safe sex : Gay & Black Glossary

Introduction

Basic Principles of Safe Sex

• The HIV virus lives in blood, semen, breast milk, precum, anal and vaginal secretions, but not saliva, nasal mucous, tears, urine or sweat. There is much more in blood and semen than in cervical and vaginal fluids.
• The HIV virus is quite weak. It cannot survive outside the body. It cannot penetrate intact skin. It needs to enter via a cut or via a mucous membrane such as in the anus, the tip of the penis, the vagina or the eye. It cannot penetrate an intact throat. It quickly dies in the acid of the stomach.
• Gingivitis can cause cuts in the mouth. Even vigorous brushing can cause microcuts that last a few hours by which HIV could potentially enter. I will put in a plug here for Sonicare electronic toothbrushes. They gently keep your teeth and gums squeaky clean and healthy.
• In oral sex, there is precum and semen, both of which can contain the HIV virus. By avoiding the semen by stopping short of ejaculation or by avoiding swallowing, you reduce risk further.
• With condoms, use water-based lubricants only, no oils, no Vaseline. Grip around the base of the penis when withdrawing after ejaculation to ensure no spillage or slipping off. Never reuse a condom. Don’t use old condoms or ones that have been exposed to heat, such as stored in a wallet for a year. Don’t lubricate the penis, other than perhaps a little on the tip, before putting the condom on otherwise it is too easy for it to slip off. Large size condoms are a lot easier to roll on if you have an unusually thick penis. The rolled condom is not very elastic, though the unrolled part is very stretchy. Experienced users have far fewer condom failures, both breaking and slipping off, than novices. Failure rates for individuals vary by factor of 10 depending on their sex practices.
• Don’t use condoms with spermicide (nonoxynol-9) for HIV prevention since the spermicide increases the risk of HIV infection by 50%.
• In the literature there are a few fluke cases of transmission by kissing where both parties had bleeding gums, but none for water sports, mutual masturbation, massage, or sharing cutlery.
• Diaphragms and female condoms are not as effective as traditional male condoms. It is too easy to spill the semen.
• Even though modern retroviral therapies can reduce the levels of HIV in the blood to undectable levels, it is still present in semen in about one third of men, even after six months of therapy.
• If either partner has an STD other than HIV, that increases the chances of HIV being passed by about 30%.
• Amyl Nitrate (poppers) doubles your chances of infection. The possible reasons include:
  • Greater risk of injury due to temporarily experiencing pain as pleasure.
  • Suppression of the immune system.
  • Careless behaviours while intoxicated.
  • Associated with extreme promiscuity.

HIV Risk Ranking

Assessing Risk

To put the risks in perspective, the probability of being killed in a single motor cycle trip is about 0.0038%. Unprotected sex is about a hundred times more dangerous.

The key thing to learn from the probabilities is you may get away with having unsafe sex a few times and not get infected, but that does not mean you will be safe if you keep doing it. Repetition pretty well guarantees infection.

The figures in the table presume something called mathematical independence. The odds of getting infected on your next encounter are independent of what happened on all the previous ones. It is the same principle that you still have 50:50 odds of hitting tails on your next throw no matter how long a string of heads you have thrown previously.

There’s another theory, called multiple insults, meaning that the risk of HIV infection could be cumulative. In short, the theory goes that the body can deal with some infection, but can eventually become overwhelmed and unable to fight off further infections. By that theory, the true figures for risk would be lower for single exposures than I have shown and higher for multiple exposures, especially within a short time period. In other words, if you keep tempting fate, you will almost certainly be nailed.

Also consider that I personally was infected with a single encounter of unsafe sex. The odds of that are only 0.3%, however, it was a glorious all nighter. Perhaps it counts as 10 encounters at 3%. You might be similarly unlucky.

My list concerns only the risk of HIV infection for the given action. Rimming for example is very risky for parasites or hepatitis even if relatively low risk for HIV. Fisting is high risk for physical injury.

With fisting there is fairly high risk the fistee will sustain a bleeding injury, but the fister is unlikely to sustain injury. However, I think fisting’s unsafe reputation is due mainly to the fact it often combined with bareback anal sex.

All the other lists I have seen don’t try to distinguish the danger to the active and passive partner. My list attempts to make those distinctions from first principles and anecdotal data. It is not backed by any scientific experiments. It would be very difficult to perform such experiments in an ethical way.

Instead of a handful of cases a year in the UK of HIV being transmitted through oral sex, they are seeing 30 to 50. This means oral sex is more risky than previously thought. Here are three possible explanations for this change:

1. People are now more informed about what constitutes risky behaviour and are now more likely to lie about their anal sex or other risky behaviours.
2. There is a new strain of HIV that passes more easily orally.
3. Other STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) such as gonorrhea are infecting the throat and making it more susceptible to HIV.

Abstinence

• Being unfortunate enough to be born to an HIV+ mother, though drugs will greatly help the odds of surviving birth without infection.
• If you are a hospital worker, you have a small risk from needle sticks, though other diseases besides HIV, particluarly hepatitis, are a bigger rist.
• You can be raped.
• If you are a rescue worker, you can get blood of accident victims into your own wounds.
• Before more care was taken with the donated blood supply, many hemophiliacs contracted HIV, most famously, a little boy, Ryan White.

Relying On Others

It is possible to be infected without it showing up on a test until up to six months later, so someone can honestly believe they are HIV- (Human Immuno-deficiency Virus Negative (virus free)) when they are not. It is both pointless and rude to ask your partner if he is clean. See the story of how I almost infected my lover Shannon because an HIV test did not immediately reveal my infection.

The majority of HIV+ people feel an obligation to refrain from unsafe safe sex with strangers, but a sizeable percentage believe it is up to each person individually to protect themselves. If someone is having unsafe sex with strangers, they must already be HIV+ or they plan to be soon.

The study on infection rates in young U.S. gays was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control at gay bars and other meeting places in several cities. They interviewed 5,719 men under age 30 then drew their blood. 573 of the men tested positive and 440 of them didn’t know they were positive. Most, in fact, thought they were negative and at low-risk for HIV infection. 91% of the blacks who were positive didn’t know it, 70%of the Latinos and 60% of the whites.

The bottom line is, you must presume all your partners are infected and act accordingly to protect yourself. I repeat: you must treat all partners as if they were HIV+. If you don’t, you will soon join their ranks. HIV+ people look just like everyone else. You can’t make exceptions. Even if your partner had sex with only one other person besides you since 1980, that other person could have slept with thousands.

The Canadian supreme court ruled it an aggravated assault to have sex with someone without revealing your HIV+ status or even if you only suspect you might be HIV+. However, revealing in casual encounters is extremely rare. It is just too embarassing and potentially dangerous to reveal the information to strangers who may react rudely or violently. It is wishful thinking to imagine others will protect you from AIDs. This law has the unfortunate effect of providing motivation for not getting tested. The other downside is it may create a false sense of security that you can trust others to warn you of any risk. In practice others will not reveal HIV+ status to avoid awkwardness or cannot reveal their status because they don’t know or don’t want to know themselves.

Pick A Level and Stick To It

Most people see it this way. If you have safe sex, your partner’s HIV status is none of your business. If you have unsafe sex, clearly you are already HIV+ or are working hard on attaining that status soon.

Most gays choose the safety level (8) optimistic of screwing with condoms or (14) standard oral sex only. That eliminates most of the risk. A few use condoms for oral sex (17) conservative. I know of only one person who contracted HIV by giving blow jobs. He had gonorrhea at the time which made his throat raw and susceptible to invasion. Married gays fooling around on the side might eliminate all forms of oral sex to completely eliminate risk (27) paranoid.

Because of HIV cocktails reducing infection rates (they often reduce the HIV levels in the blood to undetectably low levels) and reducing the death penalty for HIV infection and because unsafe sex is so much more pleasurable than safe sex, many gays are no longer bothering with any safer sex guidelines. They risk all at level (2) barebacking. A disturbing trend is the deliberate passing and receiving of HIV voluntarily and ritualistically called gifting. These people foolishly imagine there is something romantic, communal, daring or uninhibited about HIV. They imagine it will reduce their anxiety to finally have the Damocletian sword drop.

I picked up my own HIV infection with a single unsafe encounter (a delightful all-nighter in the summer of 1985 doing nearly everything at level (2) and below) with a well-hung, well-muscled black guy who looked healthy as a proverbial horse. It is not like baseball.It is one strike and you are out. There are no warnings, no second chances, no matter how much you beg. I never contracted any STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) before in my life. Click here for the details of my personal HIV story.

Getting Tested

• You have been having unprotected sex in the red zone above.
• You have what appears to be a sero-conversion illness — a bad flu with heavy sweats.
• You have persistent nausea, night sweats or weakness.

 HIV in 2008 is still a PITA (Pain In The Ass)

HIV is a PITA. Even though modern drugs can keep you alive, you have to eat handfuls of very expensive pills every day. They don’t work at all for a quarter of the people. They upset your stomach. Many make you throw up or give you nightmares. Some give you extreme diarrhoea. There is nothing more humiliating than soiling yourself in public. Some make your limbs go numb. Some make fat accumulate on your paunch and your arms and legs to turn into skinny little sticks. You are a literal leper in many eyes. There are people who will run from the room in terror on discovering they have drunk from a glass you washed. You never have quite the same energy you had formerly.

HIV drugs just keep you alive. They don’t let you live anything close to a normal life. They don’t even work at all for 25% of people. All those great plans you had for the rest of your life will likely never be.

You have to put up with these side effects or die.

To get a tiny foretaste of what life will be like after you get HIV, drink a glass of salt water 3 times a day and keep doing it for a week.

You are generally prey to all sorts of infections and parasites you would normally slough off. Even minor things like toenail fungus or yeast in your mouth can have a field day.

It completely cuts off the possibility of fatherhood, even through artificial insemination. Darwin would consider this the ultimate penalty.

You are never again completely well. You dare not travel least some infection lay you low. You don’t have the energy for any interesting life projects. Even when you feel ok, at a moments notice suddenly you are sick as a dog again. It is always something going wrong with your health. It is as bit like being prematurely elderly. Your life becomes a struggle just to stay alive. There is little energy left for all your grand life plans.

The final stages of AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) are not pretty. Your hair may fall out. You may have dementia and spill all your deepest secret thoughts to people who will recoil in horror. You may be covered in sores. You may look like a Auschwitz concentration camp inmate. You will be irritable and in pain and with endless nausea. There is the great fear you will be left to die alone somewhere because no one can stand to be with you. You may drag on and on and on, two weak to do anything to put yourself out of your own misery. Not only do you have to put up with your final days, you have to put up with the years of dread of your end.

Some people have been deliberately letting themselves be infected with HIV. They can’t stand the frustration of protected sex. They imagine life will be so fun and sexy with HIV. Hah! The pleasure of unprotected sex lasts but a moment, the pain of unprotected sex lasts your whole life long. I assure you, you don’t want it. Almost any degree of frustration is worth avoiding HIV.

If you must have unprotected sex, get it in a monogamous relationship.

Mathematical Notes

If s is the probability (a fraction between 0 and 1) of being infected in a single encounter, then the formula to calculate the probability p of being infected in n encounters is:

The safe sex literature tends to be very sloppy, saying thing like X brand condoms reduce risk by 97%. However, that is meaningless unless they specify over how many encounters. Reducing risk in one encounter by 97% is roughly the same as reducing risk in 1000 encounters by only 88%.

Compliance

There are several strains of HIV. The wild strain is especially virulent and easy to catch. Happily it is not immune to any of the HIV drugs. When you take drugs, the wild strain is brought under control, but it continues percolating along in the background. If you miss a dose, it flares up and starts reproducing like mad. It mutates rapidly. Eventually it will mutate into one of the strains resistant to one of your drugs. That strain will then take over from the wild one. These mutated drug-resistant strains are not as virulent. You are unlikely to get them from others or pass them to others. The way you get them is by missing doses. Eventually you develop strains immune to your entire cocktail. Your viral load sky rockets. You get very sick. Then you must find a new cocktail. Unfortunately, the strains will likely be cross-resistant to many other drugs since the drugs use similar mechanisms. The drugs are heavy duty. You may find you can hold down only a few of the candidates, especially in your weakened condition. If there are no drugs left that your strains are not immune to and that you can hold down, it is curtains.

I repeat. It is a matter of life and death never to miss a dose of your HIV medications.

You have to be especially careful when anything interrupts your normal routine, e.g. travel, Christmas or flu. It helps to use backups: alarm clocks and others to help remind you.

Safety Net

1. Friends & Family

   Friends and family are your best help for short term sickness. Even if you get behind in your MSP (Medical Services Plan) payments, you will still get medical treatment, even if you don’t apply for relief. You need to stay in touch. It is easy to get so sick that you are physically or psychologically unable to call for help. Avoid crying wolf. Dealing with you is much more emotionally wearing on others than you might imagine. They may have to abandon you if you become too demanding or taxing.

2. Federal Disability

   If that safety net fails, you can apply for a federal CPP (C++) (Canada Pension Plan) disability pension. This requires your doctor to fill out an enormous set of forms. Unfortunately, the cost of this is not covered by universal medical insurance. Some doctors may charge a fee of up to . The feds usually turn people down on their first application. This means, if you think you may need help in future, it might be wise to apply before you are absolutely desperate. On the other hand, the fact that you did survive without help would be evidence you don’t need help. Catch-22. The benefit is something in the order of per month.

3. Welfare

   If the CPP application fails, you can apply for welfare with the provincial government. This is for the generally indigent, not the disabled. Case workers tend to be disdainful of all their clients. They have workers whose entire job is to make sure no one on welfare earns extra cash picking up pop bottles and cans without reporting it so the income can be deducted from their welfare cheques — in a strange disincentive for the able-bodied to work and to promote litter. Oddly the government spend almost nothing detecting and prosecuting white collar frauds over . The benefit is something in the order of per month. How people live on this I don’t know. Even the tiniest crummiest apartment is per month. I guess they must share cramped space. If you are not too sick, you could travel to a food bank to get groceries.

4. Provincial Disability

   Only after you successfully get on welfare, can you then apply for a provincial disability pension. You may need the help of an AIDS advocacy group with your application. The federal pension is considered more reliable. At least in BC, the polictical and religious right don’t particularly like HIV people and like to make arbitrary changes to the benefit rules to discriminate against the HIV+ whenever they can get away with it. Cutting disability benefits and tightening disability criteria is politically popular with the right wing Campbell Liberals in power in BC. The benefit is something in the order of per month.

5. Top Up

   Only after you successfully got on a federal or provincial disability pension, can can you apply for a top up extra money no deal with your particular disability. Is common for HIV people to get a nutrition allowance for vitamin supplements and extra food (one advantage of HIV is you lose weight eating normal quantities of food because your digestive tract does not function efficiently.) You would be mad though to catch HIV deliberately as a dieting techique.

6. Meals On Wheels

   If you get too sick to cook for yourself, you can ask for help from private charities such as Meals On Wheels to bring you complete meals that need only to be heated in a microwave.

7. Assisted Living

   When you get to the stage you need someone to feed and bathe you, custom plans come into play. Home care workers come at ever increasing frequency. You may go live in an assisted living group home. You may go to a hospice or hospital to die. Euthanasia is technically illegal in Canada, but is available if you don’t wait until the last minute to arrange it. Be discreet, or no one will tell you anything. It is still technically considered murder.

HIV virus copyright Russell Kightley

HIV virus copyright Russell Kightley

The Politics of AIDS

Techniques used include: zilch in aid, interfering with condom education and suing to block production of cheap AIDS drugs.

However, the malfeasance goes deeper than that. Vaccines were contaminated with HIV and used throughought Africa.

I find it amusing that people who enjoy condemning those with HIV as wicked, irresponsible or even suicidal have had unprotected sex themselves hundreds if not thousands of times. All it takes is once, possibly with a spouse. Many women contracted it through rape. Most children contracted it as a side effect of being born to an HIV+ mother.

The HIV virus depicted to the right is not smart enough to evaluate the moral worthiness according to Catholic church doctrine in selecting its victims and precisely which genders or what is involved in the sex act it is exploiting. It has no eyes, ears or other sense organs. It is as mindless as a burr.

The Solution

Books

Book referral for Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola: Nature, Accident or Intentional?

	recommend book⇒Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola: Nature, Accident or Intentional?
	by	Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., W. John Martin	978-0-923550-12-7	hardcover
	birth	1952-06-20 age:65
	publisher	Tetrahedron
	published	1996-04
Horowitz (public health author) presents thoroughly researched information in his exploration into the origins of the HIV and Ebola viruses. His bias toward the theory that HIV was introduced into the general population by vaccine experiments conducted in New York City and Africa, is apparent. He generalizes from this thesis that the AIDS epidemic may have been deliberately deployed as a genocide tactic as part of the CIA foreign policy activity in Central Africa.
Online bookstores carrying Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola: Nature, Accident or Intentional? abe books anz abe books.ca abe books.de amazon.ca amazon.de Chapters Indigo amazon.es Chapters Indigo eBooks iberlibro.com abe books.com abe books.fr amazon.com amazon.fr Barnes & Noble abe books.it Nook at Barnes & Noble amazon.it Kobo junglee.com Google play abe books.co.uk O’Reilly Safari amazon.co.uk Powells other stores
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.

Book referral for State Origin: The Evidence of the Laboratory Birth of AIDS

	recommend book⇒State Origin: The Evidence of the Laboratory Birth of AIDS
	by	Boyd Graves	978-0-9707735-1-7	paperback
	publisher	Zygote
	published	2001-06-01
BoydGraves.blogspot.ca. The creation, production and proliferation of AIDS is the ultimate assault on a social fabric woven in democracy. Here, Boyd Ed Graves shares some of the court documents and correspondence in response to the world’s most deadly ethnic cleansing experiment. His 1999 Flow Chart discovery has been authenticated by medical and scientific doctors around the world. The critical insights now being unlocked by the thirty year old secret U.S. AIDS Flow Chart, have firmly established the genocide blue print as the greatest document find of the century. The shocking conclusions of Dr. Graves’ research has resulted in the landmark case seeking Global AIDS Apology. Boyd E. Graves vs. The President of the United States, et al. United States Supreme Court Case No. 00-9587.
Online bookstores carrying State Origin: The Evidence of the Laboratory Birth of AIDS abe books anz abe books.ca abe books.de amazon.ca amazon.de Chapters Indigo amazon.es Chapters Indigo eBooks iberlibro.com abe books.com abe books.fr amazon.com amazon.fr Barnes & Noble abe books.it Nook at Barnes & Noble amazon.it Kobo junglee.com Google play abe books.co.uk O’Reilly Safari amazon.co.uk Powells other stores
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.

The Poster

The top man is thinking He just let me come inside him. He must be HIV+.

The bottom man is thinking He just came inside of me. He must be HIV-.

Links

• Estimating condom failure rates. Although contraceptive research indicates that condoms are 87% effective in preventing pregnancy, results of HIV transmission studies indicate that condoms may reduce risk of HIV infection by approximately 69% for vaginal intercourse. 7.3% of condoms reportedly broke during application or use and 4.4% slipped off. Men having sex with men reported slightly higher slippage rates than those having sex with women.
• Gay Glossary, definitions of terms in this document that may be unfamiliar to you.
• Maps showing the spread of AIDS in Africa over the years.
• UN AIDS statistics 2007.
• US Census Bureau on the effects of HIV on world population.