Friday, March 31, 2006
The Love (making) That Dare Not Say Its Name
This one's not for children.
I just read good news about AIDS in India (the new infection rate is reported to be down) and ran across this explanatory sentence: Male use of female sex workers is a main reason for the spread of HIV in these areas, which subsequently puts wives in a vulnerable position.
In Africa and, it seems, India, AIDS is largely a heterosexual sexual disease. In Europe and America, it is mainly a homosexual sexual disease and then a disease among those who share hypodermic needles. Heterosexual transmission is a distant third. What's the deal?
This article blames the spread of AIDS in some parts of Africa on the lack of circumcision in East African men. But that only explains how the men are getting it from the women (it neither explain why women are getting it from men with any sort of penis nor, therefore, why American women are not getting it from mainly circumcised men here). And most men in America are circumcised, including the homosexuals, so circumcision ovbviously offers the homosexuals no real protection from AIDS.
I have a different theory.
In America and Europe, we straight men generally strive to please our women sexually and spend the time and effort to get them in the right frame of mind for sex, with the added bonus that the right frame of mind has a lubricating effect down below so that vaginal trauma from sex and the resulting bleeding is minimized. Apparently that's tougher to do anally, as the back door is not self lubricating (not that I know much about it). So the main male homosexual act involves anal trauma and bleeding and the blood borne virus is transmitted more easily than in the non-bleeding, satisfied vagina. Or so I believe.
What's going on in Africa and India? It's hard for me to believe that most straight sex is bu-fuing on that continent and teeming sub-continent. Are the men there so selfish that they don't take care that their female partner is ready and willing (and wet as November, as Titus Pullo would say)? Are these questions too hard for AIDS researchers? Too politically incorrect?
There will be answers, I say.
And what about the Muslim world, is it a heterosexual or homosexual disease vector? Stay tuned.
I just read good news about AIDS in India (the new infection rate is reported to be down) and ran across this explanatory sentence: Male use of female sex workers is a main reason for the spread of HIV in these areas, which subsequently puts wives in a vulnerable position.
In Africa and, it seems, India, AIDS is largely a heterosexual sexual disease. In Europe and America, it is mainly a homosexual sexual disease and then a disease among those who share hypodermic needles. Heterosexual transmission is a distant third. What's the deal?
This article blames the spread of AIDS in some parts of Africa on the lack of circumcision in East African men. But that only explains how the men are getting it from the women (it neither explain why women are getting it from men with any sort of penis nor, therefore, why American women are not getting it from mainly circumcised men here). And most men in America are circumcised, including the homosexuals, so circumcision ovbviously offers the homosexuals no real protection from AIDS.
I have a different theory.
In America and Europe, we straight men generally strive to please our women sexually and spend the time and effort to get them in the right frame of mind for sex, with the added bonus that the right frame of mind has a lubricating effect down below so that vaginal trauma from sex and the resulting bleeding is minimized. Apparently that's tougher to do anally, as the back door is not self lubricating (not that I know much about it). So the main male homosexual act involves anal trauma and bleeding and the blood borne virus is transmitted more easily than in the non-bleeding, satisfied vagina. Or so I believe.
What's going on in Africa and India? It's hard for me to believe that most straight sex is bu-fuing on that continent and teeming sub-continent. Are the men there so selfish that they don't take care that their female partner is ready and willing (and wet as November, as Titus Pullo would say)? Are these questions too hard for AIDS researchers? Too politically incorrect?
There will be answers, I say.
And what about the Muslim world, is it a heterosexual or homosexual disease vector? Stay tuned.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:02 PM 
Comments:
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In Africa, homosexuality is so taboo, that I think it rarely gets practiced, and it certainly doesn't get practiced openly. Partners tend to find each other through a very slow, careful process, and then keep it a secret. This promotes, if not monongomy, something more like monogomy than, say, the San Francisco hot tub community of the 1980's.
Anal sex may be a better way to spred the virus, because semen in the colon finds it's way directly into the blood stream, irrespective of cuts from a lack of lubrication.
Interesting theory though, and typical of the things that may prove to be significant, but no one will probably have the balls or the means to properly reseach it. (I'm trying to picture a researcher asking an Indian truck driver if he gets his prosititutes wet before he enters them).
Anal sex may be a better way to spred the virus, because semen in the colon finds it's way directly into the blood stream, irrespective of cuts from a lack of lubrication.
Interesting theory though, and typical of the things that may prove to be significant, but no one will probably have the balls or the means to properly reseach it. (I'm trying to picture a researcher asking an Indian truck driver if he gets his prosititutes wet before he enters them).
R,
I have nothing to add except that the spread of HIV in Africa and India is a purely a function of sexual mores and unprotected sex.
I don't think the "Please, pease me" factor enters into it, as it were.
I have nothing to add except that the spread of HIV in Africa and India is a purely a function of sexual mores and unprotected sex.
I don't think the "Please, pease me" factor enters into it, as it were.
# posted by 
: 8:52 AM
: 8:52 AM
Before there was a warning about an always fatal venereal disease, people in Europe were having lots of unprotected heterosexual sex, yet there was never a huge breakout epidemic of heterosexualy transmitted AIDS, while there was one among homosexual men. In Africa and Asia it is apparently just the opposite. You tell me what accounts for the difference. Mine is just a theory.
And thanks, Seeker for the very long comment (and for leting us know what semen is, I had no idea /sarcasm). It seems that if I'm monogamous heterosexual and don't use injected drugs, the chances of me getting AIDS is next to nil. Is that right?
And thanks, Seeker for the very long comment (and for leting us know what semen is, I had no idea /sarcasm). It seems that if I'm monogamous heterosexual and don't use injected drugs, the chances of me getting AIDS is next to nil. Is that right?
Oh and Mike. Putting something in your colon is the second best way to get it into your bloodstream (hypodermic needle is the best)(See Ritual Enemas of the Mayans--Natural History 4/79) but, and again I have to stress my lack of 602 knowledge here, are you sure the semen gets deposited in the descending colon during anal sex? Unless you're Ron Jeremy long, wouldn't it stay in the rectum? I'm willing to bow to your superior knowledge in the matter but isn't the rectum about 8 inches long?
R,
Follow the vectors. Gay bath houses or pan African or Indian highways. There is a critical mass that is reached that one simply does not encounter w/ casual heterosexual sex.
T
Follow the vectors. Gay bath houses or pan African or Indian highways. There is a critical mass that is reached that one simply does not encounter w/ casual heterosexual sex.
T
# posted by : 3:04 PM
: 3:04 PM
I think Tony is right about the vectors. Going back to the homosexual culture of San Francisco, although I have no first-hand experience, I have hung out with that crowd a bit. Suffice to say, monogomy is nearly a four-letter word.
Delivery is important as well though, which is why drug users have such a high rate of incidence. With regards to reaching the colon, it isn't so much a "depositing" as a "launching". Even if a guy comes up a inch or so short, the fluids are going to get there.
Delivery is important as well though, which is why drug users have such a high rate of incidence. With regards to reaching the colon, it isn't so much a "depositing" as a "launching". Even if a guy comes up a inch or so short, the fluids are going to get there.
Seeker. I agree. I am not advocating unsafe sex. I merely point out that most casual heterosexual sexas practicesd in this country does not have the same potentential to spread HIV in the same way that participants in the the sex trade or others w/ huge #s of multiple partners do.
# posted by : 9:33 AM
: 9:33 AM
So let me get these things straight if that's the right word. Semen, according to Mike will swim up to the colon like it swims from vagina to uterus. OK, I'm willing to believe you but I'm going to need some corroborating articles. and Tomy thinks that the heterosexual sex is tamer and more prudent here in America compared to the wild and wildly high numbers of partners hetrosexual men in Africa and India have. Again, possible, but I'm going to need at least one article saying the same thing and so far none. Here's one thing I've read but I have no idea how prevalent it is--some African women use things that inflame the vagina walls so there is a tight fit rather than a smooth glide. I know of no American women who do the same thing. There is, in that practice, a difference in the sexual act itself between the continents. That fact was the germ of my theory. Certainly the theory is only part of the picture but it is a part no one is talking about or much about. Thanks all for the comments, but I need another long bout of research right now.
R,
I am @ home on the shores of the Great Plains w/ my dial up that does not allow me to be multiple places on line. I am fairly certain that there are several studies that track the spread of HIV through Africa and demonstrate that it followed the major highways.
NB. It's your blog of course but I have noted that the comments that usually elicit multiple responses are not attacks on the other side of the political and media aisle, but issues dealing w/ sex, drugs, and Rock 'n Roll. Just an observation.
T
I am @ home on the shores of the Great Plains w/ my dial up that does not allow me to be multiple places on line. I am fairly certain that there are several studies that track the spread of HIV through Africa and demonstrate that it followed the major highways.
NB. It's your blog of course but I have noted that the comments that usually elicit multiple responses are not attacks on the other side of the political and media aisle, but issues dealing w/ sex, drugs, and Rock 'n Roll. Just an observation.
T
# posted by : 11:48 AM
: 11:48 AM
Actually, the reason HIV (the viral cause of AIDS) is spread more rapidly in uncircumsized men is because the cells which comprise the foreskin are more succeptible to the virus. Microscopic abrasions and lesions are created during heterosexual intercourse in the female vagina, where the virus is in high concentrations. In uncircumsized men, the virus has an easy path through the mucous cells of the foreskin, thus creating a greater chance for infection.
Also, the strain of HIV in Africa is slightly variant from the strains present in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Transmission has very little to do with sexual orientation, and very much to do with behavior. In fact, in the US, the fastest growing AIDS population is women of African decent.
And even though lesbians engage in unprotected sex almost exclusively, they rarely contract HIV.
Finally, one does not have to be promiscous to contract HIV. One simply needs to be unprotected.
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Also, the strain of HIV in Africa is slightly variant from the strains present in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Transmission has very little to do with sexual orientation, and very much to do with behavior. In fact, in the US, the fastest growing AIDS population is women of African decent.
And even though lesbians engage in unprotected sex almost exclusively, they rarely contract HIV.
Finally, one does not have to be promiscous to contract HIV. One simply needs to be unprotected.
# posted by : 3:52 PM
: 3:52 PM << Home
