Homosexual sex is more harmful than heterosexual sex

1. Pro says that gay men have anal sex more often, thus are at greater risk for anal problems. Two issues with this. First, I've already pointed out that lesbians are half the homosexual population (and they don't have anal sex). So if we combine lesbians with gay men, then on balance, gay and straight people have about the same amount of anal sex, therefore this ratio would be negated. Second, Pro has not proven that gay sex is more harmful; he's proven that anal sex can be harmful - but is not always. Not all gay sex includes anal sex. Gay men engage in other sexual acts. Further, Pro's argument is that having more anal sex = more potential for harm, NOT that gay sex is more harmful. After all, if a gay or lesbian couple never had anal sex, or had it less often than a straight couple, it wouldn't be the gay sex that was harmful, but the frequency of anal sex which is not based on sexuality. 2. I pointed out that STIs can largely be prevented by condoms. Pro says that many gay men don't use condoms. Ergo, Pro is arguing that irresponsible sex is dangerous, NOT gay sex. If you have a lot of sexual partners without protection, that is dangerous regardless of sexuality. However the resolution is not "Gay men are more promiscuous" or "Gay men have more anal sex" which are both true. Instead the resolution is simply about gay vs. straight sex, and there's no reason to assume that gay sex automatically equals sex without protection. This could easily be ratified by more gay people using protection, so it is not inherent to homosexuality. My opponent claims that gays have higher STD rates because they are forced to have anal and oral sex. I've already explained that lesbians do not have high rates of STDs and account for 1/2 of the homosexual population. Still, the reason gay men have high rates of STDs is because they do not fear pregnancy, so tend to be more careless when it comes to protection. This is not based on one's sexuality though but their own preferences on caution. To clarify, Pro's source by the CDC does NOT say that gay sex is the riskiest way to get AIDS. The link says that by demographic, gay men have the highest rate of AIDS. Once again (this is my main argument in this debate) just because more gay men have AIDS than straight men, on balance, does not mean that gay sex itself is the problem. Unsafe sex is the problem. Pro says "It's too bad more gays don't use protection," which admits that if using protection, the risk factor becomes negligible between straight and gay sex. 3. My opponent has argued that BV (bacterial vaginosis) occurs more in lesbians. The source he posts admits, "The reason for this is unknown." If the reason for this is unknown, then Pro cannot attribute the reason to gay sex.Pro has tried to say that lesbians might have more bacterial vaginosis than straight women on balance (although the link also included BISEXUAL women, who also have sex with men...). First, BV is one of the most benign diseases you can get and many do not qualify it as an STD at all [1]. In fact, BV has been found in virgins who have never had sex. It can be sexually transmitted, but it doesn't have to be, so this statistic is moot because the reason for BV cannot be pinned on sex. Second, the studies that show this have been demonstrated to use horrible sampling for their data, and those results have been largely discredited among peer review anyway [2, 3]. Pro has failed to mention straight women have more herpes, HPV, crabs, gonorrhea, syphilis and AIDS than lesbians. There are two reasons for this. One, penises make it easier to spread disease. Pro contests this, but more about that in a second. Second, lesbians tend to be in monogamous and long-term relationships compared to their heterosexual peers [4]; in other words they have less sexual partners. While gay men tend to be promiscuous, lesbians tend to be the opposite. That's essentially why I accepted this debate: to demonstrate that conservatives fraudulently suggest "gay sex" is dangerous which isn't true. Unsafe sex is dangerous, and half the gay population (lesbians) are not sleeping around or acquiring high rates of disease [5].It's very common knowledge that lesbians have significantly less sex than gay men [6]. For Pro to discount half of the homosexual population in this debate would be dishonest. 4. Pro claims that lesbians have more STDs and more sex with men than straight women which is absurd. Just because sexuality is fluid and some lesbians enjoy sex with men (some straight women enjoy sex with women) doesn't mean that on balance, lesbians have more sex with men. While Pro cites the page of a book that none of us have access to, I took the liberty of Googling the source. It came up on "conversion therapy" sites for homophobic Christians such as factsaboutyouth.com [7]. In other words, I will assume the research is problematic and heavily biased, but here's an even more important point: Pro claims the fact that lesbians "have more sex with men" puts them at greater risk. But why would that put them at greater risk, unless Pro concedes that penises make it easy to spread disease? Pro cannot have both. He either has to concede that it's easier to spread disease through penises, or drop the point that "lesbians have more sex with men" (which hasn't been conclusively proven) because if penises aren't an issue, then this doesn't matter and it's a moot point. 5. Pro claims that only 600 women die from pregnancy each year in the U.S. It's very convenient for Pro to limit this discussion to the U.S. with all of our western medical advances. Unfortunately the global statistics do not yield such a pretty picture. Over 303,000 women died from pregnancy complications last year [7]. It's not looking so great in the U.S. either. Whereas 7.2 women died per 100,000 births in 1987, that number swelled to 17.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2009 and 2011 [8]. More than 800 women die every day from pregnancy or childbirth related causes [9]. The majority of sexually transmitted diseases do not kill you [10] therefore the number of people who die from pregnancy/childbirth every year FAR outnumbers the amount of people who die from STDs (whom are not all gay). Ergo, pregnancy is more dangerous than STDs and pregnancy can only result from heterosexual sex - not homosexual sex. Most STDs are treatable and many are curable. Conclusion Science doesn't support the argument that gay sex causes disease. It does support the argument that unsafe sex causes disease. Unsafe sex is not limited or inherently related to one particular sexuality. If you have safe gay sex, you'll be fine. If you have unsafe straight sex, you might not be fine. Both gay and straight people can have the same amount of sex and the same type of sex (anal, oral, etc.). Responsible people will be safe whereas irresponsible people will be endangered. Websites that talk about how to prevent STDs do not say to inhibit gay sex - they say to practice safe sex, regardless of type [10]. Lesbians make up 1/2 the gay population and have safer sex habits (less partners, less possibility of transmission). Numbers show that lesbians have less STDs. Nevertheless, STDs are mostly curable and treatable whereas pregnancy and childbirth can kill you. More people die from things related to heterosexuality (pregnancy) each year than gay sex. [1] http://www.aafp.org...[2] http://tinyurl.com...[3] http://cid.oxfordjournals.org...[4] http://tinyurl.com...[5] https://en.wikipedia.org...[6] http://www.samesame.com.au...[7] http://www.who.int...[8] http://www.scientificamerican.com...[9] https://en.wikipedia.org...