Another STD Post
Ah ha! I'm stuck awake way too early on a Saturday morning without my external hard drive that has all the files and projects I'm currently working on. And because it's so fricken early on a Saturday morning, the internet is not sufficiently entertaining me. What a great time to post about a couple of websites currently cluttering up my browser as open tabs!
First we have http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65M6NX20100624 - a news story that says that STD rates are higher for swingers than prostitutes.
The reason, they suspect, is because swingers are too afraid to get tested or admit to their doctors who could then advise them on how to maintain proper safety practices for the multi-partnered.
Higher than prostitutes.
As in, prostitutes, who know they're doing something dangerous, and are marginalized, discriminated against, and criminalized, have fewer health problems - prostitutes with their high numbers of anonymous stranger-partners.
(Keep in mind that this study was done in the Netherlands and prostitution is legal, so prostitutes can admit to their doctors that they need medical care for their profession but swingers are still marginalized)
What this says to me is that education, proper safety procedures, and openness and honesty are integral to safer sex. Openness and honesty are the keys to being safe, and lack of such is more dangerous than just the number of partners. This also says to me that society in general has their priorities all fucked up and that monogamy is still more highly valued than practiced.
The number of sexual partners is not the most important factor in a person's health risk profile. Using proper safety procedures, and exchanging accurate medical information between partners and with medical practitioners are more likely to keep you safe than just reducing the number of partners.
This part wasn't mentioned in the article, but the porn industry (those production companies that comply with the AIM foundation - a self-regulated medical facility for the porn industry) has a lower HIV incidence rate than the general public, in spite of non-mandatory use of condoms. I don't have the link off-hand, but some academic researcher actually did a study in preparation for the upcoming legal battle dealing with mandatory condom use, and found that their practice of regular HIV testing, and open test results resulted in lower incident rates.
If your partner is HIV-free, you can't catch HIV. People who have been tested for HIV, and who have the lab results to prove it, are more likely to be HIV-free than people who have not been tested. Your chances of catching an STD go significantly down with regular testing and open test exchange practices. Having 3 partners who have been tested negative for STDs are less likely to give you something than having a single partner who has not been tested simply because 3 partners who don't have anything can't give you anything while a single partner *can* because he might have something and you wouldn't know it to protect against it. Monogamous partners are less likely to use proper precautions because they believe themselves to be monogamous, but either they are unaware of the presence of other sexual partners, or they are not accounting for past partners. Your chances do not go up with numbers of partners. Your chances go up with shoddy practices, like not using protection and not getting tested regularly.
Even monogamous people should require test results of their partners prior to engaging in sexual activity, and regularly just as a matter of regular health maintenance. Only a small portion of people who catch an STD got it from a cheating partner. The majority caught it from ignorance. Get tested, be honest with your health providers, and exchange test results with potential and current partners.
**EDIT**
emanix ade a point in the comments below that the title of this article SHOULD have been "Prostitutes have HALF the STDs that straight people have!" The article focused on how high the STD rate was with swingers, most likely as a scare tactic to reinforce the idea of punishment for immoral behaviour, but they neglected to emphasize that professional sex workers in this study are actually SAFER than either swingers OR regular heterosexual people.
Speaking of STDs, here's the latest on the HPV research front.
http://www.physorg.com/news196855852.html
"A cluster of carbon nanotubes coated with a thin layer of protein-recognizing polymer form a biosensor capable of using electrochemical signals to detect minute amounts of proteins, which could provide a crucial new diagnostic tool for the detection of a range of illnesses, a team of Boston College researchers report in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
...
The detection can be read in real time, instead of after days or weeks of laboratory analysis, meaning the nanotube molecular imprinting technique could pave the way for biosensors capable of detecting human papillomavirus or other viruses weeks sooner than available diagnostic techniques currently allow. As opposed to searching for the HPV antibody or cell-mediated immine responses after initial infection, the nanotube sensor can track the HPV protein directly. In addition, no chemical marker is required by the lebel-free electrochemical detection methods."
That pretty much summed it up. Carbon nanotubes are being used to detect HPV immediately, rather than waitng for the body to develop the antibodies or destroyed cells on the cervix. And soon after reliable early detection methods are developed, early treatments will come. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to detect HPV before it does any damage and eradicate it before it replicates enough to become problematic?
First we have http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65M6NX20100624 - a news story that says that STD rates are higher for swingers than prostitutes.
The reason, they suspect, is because swingers are too afraid to get tested or admit to their doctors who could then advise them on how to maintain proper safety practices for the multi-partnered.
Higher than prostitutes.
As in, prostitutes, who know they're doing something dangerous, and are marginalized, discriminated against, and criminalized, have fewer health problems - prostitutes with their high numbers of anonymous stranger-partners.
(Keep in mind that this study was done in the Netherlands and prostitution is legal, so prostitutes can admit to their doctors that they need medical care for their profession but swingers are still marginalized)
What this says to me is that education, proper safety procedures, and openness and honesty are integral to safer sex. Openness and honesty are the keys to being safe, and lack of such is more dangerous than just the number of partners. This also says to me that society in general has their priorities all fucked up and that monogamy is still more highly valued than practiced.
The number of sexual partners is not the most important factor in a person's health risk profile. Using proper safety procedures, and exchanging accurate medical information between partners and with medical practitioners are more likely to keep you safe than just reducing the number of partners.
This part wasn't mentioned in the article, but the porn industry (those production companies that comply with the AIM foundation - a self-regulated medical facility for the porn industry) has a lower HIV incidence rate than the general public, in spite of non-mandatory use of condoms. I don't have the link off-hand, but some academic researcher actually did a study in preparation for the upcoming legal battle dealing with mandatory condom use, and found that their practice of regular HIV testing, and open test results resulted in lower incident rates.
If your partner is HIV-free, you can't catch HIV. People who have been tested for HIV, and who have the lab results to prove it, are more likely to be HIV-free than people who have not been tested. Your chances of catching an STD go significantly down with regular testing and open test exchange practices. Having 3 partners who have been tested negative for STDs are less likely to give you something than having a single partner who has not been tested simply because 3 partners who don't have anything can't give you anything while a single partner *can* because he might have something and you wouldn't know it to protect against it. Monogamous partners are less likely to use proper precautions because they believe themselves to be monogamous, but either they are unaware of the presence of other sexual partners, or they are not accounting for past partners. Your chances do not go up with numbers of partners. Your chances go up with shoddy practices, like not using protection and not getting tested regularly.
Even monogamous people should require test results of their partners prior to engaging in sexual activity, and regularly just as a matter of regular health maintenance. Only a small portion of people who catch an STD got it from a cheating partner. The majority caught it from ignorance. Get tested, be honest with your health providers, and exchange test results with potential and current partners.
**EDIT**
emanix ade a point in the comments below that the title of this article SHOULD have been "Prostitutes have HALF the STDs that straight people have!" The article focused on how high the STD rate was with swingers, most likely as a scare tactic to reinforce the idea of punishment for immoral behaviour, but they neglected to emphasize that professional sex workers in this study are actually SAFER than either swingers OR regular heterosexual people.
Speaking of STDs, here's the latest on the HPV research front.
http://www.physorg.com/news196855852.html
"A cluster of carbon nanotubes coated with a thin layer of protein-recognizing polymer form a biosensor capable of using electrochemical signals to detect minute amounts of proteins, which could provide a crucial new diagnostic tool for the detection of a range of illnesses, a team of Boston College researchers report in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
...
The detection can be read in real time, instead of after days or weeks of laboratory analysis, meaning the nanotube molecular imprinting technique could pave the way for biosensors capable of detecting human papillomavirus or other viruses weeks sooner than available diagnostic techniques currently allow. As opposed to searching for the HPV antibody or cell-mediated immine responses after initial infection, the nanotube sensor can track the HPV protein directly. In addition, no chemical marker is required by the lebel-free electrochemical detection methods."
That pretty much summed it up. Carbon nanotubes are being used to detect HPV immediately, rather than waitng for the body to develop the antibodies or destroyed cells on the cervix. And soon after reliable early detection methods are developed, early treatments will come. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to detect HPV before it does any damage and eradicate it before it replicates enough to become problematic?