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Discussions - The Sexuality Forum - View Post - Archive
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Date
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7/30/2008 11:51:16 PM
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Posted By
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beachglass |
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Subject
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A little levity, plus a tangent
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it's more accurate to state the the RECIPENT is more likely to get infected. When I say recipent, I mean the person receiving the seamen, which includes a male receiving anal sex.
And suddenly, I have "In the Navy" going through my head...
I seem to remember that the odds of transmission, assuming an HIV+ inserter and HIV- insertee, are about 1 in 1000 per session of vaginal sex, and 1 in 100 for anal sex. I suspect the latter number may be low, though.
Truthfully, as I've said before on this board, I've always felt a little...deceived, I guess, that these statistics haven't been better publicized. Most sources make it seem as though infection were practically inevitable after a single sexual experience with a HIV+ partner; I know I certainly grew up thinking that way.
I sometimes wonder whether that's encouraged a degree of fatalism, too. People are irrational; sometimes they'll behave more responsibly in the face of a statistically smaller risk, whereas if they feel like they have to be perfect 100% of the time or else death is certain, sometimes they just say "To hell with it, I can't live like this" and act completely irresponsibly.
For instance, if a condom breaks, one partner might say "Fuck it, I guess we're screwed: whatever you've got, I've got too, and vice versa", and assume that they shouldn't bother using a barrier after that point. Whereas if they knew otherwise -- i.e. that the odds of transmission were quite low for that one act -- they might behave more responsibly from then on.
(In fact, I've heard people say just that -- "The condom broke, so we didn't bother using them until I got my period.")
I know that there are stupid people out there who might say "One in a thousand? Hot damn, those are great odds, no more condoms for me!" Maybe that's part of why the numbers are kept somewhat under wraps, or at least not publicized.
Indeed, I wonder if HIV educators are afraid that people will look at the numbers and decide to quit using condoms. This seems particularly likely in the case of men who "pitch", whether to women or to other men; from all that I've read, the "pitcher's" risk of infection is, in most scenarios, pretty small. (Especially when compared to herpes, hep, and all the other friendly STDs.)
But I still think it's better to be informed, and that paradoxically, it might help people to behave more carefully on the whole.
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