Comments | joreth: Another STD Post

joreth

Another STD Post

Jul 10, 2010 08:53

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 ( Read more... )

sti, science

Comments 9

leora July 10 2010, 19:44:56 UTC

Although there is a benefit to either limiting partner number or using barriers. The one thing testing can't protect against is something new. The nice thing about latex condoms is that they probably can.

However, the risk of partners is unrelated to whether you have them serially or in parallel.

I just don't want people to use testing as a complete substitute for protection if they are going to have a very large number of casual partners. Also, testing is great, but there will always be intervals. So, if you want to have a lot of casual sex, barriers are really, really awesome. You can choose not to - it's a risk assessment and everyone gets to make their own. But it is an easy way to increase the safety of the activity. Testing also increases the safety.

joreth July 10 2010, 20:16:14 UTC

Yes, I didn't mean to imply that testing takes the place of other barriers, especially with certain other risk factors, such as casual and/or non-repeat partners. Ideally, both methods concurrently are the best way to be sexually active and avoid STDs, regardless of relationship style ( ... )

leora July 10 2010, 20:29:48 UTC

Neat, I hadn't realized they got the window down. That's great ( ... )

dorklord07 July 10 2010, 23:55:03 UTC

First: CARBON NANOTUBES SOLVE EVERYTHING!

Second: Oh, science journalism, how I hate you. D:

emanix July 12 2010, 12:34:53 UTC

I found essentially the same article on another site, and have been meaning to post about it - as my partner werenerd put it, the title of the article should have been "Prostitutes Have HALF the Infection Rate of Normal Population" - and really very little difference between swingers and average folk at all, 0.4 percent. some serious effort has gone into spinning these results to make swingers look bad. May well post anyway and link back to here.

(and of course no mention of poly folk, who will no doubt get tarred with the same brush as swingers, but more likely have a lower rate due to conscious attitudes. Bah)

emanix July 12 2010, 14:42:32 UTC

Oh, I recalled wrong - it was exactly the same article. :)

joreth July 12 2010, 17:24:14 UTC

I just read your article from the link on Twitter, and I love that you focused on the bad title. That's a point I wish I had made in my own post, so I'm glad you did, and that you commented here ( ... )

emanix July 12 2010, 17:54:46 UTC

Thanks for the positive response :)

I don't know how well educated docs are about poly in the US, I guess it would vary from state to state as well. I've had a heck of a time getting UK ones to pay attention to the important facts. The last time I got tested here they made a great fuss over the fact that I had a bisexual male partner, whereas actually my straight male primary partner was engaging in more slutty behaviour with far more people, but I gave up on explaining it in the end and just stated 'I'm getting tested' over and over until it sank in. When people are plainly following a rote system and not using logic, it's tempting just to give up trying to educate.

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