Gays Debate Radical Steps to Curb Unsafe Sex -NYT

[Rose Siding]

After all the thousands of AIDS deaths and all the years of "Safe Sex Is Hot Sex" prevention messages, it has come down to this: many gay men who know the rules of engagement in the age of AIDS are not using condoms. As news of a potentially virulent strain of H.I.V. settles in, gay activists and AIDS prevention workers say they are dismayed and angry that the 25-year-old battle against the disease might have to begin all over again.

While many are calling for a renewed commitment to prevention efforts and free condoms, some veterans of the war on AIDS are advocating an entirely new approach to the spread of unsafe sex, much of which is fueled by a surge in methamphetamine abuse. They want to track down those who knowingly engage in risky behavior and try to stop them before they can infect others.
...
"Gay men do not have the right to spread a debilitating and often fatal disease," said Charles Kaiser, a historian and author of "The Gay Metropolis." "A person who is H.I.V.-positive has no more right to unprotected intercourse than he has the right to put a bullet through another person's head," he said.

While not endorsing specific strategies, even mainstream organizations like the Gay Men's Health Crisis support the idea of trying methods that would have been anathema a few years ago. "It makes a community stronger when we take care of ourselves," said Ana Oliveira, the organization's executive director, "and if that means that we have to be much more present and intervene with people who are doing this to themselves and others, then so be it."

http://nytimes.com/2005/02/15/health/15aids.html?hp&ex=1108443600&en=dd63ea47a7c14884&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Skip Intro]

1. Doesn't sound right. Somehting's wrong with this.

They want to track down those who knowingly engage in risky behavior and try to stop them before they can infect others.

I really don't like the way that sounds.

Sex police, basically.

I understand the goal, but it has shades of rw bs. "lets round 'em up."

Just sounds wrong.

Or it could just be me.

[Redstone]

2. Good point...

At first I thought, "hey, interventions. Not a bad idea."

But you raise legitimate concerns. It'sll be interesting to see if you're right (I'm betting you are).

Redstone

[Ms_Mary]

17. And the concern is in no way restricted to gay people

I thought the more rapidly growing population with HIV was black women. Remember the presidential debate?

I actually thought, and I could be wrong, that the rate of infection among gay males was lower than it used to be.

[enough]

3. Please excuse an ignorant but sincere question:

What is the connection between unsafe sex and methamphetamine abuse? Is this a matter of getting high and forgetting caution, or is there some specific connection, as with shared needles?

[mitchtv]

5. Both from what I know.

.

[Moloch]

12. Crystal Meth

stimulates sexual desire. When you have sex on crystal (If you are a male) you can orgasm many times and prolong sex for hours.

People who use meth (I used to use it) tend to think just for the moment and completely disregard long term consequences like HIV.

[Chelsea Patriot]

14. More About Forgetting Caution, or Just Not Caring.....

There has been some reports of needle injection of crystal Meth; but so far, needle injection is rare.

Most Gay male users start by snorting the drug, switch to smoking for the quicker high, and then often start taking it anally, the so called "Booty Bumps."

Many young gay men believe that HIV is inevitable, and that it is only a matter of time before they become infected.

Many gay men also believe that testing positive for HIV "frees" them sexually. No longer having to worry about contracting the disease, they can now participate in wild, uninhibited, unsafe sex. This unsafe sex is seen as more "real".

Meth, or Tina, as its known in the gay Community fuels these depraved lines of thinking.

[mitchtv]

4. the Dept of health did it for years with VD

Their power is almost absolute. The difference here is syphlis has treatment.I don't have any objections to an "outreach".

[megatherium]

13. HIV has treatment too

so perhaps it is now logical to treat HIV the way syphilis is treated. Contact tracing makes good sense if it forestalls the development of an untreatable, virulent form of AIDS.

Gay men have a serious responsibility to take care of themselves and each other in this continuing battle. Promiscuity is dangerous, both to the community and to the individuals involved. If gay men were not more promiscuous than strayt men, there would have never been an AIDS epidemic. Public health authorities in the 1970s warned of a coming catastrophe. Read Randy Schilts, And the Band Played On. Also read Sexual Ecology, by Gabrial Rotello.

[Chelsea Patriot]

15. Promiscuity has nothing to do with it.

Specific acts cause one to contract HIV, not the amount of partners one has.

Someone who constantly participates in unsafe sex i.e. unprotected receptive anal intercourse with a single HIV Infected individual is much likely to contract HIV then someone who has safe sex with many people.

Promiscuity..someone who has had one more partner then the speaker.

[despairing optimist]

6. Sign of the times: the rise of the sex police

It shouldn't be surprising that the second wave in the AIDS epidemic has finally arrived. It was predicted 20 years ago. But it is depressing that an authoritarian approach is being seriously considered to fight it. It reminds me of William Buckley's call for the tattooing of all HIV-positives on their private parts. At the time there was a big demonstration outside the offices of his National Review, in whose pages he made the case for tattooing and even quarantining.

Have the past 20 years been merely a circuitous route to that end? Will Buckley and GMHC kiss and make up? When talking fails, spank the kid, I guess.

Punish, repress, fail. How do you spell the Rockefeller drug laws? Now, morph them into sex laws and get the same results. That approach was rejected 20 years ago, and unless people have changed that much in a generation, the argument for rejecting it remains valid--just as the argument for trying it remains dangerous. Sick people will be afraid to come forward and get help if they think they may be branded criminals, and the epidemic will spread faster.

[queerart]

7. I Am Going To Make Some Very Angry........

But here is an article as to what is "part" of the problem....

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/5939950?rnd=1105685261031&has-player=false

Here is the last part of the article:

<snip>Stepping out of the cab into the rain, I ask what he will do if he finds out one day that he has succeeded in being infected -- ending the fun of being a bug chaser. He stops, then says he might move on to being a gift giver: "If I know that he's negative and I'm f*cking him, it sort of gets me off. I'm murdering him in a sense, killing him slowly, and that's sort of, as sick as it sounds, exciting to me."</snip>

Did I add such lurid details for a reason? You bet... I hope many read this article from Rolling Stone to understand that serious measures need to be taken...

[w4rma]

8. There are definitely whackos out there.

And they aren't limited to being one sex or one sexual orientation or another.

[queerart]

9. Lets Be Fair To Me......

I said this behavior was "PART" of the problem.....

and it begs the question... were you able to read the article?

As the number that "Bug Chased" that year was around 10,000 (ten thousand people)..... one quarter of the full number infected (40,000)

That's a bit too many folks, to simply be a handful of "Whackos".....

[DemBones DemBones]

10. So do you support chasing down the Bug Chasers?

Or how would you solve the problem of people deliberately trying to get infected?

[queerart]

18. You Know When I Was In School.....

To get your drivers permit in Illinois, one had to watch movies of serious auto accidents..... and the aftermath of what a serious car wreck entailed......

I don't think it would hurt to have some old fashioned education on the subject........

And start them off by watching this documentary..... (I have not seen it as of yet) But the trailor, and the interview that one can watch at the site I think would be enough to give most any person "pause".... Gay, or Straight.........

http://www.thegiftdocumentary.org

And no, I am not talking about jailing anyone, nor chasing them down.... But something needs to be done.... as throwing up one's arms is not the answer either.....

[truthisfreedom]

11. i remain utterly confused as to why someone high on speed would be

interested in sex. i've always thought they were mutually inconsistent activities.

[3rdParty]

16. gays welcoming facist techniques...what a weird world we live in.

[d.l.Green]

19. This is out of hand! When the legitimacy of this so-called "virus" is

still being questioned and has yet to be isolated, and idiots in the gay community continue to do these outrageous drugs, this is the solution that's bandied about???!!!! I have a proposal- if the above one is considered sane then so must this: let's lock up and isolate all the dopes doing drugs and drinking alcohol. Oh no, we couldn't do that! Where would the gay community gather instead of bars? How could the gay community continue to have satisfying sex without the drugs? What would happen to the circuit parties?

Yeah, let's continue to blame gay sex (at the delight of the wacko conservative right-wingers) instead of the drugs and drinking and ignorance of a healthy lifestyle. Let's continue to blame those "bug chasers"(what a negative, demeaning label!) and the "gift givers" and not the people who negligently become their "victims"- whatever. God- we could never blame the poor ignorant victims!

Look who's making this statement: "gay activists"(just look who's financing groups such as ACT-UP) and "'aids' prevention workers"(got to keep their organizations going if their going to keep their jobs- what does the director of GMHC make?). Then look at the advertisers(indirect funders) in all the gay publications. After "poppers" became illegal, there were the "legal" drug pushers right behind them. Yup, the public's losing attention, let's keep this in the news with more scare tactics.