Nope. It doesn’t matter which orifice you use, you just need three things - lube, lube, and lube. Even a woman gets dry sometimes. It is a fallacy that anal sex produces membrane tears. (I will say, however, it is my understanding that mucous membranes in the anal tract are what can absorb HIV into the bloodstreams, not direct bloodstream introduction, but I’d have to find a cite for it if you really wanted it.)
Any other sexually active group.
Nice stats - however, there is no comparison stats to heterosexuals, so they’re meaningless (not that I have any myself).
Worldwide there are far more heterosexual infections than homosexual. You’re only thinking U.S., when you should be thinking globally.
Shodan: AIDS is more commonly spread by heterosexuals in Africa because more heterosexuals are infected in Africa. That sounds like a tautology, but it isn’t. AIDS is transmitted sexually. If patient zero is homosexual, they will transmit HIV to their partners, who are also homosexual, and so on. If patient zero is heterosexual, they will transmit HIV to their heterosexual partners.
It just happened that HIV was introduced into the homosexual population in the US. That’s why it’s more common.
And Esprix…I’ve just gotta disagree that homosexuals are no more promisciuous than heterosexuals. I mean, if I could have found willing female partners (before I was married), I would have slept with as many as I could. The horny gay man has a natural advantage in that his potential sexual partners are also horny gay men. That’s why you have gay bath-houses. They are the gay equivalent of brothels, only staffed with volunteers.
Of course, I realize that there’s a lot of variation between individuals. But that doesn’t change the fact that straight men only wish they could have sex with casual acquaintances as often as gay men can.
Let’s face facts. As a gay man, you could probably pick someone up tonight. As a straight man it would take me months…perhaps years…to accomplish the same task.
I’ve heard of some research that found the occurance of immunity to HIV reflects the spread of the bubonic plague in teh 13th century. HIV and the Black Death both function similarly, apparently, so this could be viewed as human evolution in action.
Worldwide, there are far more heterosexuals than there are homosexuals. If 10% of the population is gay and 10% of the gay population has HIV and 2% of the straight population has HIV, there’s still going to be more straight people with HIV. I’m not trying to say that there are more homosexuals with HIV than there are heterosexuals with HIV - that is probably not true even in the U.S. I’m talking proportions, and the gay population has a higher percentage of people with HIV than the straight population.
Discrepancies between the U.S. and the rest of the world probably have a lot to do with the greater acceptance of homosexuality in the U.S. Many third world countries still enforce laws against homosexuality, you can’t have a ‘gay community’ where you can be put to death for being gay. In a country where nobody will admit to being gay, all the gays with HIV are going to be reported as heterosexuals with HIV.
So although homosexual men remain the highest group currently infected, new infections are increasing among other groups more rapidly. In other words, gay men have been (generally) getting the hint, while straights (generally) haven’t.
Yeah - how about they have a whole lot of unprotected sex?!?! HIV is passed through the transmission of bodily fluids, notably through sexual intercourse of all kinds, and also through sharing needles, tainted blood transfusions, and mother-to-child in vitro. That’s it.
What does that have to do with anything? There aren’t horny women? Just because you can’t get a date doesn’t mean you can speak for the entire heterosexual population. There are gay “players” and there are straight ones. There are gay virgins and there are straight ones. Get over it.
So if they’re the equivalent of brothels, why would you say they have more sex than their heterosexual counterparts? Surely there is still heterosexual prostitution, is there not?
Nice stereotype. Got any cites to back it up?
Wait, let me check… nope, don’t care. Your personal failings aren’t indicative of the general population’s promiscuity. And why do you think I could get a date “as a gay man?” Are you saying I can only get a date because I am gay? Or that I couldn’t get a date if I were straight? And you’re jumping to some wild conclusions - I don’t date nearly as often as you seem to think (if only I did!).
What about my cites? 8^) They seem to show homosexuals as being more promiscuous than heterosexuals…BTW, I don’t see promiscuity as a bad thing, and I have nothing against homosexuals. I just had a problem with the statement that homosexuals were no more promiscuous than heterosexuals, which is clearly false.
Now, to find some cites on the health problems associated with anal sex…I know ‘Dr. Drew said it on Loveline’ isn’t good enough…
I should point out that those CDC figures are U.S. figures only. Sorry for not being clearer.
That may be true in the U.S., but it is not true worldwide, and in the U.S., the gay community happened to be, as was pointed out, the point of entry - if it had been a heterosexual patient zero, the communities in the U.S. would be vice-versa’d.
This would only affect a statistically small number of cases, it seems to me - not insignificant, but small. I seriously doubt this would somehow skew heterosexual vs. homosexual contact.
You can’t compare two different studies’ conclusions - it’s apples and oranges. Alas, I haven’t been able to find one single study that compares both heterosexuals and homosexuals, but I can’t use the two different studies you cite.
I will concede that there may be a higher likelihood of sexual promiscuity in the homosexual community than the heterosexual community, but, overall, I still say it’s not enough of a difference to warrant the continued ignorance among heterosexuals in the U.S. not only toward HIV infection education, but some long-held bigotry and stereotypes about the gay community.
When I went in for a free HIV test at the Cal. State Northridge student health clinic, I had to sit through an “All About HIV” video. It claimed that the reason HIV seems immune to attacks from antibodies is that it lives inside the T-cells, where the antibodies can’t get to it. And if it’s immune to antibodies, it’s immune to vaccines.
And apparently, 28% of the male population sits at home, eats nachos, watches Jerry Springer, and recount their two-years of college as a nonstop orgy in which they were the center sexual attention of at least 14 females.
Seriously, what percent of the population will have over 5 partners in their life time, a third?
OK, I don’t have enough time to read all of the old posts, so I’m just going to say this, I doubt it’s been said anyway.
I had this lesbian teacher and she said that AIDS was started back in the 40’s or whenever when British scientists took the Polio vaccine to Africa. They cultured the vaccine in a monkey liver and then used it on people, not knowing that they were spreading AIDS. Well, turned out those monkey livers were infected with the AIDS virus and it spread to all of those people. She also said that AIDS came to the USA via a homosexual airline steward that traveled internationally. She said he would have stops in New York, San Francisco, and Miami. He’d go to the bath houses and spread it around.
She’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist, to say the least. She also agreed with Badtz Maru’s theory about how gay men can just run around and have tons-o-sex seemingly w/o consequence (remember, her words, not mine).
What’s your point, threemae? If you are going to assume people are lying every time a survey indicates something you don’t believe, what’s the point in taking surveys?
I myself have had 7 partners. I am nowhere near as promiscuous as most of the people I know, and I didn’t start having sex until I was 22 (I’m 28 now). I probably won’t have any more, since I am married now and faithful. I don’t see any problems with the figure of 12 sexual partners in a lifetime for heterosexual males. I also have had a couple of gay friends and I don’t think it is unrealistic at all to believe that many have had hundreds of sex partners - have you ever been in a gay bar?
Dignan, that last part of her theory is actually partially true - they have traced the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. to a gay flight attendant who apparently got around a lot.
I’ll try to avoid a full-blown immunology lecture here. The fact that HIV infects T cells is a problem mainly because you get a vicious cycle - T cells are part of the immune system, so as they die, the immune system weakens, making it easier for the virus to spread, etc, etc. But all pathogenic viruses get inside cells and hide from antibody. That’s not unique to HIV.
The cell-mediated branch of the immune system (run by the T cells) take care of virus-infected cells. All nucleated cells in the body (including T cells infected with HIV) routinely chop up proteins they’re making and express the pieces on their surface in association with MHC molecules. T helper cells scan these proteins, and if a foreign protein is detected, they activate cytotoxic T cells, which come and kill the infected cell, along with any other infected cells they find. All of this is done without the help of antibodies, though they are important in neutralizing free viruses in the blood.
So yes, the main problem is antigenic variation. T cells and B cells will start looking for a target protein, but before they can do anything, HIV will change that protein, setting the body back to square 1.
I have also heard the polio vaccine theory, during the time they were giving out the vaccine the did not use fresh needles so hundreds of people would get the vaccine with the same needle which would be a way the disease could be spread.
I have also heard that AIDS was introduced to the US in 1976 at the bicentinial celebration in NY from international sailors who participated in the harbor regatta. The airline steward who intentionally spread it introduced it to the west coast via San Fransisco.
Gee, have you ever been inside a straight bar? It’s a meat market - horny men, women all out to land a husband. It’s really pathetic. I wish you heterosexuals would keep your disgusting sex lives in the bedroom where it belongs. :rolleyes:
Your personal experiences and what actually may or may not be true are two completely different things. I am inclined to believe that straights are having more sex than you think, and gays are having less. So far nothing has been shown to disprove that to me.
No matter what the truth might be (as if it matters), the gay community has (for the most part, current backsliding aside) learned its lesson and is doing its part to stop the spread of this disease. Straights, however, still seem (again, for the most part) to need a kick in the collective ass. What, do we need another Magic Johnson to become HIV+ before everyone remembers this disease isn’t gone yet?
Esprix: Here’s the thing. Women are much less likely to want to sleep with strangers than men are. This is simply a common sense observation, I haven’t done any research, just observations of the people around me. Is this a controversial assertion?
Badtz Maru: I’ve got a quibble with the reported numbers for straight men and women. Um, assuming that these men have sex with women, shouldn’t those numbers be equal? How can the average man have sex with 12 women, but the average woman have sex with only 3 men? Sure, I imagine that there are female sex workers who increase the variance, but how can this be? The average is the average, those people should be included. Or perhaps sex workers aren’t likely to answer questions of this type, thus chopping off the highest (ahem) tail of the female distribution and skewing it drastically.
The number of times men have sex with women should by definition be equal to the number of times women have sex with men. Unless those men are counting same-sex enounters…
boy we’re getting way off the subject, but esprix, i don’t see how you can argue the logic behind concluding that your average homosexual has more sexual partners than heterosexuals.
take all the women i know (not an unbiased sample of the population, i’ll grant you). on a very unscientific scale of one to ten, most of their libidos fall in the 3-4 range. sure, some are horny as a 16 year old male, and some of them are frigid as nuns, but were going for the average here.
now take all the guys i know, including myself. i’d put our average libido at 8-9. once again, this is merely an average, with individuals lying off both sides. now i don’t know a large number of gay men, but i’m assuming their sex drives are comperable.
now i feel there is nothing wrong with sex, and whenever the opportunity comes up, i have it. i think most heterosexual males would agree with me that the opportunity comes up considerably less often than we would like due to the lower average female interest in sex. homosexuals would, however, reap the benefits of their common higher sex drive. it’s the same potential that exists for a straight woman with a larger libedo. it sould be easier for her to go out and score more often, as the potential candidates are more likely willing.
seems like a bisexual male would be the perfect person to poll about this. any bisexuals out there want to comment on whether it is easier to pick up guys or girls? i’m betting guys.
now, hope i haven’t offended anyone. as i say, i think there’s nothing wrong with any sex two (or however many) consenting adults choose to have. i’m just looking for a logical argument against this seemingly sensible position of mine.
