From: fogarty@sir-c.jpl.nasa.gov (Tim Fogarty)
Subject: Re: Speaking ill
Keywords: AIDS HIV molest
Organization: JPL, Space Imaging Radar Software Group
Distribution: ca
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 20:05:14 GMT


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

[excerpts from a safer-sex manual and his comments about it deleted]

from the manual:

|>>They are unwilling to restrict
|>>their sexual options in the face of such low odds, especially since
|>                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>>this plays into the anti-sex agenda of moral conservatives.  When
|>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>>people are told to restrict most of their favorite activities, they
|>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|>>may ignore safer sex advice altogether. 

his comments:

|>The portion I underscored is an example of what I consider the "return
|>to the 1970's" political mentality.  That is to say, do what you like,
|>with as many people as you like, and don't let the facts confuse you;
|>anyone saying differently is trying to restrict you politically.  Now,


To me the portions you underscored says the following:  People, especially
the young people who tend to be promiscuous, are not going to pay attention
to advice coming from certain types of people.  If the person feels that
he/she is being preached at, the person will ignore the advice all together.





|>
|>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.
|>

I think we need more recent data.  Condoms are latex.  Latex breaks down
in oil.  In the gay community, the word has gotten out, via ads and 
safer-sex manuals, not to use anything oil based as a lubricant.  Only
use water base lubs.  Since using water based lubs, I have never had a 
condom break.


|>Sex for money adds a still more gruesome twist.  Both the prostitute and
|>the john have to assume that each has some disease and in theory both
|>would want to use protection.  However, if you're on the side that's
|>accepting money for sexual favors, you're in a weak position: your john
|>can always go somewhere else if he wants to be suicidal (or homocidal
|>if he has AIDS already) and have unprotected sex.  This is scarcely
|>moralism talking.  I think what we have here is a failure to think
|>clearly, motivated by gay liberation politics.
|>

There are plenty of prostitutes on the streets.  Living in Hollywood, I
see lots of both male and female prostitutes.  The males are mostly run-aways,
age 16 to 22, sometimes younger.  It would be great if we could get them
off the streets and into schools or jobs.   But society has not choosen to
work on that problem.  AIDS prevention organizations do not have the
resources to do it.  The only thing that they can do is give
the prostitutes the knowlege of how to protect themself until the prostitute
figures out how to get off the street.




[list of sexual activities, from most unsafe to safer]

|>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?

Anything that one would do with multiple parnters or with a prostitute/john
would fall under one or more of the activities from this list.  If three
guys are having anal sex with condoms, then the risk is that of having
anal sex with a condom, not that there are three people instead of two.
(assuming one does not share condoms)

I dont think the author of the safer-sex manual was saying that these
things are acceptable, as much as she was saying that these things really
occur in the real world.   This is not gay liberation politics, but
realism.

|>
|>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.  

Again, and again:  Dont look at the rate of increase in AIDS, but the
rate of increase of HIV infection.  Those who are coming down with AIDS
today, on the average, were infected 10 years ago.

In the US, the rate of increase of HIV infection is highest today for young
heterosexuals.  Heterosexuals are already becoming infected with HIV in
large numbers.  The only tool we have to slow the spread is education.  It is
much more likely to get an already sexually active person (gay or straight)
to have safer-sex than to have no sex.

--
Tim Fogarty
Sys Man and Sys Admin for the EGSE in the POCC at JSC for SRL-1, STS-59
FOGARTY@SIR-C.JPL.NASA.GOV

my apologies for posting this to ca.politics and ba.politics
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.bush