Speaking of poppers, Jer and I found a place that sells real amyl (not the butyl crap)… hoo boy that stuff is good.
Which, y’know, can quite do it for me in the correct situation. This wasn’t one of those times, though. Maybe if he’d been in something studded and leather…
I am quite a big ho. I do slut it around town, though much less so these days since I got old and lazy (and found myself some hot Canadian boi action online). I am always safe (at least by my own judgement) and usually get tested at least every six months at a sexual health clinic, as I have a phobia of doctors for precisely this reason: they always seem to judge before they advise. He just justified my phobia for me, and it pissed me off. A lot. Grr.
Plus I think he’d rather chew off his leg than ask me if I topped or bottomed.
Not that I don’t think you know what I meant, but just to clarify…
Gay docs (again, in my experience) don’t question my moral integrity or judge it based on how many guys I’ve fucked around with. They don’t think that I have a death wish or am generally lacking in judgment just because I’ve had over 250 sexual partners in my life. They just know that a lot of gay guys sleep around.
Because they’ve probably been through slut phases, too.
Anybody who is trained and experienced in HIV counseling and testing knows better than to come across as horrified or judgmental. It is hard sometimes, when you get the sense that some people seem to feel that the test itself is protective in some kind of voodoo way… like you will be rewarded for being so responsible to test? Anyway, you gotta meet people where they are, and it is heartbreaking sometimes to watch goodlooking, intelligent, valuable contributors to society putting themselves at risk for this horrible disease. We’re all just human. Even AIDS conferences are sometimes amazing pick-up scenes. I never picked up anybody at an AIDS conference, but I, too, have done very risky things.
If you are having unprotected, risky sex with people from a population with a high prevalence of HIV, and you don’t know your partner’s (partners’) status, you are likely to become infected. In parts of the US, sadly the male gay community is still such a population. And we aren’t seeing much of a downturn in new infections, either.
That said, half the AIDS cases in the world as a whole are female.
Okay, now I’m reading the rest of this thread and have some more comments. HIV antibody tests, done 3 months after risky possible exposure are close to accurate. Six months after risky possible exposure, they are extremely reliable. The antibody test is a combination of two tests, one being more sensitive (allowing a few false positives) and the second - done on all positives - being more specific and ruling out false positives. If you are negative six months after having possibly been exposed, you don’t have HIV.
From the OP: [[Me: Just WAIT a second. You are, of course, aware this was a work-related injury and nothing to do with my sex life? That I’m not quite so stupid to purposefully put myself at risk of HIV and HepC just for kicks?]]
Uh yeah. People do it all the time. For kicks. They aren’t
“purposely putting themselves at risk” usually (though a few are). They are just horny, lonely, drunk, in denial, in love, whatever. But anyone who has done much HIV testing has seen many, many people - including gay men - who put themselves at risk over and over again sexually. Even though you came in because of a possible occupational exposure, he would be remiss not to discuss other possible risks you might be taking. Of course I am not there to hear his tone of voice, so sure, he could be a jerk, too.
This thread is so gay.
Just to clarify, what he said was, “Mr. Potter, there should be no need for people to play fast and loose with their lives in this manner.”
In other words, he assumed (on the basis of Tom’s sexual orientation) that Tom was playing fast and loose with his life, and that that was why he was in for testing.
If he really meant to discuss other possible risks Tom might be taking, he would have phrased it like that (“Your tests are negative. Now let’s review what you’re doing to make sure they stay that way”) rather than saying that he is “playing fast and loose with his life.”
My doc “has seen many people - including gay men - … put themselves at risk over and over again sexually.” He constantly bemoans the number of young gay men he’s seen seroconvert, and exhorts me to keep myself on the correct side of that number. But he manages to do it without implying I’m a stupid whore who uses condoms for party balloons and barebacks with anything with a dick.
Matt, I agree that if those were the doctor’s exact words: “Mr. Potter, there should be no need for people to play fast and loose with their lives in this manner.”
and not a paraphrase, it would be insensitive and the doc was a jerk.
According to our friend Scott, however, gay docs “just know that a lot of gay guys sleep around.” I guess there is a difference between assuming that and not judging (which still might offend a gay man who does NOT “sleep around”) and assuming it and laying a guilt trip on.
Ask anyone who does HIV testing and counseling and they will probably tell you that people often claim occupational exposure (because it’s “innocent victim” exposure vs “slutty” exposure) as the reason for the test instead of a risky sexual encounter they don’t want to talk about. So a good counselor will still explore other possible risks.
But again, using the language described in the OP would be out of line. As others have said, it’s best to just ask about risks rather than to assume that a person is taking them.
That is so not funny, rpavlick3. Don’t use gay as a pejorative term.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope
I have no reason to believe my boyfriend misquoted the doctor materially.
Of course, there’s a difference between having a lot of sex (which is what scott’s doctor accounts for), and having a lot of unprotected sex (which is what Tom’s doctor assumed).
Wasn’t AIDS known as ‘GRIDS’ (or something like that) when it was first making the rounds?
Yes, when AIDS was first listed in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in December 1980, the disease was called GRID–Gay-Related Immune Deficiency–because the disease had first shown up in gay men. Even after the disease was renamed, gay men were the largest sector of the population affected by AIDS.
Yes it was; they changed the name when they knew better.
It’s to one’s own peril to exclusively associate ‘AIDS’ with ‘gay’, but there seem to be a lot of people who don’t get the message. I wasn’t trying to justify the gay/aids association with the GRID reference, just explain.
Would this be a good thread to extoll the virtues of celibacy? 
Matt_mcl, I don’t mean to sound crass or anything, but was that for real? No joke?
The only reason I ask is because a local radio station (who does peer-prompted prank calls) did a gag a few years back where they were pretending to be this guy’s doctor talking to him about a supposed work-related injury and the ‘doctor’ kept suggesting to the guy that the injury was caused by gay sex (which of course caused the guy to get incredibly pissed).
One question: what kind of relationship is that? (I’m genuinely curious)
Potter, if the doctor didn’t even read your history / charts… maybe you should go find another doctor who WILL take the time to read them before you come in. (instead of making assumptions based on your sexual orientation)
F_X
Sorry, was what for real?
Brother, can you spare some knowledge? What do “serodiscordant” and “seroconvert” mean in this context? What is amyl nitrate used for? Is it legal to buy/sell/possess? Is anyone required to state their sexual orientation on those forms at the GP’s office?
The doctor from the OP does sound pretty jerkish. Not to generalize, but I’ve met a few doctors who can be this way. They always sound so damn judgemental and condescending, not actually realizing this discourages people from being open with them. My own doctor was this way until I said something to him. He was horrified. Apparently this man genuinely had no idea what he sounded like to patients. He’s a good doctor, he just lacks anything in the way of tact and social skills. Thorough, skilled, innovative, just completely clueless on how to deal with people. Maybe the OP’s doctor is like this? Also, doctors tend to assume a very clinical perspective on the world. (It’s all the lab work, I think.) If you refrain from A, B, C, D, and E, you greatly decrease your chances of F. Since F is very dangerous, anyone engaging in A, B, C, D, or E must be either misinformed or willfully putting themselves at risk. I’ve met doctors who think anyone not going through life in a biohazard suit living in a hermetically sealed room and having HEPA filters installed in all bodily orifices is just asking for a horrible, lingering death.
Also, many people who work with the public are forced to give everyone they encounter in a professional capacity The Speech. The Speech is the long monologue they must memorize and repeat like robots lest that one time they forget or decide to skip The Speech, the unthinkable happens and then their ass is in a sling.
Sero- is a prefix referring to blood serum, or, in this context, the presence of HIV antibodies therein. (This is a lot more frequent in French, and to the extent that scott evil and I use it, it’s probably a calque - sorry.)
Consequently, a serodiscordant relationship is one in which one partner is HIV- and the other is HIV+. To seroconvert means to become infected with HIV and consequently begin to test positive for it.
Manwhore!
That’s all I ever heard.
Manwhore!
How I grew to hate the word.