New HIV strain -- from positive to AIDS in three months, dead in two years

[Brian_Expat]

All traditional treatments -- 19 of the 20 known therapies -- have no effect on it. Only Fuzeon (super expensive) will stop it, and even then, not for long.

If you catch this strain of HIV, you go to full-blown AIDS not within years, but within MONTHS.

We have GOT to lobby against the sexual libertinism and casual sex culture in so much of gay society or AIDS will be killing off gay men like it was in the 1980s all over again.

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/hivstrain12.htm

For the first time, doctors have diagnosed a form of HIV that New York City health officials say has two striking characteristics: It is highly resistant to antiviral drugs in a patient who had never been treated with the medications, and it quickly developed into full-blown AIDS.

The infection defied the typical HIV-to-AIDS profile by apparently developing into AIDS in a matter of months, officials said.

"This case is a wake-up call," said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden. He said the strain is one that "is difficult or impossible to treat and which appears to progress rapidly to AIDS."

Dr. David Ho, director of Manhattan's Diamond AIDS Research Center, where the patient was diagnosed with HIV in December, said the combination of drug-resistant infection and "his rapid clinical and immunological deterioration is alarming."

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Hopeless cause.

I tried to warn them a few months ago and got my ass handed to me. When I mentioned that risky sex was still being practiced in bathhouses they claimed my information was twenty years old and that homosexuals today were acting responsible. Even referring them to the Miami Herald archives and asking them to do a search for "bathhouses" didn't seem to make a difference.

[Brian_Expat]

2. The libertinism will lead to the second gay holocaust

I do not want a return to the 1980s and early 1990s where gay men were attending a funeral per month of a friend in his thirties, but that appears to be the direction we're headed.

Too many people are too fucking weak and scared to say "fuck without a condom and you're killing yourself and others and are a stupid ass." But that's what needs to be said.

Or better yet, don't have sex outside of a monogamous relationship (and even then, use protection).

This superstrain apparently transmits more easily through oral sex as well, since it has developed defences to saliva. I remember mentioning oral transmission as a route here on this board earlier, and getting lambasted by some who said "I'm taking away gay men's hope." No, I'm trying to save our LIVES.

This is serious shit.

[Catch22Dem]

4. I don't understand

Why people who are trying to help others would get blasted by other members of DU. Sometimes (I'm going to regret saying this) DU seems but a mere shell of its former self.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I'm with you, bro.

My heart goes out to you. But the same arrogance and recklessness of Castro Street in the 80s, exists today. Any attempt to warn them to change their lifestyle is taken as a homophobic attack.

I jumped into this topic about ten years ago when I was having a vicious debate with someone on the internet and learned that nothing really changed, except that the cocktails gave some homosexuals a feeling that HIV was manageable, like diabetes. Then I read about the White Parties in Miami, and realized that it was just a show. Here was the heterosexual community coming together to help out the HIV community, many of which involve gay men, and there were pre-parties and post parties which many people attended, knowing they could go to get hooked up in all the wrong ways. Very tragic and self-defeating.

The super virus, was predictable. I expect the heterosexual community will also be hit with one in areas where prostitution is legal, and where penicillin is freely dispensed to the workers. I'm betting on Glasglow as one of the potential hot areas.

[Brian_Expat]

6. We're all too afraid of speaking the truth. . .

. . . which is that sex can kill you.

And that's why sex isn't something to take as lightly as people keep seeming to take it.

[queerart]

34. My Friend......

Just know That I Am Your "Twin In Thought" On This Topic!

But I Will Share A Sad Reality With You, & Others....

We Are In The Minority!

As Crazy As That Sounds... We Are Out On The Fringe With This Very Topic!

I Am A Gent So I Won't Mention The Notes I got When I Broached This Very Topic Before...... But They Would Have Curled Your Hair!!!

[Wright Patman]

3. Heterosexual libertinism

is also rampant and has been for nearly 40 years.

But this will be seized upon by the Arlington Group.

Expect a new campaign among the fundies to whip up the gay marriage issue, even though, ironically, if the gays actually did marry in the conventional sense of the term, there would be far less libertinism.

* should actually promote gay libertinism as it is yet another way to promote Social Security reform. The worst thing that ever happened to Social Security's actuarial tables was the successful anti-smoking campaign of the last 40 years.

[Brian_Expat]

8. Heterosexual libertinism

will result in the superstrain reaching them too.

There was a great show a while back interviewing heterosexual men and women who got HIV, and they were all lamenting that they thought only nasty icky homosexuals got it.

If the superstrain breaks out to a similar level, you could be seeing hundreds of thousands of deaths a year just in the USA.

[Jamastiene]

7. I see the CIA has been busy again.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1216687.htm

http://www.onlineessays.com/essays/issues/iss003.php

[xchrom]

9. don't need the cia -- just good ol' gay defeatism and

internalized gay bashing.

we've been talking drug resistant hiv strains for a long time now -- and in conjunction with meth.

that's IF you've been working with volunteering in the gay community.

the work never stops -- and it never will.

but crying ''i told you so'' --won't do a damn thing.

i see there are several threads about this now -- and i see few intelligent responces to tis -- mostly gasping and serious tsking.
it's like a fundie church in here sometimes.

[Brian_Expat]

10. This isn't about gay bashing

It's about high risk behaviour.

It's perfectly possible to be gay and not engage in high risk behaviour (such as promiscuous sex with strangers).

[xchrom]

11. there's no gay behavior that makes you happy, brian

as is evidenced by your threads.

go volunteer!
join pamphleting groups, work in a clinic -- but most of all open your mind.

[Brian_Expat]

12. Nice personal attack

But I don't identify bareback anonymous sex with strangers as particularly "gay" behaviour -- lots of straights do it too.

However, I do note that lots of people in positions of "leadership" (or even folks such as you) seek to do the same thing that the religious right does -- identify gay people as gay solely based upon promiscuous sexuality that occurs in some Castro-style gay ghetto.

It's literally killing us.

[Langley85]

13. This is not an exclusively gay problem

Everyone, gay or straight or bi, who practices unsafe sex is running the risk of contracting HIV. We need to wake EVERYONE up, not just gays, but everyone else too, all those heterosexuals who don't think they can get it. If people would only practice safe sex this wouldn't be the epidemic it is!

[Liberal Veteran]

14. Do you want to fail abyssmally, Brian, or save lives?

Approach this with the arrogance you are displaying here and I assure you your message WILL fall on deaf ears.

Ask Larry Kramer how he was received in the early 80's when he went headlong into the gay community trying your tactics.

It didn't work then, and it sure as hell ain't gonna work now.

There is a way to spread a message of safer sex that can work and if you really care more about saving lives than pushing your particular values agenda then you will take it.

[dsc]

18. actually Kramer had a massive effect

I don't think he gets full credit but I remember the 1980's and I remember what changes gays made. He certainly had alot of help but he helped cause a major change in the behavior of ordinary gay men.

[Liberal Veteran]

20. Yes, he did, but not using his original tactics.

Originally, Kramer's message was near-universally reviled by the gay community. In the late seventies with amazing prescience Kramer predicted we were fucking ourselves to death and we had to clean up our act. The way Kramer went about it didn't work too well.

He was however smart enough to adjust his tactics to save lives. He formed Gay Men's Health Crisis and had an enormous impact in spreading the message once he adjusted his tactics to speak more on the nature of safe sex and having responsibility for our own health.

But early on, it wasn't that way. And to some extent, his early efforts to stop the spread of AIDS were hampered because many still viewed him as "anti-sex" and an alarmist trying to perpetrate an agenda wrapped up in new clothing. This was in part because his book "Faggots" which was a scathing look at promiscuity and the excesses of the gay community, was still fairly fresh in the minds in the minds of gay community.

That lesson should not be lost on us. Go into this with an agenda of anything other than just trying to save lives, teach safer sex, and personal sexual responsibility and we will likely find the door slammed in our faces.

[Brian_Expat]

19. Except that Larry Kramer was right

And all the people advocating the "other" approach are facing down soaring infection rates and people dropping dead -- more every day.

There is a way to spread a message of safer sex that can work and if you really care more about saving lives than pushing your particular values agenda

My "values agenda" grew out of a conviction that there's got to be a better way. It also does a pretty good job of protecting people from the sorts of drug/party/sex culture that would otherwise wrap them up in some pretty bad situations -- including catching HIV.

The approach you're advocating hasn't worked. This latest news is just more evidence of that. We have to make a change NOW.

We need a way of promoting safer sex that doesn't treat people like pieces of meat or sexual objects and that also brings the frank, real effects of HIV to the fore rather than the white-room, fuzzy-wuzzy "empowerment" talk of the past 15 years that has "empowered" hundreds of thousands of people into HIV+ status.

[Liberal Veteran]

21. The fact is that even if I agreed with you....

...I lived through the last AIDS crisis and I remember all too well how welcomed your message was then and I have no reason to believe that things have changed that much.

Indeed, for a short while, things were going the right direction and new HIV infections on gay men began to level out and drop. Things started to reverse when HAART came along.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we became complacent. HAART gave people the false sense of security that the HIV crisis was over and/or that if things did go wrong you could go on meds.

That was our miscalculation as a community. If anything, we should have used the new found freedom of not having to focus so much attention on pallative care for those dying of AIDS to redouble our efforts at making sure that the message of safer sex and sexual responsibility was re-enforced.

Go into this with an agenda that you are going to mold the entire gay community into your own vision of respectability and you will most likely find you are preaching to the choir that is already taking responsibility for their health.

Go into to educate people on how to protect themselves from a deadly disease and take care of themselves and the people they sleep with and you WILL reach people.

[Brian_Expat]

23. You're confused as to my intent

I have no intent of, to use your words, "mold the entire gay community into your own vision of respectability."

Of course, I also am unwilling to persist in the present mold, which is to laugh, roll my eyes and say "well, boys will be boys, no reason to confront barebackers with the truth."

I think the solution is somewhere in between. And yes, I do think that spiritual gays have a role to play as do non-spiritual ones.

I also think a fresh clean-out of the present gay leadership is in order considering the situation as it exists today. They've clearly failed us on a number of fronts, HIV being just one of them.

[Duncan Grant]

25. A serious request.

Of course, I also am unwilling to persist in the present mold, which is to laugh, roll my eyes and say "well, boys will be boys, no reason to confront barebackers with the truth."

1) Please say specifically who is laughing and rolling their eyes. Also, what is your public health plan? The one which will confront barebackers with the truth? What is its impact? Is it effective nationally or site specific?

I also think a fresh clean-out of the present gay leadership is in order considering the situation as it exists today. They've clearly failed us on a number of fronts, HIV being just one of them.

2) How do you propose to clean-out the present gay leadership? Who specifically has failed "us" (who is us, anyway?) on a number of fronts (what fronts?)?

As a courtesy to others and the discussion, is it possible to use I statements instead of "we", "us", "them", "they", etc.?
edit: punctuation

[Brian_Expat]

28. No problem!

Please say specifically who is laughing and rolling their eyes.

Ever work in an inner-city HIV prevention centre? I have in the USA and elsewhere. The atmosphere of "do not criticise" is everywhere.

If you go out to the scene and get active in encouraging safe sex, people MIGHT take a condom from you, but start to consider the idea that we can fight barebacking and the response is one of several -- "boys will be boys," "men are wired differently," etc.

It's hard to deny there's a certain fatalism there.

Also, what is your public health plan? The one which will confront barebackers with the truth? What is its impact? Is it effective nationally or site specific?

Mine starts with a single basic premise -- one earns respect from others. If an individual is a regular barebacker, he should be shown, in stark terms, what that means for his future.

In terms of programs of promotion, I have one ad I scripted up years ago and which NONE of the big AIDS prevention groups I know of would run. It's a black and white advertisement of an attractive young gay man saying "I bareback from time to time. It's fun. It doesn't hurt anybody."

Then he puts a penis-shaped gun up to his head while giving his rationale, and pulls the trigger. There's a bang and the screen goes black.

In white block letters on the black screen, it says "Bareback, and fade to black. Use a condom, every time."

How do you propose to clean-out the present gay leadership?

You can see my "Scorched Earth" thread for ideas on how to do that.

Who specifically has failed "us" (who is us, anyway?) on a number of fronts (what fronts?)

Well last I checked, "us" was "GLBT Americans" (for whom this particular forum was created.)

As a courtesy to others and the discussion, is it possible to use I statements instead of "we", "us", "them", "they", etc.?

So there is no "us?" No GLBT Americans?

No "them" -- no religious conservatives?

We're all just individuals now, with no common cause whatsoever?

Or are you inferring that I'm not a member of "us"?

[Duncan Grant]

33. You don't speak for me.

Please don't presume you speak for us. No monolithic gay experience exists, there are many "us". Each person presents their own reality here, based upon unique life histories.
edit: added additional thought

[Brian_Expat]

39. I never presumed I spoke for "us"

But it was suggested that "I don't like gay people" and are not "one of us" so "please don't talk about us." Which is part of the exclusionary nature of the beast of which I've referred to on many other threads.

[queerart]

44. I Worked On A Movie Short......

I will try to give more thought to your idea on barebacking....

At any rate... here is one....

http://queerart.com/safe/safesex.htm

[queerart]

47. Here Is Your Barebacking Idea Brian...... Well, Sort Of.........

No models on my end, so all is drawn... :-).......

http://queerart.com/safe/bang/bang.htm

[Liberal Veteran]

27. All the facts in the world all useless if you don't present them properly.

If you want to stick you nose up in the air and play holier than thou in your presentation, you are going to put people on the defensive against you and your message.

Honestly, if you present yourself to the people you are trying to reach with the same attitude you have approached this discussion, the most likely result is that you will be seen as tilting at windmills.

Your notions are pretty askew as far was you perceive as the present mold. I don't think there is any large percentage of people within the gay community, particularly within the leadership of the community that is not firmly aware of dangers of unprotected sex. That's a devil of your own creation. They may not be paying attention to it to the extent that you feel is warranted and on that I might agree, but if you are suggesting that the majority of our community encourages it or tacitly approves of that behavior, then I think you are making a gross mischaracterization of the community at large.

Looking at the demographics, somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 percent of gay men have HIV (assuming 5 percent of the population is gay and half of those are male compared to the number of current HIV cases in men who have sex with men, if the number of people who are gay is more than that which I suspect it is, then that percentage of gay men with HIV is even smaller).

That already indicates that the number of gay people you assume are living the life of "libertinism" is probably a LOT smaller than you seem to believe.

Does that mean we shouldn't pay attention to it? Of course not. But how you approach it will make all the difference.

[Brian_Expat]

29. You're not paying attention to my core point

I don't think there is any large percentage of people within the gay community, particularly within the leadership of the community that is not firmly aware of dangers of unprotected sex. That's a devil of your own creation. They may not be paying attention to it to the extent that you feel is warranted and on that I might agree, but if you are suggesting that the majority of our community encourages it or tacitly approves of that behavior, then I think you are making a gross mischaracterization of the community at large.

I think that most community venues are, sadly, areas for hook-ups these days rather than any kind of rational discussion. And I do think there's a complete lack of education in those venues as to what's safe and what isn't.

People are aware of "safer" sex to a minor degree, but most people are under the impression that HIV is a "manageable" illness -- ala Andrew Sullivan's writings or the "I'm living and thriving with HIV" ads from the pharma companies. So it's no big deal.

And when various conversations I'm privy to occur where someone explains his wild and slutty weekend with six different guys, most people giggle and jokingly say "slut" or "dirty bitch." There's never any expression of horror that for some of the encounters, condoms weren't used. Bring up that latter point and more often than not you're a "spoilsport" or "killjoy."

Looking at the demographics, somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 percent of gay men have HIV

I've seen much, much higher numbers than that in gay urban centres.

In San Francisco it's estimated that almost 5% of drug using gay men and 3% of non-drug using gay men seroconvert EVERY YEAR. That's staggering.

In New York City, there are similar numbers.

It's still a serious problem. And yes, I think urban communities have different needs from rural ones, but HIV is spreading rapidly into rural communities, and in the latter, a larger proportion of people don't know they're infected.

That already indicates that the number of gay people you assume are living the life of "libertinism" is probably a LOT smaller than you seem to believe.

I know what I see when I walk into gay venues across major cities in the USA and abroad. There's a lot of hanky panky going on, and that's inherently high risk behaviour if condoms aren't involved -- and lots of times, condoms AREN'T involved.

[Brian_Expat]

31. More scary numbers from recent history. . .

http://www.aids.org/atn/a-359-10.html

Two University of California San Francisco researchers, Susan Buchbinder and Cynthia Gomez, presented new, unpublished data for the group to consider. Buchbinder discussed results from two AIDS prevention studies, a behavioral intervention study and vaccine study, and compared them to the numbers from two roughly comparable studies done in the early nineties. All involved HIV-negative men who have anal sex and are thus at relatively high risk for HIV infection.

The men in the new studies had a combined seroconversion rate of 4.2 percent per year, compared to 2.2 percent and 2.7 percent in the earlier research. Nine percent reported having unprotected receptive anal sex with partners they knew to be HIV-positive--about triple the previous rate--while an even larger percentage had unprotected receptive anal sex with partners of unknown status.

Optimism about improvements in HIV treatment may be contributing to the increase in risky behavior. 13 percent of the men agreed that they are "less concerned about having sex without a condom" due to the existence of combination anti-HIV treatments, while 21 percent said that treatment reduces a person's infectivity.

Gomez discussed data from the Seropositive Urban Men's Study, which looked at HIV positive gay and bisexual men in San Francisco and New York. Most of the men's sexual partners were of unknown HIV status, Gomez said, noting that researchers found "no difference" in results from the two cities. And--in a number that mirrored Buchbinder's findings--nine percent said that they had had unprotected insertive anal sex in the last 90 days with partners they knew to be HIV negative.

"That's the data that kept me up that night," Shriver said.

The most optimistic numbers came from the San Francisco Young Men's Health Study, which since 1992 has tracked a large group of gay/bi men who were under age 30 when it began, which reported a seroconversion rate of 1.8 percent per year.

Though most of the studies evaluated showed annual new infection rates of four percent or higher, the group chose to err on the side of being conservative. The comments from most of the researchers indicated they thought the 2.2 percent per year figure is an underestimate.

http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/recent/statistics/070100.html

Following years of steep declines, the rate of new HIV infections in San Francisco surged in 1999 to levels that parallel those in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in four adults is infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Using new HIV testing technology on frozen blood samples that can differentiate between new and established HIV infection, SF city health officials discovered an alarming increase in new HIV infections, from 1.3 percent in 1997 to 3.7 percent in 1999. Figures for the first six months of 2000 are not yet available, but expects are expecting more bad news. "This is a harbinger of what is going to happen all over the country," UCSF AIDS researcher Thomas Coates, PhD, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "What happens in the HIV epidemic usually happens here first," said Coates.

Epidemiologist William McFarland of the San Francisco Department of Public Health will present the disturbing new data on rates of new infections in San Francisco at the upcoming XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa (July 9-14, 2000). McFarland sees the new data, derived from blood samples drawn at the city's anonymous HIV testing sites, as hard evidence of a frightening new trend, but he also cites other, equally compelling evidence of a rekindled HIV epidemic in San Francisco. These include the following:

*

Rectal gonorrhea rates increased from 20 cases per 100,000 in 1994 to 45 cases per 100,000 in 1999;
*

The percentage of gay men who said they always used a condom during anal sex declined from 70 percent in 1994 to 54 percent in 1999; and
*

The percentage of gay men engaging in unprotected anal sex (sex without a condom) with more than one partner increased from 23 percent in 1994 to 43 percent in 1999.

FORTY THREE PERCENT having unprotected anal sex with more than one partner!

http://www.mindfully.org/Health/HIV-Doubles-SF-Men.htm

Paul Torello is upfront about his life. He sells sex on the streets for drug money, and he's HIV positive. It's a story he tells all of his male clients before he lets them chose whether to proceed with or without a condom.

But more often than not, his words have little effect.

``It's sex that they really want to have,'' Torello said. ``That's primarily the attitude in the city. It's a fun thing for them.''

That attitude is partly responsible for an alarming new report released Wednesday that finds the HIV infection rate has more than doubled among San Francisco's gay men in four years.

This is alarming and it's gotten worse since a lot of these numbers were published!

[Liberal Veteran]

35. And you haven't addressed mine at all.

Personally, if you want to help educate people and prevent HIV, I totally support that.

If you think you are going to launch a "gay renaissance", you are going about it the wrong. It's already been tried.

You act as though you are proposing something new, but you aren't.

Larry Kramer tried your approach in the late 70's with his book "Faggots" before the AIDS crisis came along and quite honestly, it wasn't pretty. Kramer and the mainstream gay community didn't mend fences until years later.

It didn't matter that he was probably correct. As I said, facts are meaningless if your don't approach your audience the right way to engage them.

And then it was tried again by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen in 1989 when they published "After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear & Hatred in the 90's". And you can still search the USENET archives to see how well that one went over (keywords "After the Ball" and "gay").

There is a saying that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". Not only does that hold true for "fucking ourselves to death" as it has been put, but the same holds true for your approach to it.

In a lot of ways, what you are proposing is not much different from the abstinence-only sex ed programs of the right and you see how effective those are.

Trying to apply a similar approach to the gay community from within the gay community doesn't work as you think it will and the reasons for that should be obvious.

You are dealing with a community that is already wounded due to the culture in which we were raised which already steps all over us and treats us like shit.

In such an environment, carving out a sense of self-worth is major accomplishment. And mostly people were able to do that by not taking any shit from society and rejecting the notions about homosexuality that the larger society paints.

In other words: Gay people are already defensive as hell.

The best way to approach people in that frame of mind is to make what you are proposing attractive, not telling them "don't do that!". That's what the community gets from the rest of society "don't be gay! don't do that!".

I don't believe our goals are dissimiliar. Our methods, however, are worlds apart. Frame safer sex as exciting, fun, cool, the thing to do and you just might save some lives.

They say you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. You would do well to remember that.

[Brian_Expat]

40. Except that I'm not as understanding as Kramer

Frankly, with the facts that are out now about HIV and all the education being done, if you're stupid enough to bareback repeatedly and get the virus, I'm not prepared to be as compassionate and understanding as I used to be. I think a lot of other gay people are in the same situation -- we're demanding greater rights and responsibilities and there's still a major subsegment of the gay population who is all about "sex without consequences" while knowing full well what the consequences are.

[Liberal Veteran]

41. Sounds a lot like what I hear from more radical pro-lifers.

If I went to a pro-life opinion site and read a minor modification of your words substituting women for gay and pregnancy for HIV, it would not be surprising:

"Frankly, with the facts that are out now about pregnancy and all the education being done, if you're stupid enough to have unprotected sex repeatedly and get pregnant, I'm not prepared to be as compassionate and understanding as I used to be. I think a lot of other women are in the same situation -- we're demanding greater rights and responsibilities and there's still a major subsegment of the female population who is all about "sex without consequences" while knowing full well what the consequences are."


And what will be the end result of being less "compassionate and understanding"? Do you really believe that going into this with an attitude of righteous indignation is going to work?

I don't.

What's fascinating to me is that our roles should probably be reversed.

You are the gat quaker constantly reminding all of us how you are filled with spirituality and filled with God's love. And yet you don't care to reach out with compassion to people you have decided are unworthy of it.

I on the hand am a gay man who was betrayed by my first love in 1985 when everyone knew that a fairly new and fatal sexually transmitted disease was going around and he brought HIV into our relationship by cheating on me. And instead of being bitter at my lot in live, I am urging reaching out with a positive and affirmative message about safer sexual practices up to and including monogamy (which I can tell you from experience doesn't protect you from HIV if you are the only one in the relationship being monogamous).

Fascinating reversal, wouldn't you say?

[dsc]

42. actually didn't you advocate a law banning positive people from

having bareback sex without notifying their partner? Incidently, I agree with that position, but that seems not to be brimming with compassion either. While I would feel compassion for those infected, even if they did something they knew better than to do to get that way, I would have very little if any compassion for those who infect.

[Liberal Veteran]

43. Nothing inconsistent about it.

If a person knows they are positive and engages in unsafe sex with someone without full disclosure, they are recklessly endangering the public health, in a very real sense.

There is a line that can be crossed that takes mere irresponsibility to the level of criminal behavior and I tend to agree with laws that will take people who knowingly endanger public health in that way off the street. And that goes for any serious STD, including HIV and Hep C.

Being stupid and irresponsible isn't necessarily a crime, but once you have been diagnosed with having a communicable disease, you are held to higher standard because you ARE putting people's lives at risk. Now I fully advocate, and nearly ALL testing facilities do this, on a positive diagnosis that a person is educated not only on the dangers, but what doesn't constitute a danger to others.

This particular debate has been going on since the beginning of HIV testing and there will be people who fall on both sides of the argument. I fall on the side that if you know you are positive and you have unprotected sex without disclosure, then you have committed a criminal act. In the final analysis, that's a side note to the argument. Those laws already exist in most states. Studies that have been done have reported that overwhelming majority of people who receive a positive diagnosis alter there behavior to reduce risk of transmission (from abstaining to sex completely to safer sexual practices), with or without disclosure.

Bottom line is that most people are not sociopaths and act responsibly when they find out they have HIV. And we should do everything we can to educate and support those who are diagnosed to take that additional responsibility that comes with having a communicable disease. If you cannot or will not do that, then we get into the question as to whether the action is criminal. I believe it is. Others disagree.

Now does this absolve the other person of responsibility? NOT AT ALL. The bottom line is that we need to teach people to care enough about themselves to protect themselves and not take foolish risks.

And that's really what this entire discussion is about.

Should we approach safer sex education with positive re-enforcement and do the best we can to encourage safer sexual practices and give people reasons to take care of themselves and others?

Or should we go into this with an attitude of moral superiority and ostracism?

Which message are people most likely to listen too?

[Corkey Mineola]

36. More like 1/3 in SF andother urban centers

Isn't it?

[Brian_Expat]

38. Yes.

And gay men tend to flock to the urban centres where they can live out lives.

[Moderator]

15. The first thread in GLBT Issues about this article can be found here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x6485

[jonnyblitz]

16. good luck lobbying against "sexual libertinism".

it doesn't work when the wacko right tries to and it won't work for us.

[Brian_Expat]

17. Then a lot of people are going to needlessly die

Because that's what's going to result in widespread infection. :(

[Bluebear]

22. Please don't buy into this headline so easily

I am not minimizing your post, but before you start lobbying, do read what some HIV doctors are saying about this (that drug-resistant strains are hardly 'new') before you blow a gasket on what the MSM is portraying as a new 'gay threat'.

I put nothing past these fuckers in the media to villify gays and further the ultra-conservative agenda, including trumping up some "supervirus" that stirs up the panic and menace of the 80's all over again. (See other thread that Mod refers to for Dr. Gallant's comments on this story.) I agree with your points and certainly champion protected sex for ALL, but don't let the media turn this into another 'gay plague'.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=6485&mesg_id=6657&page=

ON EDIT, case in point:
http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_043091140.html
New York's first diagnosed case of highly drug-resistant HIV in a person never before treated for the virus is "a wake up call" to anyone who has unprotected sex, the city's health commissioner said Friday.

The patient, a man in his mid-40s who had unprotected sex with other men, contracted a strain of HIV that is "difficult or impossible to treat and which appears to progress rapidly to AIDS," said the Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden.

The diagnosis "is a wake up call to men who have sex with men," Frieden said at a news conference.
===

Not a wakeup call for the promiscuous, mind you. A wakeup call for gay men. Not a wakeup call for a woman who may have slept with a druguser who had sex with a man, but "men who have sex with men". It's disgusting.

[Brian_Expat]

24. Well, on the other hand. . .

MSMs represent a disproportionately high number of HIV cases in the west and the single largest risk group.

[Bluebear]

26. And I meant MSM as mainstream media

Too many acronyms in the world. :toast:

It is helpful for the media to point out that the man was crystal methed out of reality. His inhibitions were gone, and the media delights in giving the juicy details of his alleged 'hundreds' of anal encounters. It is a wake-up call to _anyone_ who has sex to use protection, not only gay men!

[Brian_Expat]

30. Crystal meth and drug use are growing too

As a result of circuit parties.

But publicly criticise circuit parties, and, well, watch what happens. I won't even try anymore :P

[Bluebear]

32. Well I wouldn't know what a circuit party was if it bit me

Again, I don't think numerous encounters featuring unprtected sex is a good thing. I just want to know more about this scary new "supervirus" that the media is exercised about before it is used as yet another anti-gay piece of ammo.

[xchrom]

45. gay people are their own best anti-gay ammo

the level of internalized gay hate that results from headlines like this is astounding.

''clean out'' the leadership?!?!
what leadership? which ''leader'' is speaking for all of us?

gay promiscuity?!?! of course their gay sex going on -- there is also brilliant gay film making, theatre, writing, confronting marriage equality, etc. -- all threads like this are intended to do is focus on self loathing and hate -- with one message -- that some one person has the answer.

no one person in history has ever had The Answer.

[Corkey Mineola]

37. Alarmist Rhetoric

Public health policy should not be reactive, whether from the left or right.
One case does not a pattern nor a pandemic make.
Additionally, the 'scare tactics' that you propose (penis/gun) are the last thing we need. People are, at heart, scared enough. Research shows that scared people stop dealing with the threat and start coping with the fear itself.
So I think it's fallacious to draw conclusions about barebackers, etc. Easy does it! Don't play into the fascists hands!
thanks

[ibegurpard]

46. Despite the fact that I FEEL exactly the same way about it that you do

I'm going to have to agree with others who've posted here that the kind of rhetoric you're advocating is probably not going to work. Harsh judgementalism, although in my mind probably justified in situations like this, just causes people who have dealt with that attitude their entire lives to ignore the message.

We need to find some way of reaching people without being harsh and judgemental and yet making them aware of how dangerous and unhealthy this kind of behavior is.