Proposal: Quantified risks of gay sex: As a bi-curious man, I have some interest in gay sex, but I’m also worried about STDs. As a nerd, I’d like to weight my subjective desire to have gay sex against the objective risks of stds. This has been surprisingly difficult.
The risks of lesbian sex doesn’t need quantification because it’s basically zero. The risks of straight sex have been decently-enough quantified here and here. But there’s no comparable guide for gay sex.
All of the websites for gay men give vague advice like “wearing a condom is safer than not wearing a condom.” Sure, but does wearing a condom make gay sex safe enough to rationally partake in, or is it like wearing a seatbelt while you’re drunk driving? I’d like to write a post that told men how risky gay sex was and how much of that risk can be avoided. It would help men decide not just whether they should have gay sex, but whether they should get circumcised or insist their partners be tested.
This post could be a hazard if it exposes Less Wrong to legal risk, or if it says something boneheaded and damages the forum’s credibility. So I’d probably need some help researching and editing it and I’d want to show it to whoever is in charge of these forums before I post it.
I would be interested in helping with this post. (I am a gay man who does not partake in casual sex, primarily because of the health risks.) From what I recall when I looked into this last, there’s huge value in breaking out the various kinds of sex, because of huge risk differences.
There is no “overall risk for gay sex”. There is a risk for how you meet partners, and there is a risk level for each particular sex act you engage in and which protections you take.
Anal isn’t mandatory. - a pretty high percentage of all gay men (30%) don’t do the back door at all, coming or going, and it carries the same risks irrespective of your partners gender.
Having unprotected anal with someone you are not in a long term relationship with and who has tested clean is basically nuts, but a lot of guys do it, which is why gay men have such depressing averages. But those are averages. If you have good boundaries and behave reasonably, it’s as safe as any recreational activity ever is. That means condoms. On a practical level, get some where you like the flavor and carry them around because, uhm, well.. Remember what I said about anal not being mandatory? If you have a problem with oral, that’s going to be an issue.
I’m also a gay man who would be interested in this topic. It seems extremely narrow though so perhaps not appropriate for discussion. Maybe more suitable for a personal blog with a link post (but I don’t have a personal blog). If you’re going ahead with it, I’d like to help but I have little experience in this kind of research.
As a general point the “off topic” complaint is used too much to shut down what I think would be valuable contributions to the site. If we’re only ever allowed to talk about rationality, but not demonstrate ourselves using it, then we’ve make a community-crafting mistake.
Legal risk seems unlikely—I’ve never heard of anyone sued for just giving bad advice.
Saying something boneheaded and damaging the site’s credibility seems more possible, but not what I’d call an extremely likely. A substantial compendium of research may well be likely to do more good than harm, but damned if I know how to compute that.
The fact that one website uses a disclaimer doesn’t show that the person who created the website knows what he’s doing. He might just have copied what other people are doing to be safe.
I would appreciate some well-researched article with numbers and conditional probabilities and the like. Perhaps several people could approach the problem from different angles and each do their own writeup?
Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me all that much. For PIV sex, there is a huge incentive to use condoms: as birth control. Even with people using birth control, condoms are still pretty common.
But, in the gay community many people don’t use condoms. As stated in the other article, only 1⁄6 gay men regularly use condoms. Hence, the higher numbers despite condoms reducing infection rate by 70% for anal sex, compared to the ~80-85% reduction in PIV sex.
Also, slight nitpick. Gay/bi/MSM make up 2% of the general population, but I’d be willing to bet that they make up a much larger percent of 13-24 year olds.
Also, slight nitpick. Gay/bi/MSM make up 2% of the general population, but I’d be willing to bet that they make up a much larger percent of 13-24 year olds.
Proposal: Quantified risks of gay sex: As a bi-curious man, I have some interest in gay sex, but I’m also worried about STDs. As a nerd, I’d like to weight my subjective desire to have gay sex against the objective risks of stds. This has been surprisingly difficult.
The risks of lesbian sex doesn’t need quantification because it’s basically zero. The risks of straight sex have been decently-enough quantified here and here. But there’s no comparable guide for gay sex.
All of the websites for gay men give vague advice like “wearing a condom is safer than not wearing a condom.” Sure, but does wearing a condom make gay sex safe enough to rationally partake in, or is it like wearing a seatbelt while you’re drunk driving? I’d like to write a post that told men how risky gay sex was and how much of that risk can be avoided. It would help men decide not just whether they should have gay sex, but whether they should get circumcised or insist their partners be tested.
This post could be a hazard if it exposes Less Wrong to legal risk, or if it says something boneheaded and damages the forum’s credibility. So I’d probably need some help researching and editing it and I’d want to show it to whoever is in charge of these forums before I post it.
I would be interested in helping with this post. (I am a gay man who does not partake in casual sex, primarily because of the health risks.) From what I recall when I looked into this last, there’s huge value in breaking out the various kinds of sex, because of huge risk differences.
There is no “overall risk for gay sex”. There is a risk for how you meet partners, and there is a risk level for each particular sex act you engage in and which protections you take.
Anal isn’t mandatory. - a pretty high percentage of all gay men (30%) don’t do the back door at all, coming or going, and it carries the same risks irrespective of your partners gender.
Having unprotected anal with someone you are not in a long term relationship with and who has tested clean is basically nuts, but a lot of guys do it, which is why gay men have such depressing averages. But those are averages. If you have good boundaries and behave reasonably, it’s as safe as any recreational activity ever is. That means condoms. On a practical level, get some where you like the flavor and carry them around because, uhm, well.. Remember what I said about anal not being mandatory? If you have a problem with oral, that’s going to be an issue.
I’m also a gay man who would be interested in this topic. It seems extremely narrow though so perhaps not appropriate for discussion. Maybe more suitable for a personal blog with a link post (but I don’t have a personal blog). If you’re going ahead with it, I’d like to help but I have little experience in this kind of research.
I think it’s appropriate for LW—it will have implications about how to do research as well as the specific topic.
As a general point the “off topic” complaint is used too much to shut down what I think would be valuable contributions to the site. If we’re only ever allowed to talk about rationality, but not demonstrate ourselves using it, then we’ve make a community-crafting mistake.
You presumably meant “than not wearing a condom”.
Legal risk seems unlikely—I’ve never heard of anyone sued for just giving bad advice.
Saying something boneheaded and damaging the site’s credibility seems more possible, but not what I’d call an extremely likely. A substantial compendium of research may well be likely to do more good than harm, but damned if I know how to compute that.
Fixed, thanks.
A lot of websites use a “This is not medical advice” disclaimer, enough to justify a generic template.
The fact that one website uses a disclaimer doesn’t show that the person who created the website knows what he’s doing. He might just have copied what other people are doing to be safe.
In my response to this post, I realized I was basically starting to write what the post you were talking about.
Anyway, as someone who has done research into this, the answer is the risk is higher, but not all that much. Suggested start here: http://www.aidsmap.com/Consistent-condom-use-in-anal-sex-stops-70-of-HIV-infections-study-finds/page/2586976/
The article you linked to says condom use reduces infection rate by 70%. That sounds good (sort of).
But what’s the base rate? Gay and bisexual men make up 2% of the population and 72% of all new infections among 13-24 year-olds. That sounds really bad.
I would appreciate some well-researched article with numbers and conditional probabilities and the like. Perhaps several people could approach the problem from different angles and each do their own writeup?
Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me all that much. For PIV sex, there is a huge incentive to use condoms: as birth control. Even with people using birth control, condoms are still pretty common.
But, in the gay community many people don’t use condoms. As stated in the other article, only 1⁄6 gay men regularly use condoms. Hence, the higher numbers despite condoms reducing infection rate by 70% for anal sex, compared to the ~80-85% reduction in PIV sex.
Also, slight nitpick. Gay/bi/MSM make up 2% of the general population, but I’d be willing to bet that they make up a much larger percent of 13-24 year olds.
Could you explain?
Younger americans are more likely to identify as gay or bisexual, one assumes for cultural reasons.
Numbers at gallop poll link were:
6.2% of 18-29 year olds
3.2% of 30-49 year olds
2.6% of 50-64 year olds
1.9% of 65+ year olds
Presumably some of the barriers to entry have been lowered for this demographic.
Or Greg Cochran is onto something.
I doubt it.