When I entered the “gay” lifestyle in circa 1988 San Francisco, it was the near height of the AIDS crisis; although I was probably very confused at the time, it didn’t have really anything to do with the reality of AIDS, after all, I had grown up watching horrifying local news reports about how the disease was decimating the “gay” male community, seeing the scarily emaciated images of the once handsome Rock Hudson, and a TV movie-of-the-week titled “And Early Frost;” yet, at the same time, I had also been a child during the glam disco-era of the late-1970s which celebrated the newly found sexual freedom of “gay” men symbolized by The Village People, and those pictures where still in my head; so, I knew there were risks, but, I proudly thought that I could, by the sheer force of my will, beat the odds.
Today, because the focus within the “gay” community has dramatically shifted from one of AIDS research to “marriage equality,” it became an increasingly necessity to down-play the specter of disease, and why it has particularly hit male homosexuals, in favor of a decidedly domestic, middle-American, and sanitized public persona epitomized by Ellen DeGeneres, Nate Berkus, and “Modern Family;” in a wider context, that is deceptively not directly linked to “gay,” such pop-culture icons as Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Miley Cyrus have legitimized all sorts of homosexual and bisexual behavior as something harmlessly amusing. Consequently, this has left children at risk; for example, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics: “Young men who have sex with men and have detectable levels of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were more likely to report condomless anal sex, including with a partner not infected with HIV…” What does this mean?” First, here is a little background: in the US, according to the CDC, among men, 80% of all HIV infections are due to gay sex; Young MSM (homosexual men, ages 13 to 29) are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection and more than one-quarter of new infections in the U.S. occur in YMSM. According to the study from JAMA: nearly half of the YMSM who had detectable levels of HIV (46.2 percent) reported CAI (condomless anal intercourse) in the past three months and 31.3 percent reported serodiscordant CAI (anal sex with an HIV-negative person). In addition, the CDC has reported that in certain US cities well over, or at least, a quarter of the “gay” male population is HIV-positive, they include: Atlanta (34%), Baltimore (30%), Dallas (31%), Houston (25%), Miami (25%), and New Orleans (26%); those cities were at least 20% of the “gay” male population is HIV-positive, includes: Chicago (20%); Detroit (24.4%), Newark (22%), San Diego (24.9%), and San Francisco (20.9%); in other words, if your son, brother, cousin, or male friend goes into the “gay” lifestyle, and is sexually active, and if they have anal intercourse, there is a good chance that their partner is HIV-positive and that they may become infected; and, most shockingly, condoms only give a false sense of security, according to research: over 50% of those gay men, who were HIV-negative, and had anal sex with an HIV-positive man, half became infected with the virus despite the fact that they used a condom.
“Sexual Risk Behavior Among Virologically Detectable Human Immunodeficiency Virus–Infected Young Men Who Have Sex With Men.”
Wilson, P. A., et al.
JAMA pediatrics, 1-7.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV Infection Risk, Prevention, and Testing Behaviors among Men Who Have Sex With Men—National HIV Behavioral Surveillance, 20 U.S. Cities, 2014.
HIV Surveillance Special Report 15.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/library/reports/surveillance/#panel2. Published January 2016.
“Among Ontario MSM in 2009, an estimated 92,963 HIV-negative men had 1,184,343 episodes of anal sex with a condom and 117,133 anal sex acts without a condom with an HIV-positive partner. Of the 693 new HIV infections, 51% were through anal sex with a condom, 33% anal sex without a condom and 16% oral sex. For anal sex with a condom, the 95% confidence limits were 17% and 77%.”
“HIV transmission among men who have sex with men due to condom failure.”
Remis RS, et al.
PLoS One. 2014 Sep 11;9(9):e107540.