It seems like every year we get a new alarming stats to set on top of last year’s alarming new stats—we’ve got eight years’ worth of alarming stats to pour over now. And the news for gay and bisexual men isn’t good:
U.S. syphilis rates rose for a seventh year in 2007, driven by gay and bisexual men, while chlamydia reached record numbers and gonorrhea remained at alarming levels—especially among blacks, health officials said on Tuesday.
…
[Syphilis] rates rose 15 percent from 2006. Syphilis rates dropped by 90 percent in the 1990s to a record low level in 2000, and officials thought it might disappear as a public health threat before its resurgence this decade.
Syphilis has increased each year since 2000—its rate is up 81 percent—with gay and bisexual men representing 65 percent of cases, the CDC said.
Douglas said many cases are occurring in HIV-positive men who are choosing other HIV-positive men as sexual partners. “Within that relationship, they are less concerned about the transmission of other conditions. They’re not using condoms. They believe that their partner already has got the worst they can get—they’ve got an HIV infection,” he said.
So… gay and bi men who opt to have sex with other men who share their serostatus—poz guys with poz guys, neg guys with neg guys—because it allows them to skip the condoms are fueling a nearly decade-long spike in syphilis rates. I’ve praised serosorting as an effective method of HIV prevention—here’s a good primer on the practice from the SF AIDS Foundation—and it is. But its been clear for years now that serosorting carries other risks. Serosorting is only an effective HIV-infection prevention strategy—particularly for neg guys—if people are 1. honest and 2. aware of their HIV-statuses. (Lots of men are infected and don’t know it; some were infected too recently for their last HIV test to detect their infection.) It is extremely foolish for a negative guy—particularly one seeking multiple, casual, or anonymous sex partners—to put a great deal of faith in a stranger’s professed HIV-status; a poz guy can know for sure he’s positive but a negative guy can never really know for certain that he’s negative. Some guys who are positive don’t know, some are in denial, and men will lie. (And by stigmatizing HIV+ guys, it has to be said, HIV- guys help create a climate that encourages other men to either not know their status or to hide it.)
But even when it works as planned—neg guys skipping condoms with neg guys, poz guys skipping condoms with poz guys—serosorting obviously encourages the spread of other sexually transmitted infections. Many of these infections—like syphilis—are treatable. Since some men have syphilis without realizing it, because they didn’t notice the initial symptoms, and because the consequences of untreated syphilis are pretty dire, anyone who has multiple sex partners—serosorting or not, condoms or not—should get regular STI screenings.
And now my annual Cassandra moment: Yeah, serosorting may be effective for preventing the spread of HIV. It can make it possible for two neg guys to have sex without condoms without risking HIV infection (provided both guys are actually negative), and it can make it possible for two poz guys to have sex without condoms without spreading HIV. But serosorting does nothing to protect gay men from other STIs. Rational people can conclude that those other STIs are no big deal and that if they serosort for HIV and seek treatment for the treatable STIs and put up with the untreatable ones, they’re in the clear medically and morally.
But the emergence of HIV should have made one thing very clear: a new STI can burst onto the scene and kill you and all of your friends. So, yeah, serosorting can allow guys to have unprotected sex without having to worry about the potentially fatal sexually transmitted infection we do know about. But what if there’s a new fatal STI out there that we don’t know about?
tl;dr
Translation: don’t be a slut!
Or if you’re gonna play, wear the protective equipment.
When did STD’s become STI’s? And why? I’m too lazy to look it up.
When did barebacking EVER become “okay”? Seriously, didn’t we see enough of us die over the past couple of decades?
Some butts are worth any price:
http://topasiangirls.net/Tam/Maria_Ozawa…
Please explain this:
HIV *is* sexually transmitted. If negative “serosorted” couples can transmit syphillis or other STIs, they can transmit HIV. Just because they’ve serosorted doesn’t give them some magical protection against HIV, while allowing them to contract other STIs.
Two HIV-negative guys — if both guys are actually negative — can’t transmit HIV because… neither of them have HIV, Don’t Get Your Argument, which is why they’re described as “negative guys.” A negative guy with syphilis can transmit syphilis because… he’s got syphilis. But he can’t transmit HIV if he doesn’t have it.
HIV isn’t, you know, fire—you can’t make it just by rubbing two fags together.
“but a negative guy can never really know for certain that he’s negative.”
I agree with what you’re saying as a whole, but I don’t agree with the above statement. If you’re not having unsafe sex and you’re tested on a regular basis you *can* know that you are in fact negative.
By saying that you can never know your real hiv status you’re completely taking away any sense of empowerment that people have over their sexual choices.
I don’t think that it’s true.
We should all gamble with our lives that our partner, of no matter how many years or what he says, is going to be totally faithful and certianly negative. Yeah, I think I’d rather play Russian Roulette myself.
Dan, you should know this better than anyone… STIs can be accompanied by HIV, and HIV infection often comes with another STI – in fact that’s how many cases are diagnosed, when guys get treated for the primary STI (chlamydia, etc) and an HIV test is done along with it. If a neg guy gets syphilis, especially with the current prevalence of serosorting, there is a very strong likelihood that HIV has come with it. After all, HIV and STI infection rates are rising steadily among gay and bi men. They’re not seroconverting because they’re using condoms. I think that, along with “praising” serosorting, you need to more accurately present the risks involved. I’ve got more than a dozen friends under the age of 40 who’ve seroconverted in the past five years; all of them were practicing serosorting. I’ve been with my bf for 8 years. I am neg, he is poz, we use condoms, I test all the time, and am still negative. That kind of says something about the effectiveness of serosorting as a “prevention” method.
How about you just do the sensible thing for humanity and stop having any form of sex?
What don’t HIV pos humans do something for the good of the country and make a sacrifice?
Ohh yeah I forgot. Being gay also includes being self centered and absorbed.
Enough. If you are positive take yourself out of the rotation! You no longer have a right to have sex of any form.
You gambled. You lost. Don’t sentence anyone else to death because of your ego.
End. of. story.
Too bad gay leaders don’t start taking a stand on this issue and start showing some leadership.
Dan?
So how does this reflect on King County Public Health’s “Little Prick” poster that encourages “No Condoms/Test Often” propaganda? Ahem.
The solution of course (which nobody wants to mention, lest they be tarred and feathered for being “sex negative” or worse–“judgmental”) is fewer partners, and ones you know well enough to talk about STIs. But heaven forbid anyone ruin the bacchanal. Party on, boys…
I’ve mentioned that solution numerous times, Andy. I’m not necessarily pro-serosorting. Guys do it, it seems to work, roughly, although it’s not perfect, and guys engaged in serosorting get infected because 1. guys lie, and 2. not everyone knows for sure that they’re negative, despite their last test results.
Serosorting is more effective, I think, for poz guys who don’t want to bother with condoms anymore. It’s much less effective for neg guys who want to stay negative for the long haul.
At the very least, though, serosorting requires guys to discuss their HIV statuses before hopping into bed, which is more than a lot of guys do. But if we were serious about slowing or stopping the spread of HIV, we would reserve anal sex for long-term, established relationships and stop having the riskiest kind of sex — anal — with the riskiest kinds of partners — casual, multiple. But AIDS orgs won’t push that because it stigmatizes anal sex and slutting around, and AIDS orgs — as the Stranger has pointed out until we were blue in the face — seem to think that their primary mission isn’t combatting the epidemic but encouraging gay men to have as much sex as they possibly can, as if men — gay or straight — needed any encouragement in that direction.
My best friend serosorts as a positive. I worry because I don’t think this is safe. There are different types of HIV. Just because you are positive- that doesn’t mean you have them all. Take last years scare, when four men had a new strain.
You know, if we just switched to an abstinence program, we could easily double the infection rate …
Jeez frickin’ Louise, the guy is saying don’t rely on serosorting as a method of STI screening, wear condoms, and get tested regularly for STIs, and still people rip him apart.
11, HIV poz people don’t need to take themselves out of rotation. They just need to be honest with themselves and others. That doesn’t mean that everybody should just hope that the guy they’re fucking is telling the truth. People need to take responsibility for their their own sexual activity, and health. I had an almost 9 year relationship with an HIV poz man. We were always safe, and to this day, I am neg.
Everyone should be as safe as possible, but it’s a balancing act. One cannot live in a padded plastic bubble, (NOT a reference to condoms) and still say they are living their lives. Driving a car is very dangerous. Millions of people die every year in them. Does that mean we should all stop driving. No. Wear your seat belts, drive carefully, and you minimize the risk. Live, but be careful. Have sex, but use condoms.
This alarming and disheartening surge in STI’s is obviously the fault of Christians, Republicans and heterosexuals who have not yet found a pill that allows homosexuals to have unprotected anal sex without spreading a host of plagues on mankind.
I will tax and punish those groups until they come around.
You have my pledge…
YOU FILTHY ANIMALS
17, better to be a filthy animal than a sad, scared, hateful, empty, embittered person.
@16 you sound like someone who is exactly what I am describing.
If you really want to quit making excuses and talking around what the real issue is, then keep justifying sexual activity at the expense of others.
It is truly amazing the amount of rhetoric with double standards I see here. We have gays that go to extreme methods to try to be “safer” thru various medical procedures, when instead they can simply abstain from having sex with anyone who has an other that definitely positive status.
Have sex with other positive folks. I don’t care. You’ve already both brought down a death sentence on yourselves, you might as well have fun while it lasts.
If you want to play Russian Roulette with your choices fine. But your decision to have sex with a knowingly POS man, immediately eliminates you from being qualified to ever have sex again with a negative person.
YOU ARE AN EXAMPLE OF WHY WE HAVE SUCH PROBLEMS AND STIGMA IN THE GAY COMMUNITY!
Don’t you see YOU are the very problem that causes others to have a false sense of security? YOU have an ego that YOU need to put in check.
Just don’t bring down some innocent kid with your reckless desires.
This is a classic example of why AIDS and HIV will never be put in check by the gay community.
And is a leading reason of why the rest of America despises you/us because of your selfishness.
Ugh, take a minute and read the damn article. He’s saying:
1. serosorting is better than nothing
2. serosorting alone is a BAD plan for “neg” guys
3. even when it ‘works’, serosorting sex isn’t risk free
4. wearing a condom while serosorting is smarter
5. serosorting, wearing a condom and getting tested regularly is the smartest!
One addendum–don’t forget drug resistance! Every new infection we treat is an incubator for the emergence of drug resistant bugs… practice safer sex and try to avoid infection at all, but if you do get infected with a currently treatable strain–PLEASE make sure you finish your course of treatment, and follow the doctor’s instructions! If you don’t, your carelessness could kill untold numbers of people.
RE: #16 is a prime example of ego and selfishness
Girl – I receommend that you go to QFC immediately and grab some Calgon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDVlsySAr…
19, first off, I don’t have HIV or AIDS. Apparently, your “safe” ways haven’t given you the ability to understand what you read. I am in a monogamous relationship, and I get tested regularly to be extra safe.
Guess what with all your “safe” ways you are still going to die. Nobody lives forever. You can spend your time frightened, hiding in a bunker, but I’m going live my life. I bet I have more happiness and joy in one day than you’ve had in your entire life.
21, please continue to be afraid of life.
The complexity of serosorting means that it’s generally a bad idea–almost no human beings are intellectually equipped to apply such a complex protocol in their everyday lives and sex lives correctly.
My dick is on fire.
@14: I worry about the different strains of HIV, too. And don’t different people carry different viral loads? So if someone has a lower viral load, can’t it be pushed higher if they get fucked by someone with a higher viral load?
Am I completely full of shit?
@26 Doesn’t work like that. But you can get re-infected by a medication resistant strain of a virus. That would be bad because whatever you are taking may stop working.
16 ftw
19 ft LOSE.
Piece
of
shit.
So what happens to someone who gets syphilis and is already HIV-positive? That sounds like a bad deal.
18
It’s up to you Rob but you don’t have to live like a filthy animal.
You are capable of making better choices.
Good luck. . . .
@Dan: What exactly are you planning to “pour” over the eight years’ worth of alarming stats? The creamy contents of your santorum-streaked condom?
pore
intr.v. pored, por·ing, pores
1. To read or study carefully and attentively: pored over the classified ads in search of a new job.
2. To gaze intently; stare.
3. To meditate deeply; ponder: pored on the matter.
31, I’ve made great choices in my life. Maybe I’ll tell you what that’s like someday. Good luck to you.
33
ooooooh!
more Rob stories!!
33, it keeps you following my every move, doesn’t it.
I mean, 34. You can’t seem to get enough of me.
I like Rob’s posts. It takes courage to be transparent.
I’m a straight guy and I love fucking without condoms. It’s great. It just feels better. I can’t blame anyone for wanting to do it. Here’s the deal though. If I want to have sex with someone w/o a condom I wait until we’re serious, we get tested and then we have sex only with each other. If one of us goes outside the relationship we use a condom. Is that so hard? If you don’t do that you put yourself and your partner and your next partners and their next partners at serious risk. You’re also encouraging stereotypes and ruining the reputation of your entire community. Not to mention bringing nasty shit like syphilis back as a major problem. Did you know syphilis will make you go insane before it kills you?
HIV is not the only nasty disease out there and it may not even be the nastiest. It’s also not the last. Dan’s right, these things change and evolve. HIV’s younger brother is evolving somewhere out there and you may never even hear about it before it kills you.
You don’t have to stop having sex or living your life just use a fucking condom.
35
17
18
I believe you have it backwards…
Raking up old shit, but interested. What does the BFF Sullivan think? Obviously he was very much into serosorting when seeing anonymous bareback partners online. Always seemed like this was a perfect way for people to be working on the AIDS of tomorrow.
Raking up old shit, but interested. What does the BFF Sullivan think? Obviously he was very much into serosorting when seeking anonymous bareback partners online. Always seemed like this was a perfect way for people to be working on the AIDS of tomorrow.
THE CURE for HIV/AIDS…….AMBUSH
THE IDEA that AMBUSH cures AIDS
is being proven by the more than 400 individuals who have taken a dose of 60 ml three times daily for 21 days. The result is that AMBUSH ‘KILLS’ the virus by causing the protein envelope to rupture and the viral particles are discarded by the white blood cells. AMBUSH is able to ‘KILL’ the virus that are ‘hiding’ in the lymph system by its ‘natural radioactive’ properties. This process allows the body to ‘return to normal health’ with a corresponding immunity to that or those strains of the virus.
What is AMBUSH ?
AMBUSH is a radioactive isotope of uranium that is found in the ‘palm’ plant of which there are more than 3000 species. When ingested, AMBUSH causes the body temperature in the trunk area to rise to about 102 degrees when the individual is sleeping. The preparation takes four hours per batch, which is then given to the individuals for consumption 60 ml three times daily for 21 days. AMBUSH is a herbal preparation in this form but it contains an active ingredient which is a ‘NEW’ crystalline substance, a drug from the ‘palm plant’ similarly to ASPIRIN originating from the willow tree bark
RESULTS:
After 21 days on AMBUSH, ALL the individuals experienced a decrease in viral load to undetectable, an increase in cd4, increase in RBC, an improvement in general health such as more color to the face, decrease in Buffalo hump, an increase in gluteal muscles, a decrease to having no joint pains whereby individuals can bend to touch their toes, and walk up steps are but a few examples. There is also a dramatic increase in their sexual appetite beginning after the first week of therapy
DISCUSSION:
In any plant concoction such as percolated ‘tea’, there are 30-40,000 compounds, whi ch would take the scientific community twenty years to isolate one particular ingredient if they knew what they were looking for. The LORD GOD has given me seven steps to isolate the active ingredient, which is soft and metallic in nature and has a carbon- uranium-sulfur-(classified)-phentolamine configuration or structure. This is similar to Federick Kekule and the discovery of the benzene ring where he dreamt the structure.
As an antiviral and ‘natural radioactivity’ producing agent, AMBUSH is also effective against leukemia, lupus and HPV. Here I am saying that I have ‘GIVEN’ AMBUSH in the same ‘strength’ and dosage to patients with leukemia, lupus and HPV. A 35 year old male with HIV found it difficult to impossible to urinate was put on ‘green tea’ and water while the doctors contemplated prostrate surgery. One of the doctors gave him my number , I sent him a supply of AMBUSH an d he has not been given any more ARV’s, since taking AMBUSH 18 months ago, is in ‘good’ health and has expressed a willingness to be examined by HIV investigators like many others who have taken AMBUSH.
I have sent this ‘IDEA’ to most HIV research agencies, scientist of the field, universities, hospitals, clinics, politicians and news agencies to which it is REJECTED because the name of THE LORD GOD is mentioned. He has steered me scientifically through the processes such as which plant and how to produce the active ingredient. What are the odds of a Florida Pharmacist picking a plant would contain the CURE for HIV/AIDS ?
I have never charged any of the people for their supply of AMBUSH but a life saving has been spent on the project with NO renumeration from any sources because AMBUSH falls outside the walls of modern medicine and research.
PROPOSAL:
My proposal is that I PROVE that AMBUSH CURES HIV/AIDS by giving it to a number of END-STAGE or DRUG-RESISTANT people and the scientific community watches their recovery. This proposal addresses the problem in that I have already outlaid the results to be obtained.
This IDEA is unconventional in that the scientific community has rejected AMBUSH because I say it is GOD given. Secondly if I wrote it according to certain standards, then it might be peer reviewed. However, THE LORD GOD has also shown me that there are five enzyme systems associated with the virus, reverse transcriptase, protease, fusion and two more of which causes the virus to be AIRBOURNE. This means that without DIVINE intervention mankind and ALL warm- blooded mammals will be extinct in a number of years.
The PROOF of what I am saying is found in scientific papers wherein it is found that when the protease cuts the viral strands, it cuts it at DIFFERENT lengths EVERY time, to which it should always be a valine at the end but is a different amino acid every time. This is why it is IMPOSSIBLE to produce a VACCINE.
Since this is NOT a hypothesis but there are about 400 individuals who have taken AMBUSH, here lies a vast area in which to check, recheck and confirm that AMBUSH CURES AIDS. Let it be mentioned that during the HIV reproductive cycle, reverse transcriptase converts viral RNA into DNA compatible to human genetic materials. Thus the human DNA has been ‘hijacked’ and since each person has a DIFFERENT DNA, then the new viral copy is unique to that person which shows that each individual has a DIFFERENT STRAIN of the virus. Consider two HIV positive people swapping viral strains and increasing its complexity with multiple partners.
It can also be proposed that they be revisited as proof that the strain or strains that they had were ‘killed’ at the time of taking AMBUSH considering that a person can catch as many different strains as there are people who are infected by HIV.
I am also willing to work with the scientific community in identifying those individuals who took AMBUSH and wish to be identified with this process notwithstanding that some are stigmatized while others are jubilant,
Once AMBUSH is verified as being able to accomplish that which is aforementioned then the next stage might be the natural and artificial synthesis of the substance.
Finally, if this is accepted or not, believed or not, THE LORD GOD always wins and this is the heavenly truth to which AMBUSH was divinely given to mankind for the CURE of HIV/AIDS and it will be here forever. Apostle Shada Mishe.
apostleshadamishe@gmail.com
Here is a video taped presentation that I gave at t he Martin Luther King library in Washington
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V53D1w__…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPwuwlVBO…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZejptOwMT…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqcTgIAhr…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7HPKcT_i…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9iQfgiYA…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3RzRS6tJ…
It’s time to respond to anecdotal evidence, conjecture and “feel good” stories with real evidence. Serosorting doesn’t work and here’s why:
“So how did men assume that they ‘knew’ their partners’ status? In the HIV-positive men direct disclosure by the partner or reading it in an internet profile accounted for two-thirds of this knowledge when they assumed the partner was positive, and 56% when they assumed they were negative; knowledge that could be pretty well relied on.”
http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/A17C68E9-…
The researchers then looked at the men who had recently been diagnosed with HIV – meaning in the last 18 months. Approximately 2.2 to 2.4% of men who used the condom/monogamy or ‘mixed’ strategies had recently seroconverted; 7.8% of men who did not try to use a strategy; and 12.5% of men who exclusively serosorted, though this could reflect post-diagnosis rather than pre-diagnosis practice.
The researchers conclude from this that “serosorting among HIV-positive MSM is more likely to be effective, but profoundly increase incidence and prevalence of bacterial STIs.”
As for the negative men, they say: “Among MSM who believe themselves to be negative, ‘serosorting’ is highly ineffective as a strategy, resulting in increasing, not decreasing, the risk of HIV transmission.”