From: niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent)
Subject: Re: Speaking ill
Originator: news@nimaster
Keywords: AIDS HIV molest
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: ca
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 09:53:46 GMT

In article <Ti3wwB1w165w@surfcty.com> rlm@surfcty.com (Robert McMillin) writes:
>mike@gordian.com writes:
>> In <ZoqVwB1w165w@surfcty.com>, rlm@surfcty.com (Robert McMillin) writes:

[Lots deleted]

>--- start of second excerpt ---

>``Unusual'' Activities -- Some sources recommend against unusual and
>stigmatized sexual practices such as s/m (sadomasochism), sex with
>                                                          ^^^^^^^^
>multiple partners, fisting, and sex for money.  With knowledge and
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>precautions, these can be done with minimal risk of AIDS.  Such
>                                                           ^^^^
>warnings are based on moralism not medicine.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>These don't pass basic sanity checks. In high school, they taught us
>that one in six condoms fail.  If this is so, then multiple partner
>sex using condoms would merely delay transmission of the AIDS virus
>rather than putting the participant at a "minimal risk of AIDS."  The
>revolver with which you play Russian roulette has gone from being a
>six-shooter (or a twenty-shooter, or whatever the base likelihood is)
>to being a 36-shooter, still with one bullet.  That one bullet will
>still kill you as dead as if it were in a six-shooter.

First of all, your numbers are way off.  Condoms have a 90% success rate
(in preventing pregnancies.)  But that 10% includes people who fail to use
them properly, and furthermore, that 10% means that 1/10 of people who
have sex *for a year* using a condom will get pregnant.  Not for an
individual usage.

But theres a more important point.  *All* of life is based on reducing
guns from 6 to 36 shooters.  I'm not sure what your complaint about that is. 
You can't eliminate danger from life.  All you can do is lower the risks.

>--- start of third excerpt ---
 
>Sexual activities fall on a continuum from high to low or no risk.
>Activities at the top carry a high risk of HIV transmission
>(especially for the receptive partner).  Upper-middle range activities
>carry a minimal or indeterminate risk.  Lower-middle range activities
>carry a theoretical risk.  Activities at the bottom are completely safe.
 
>Sharing needles, piercing or cutting tools
>Unprotected anal intercourse
>Unprotected vaginal intercourse
>Getting urine or feces in mouth, vagina, ass
>Unprotected oral sex on a menstruating woman
>Unprotected oral sex on a man with ejaculation
>Unprotected oral-anal contact
>Unprotected fisting or finger fucking
>Unprotected oral sex on a man without ejaculation
>Unprotected oral sex on a non-menstruating woman
>Anal intercourse with a condom
>Vaginal intercourse with a condom
>Oral sex on a man using a condom
>Oral sex on a woman using a latex barrier
>Oral-anal contact using a latex barrier
>Fisting or finger fucking using a glove
>Petting, manual-genital contact
>Deep (French) kissing
>Spanking, whipping that does not break the skin
>Bonadge and discipline play
>Masturbation (alone or with partner)
>Hugging, kissing, touching
>Massage
>Talking dirty, phone or net sex, fantasy

>--- end of third excerpt ---

>In the second excerpt, the author says that, multiple-partner sex and
>prostitution are acceptable practices and can be done safely with the
>right precautions.  Interestingly, she lists neither of these practices
>here on this "risk thermometer".  What is she hiding from?  The facts?

No, because neither of those are a sexual activity.  She's listing
particular sex acts.  Multiple-partner sex and prostitution have no risk
factors independent of the particular acts engaged in.

>> > Now, clearly not all gays are of these opinions.  But the fact that such
>> > misinformation continues to spread worries me; it looks like nobody has
>> > learned much.
 
>>   And mostly the heterosexual set. Sigh

>If heterosexuals aren't personally worried about AIDS, it's because
>they're not nearly as much at risk as gays.  The myth that heterosexuals
>will start getting AIDS in large numbers any day now is either wishful
>thinking or scare tactics.  Sans the mitigating factors present in
>Africa -- surgical re-creation of the hymen, lots of promiscuity, poor
>health care leading to advanced cases of syphilis and other genital
>sore-causing diseases -- we won't see heterosexual AIDS case rates go
>ballistic in the United States or Canada.  I do see a prospect for
>people who have sex with prostitutes to start getting AIDS in large
>numbers if we also have (as I think we surely will) sexually transmitted
>diseases that cause vaginal sores which are completely resistant to the
>present battery of antibiotics.  But in no case do heterosexuals, in the
>main, have anywhere near the risk that is presented in most of the media.

Quite true.  Of course, the media also ignores the fact that lesbians are
at virtually no risk of contracting aids, using the term "homosexual"
without being clear that only *male* homosexuals are at risk, thus providing 
ammunition to the morons who like to claim that AIDS is punishment from God.

-- 
David M. Nieporent   | Is it too early to start making predictions for 1993?
niepornt@phoenix.    | Probably, but that never stopped me before.
   princeton.edu     | ALE: Baltimore ALW: Chicago NLE: Montreal NLW: Atlanta
Baltimore Orioles 93 | AL MVP: Cal Ripken  AL Cy Young: Mike Mussina
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