Thursday, August 18, 2022

Monkeypox is a Gay Venereal Disease

NBC News:
Since the outset of the global monkeypox outbreak in May, public health and infectious disease experts have told the public that the virus is largely transmitting through skin-to-skin contact, in particular during sex between men.

Now, however, an expanding cadre of experts has come to believe that sex between men itself — both anal as well as oral intercourse — is likely the main driver of global monkeypox transmission. The skin contact that comes with sex, these experts say, is probably much less of a risk factor.

They are still looking for a inoffensive name. There is also evidence that the disease disproportionately affects Blacks.

1 comment:

CFT said...

A transmission vector is a transmission vector... it really has nothing to do with prejudice, bigotry, or feelings about a particular group of people who happen to engage in practices which spread diseases rapidly. Back in the 80's San Francisco forcibly closed its many gay bath houses because they were ground zero for spreading AIDS rapidly. The gay community initially responded with outrage of how their rights were being violated...despite the quickly mounting death count and everyone knowing pretty well how the disease was spreading in the bath houses due to incredibly promiscuous behavior, sometimes over ten different sexual partners in a single night.

Historically, negative attitudes about promiscuity had more to do with how recently there had been sexual disease outbreaks that killed a lot of people, than outright prudishness. There are fascinating accounts of how Rome's sexual attitudes shifted significantly after the public baths were made Co-ed, leading to a rapid spreading of sexual disease and rampant death. Very shortly thereafter, the Romans strictly re-segregated the baths again became quite puritanical about promiscuity for a time. The Romans may not have understood bacteria and viruses the way we do today, but they did understand and easily predict the conditions in which sexually transmitted diseases spread.