Why Are Gay Men So Prone To Disease?

Lancecastor

Lit's Most Beloved Poster
Joined
May 14, 2002
Posts
54,670
Heretic started this thread on the GB, so I did some Googling and discovered that gay men are far more prone to STD's than anyone else.

What are the reasons?

  • Emphasis on anal sex?
  • Promiscuity?
  • Youth-centric sex tends to attract those naive about protection?
  • Nihillism/self-loathing?
  • All of the above?
  • Other?

Discuss.
 
All of the above. As a gay man I have always been bothered by several social phenomenon within the gay male culture (A lot of these traits are much less common among lesbians, but certainly not absent). Anal sex comes with a whole set of health issues that neither vaginal nor oral sex have. The main ones are bacterial, but other STDs such as AIDS are more likely to be transmitted through anal intercourse than through vaginal. The promisuity issue is a bit touchy. There are certainly gay men who sleep around far more than most of their het counterparts (I would say this mostly has to do with availability of others who wish to be promiscuous, as opposed to gay men being any more sexual than straight men). The Nihillism and self loathing are two of the largest problems in gay culture. I didn't realize how bad it was till I started taking in gay media and read about it. Then I realized that the visual representation of gay men was that of the perfect cut man had effected me as well. When I realized my body image had been somewhat hurt by the push of the perfect male I became truly disturbed by the phenomenon. There are other issues. Not the least of which being the common use of party drugs among gay men, which includes needles which are often re-used. The list goes on.
 
Lancecastor said:
Good for you for being open to honest engagement on the topic!

What is the point of discussing if you can't discuss unpleasant things? All things pleasant only secure us from the harshness of the world and make us vulnerable. Only when we inflict the worst of the world on ourselves can we both survive the world, and appreciate what beauty there is in it.
 
Cigan said:
What is the point of discussing if you can't discuss unpleasant things? All things pleasant only secure us from the harshness of the world and make us vulnerable. Only when we inflict the worst of the world on ourselves can we both survive the world, and appreciate what beauty there is in it.

I couldn't agree more.
 
There's reasonable discussion, and then there's sly attempts at trolling. Lancecastor's comments about "youth-centric sex" and "self-loathing" seem to me to be intentionally inflammatory. I'm not stooping to the bait, but I am pointing out that it was dangled.
 
no!

any problems that exist within the gay community are problems that exist within the heterosexual community as well from media induced body dismorphic disorder to sexually transmitted diseases.

we live in very different worlds cigan.
 
glamorilla said:
no!

any problems that exist within the gay community are problems that exist within the heterosexual community as well from media induced body dismorphic disorder to sexually transmitted diseases.

we live in very different worlds cigan.

Yes all the problems that exist in the homosexual community exist within the heterosexual community. However, many of them manifest differently. For examply the body dismorphic disorder is predominantly a female problem in the heterosexual community (Though this has slowly become more common among heterosexual males in recent years). In the gay community it is more pre dominantly a male issue. In the past few years gay men have become the segment of society in America with the largest growing HIV infection rate. When I was in high school just 4 short years ago the largest new infection rate was among heterosexual females. And party drugs affect a much larger percentage of the homosexual population (On this one the articles I have read have not been entirely clear as to gay male lesbian ratio) than the hetero population. I am not saying that these are issues unique to the homosexual population, but they are more pronounced, and I have seen many of these problems manifest in my gay friends and some of them in myself. I do not think this is because of the nature of homosexuality, I think it is because of societal forces which affect homosexuals, and I think that taking a good hard look at those unpleasant elements of gay culture makes it easier to take part in the positive elements of gay culture while maintaining your own even mental state.

I don't think we live in different worlds Glamorillia, I think perhaps you have been more fortunate in your experiences than I, and to speak frankly about my experiences and the research that I have done to understand those experiences isn't something that should incite your anger. I sincerely hope this post gives you a better perspective on what I was saying.

Etoile. I read over Lancaster's post again and I understand why you reacted to his choice of words. They were a bit harsher than was probably appropriate, I originally read his post late at night and was sort of glazing over the vocabulary.
 
Cigan said:
Etoile. I read over Lancaster's post again and I understand why you reacted to his choice of words. They were a bit harsher than was probably appropriate, I originally read his post late at night and was sort of glazing over the vocabulary.
He was definitely playing on a lot of negative stereotypes about the gay community, which is why I'm not responding to him. That doesn't mean you can't, though.
 
Stereotypes, my ass.

I pointed to a thread started by Heretic, which includes links to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlantic...from whence the data came.

If you want to discuss the topic, Etoile, feel free...however, Moderators don't have the power to interpret our intentions, so with all due respect, piss off speaking for me.
 
Lancecastor said:
Stereotypes, my ass.

I pointed to a thread started by Heretic, which includes links to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlantic...from whence the data came.

If you want to discuss the topic, Etoile, feel free...however, Moderators don't have the power to interpret our intentions, so with all due respect, piss off speaking for me.

I have made some points in this thread that I believe. There are problems in the gay community, as there are in every community. However, some of the wording in your initial post was inflamatory in nature, and Etoile did not use any of her power as a moderator. She interpreted your intentions based on what you wrote as a member of this community, and nothing else. If you would like to defend your intentions then that's fine, but telling someone to piss off, moderator or not, is not acceptable manners in any forum. This is the last I'm going to say on this subject or in this thread.
 
Cigan, you took the exact words right out of my mouth. Thank you.
 
Lancecastor said:
Stereotypes, my ass.

I pointed to a thread started by Heretic, which includes links to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlantic...from whence the data came.

If you want to discuss the topic, Etoile, feel free...however, Moderators don't have the power to interpret our intentions, so with all due respect, piss off speaking for me.

CDC did a study on nihilism?
 
Ah yes, Lance is playing his favorite game again. It goes something like this...

Imply something nasty without blatantly stating it as fact, wait until someone reacts, then whine about your innocence.

Pooooor Lancie.

The only thing more pathetic is his nauseating, eternally tiresome modphobia. Lucky us. In this lovely thread we get to see both sides of his sparkling personality.

I didn't see Etoile responding as a moderator. I saw her express an opinion as a person, so (speaking for me, of course) piss off yourself, Lance.
 
Oh good; we can all piss off together.

Despite your paranoia about Lance posting here, the fact remains that gay men are identifiably more prone to STD's than anyone else.

I've posed a few reasons, the ones that are generally accepted...are there others?
 
Yes.

We're all hiding them because we know something the CDC doesn't.

In fact I know exactly what they are, because I'm on the secret guest list.

And all gay men have numbered them and memorized them like the Boy Scout pledge.
 
Most studies have shown that gay men, on average, have more sexual partners in their lifetimes than people of any other sexual orientation.

A higher rate of STDs is a function of simple mathematics, and perjorative theorizing is not needed.
 
Lancecastor said:
Despite your paranoia about Lance posting here....

Paranoia? As usual, your ego precedes you. No one fears you. It's not paranoia. It's more akin to distaste. And it has nothing to do with "here". Don't limit yourself. I dislike you no matter where you post.

I think Cigan, Etoile, glam and Q have answered quite nicely, and MzC asked a very reasonable question which you ignored.

Netzach treated you with sarcasm, which is nearer to what you deserve, and I treat you like a turd the cat left laying alongside his litter box. The cat is wonderful, the box a necessity, and the turd's just something you have to deal with occasionally.
 
Queersetti said:
Most studies have shown that gay men, on average, have more sexual partners in their lifetimes than people of any other sexual orientation.

A higher rate of STDs is a function of simple mathematics, and perjorative theorizing is not needed.

Good point...The question as to why gay men have more sex partners of shorter duration than anyone else might in fact be at the root (so to speak) of the disease dilemna facing your community.

If you perceived it as perjorative...that's your thing.
 
Male libido x2.

It's not the "gay" it's the "men."

Men are not socialized nor inclined to be as freaked about sex and encouraged to "save themselves for someone special."
 
Disease dillema? Ok I'll admit that the HIV infection rate is raising among gay men faster than any other group. However, I would be quick to point out that this was not true only 5 short years ago and has more to do with the way generation X and the upcoming generation Y treats responsibility. But lets look at our basic culture. Who here saw American Pie, or She's all that, or Porky's, or any other coming of age teen movie made in the last 20 years. What do they focus on guys trying to get sex and girls resisting. Now we all know this isn't always true, but where there is a stereotype there is a truth blown out of proportion. Almost every stereotype ever is a representation of something real, but far more extreme than the reality. So we can then establish that there is some small truth to guys wanting sex, and females resisting in hetero culture. Perhaps this could have something to do with females reaching their sexual peaks at 30 and males running rampant at 22. All in all these phenomenon create a stable balance which results in an evenly paced rate of reproduction. Makes sense, all things come together beautifully. Then we take the straight male who is running rampant trying to find sex with results which while limited are constant enough to fill the biological Darwinian necessity of furtherting the species, and we make him gay. . . . . . Wow. What happens, we have a teenage or twenty something male who is going into a dating pool of other teenage to 20 something males, who are also interested in getting laid, not necesserily anything else. Lace baby, if you need to analyze this phenomenon and try to find the root of it then I would say there are other problems you need to be analyzing a lot more than the STD rates of a culture which by your own choice of words ". . .disease dilemna facing your community." you are not a part of.
 
Lancecastor said:
Stereotypes, my ass.

I pointed to a thread started by Heretic, which includes links to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlantic...from whence the data came.

No. Your link points to the GB only.

Lancecastor said:
If you want to discuss the topic, Etoile, feel free...however, Moderators don't have the power to interpret our intentions, so with all due respect, piss off speaking for me.

I've yet to ever see you "discuss" any topic honestly. Why should anyone expect you to now?

Your trolling and homophobia are well known on the GB. Also, your attempts at starting "discussions" are well known for their ulterior and less than genuine motives. Why don't you keep all that on the GB where you typically like to have your "fun", hmmm?
 
Actually that also makes sense when applied to the high rates of infection in the gay community. I know several gay friends who have casual but repetative sexual contact with their friends. Friends with benefits as they say, and if you think about it you are much more likely to use protection with someone if they are a trick, or even your friend for the first time, but I think gay men who have casual comfortable sex with their friends (something that I have to admit I wish I had access to. Most of my friends are straight), that as they become comfortable protection doesn't seem as important. So that particular pattern does make the statistics make a little more sense.
 
Back
Top