedly help prevent HIV are failing. From Pink News today:

    HIV-AIDS workers in Winnipeg, Canada have warned that infection rates are on the rise because young gay men are having more unprotected sex, believing they are “invincible” against the deadly virus.

    John Major, president of the advocacy group Gio’s Cares, told CBC News that around 10 per cent of the people the group deals with are not using condoms to reduce the risk of contracting or transmitting the HIV virus.

    Mr Major said a number of men aged 19-25 are turning down condoms believing they are not at risk.

    He said: “A lot of the kids or younger adults now think they’re invincible and that they cannot get it. And if they do, there’s meds out there that will help them live forever.”

    He added that some even go so far as to call contracting HIV “a gift” because they believe there is some prestige in having the virus.

    Mr Major also said that other awareness groups have noticed a similar trend.

    “Other organizations, there’s a van that travels around the track where there’s guys that work and girls that work, and they’re not taking the condoms anymore,” he said.

    Gio’s Cares hands out safe sex kits at four gay bars and bathhouses in the city.

    Mr Major said that two to three years ago, it was distributing about 2,300 of the kits every 30 days, but now they can only manage 1,500 a month.

    Colin, a 21-year-old Winnipeg man, told CBC News that he does not use condoms and is not afraid of contracting HIV.

    He said: “There are guys out there who figure, ‘It won’t happen to me. It can’t happen to me.’

    “They think, ‘There aren’t enough people my age – the people that I’m sleeping with won’t have it because it’s all the older generation, right?’”

    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/09/22/canada-hiv-aids-workers-warn-that-rates-of-unprotected-sex-are-rising-among-gay-men/

    • .

      My colleague in Germany specializes in HIV and skin complaints.

      It
      is wrong to think of Homosexual acts and relationships as just like
      hetrosex but they use the dung heap rather than the honey pot!

      One
      of his patients (he described as riddled with HIV) came in so badly
      whipped that he wanted to get some pics taken to sue the other boys who
      did it. Apparently it is a turn on in gay culture, to be tied to a
      bed, whipped and then gang banged by other guys. In this case HIV
      infected blood from the whipping must have been flying around the room.
      He says forget condoms, even if they are used, the blood itself is a
      real hazard in these “parties”

      Not all gays are
      probably up to this agreed, however, if only one is and then they later
      have “normal” fun with other guys, it is amazing that there are so few
      infections.

      I don’t think that we hetros even begin to understand how dark the gay world can be

      • “Not all gays are probably up to this agreed…”

        I disagree. If one gay male is doing it, then they must ALL be doing it. Even if the overwhelming majority say that they’ve never done anything like that, or felt the remotest interest in doing it, they must be lying. Even an idiot, in fact ESPECIALLY an idiot, can see the unassailable logic of that. I hope that you’re communicating this information to Dr Lisa Nolland; she may want to incorporate it into one of her porno presentations, perhaps at the next Anglican Mainstream conference, to illustrate “the horrors of the gay lifestyle”.

        • Do you think, though, that gay culture might be a bit more ‘matcho’? I mean, it would be daft to claim that heteros never indulge in a bit of bondage, but is there a sense that where it’s all men, there’s quite a lot of pressure to go along with stuff – especially for people who’ve experienced a lot of rejection in life and don’t want to be rejected again? I’ve seen evidence of this kind of attitude in the ‘Savage Love’ column where Dan seems to suggest that if you’re partner’s not up to indulging in your fantasies then they’re a bit of a wuzz – seemed slightly odd attitude from someone who heads up an anti-bullying campaign. I also have gay friends who try to steer clear of gay bars and find a partner in some other context because they just didn’t like the scene there.

          I don’t know. I’m just asking.

          • I asked an epidemiologist friend of mine recently, current and
            not so recent studies in the US (sampling very widely, some 12,000 + heterosexual
            instances and 5000+ homosexual instances of visits to STD clinics, yearly since
            the 1980’s) have shown that gay men (lesbians make the figure drop rather dramatically)
            are more likely to contract gonorrhea (roughly 30 to 19pc), syphilis and warts,
            but less likely to catch non-gonoccoccal urethritis (apologies for any spelling
            mistakes), genital herpes (1 to 4pc), pediculosis, scabies or genital warts
            (roughly 1 to 7pc).

            As for BDSM practices being more prevalent in the gay
            community… I don’t know. I have yet to see gay BDSM movies made in Hollywood,
            or books like 50 Shades of Gray setting the record for the fastest-selling
            paperback of all times, ahead of Harry Potter.

        • The usual resort to hyperbolic sarcasm.

          Of course, claiming that not a single part of the current UK HIV prevention strategy is aimed at promoting alternatives to high HIV transmission risk anal intercourse is not hyperbole. Instead, just work around the glaring reality that anal sex involving partners who can swap receptive roles is very bad for your health.

          Does the ‘born that way’ theory of sexual orientation extend to anal copulation? I trow not.

          • Well … it was quite a lurid example. Perhaps I’m being naive, but I doubt the majority of gay men spend their weekends getting lashed until they’re in hospital. If it turns out I’m wrong and there’s a big cover-up going on it’ll all come out eventually, but isn’t the definition of prejudice believing the worst of people without any evidence?

  12. I asked an epidemiologist friend of mine recently, current and
    not so recent studies in the US (sampling very widely, some 12,000 + heterosexual
    instances and 5000+ homosexual instances of visits to STD clinics, yearly since
    the 1980’s) have shown that gay men (lesbians make the figures drop rather dramatically)
    are more likely to contract gonorrhea (roughly 30 to 19pc), syphilis and warts,
    but less likely to catch non-gonoccoccal urethritis (apologies for any spelling
    mistakes), genital herpes (1 to 4pc), pediculosis, scabies or genital warts
    (roughly 1 to 7pc).

    As for BDSM practices being more prevalent in the gay
    community… I don’t know. I have yet to see gay BDSM movies made in Hollywood,
    or books like 50 Shades of Gray setting the record for the fastest-selling
    paperback of all times, ahead of Harry Potter.

  13. As for containing, let alone eradicating diseases by simply trying to change people’s behaviour, I would not hold my breath. Even for non sexually transmitted diseases for which vaccination and/or cure exist, it is notoriously tricky, if memory serves our only success stories are scarlet and typhoid fever, which are nonetheless still around.

    • Ahh but, unlike many diseases you referred to, sexually transmitted diseases mostly have a very specific transmission route.. Eliminate promiscuous sex and you stop transmission dead!

      • My very point: vaccinating your child is much simpler than abstaining from sex and we fail to stop diseases by vaccination.

        • Wrong. Abstaining from promiscuous sex is very easy – just stop it. It is condemned by God throughout Scripture and a sure way the lose your salvation. Not to mention the risks to your health, fertility and your ability to fulfil your vows to exclusive Holy Matrimony.

          BTW. There are therapies available for sex addicts.

  14. Back to the actual statistics, I’m not at all clear what they mean. It looks like the total number of cases of HIV in the age range 13 – 24 is about 8000, out of a population of 250M of whom more than 15M must be men in this age range. Going with the 2% gay figure,that means 300K males involved giving perhaps 1M different combinations.

    If the statistics are saying that 8000 out of 1M give rise to HIV then this is less than 1% chance of getting HIV from a male to male contact.

    Am I misunderstanding these statistics? Are they talking about a sample size of 9000 cases of HIV or the whole population?

    • This is based on diagnosis rates. The rate of diagnosis cannot be extrapolated to the rate of infection because they are not proportionate. The high number of homosexual diagnoses could also mean that homosexuals generally undergo a more regular AIDS testing (leading to a higher rate of diagnosis) than the other groups mentioned in the study.
      The study findings state:

      In 2011, there were an estimated 2,316 adolescents aged 13 to 19 years diagnosed with HIV infection in the United States and 6 dependent areas. The estimated
      rate of diagnoses of HIV infection in adolescents was 7.6 per 100,000 population. The rates of diagnoses of HIV infection among adolescents aged 13 to 19 years in 2011 were highest in the District of Columbia (74.6 per 100,000), Louisiana (22.1 per 100,000), Maryland (17.6 per 100,000), Florida (13.5 per 100,000), and the U.S. Virgin Islands (13.4 per 100,000).

      • But this still does not shed any light on the most relevant issue which is what is the rate of infection among those engaging in Male to Male sexual contact. Is it 1% as I postulated or 90% as the original post could be seen to be saying?

        • You’re right,. The stats say nothing about the rate of infection, only the rate of diagnosis.
          You would need to identify the historical proportion of AIDS cases that go undiagnosed and add this number to the 8000 diagnosed cases to come up with a true figure for the rate of infection.
          All that the data is saying is that, compared to other transmission categories, male-to-male sexual contact is implicated in 90% of diagnosed cases. Who knows how many IV drug users carry the virus for years without diagnosis? That rate of infection might be higher for them than the diagnosed cases reveal. The data is about the likelihood of diagnosis. If a 13 -24 y.o. male is tests HIV positive, in 9 out of 10 cases, male to male sexual contact is found to be a concomitant.
          So, the rate of diagnosed infection for male to male sex contact is neither 1%, nor 90% (because there are plenty of undiagnosed cases).

          • I take your point about the difference between diagnosed cases and infection rates but these statistics seem to have two messages:
            1) if you want to reduce the infection rate (diagnosed or not) then concentrate your effort on M to M contact as this is probably the prevalent transmission route,
            2) your difficulty in putting across this message is that even prolonged M to M contact carries a low risk of catching HIV (possibly as low as a 1% chance).

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