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Why is it taboo to call AIDS a "gay disease"?
- Thread starter ToxicAdam
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stupid thread is stupid.
Now we need to flip it around again somehow...
That sounds awesome. However, let's turn it around and self-reference again by saying that by avoiding killing them, humans might increase their long-term survival ability. Perhaps by keeping them alive, it helps to stabilize the ecosystem from which we consume resources in a sustainable manner.Evander said:
Now we need to flip it around again somehow...
Crab Shaker
Doesn't pay his sources
You know, you'd think with all the FHUTA's and "you should try anal sex(seriously)" in the girl threads on this forum, you would think that...heterosexuals are more open to the idea of other forms of sex these days, meaning, they're just as more vulnerable to HIV as homosexuals. In case any of you readers didn't know, that's the primary reason for homosexuals to be more likely to contract the disease. When you have anal sex, the tissues in the rectum can be sensitive, and depending on how much you lubed, how quickly you went in, how big the object entering your poopshoot is, you might bust a vein, much like you could bust one by getting your nose punched. Blood/open wound + sex organs/semen = HIV transmission paradise. Bottoms, aka catchers, are more likely to catch it.
Just a point to consider.
Just a point to consider.
Crab Shaker
Doesn't pay his sources
Well, from what I remember reading, there are vaccines for some of the variations of it, but it's really kind of unstoppable because there are so many forms and it keeps mutating.
Hopefully someday we'll have little non-carcinogenic nanomachines to eat the fuckers. :lol
Hopefully someday we'll have little non-carcinogenic nanomachines to eat the fuckers. :lol
viciouskillersquirrel
Member
'cause the shit mutates like a mofo. There are so many strains of it and it adapts to drugs so quickly that no single vaccine or anti-viral will be able to contain it.Diablos said:
The Faceless Master
Member
i think the word you're looking for is bisexual.B!TCH said:
Gully State
Member
Not only does it have a high mutation rate but the cells it attacks play an important role in your immune system. I just want to point out that those with AIDS don't die directly from it, but rather from infections and unchecked tumor growth b/c of the lack of a proper immune response.
ConfusingJazz
Member
Diablos said:
Couple ideas based on the little knowledge I have about HIV and vaccines.
1. Vaccines depend on the immune system working correctly, which doesn't really happen when its the immune system getting attacked.
2. HIV is a retrovirus, which is harder to work with.
EDIT: Just checked out dry sex in wikipedia. WTF is wrong with people?!
Diablos said:
I took a Microbiology class awhile back and the professor told us he didn't think we would "ever" find a cure for AIDS. For one, it mutates so quickly that AIDS patients can't even have sex with each other unprotected because they might stop responding to medications (due to different mutations person to person). Plus, the virus hides itself rather effectively. What he told us was that the best we could hope for were treatments that postponed death indefinately, while not curing anybody. Think about it, we still don't have a cure for the common cold or flu, let alone AIDS.
Gully State
Member
nyong said:
There's a case study in Africa right now on a group of women whom supposedly have developed immunity towards HIV.
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SUA04/natural_immunity_HIV.php
Richard Cranium
Member
Actually, there are antivirals that work against influenza. It's just not worth it to treat most people because you have to take it within the first few days or so and it's relatively expensive.nyong said:
Not exactly. Vaccines work before infection occurs, so the immune system is fully functional at the time it encounters the pathogen.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
It wouldn't shock me.Gully State said:
Early man supposedly had forms of HIV/AIDS that weren't harmful to them. Back in our closer to ape days. Not sure if they cured it themselves or if it just had no real effect on them.
I saw a program about this bit on TV once, so I figure I'll expand on it (I'm probably not the best qualified, but whatever).Love To Love You Baby said:
Apparently men in Africa often leave home for months at a time to go work digging in mines. The boss realizes that his workers have human needs, so he might occasionally spring for a prostitute for the guys. She's most likely bloody after the first guy, but goes on like a trooper for the entire night and satisfies everybody in the entire camp. Suddenly, everybody in the company has AIDS (as does the prostitute, but she's just a prostitute, so nobody cares about her). Gee, how'd that happen.
Now the men go home, pretend nothing like that ever happened, and have sex with their wives. The way they see it, they were doing Holy Work by working their asses off in that mine, so anything they did out there was kosher. They actually believe they were not being unfaithful to their wives. They were providing for them, end of story.
Then they get tested. Shock! They have AIDS. The wife gets tested. Shock! She has AIDS too. So the guy puts two and two together and concludes that while he was off busting his ass for his family and most certainly not having rough sex with any bleeding prostitutes... he couldn't see what his wife was doing! She must have been unfaithful to him! She's a whore! She probably did every guy in town. And then she gave him the AIDS (she saved it for him apparently, since none of the other guys in town have it). So he does the only appropriate thing and beats his wife. Occasionally to death.
Oh and, the cure for AIDS is apparently to have sex with a nice and clean virgin, so he goes out and rapes a teenage girl, spreading it to her.
AIDS is a horrible monster but it's ultimately self-defeating. Unfortunately though, it feeds on foolishness and ignorance, so it'll be around forever. Some basic education would crush it in a generation or two, unlike something like cancer.
Oh, I wasn't saying that I support the argument. Personally, I believe that the fact that we have the capability to be aware of of the consequences of our actions means that we are responsibile for behaving in such a way that creates the most positive and/or least negative set of consequences.Slavik81 said:
But if you want to argue that human beings are no different than any other animal, then our driving of other species to extinction is just "nature taking its course."
Love To Love You Baby
Member
B!TCH said:
1) I'm not denying there aren't closeted homosexuals in Africa. The continent, by and large, is very homophobic. But statistically gay men occur throughout the world, as far as we know (and it is questionable considering it's difficult to get accurate numbers), at a relatively consistent rate - a rate that means gay men just don't statistically constitute enough of the population to cause the epidemic throughout the continent. I doubt the rate of homosexuals is any higher in Africa than anywhere else.
2) Are you saying that what I was stating is utter nonsense and ignorant, or certain African sexual practices are?
3) There are more heterosexuals in Africa who have HIV that deny it than there are homosexuals, closeted or not - with HIV or not.
My point is that HIV/AIDS isn't spread mainly by gay men - it's by heterosexuals. Only in the developed world is HIV spread by gay men at a higher rate than heterosexuals, but your statement isn't relevant to Africa. Even if you stopped all forms of homosexual sex in Africa, you'd still have millions and millions of infections from heterosexual intercourse, which again, is the main driving force behind its spread.
HIV is thought to evolved from SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) from wild chimpanzees in Cameroon. No one is sure how it spread to human populations, although there are different theories. The disease originated in sub-Saharan Africa, where it continues to reek havoc at a much higher rate than any other place on earth. Blaming gay men for the spread of the disease in an entirely different continent in the late 70s/early 80s and assuming the same factors apply in Africa really ignores the greater context and the specific circumstances that apply to the situation there. Africa is not America. You can't say "Oh, gay men spread the disease two decades ago here at a higher rate than other populations - so they must be spreading it in Africa, too!"
Patrick Bateman
Member
such as circumcision, which cuts the risk of infection by 60 per cent
:lol :lol
, and reducing the number of sexual partners.
This is the right answer. And use a condom you fuckers!
:lol :lol
, and reducing the number of sexual partners.
This is the right answer. And use a condom you fuckers!
scorcho said:
It's like arguing that it's okay that Jesse Jackson reffered to New York as "Himey Town" because there ARE a lot of Jews there.
The entire purpose fo saying these things is for shock value. To turn around and try to defend your shock statements is just backpeddaling.
Because that would imply that it is exclusively so, which would be fallacious, and if widespread enough, that statement could lead to more incidents of the disease. Granted, those people are idiots and foolhardy minors that shouldn't be engaging in sex yet, but it's not like it puts us out much to NOT make an inaccurate claim about HIV / AIDS.
And no matter how predominant it is in one population, if it's not exclusive, then I don't see how you could apply that label. Sickle Cell Anemia is not a "black disease," for example.
I suppose you're welcome to call it what you want, but it doesn't seem logical and thus, I don't think you'll get much traction with that one.
And no matter how predominant it is in one population, if it's not exclusive, then I don't see how you could apply that label. Sickle Cell Anemia is not a "black disease," for example.
I suppose you're welcome to call it what you want, but it doesn't seem logical and thus, I don't think you'll get much traction with that one.
Love To Love You Baby
Member
Basically, the only thing that can be blamed for HIV is the virus itself. AIDS is an "AIDS disease."
Love To Love You Baby
Member
Evander said:
Well, I meant it to be offensive to the virus itself.
Maybe we can just call it "a disease." ;-)
What's known as "the common cold" is actually a family of hundreds of different individual pathogens with largely the same effect. You may be cured from one version or gain immunity to it, but the rest just wait in line. Fortunately, the symptoms are relatively minor much of the time.nyong said:
Influenza is more singled-out, but there are still various strains of it in the wild and new ones tend to propagate seasonally with flu shots getting updated accordingly.
icarus-daedelus said:
Yes. Are you serious? You don't know anything.
The Faceless Master said:
Not really. No.
Love To Love You Baby said:
1) & 3) By definition, once a disease like HIV/AIDS reaches epidemic levels it isn't an exclusive problem to homosexuals.
2) What you were stating is utter nonsense and ignorant. There is probably a tribe somewhere in Africa that has sexual practices like the ones you described but to say that is one of main reasons for high rates of HIV/AIDS transmission is as ludicrous as someone saying that HIV/AIDS is a "gay" disease.
How do you know that though? You are just making an inference based on the fact that there are statistically fewer people who report being homosexual than heterosexual. I think HIV/AIDS is spread among homosexuals at a higher rate than heterosexuals in both the developed and developing world. It's because of the taboo nature of homosexuality in the developing world that skews the statistics and that has allowed HIV/AIDS to reach epidemic levels where it affects heterosexuals as well as homosexuals alike. The non-politically correct question we need to be asking is why the disease afflicts homosexuals at a higher rate than it does heterosexuals in the first place. That's what I'm getting at. If the disease affected homosexuals and heterosexuals in the same way then why would rate of transmission be higher among homosexuals in the developed world versus those in the undeveloped world? We know the circumstances that cause epidemic levels of rate of infection in the developing world. They don't apply in the developed world yet the higher rate of infection among homosexuals is still an issue. The question is, why?
Evander said:
Calling HIV/AIDS a "gay" disease is a by-product of how the disease first came to mainstream attention in America in the 1980's. Magic Johnson was rumored to be gay for a long time after his admission to having the disease because of the diseases initial classification as a "gay" disease. As unfair as that label may have been at the time, it also helped give birth to the modern homosexual rights movement by increasing the visibility of once-closeted homosexuals.
Battersea Power Station
Member
It's a British thing. Aids, Nasa, Nafta, etc.Phobophile said:
B!TCH said:
I'm familiar with GRIDS. Just because HIV/AIDS first gained public attention through the Gay community does not justify associating it with the Gay community in this day and age, when it has been shown to be more prevalent, globally, within the Heterosexual community, and more importantly, there is nothing special about HIV/AIDS that relates specifically to the Gay community.
To associate AIDS solely with Gays in the US is a genetic fallacy.
dark steve
Banned
B!TCH said:
Damn, that is one convincing argument!
Evander said:
I'm a little confused as to what you mean exactly by statements like,
"and more importantly, there is nothing special about HIV/AIDS that relates specifically to the Gay community."
this. Do you mean that the disease doesn't only affect homosexuals (I don't think anyone made that argument) or that it is wrong to say that HIV/AIDS is transmitted among homosexuals at a higher rate?
The higher rate of infection is very real among homosexual males.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/us.htm
Those stats should be alarming considering the relatively small population of people who classify themselves as homosexual.
dark steve said:
What is this stupidity? If you are telling me that HIV/AIDS transmission between mother-infant can't be prevented in African countries the burden of proof is on you to provide that evidence. I'll even give you a big hint right now. The actual rate of mother-to-child transmission is close to 30% of all live births.
JzeroT1437
Member
I once read in book by a very famous author that if you could get AIDS from having sex with someone, you could get anything--even Dyslexia! It was in a book and therefore terrified me because it must have been true.
dark steve
Banned
B!TCH said:
I'm not going to try and tell you anything. Just passing comment on your method of discussion.
Love To Love You Baby
Member
B!TCH said:
Please prove that homosexual sex is the main cause of HIV spread in Africa, or it was the origin of the spread of it. You're basing your argument on the American example and assuming the factors are identical in Africa.
B!TCH said:
You're responding to one example I posted. I'm not stating that "dry sex" is the main cause of heterosexual spread - I listed it as one factor, and so have multiple health organizations monitoring the spread of the disease in the continent.
There is nothing ignorant about highlighting that heterosexual Africans engage in unprotected sex (and many don't know they can spread the disease that way), which has led to higher infection rates. It isn't nonsense to state that high rape rates have led to higher HIV infection - South Africa has the highest rape rate in the world, and has the highest rate of new HIV infections. It isn't ignorant to discuss the standard practice of heterosexual men who work hundreds of miles away from home who commonly have sexual partners outside of their wives, leading to higher rates of infection.
All of those factors have led to increased HIV rates in Africa at a higher rate than homosexual sex has. Many people in Africa simply don't know how HIV is spread, and don't adjust their sexual behavior accordingly.
Unprotected sex, lack of education, misinformation, social stigma = larger factors than homosexual sex.
B!TCH said:
You're basing what happened in America - an entirely different continent - two decades ago on the African HIV problem. You're assuming that HIV began in homosexual populations in Africa and spread to heterosexuals because that seemingly occurred in America, which there is no evidence for. I'll repeat what I posted, because you didn't respond to it:
HIV is thought to evolved from SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) from wild chimpanzees in Cameroon. No one is sure how it spread to human populations, although there are different theories. The disease originated in sub-Saharan Africa, where it continues to wreak havoc at a much higher rate than any other place on earth. Blaming gay men for the spread of the disease in an entirely different continent in the late 70s/early 80s and assuming the same factors apply in Africa really ignores the greater context and the specific circumstances that apply to the situation there. Africa is not America. You can't say "Oh, gay men spread the disease two decades ago here at a higher rate than other populations - so they must be spreading it in Africa, too!"
B!TCH said:
South Africa has the most accepting climate for homosexuality in Africa - and was one of the first countries in the world, developing or not, to legalize gay marriage. It also has the highest HIV infection rate in the world - many of which are heterosexual women. So, a country in which homosexuality is less taboo still has high infection rates amongst heterosexuals.
B!TCH said:
No one is stating that those who engage in anal sex are less likely to contract the disease. There are simple biological factors at work here - the same factors that make heterosexual women more likely to contract HIV than heterosexual men. Homosexuals are not the only group in the developed world that are at higher risk for HIV - and it isn't politically incorrect to ask why any group is at higher risk, even if it involves looking at factors outside simple biology (why are straight black women 13 times more likely to get HIV than straight white women, for instance, when one is no more biologically susceptible to the disease than the other)? It's only politically incorrect to claim AIDS as a "gay disease" or "black disease."
What I take issue with is your assumption that the AIDS epidemic in African is a carbon copy of the situation in America, when there are different factors at work here. Homosexual sex in Africa does spread the disease, sure. But because HIV was first notably contracted amongst gay men in one country doesn't mean it is the case in another.
B!TCH said:
This is an absurd statement. The modern gay rights movement began in the late 60s with the Stonewall riots, and gays had increased visibility throughout the 70s - even gaining some goodwill. The HIV epidemic created a huge stigma on homosexuality that harmed the gay rights movement and offset it for two decades. No one who is educated in any way on contemporary gay rights would say HIV helped the cause.
B!TCH said:
I mean that the relationship between Gays and AIDS is one of correlation, and not of causation.
The odds of getting AIDS are stacked against Gay people, for a variety of reasons related to Gay culture and the percentage of AIDS already within the Gay community, but being Gay, ceteris paribus, does not make you more likely to get AIDS.
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