# Gays = 80% of serious STDs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 20, 2001, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178 "2001-02-20T04:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/21 "2001-02-21T05:19:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DaveRaver \* > I didn’t imply that at all. You inferred it. > [@](#): > > [From http://m-w.com](http://m-w.com) > Main Entry: in·fer > … > 1 : to derive as a conclusion from facts or premises \ – compare IMPLY > … > > Main Entry: im·ply > … > 2 : to involve or indicate by inference, association, or necessary consequence rather than by direct statement \ > 3 : to contain potentially > 4 : to express indirectly \ > synonym see SUGGEST > usage see INFER Then we agree. I thought your first post to this thread was expressing disbelief that heterosexuals contract AIDS through sexual contact. They do (although that homosexuals are a high risk group for the transmission of AIDS is no secret), and I was apparently not the only one to read your post that way. I suggest we chalk this one up to miscommunication. I’m sorry I didn’t read your post the way you intended it, but your post wasn’t terribly clear, and there are a lot of jerks out there who would claim that heterosexuals shouldn’t be concerned about AIDS. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/22 "2001-02-21T05:20:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xtnjohnson \* > Which is fine, as far as it goes, but 32,000 transmissions over the course of a twenty-year epidemic (just to make it clear to everyone - the number Hastur cites is cumulative) ain’t that much risk, particularly if you drop the 10,000 or so who were sexual partners of IV drug users. And the oh-my-god-I-didn’t-know-she-was-on-smack line, being reserved for public service announcements, doesn’t pass the snicker test. Cumulative, but growing… If you read the infection rates, they are growing each year. What you are seeing in the cumulative rates are the people who are SURVIVING. Thousands of those people are dead every year from opportunistic infections. This does not show a decrease in new infections, but a decrease in those who survive from year to year. And you can drop the snickering. It isn’t your business how they got infected. It just supports the nasty and narrow views of people who are not infected thinking they are superior to those who are. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/23 "2001-02-21T05:47:31Z")
And I would say that subscribers to American Legion Magazine have an extremely high incidence of heart disease relative to their percentage of population. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/24 "2001-02-21T12:10:14Z")
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but _raises hand_ as another gay man who’s never had an STD. And who gets tested regularly. Are you going to count every one of us or what? ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/25 "2001-02-21T13:23:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hastur \* > And you can drop the snickering. It isn’t your business how they got infected. It just supports the nasty and narrow views of people who are not infected thinking they are superior to those who are. \*\* Um, Hastur, the snicker test has to do with not the method of transmission itself, but with the likelihood of its occurrence. Of course it’s possible that (a) Straight Non-IVDA White Guy would find bed himself with an IVDA woman, (b) SNIWG wouldn’t know that his partner was an IVDA, _and_ © HIV would transmit during the sex they would then have…but he’d be quite a lot more likely to be squished by a bus. There was a period during which public health authorities tried to convince men that this not only could happen, but did, and often - all in an effort to convince straight guys that it was in their self-interest to use condoms. Sadly, HIV risk alone won’t quite cut it - which means the burden is once again on women, at greater risk of the disease, to get their men to use condoms. And that’s a problem. (Unfortunatley, even the cumulative risks a straight guy might confront may not motivate him much - remember, the diseases he’s likely to get are either curable, such as clap, or eminently treatable, like herpes. And straight boys often - rationally - assume that the women sleeping with them are on the pill, so they assume little risk of pregnancy.) BTW, “nasty and narrow”? “Superior”? Where on earth are you getting these? Please re-read my comments carefully…I don’t think any rational reading supports that they were attacking the HIV-positive. It seems that you’re assuming this attack - even looking for it - and that can’t be worth the psychic energy it takes. Peace. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/26 "2001-02-21T14:04:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hastur \* > We are not more promiscuous. That is a fallacy, and you put it up as a fact without any support. > > Cite or get off the pot. Do _you_ have any evidence to back up _your_ assertion? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/27 "2001-02-21T14:36:39Z")
You made the assertion, Izzy. You prove it. ---
**Author:** ![RonA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@RonA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RonA)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/28 "2001-02-21T14:55:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Markxxx \* > \*\*I don’t think to say that the STD rate in gay men is higher than the norm is a rap. I think it is true. I don’t know of any gay man that hasn’t had at least one STD. > \*\* And just how many gay men do you know? Obviously not very many. I have never had an STD. My BF has never had an STD. Noone he has been with has had an STD. Noone I have ever been with has had an STD. Shall I go on? ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/29 "2001-02-21T15:07:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\*You made the assertion, Izzy. You prove it. \*\* This is factually incorrect. I have made no assertions. Hastur did. He also simultaneously called for someone else to prove an assertion that that person made. So I wonder if Hastur can do the same for himself. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/30 "2001-02-21T15:11:06Z")
“Name one?” “I don’t personally know of…?” What’s next, “I know you are, but what am I?” Sheesh! Stick to actual facts, please. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/31 "2001-02-21T15:50:12Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Markxxx_ (see above)\*\* > Gay men are more sexually promiscous(sp?) then straight men. Why? Cause they can get it. \*\* then answered by **Hastur** : > [@](#): > > We are not more promiscuous. That is a fallacy, and you put it up as a fact without any support. > > Cite or get off the pot. Then **Izzy** weighs in on Hastur’s comment with : > [@](#): > > Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion? and **matt** takes \*\*Izzy \*\* on with > [@](#): > > You made the assertion, Izzy. You prove it. to which \*\*Izzy \*\* then replies: > [@](#): > > This is factually incorrect. I have made no assertions. Hastur did. He also simultaneously called for someone else to prove an assertion that that person made. So I wonder if Hastur can do the same for himself. So. Looks to me like the original uncited assertion was from Markxxx. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/32 "2001-02-21T16:02:12Z")
Facts? Did someone say facts? 🙂 Sure, try the largest website about HIV info/statistics in the world, updated hourly! Here ya are dude: > **[AEGIS Security & Investigations – Experience the AEGIS Difference](https://www.aegis.com/)** ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/33 "2001-02-21T16:20:39Z")
**wring** Did you make your comment as an amusing aside? What difference does it make who made the _original_ assertion? Anyone making any assertion, whether original or not, should be prepared to back it up. Especially if this person is himself calling on the “original” asserter to back up the “original” assertion. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/34 "2001-02-21T16:53:40Z")
Chalk up one more gay man who has never had an STD. As for hetero boys who think because they have a stistically lower risk of contracting HIV that they need not bothter with condoms, have you heard of genital warts, genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis, not to mention a whole raft of other STDs? ---
**Author:** ![Esprix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprix/32/7899_2.png) [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/35 "2001-02-21T17:49:27Z")
Oy, this board makes my head hurt… ☹ Yet another gay man (and with quite a rather liberal sex ethic at that) who has never had an STD. I also get tested regularly for HIV (negative, and plan to stay that way). I do not believe that gay men get any more or less sex than straight men, but if it makes you jealous to think we do, then feel free; I have never seen any studies to indicate one way or the other which orientation (or, for that matter, which _sex_) has more or less sex. As to AIDS, do gay men still constitute the highest number and percentage of patients? Yes. However, according to the CDC, their numbers are levelling off (despite a very small contingent known as “bare backers,” a warped sexual backlash to the safe sex education of the late 80’s and early 90’s), whereas infections among heterosexuals (notably minority women) are rising rapidly - percentage-wise, heterosexuals are at more risk right now. I posted some figures in the thread [“Some AIDS facts”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=56265) after I received some fairly nasty backlash in my [“I’m getting laid too much”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=55502) thread discussing my then-current dating state. (And before someone uses me as a cite for “gay men have more sex,” I am but one man and hardly speak for the average gay man, for better or for worse. And even if you do, I reiterate that I’ve never had an STD and have always and continue to practice safer sex.) You might also want to check out the links in my sig. So, in closing, I cannot emphasize enough: _ **The epidemic is not over!** Wear a condom, play it safe, and get tested, regardless of your sexual orientation!_ Esprix ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/36 "2001-02-21T18:37:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by goboy \* > \*\*Chalk up one more gay man who has never had an STD. > > As for hetero boys who think because they have a stistically lower risk of contracting HIV that they need not bothter with condoms, have you heard of genital warts, genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis, not to mention a whole raft of other STDs? \*\* All very true, but all very treatable. Everything you name has been reduced (especially for men) to the level of an inconvenience - sick for a few days, painful discharge, lumps on the dick - swallow some pills, wait a few days and then on with life. Even herpes, which those of us awake in the 70s remember as the Great Scourge, is easily controlled with Zovirax and its analogues. Of course I’m not endorsing anything here, and multiple exposures to these nasties (and treatments for them) may well cause immune damage, but the fact remains that for the average young, horny, heterosexual male, the threat of disease just isn’t very strong. The pretense that straight guys are subject to the same risks as women or gay men is simply untenable. It’s similar to the widely ridiculed one-in-nine breast cancer stastic, which assumed a lifespan of 120 and failed to inform people that the majority of women would die _with_ breast cancer, not _from_ it. It was, in essence, a well-intentioned lie designed to extract sympathy and, not coincidentally, NIH funding. The fact that it was a lie, and that it encouraged panic and scaremongering among a scientifically illiterate general public was, well, water over the dam. I find such contempt for the truth contemptible, and that’s why I’m riding this particular hobbyhorse. Now, to return to the OP - I suspect that we won’t find much in the way of reliable statistics on the question of Who Gets Laid With More People. A couple of cites I found suggest that, in fact, gay men may have _fewer_ lifetime sexual partners, but I’m deeply suspicious. Until very recently, gay men living outside major urban centers would have had the problem of simply finding other gay men. Thanks to AOL, that limitation has rather disappeared, so a lot of guys may be getting a lot more action that was possible previously. Moreover, the social circumstances of gay men have improved enormously even over the last ten years, with the effect of increasing their willingness to be truthful. And yet the fundamental problem with so much of this sex research is that people lie, and will continue to do so barring much greater cultural changes than are currently imaginable. The most comprehensive recent U.S. study, completed in roughly '96 and maintained at the University of Chicago, reported suspiciously low numbers of lifetime sexual contacts for men in general (unfortunately, no breakdown for gay men v. straight men - and of course these data, gathered in the early 90s, would be subject to my stated reservations anyway). How many straight guys are going to admit to seeing prostitutes? How many fags are going to admit to haunting bathhouses? It’s a conundrum. What’s left seems largely a neo-Darwinian proposition, which is that (a) men, being men, tend to try to have more sexual partners than women, and (b) gay men, since they only sleep with men, won’t encounter the same resistance that straight men find with women, so © gay men are probably, ceteris paribus, getting around a lot more. Well, maybe. I’m not sure that the STD rates, even if correct, really say very much, either, because so much depends on the level of saturation within a community. Lots of straight folks get STDs (especially teenagers), but the percentage may well be much lower - low enough that it doesn’t reach the tipping point. ---
**Author:** ![Zarathustra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/898d66/32.png) [@Zarathustra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zarathustra)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/37 "2001-02-21T19:06:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hastur \* > \*\*Attacks on sexual promiscuity may therefore not only endanger the health of gay men but also engender a sense of shame and loss of self-esteem. We had come a long way to accepting that sex is one of life’s great joys, but the current attacks on sexual promiscuity - even by those who claim to be concerned only with AIDS prevention - may in today’s conservative climate undermine this acceptance. > \*\* Wasn’t that the rhetoric that the SFO gay lobby used in [protesting against closure of the bath houses?](http://www.fumento.com/shilts.html) A quote from the aforementioned link, which is a review of _And the Band Played On_: > [@](#): > > Some homosexuals racked up as many as a mind-boggling 20,000 sexual partners, engaging in high-risk (receptive anal) acts long after it became apparent that a fatal illness was spreading through the homosexual populations of New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Scoffing at advice to limit partners and avoid such activity, many homosexuals continued going to bathhouses, readily infecting themselves with the AIDS virus and passing it on to others. > > Homosexual leaders such as Konstantin Berlandt, a columnist for the Bay Area Reporter, shed new light on the debate over whether homosexuality is genetic or acquired by stating, “I didn’t become a homosexual so I could use condoms.” Later Berlandt wrote: “Advice on safe sex, while perhaps well-meaning, is actually collaboration with the death regime that delights in blaming ourselves and would pin the blame onus.” Condemning those who advise against an activity because it’s high risk for disease? By this logic, the Western scientists who drew a link between [kuru and cannibalism](http://lanfiles.williams.edu/~eadler/Biol212/Lec5long.html) were insensitive, ethnocentric bigots because they advised the Papua New Guinean tribes that, hey guys, maybe it’s not such a good idea to be eating Grandpa’s brains. Or licking his anus, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/38 "2001-02-21T19:10:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\ ***wring** > > Did you make your comment as an amusing aside? What difference does it make who made the _original_ assertion? Anyone making any assertion, whether original or not, should be prepared to back it up. Especially if this person is himself calling on the “original” asserter to back up the “original” assertion. \*\* So, then, why are you only requiring **Hastur** to back up his assertion? See, Izzy, if it’s your contention that only **Hastur** has to back up assertions, then that seems more like a personal vendetta than anything else. If it’s your contention that only **Hasturs** statement is unbelievable and needs confirmation, then, by simple logic, you must believe the original assertion of **Markxx’s** to be true, in which case, it’s perfectly fine for some one to require you to back it up as well (as they did and you refused, saying you didn’t make the assertion). What I saw happening is another of the seemingly endless ‘put up’ ‘no, you put up’ matches starting again. The original assertion was made by some one who also made other, obviously unsupportable assertions, not the least of which was paraphrasing ‘Magic Johnson got (it) from drugs, not sex’. Had **Markxxx** not done that, no other comment would have been forthcoming. in any event, it is unlikely that there are any reliable statistics on promiscuity, and any place that claims to have such data will undoubtably be disbelieved by the other side anyhow, so all the posturing of ‘well I asked first’ will likely be unresolvable. Both sides should refrain from statements they cannot support. And, as far as the OP is concerned, the term “serious” STD is subject to debate as well. Certainly we can probably agree that HIV is the most serious, however, since many of the others listed have some pretty dire consequences as well, I don’t think they should be brushed aside with a ‘well, they can be treated’ comment, either. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/39 "2001-02-21T20:15:16Z")
Um, can we get back to the OP? Short answer: The statistic “Gays=80% of serious STDs” seems to be made up out of whole cloth. Total lie. Now, some other things. There are no reliable statistics for who gets more sex. Any purported statistics offered, as wring and xtn pointed out, are not believable for various reasons, most notably because people have no reason to provide pollsters with accurate information about their sexual lives. That being said, it seems to me that men want to have sex more often than women. And since gay men have sex with other men it wouldn’t surprise me if they had sex with more partners. But hey, what do I know? In any case, I’m going to disagree with Hastur: > [@](#): > > And you can drop the snickering. It isn’t your business how they got infected. It just supports the nasty and narrow views of people who are not infected thinking they are superior to those who are. I think that it is important to know how people get infected, since that is the only way we can protect ourselves. People contract HIV through unprotected penetrative sex and by sharing needles. They do not become infected by casual contact and almost never through non-penetrative sex. This is important information, right? Don’t you think accurate information about how this epidemic works is valuable? I mean, you can have unprotected penetrative sex, or you can have protected penetrative sex, or you can have non-penetrative sex, or you can refrain from sex. One of these is very risky, one is slightly risky, one is very slightly risky, and the other is not risky. Without learning how people get infected we wouldn’t have this information. Or perhaps you were saying that you don’t particularly care how any one particular individual HIV+ person got infected. In that case I agree unless that person is exposing other people unneccesarily by continuing the practices that exposed them. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2001, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178/40 "2001-02-21T20:33:18Z")
**wring** I only asked Hastur for proof because he contradicted what happens to be my impression. I would not myself make an assertion either way, as I don’t know definitively, but when someone is declaring false something that I thought to be true, I am more interested in what his basis is for this. IOW, there is no difference between Hastur and Markxxx in terms of who “has to” back up assertions. But there is one in terms of who I am interested in calling on it. This is as regards to my original post. It is also true that if, as seems increasingly likely, Hastur has no basis for his own assertion, he was being hypocritical in demanding one from Markxxx. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gays-80-of-serious-stds/55178.md?page=3)