“Of the 1997 individuals who completed the study screener, 36.0% reported participating in at least one GSE [group sex experiment] in the prior year.”1.
“Among MSM, 86% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 72% of 35- to 39-year-olds formed a new partnership during the previous year, compared with 56% of heterosexual men and 34% of women at 18-24 years, and 21% and 10%, respectively, at 35-39 years. MSM were also more likely to choose partners >5 years older and were 2-3 times as likely as heterosexuals to report recent concurrent partnerships.” 2.
“Among individuals in the outcome group [gay men in steady relationships], 67 % reported UAI [unprotected anal intercourse] with a non-steady partner of unknown [HIV] status…”3.
According to the CDC: “Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) represent approximately 2% of the United States population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV. In 2010, young gay and bisexual men (aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72% of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24, and 30% of new infections among all gay and bisexual men…From 2008–2011, YMSM aged 13–24 years had the greatest percentage increase (26%) in diagnosed HIV infections…In 2011, among adolescent males aged 13–19 years, approximately 93% of all diagnosed HIV infections were from male-to-male sexual contact.” “Overall, MSM — account for more than half of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States (59%, or an estimated 712,500 persons) and approximately two-thirds of all new HIV infections each year (66%, or an estimated 31,400 infections).”
Only, those in the most affected group, young men who have sex with men, have also experienced the greatest and deepest amount of cultural brainwashing: for the most part, their parents, of my generation or the subsequent, were the first group of Americans to grow up during the age of porn; either freely accessing it through VHS tapes and cable-TV or via the internet; they also heavily comprised those in the post-Madonna era (whose cultural impact has still not been even partially studied) that witnessed radical changes in everything from fashion to societal ideas about bisexuality, homosexuality, and sadomasochism. This was immediately followed by the rise of gay celebrities in LA and New York who presented a very lop-sided and diluted view of the gay experience in order to not unduly offend the bulk of middle-America. Then, under the direction of Madonna’s daughters, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, there was further normalization of deviancy that was probably most perfectly realized in former Disney star turned sadistic nymphomaniac Miley Cyrus – serving as a metaphor for the transformation of an entire population of young people. Interspersed among this cultural milieu is the reinvention of the gay male from 1970s sexually liberated YMCA bed-jumper to monogamous and always supremely benevolent Martha Stewart devotee. Everything together created the perfect storm: a cultural tsunami that wiped the traditional cultural slate clean and rebuilt a new set of false idols – only the ever tenacious human immunodeficiency virus survived the after party scrub-down. Today, we all live with the continuing repercussions.
1. “Engagement in group sex among geosocial networking mobile application-using men who have sex with men.”
Phillips G, Grov C, Mustanski B.
Sex Health. 2015 Aug 10. doi: 10.1071/SH15108.
2. “A comparison of sexual behavior patterns among men who have sex with men and heterosexual men and women.”
Glick SN, et al.
J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2012 May 1;60(1):83-90. doi: 10.1097/QAI.0b013e318247925e.
3. “Factors associated with sexual risk behaviors with non-steady partners and lack of recent HIV testing among German men who have sex with men in steady relationships: results from a cross-sectional internet survey.”
Kramer SC et al.
BMC Public Health. 2015 Jul 24;15:702. doi: 10.1186/s12889-015-1987-8.