This is exactly what I wanted and I greatly appreciate your taking the time to respond in detail.
Incidentally, I have had my Hep A and B shots from AIM and I strongly agree that everyone having multiple partners should get them.
-- Modified on 11/1/2005 2:32:10 PM
I could not respond until now. Since the thread is off the first page and I (naturally) feel that my response is important, I am posting a link to it here for anyone who might be interested.
Reducing the Risk of Sexual HIV Transmission," Varghese et al, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, January 2002 - is there a more current source of information? Who represented the control group?
Furthermore, did you actually read the study itself, or just Cecil Adam's the Straight Dope? Cecil Adams isn't an epidemiologist or virologist, and I don't see where or how you extrapolated the numbers you came up with. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like this is your own subjective and anecdotal interpretation of a secondary source.
Also, where are your statistics for gonorrhea (700,000 known infections per year, probably half the number), genital herpes (at least 45 million infected), chlamydia (an estimated An estimated 2.8 million infected each year), syphilis (rates of infection rising considerably amongst gay men), et cetera?
See the Related Link in the Related Link below.
No, I have access to a research library that has a subscription to Sexually Transmitted Diseases but the copies don't go back as far as the issue that Cecil referenced. I haven't checked with a research librarian to see if I could access the issue online. (A paid subscription is necessary to get more than the abstract online.)
I plead guilty to using a secondary source. I haven't done the comparison myself, but I do trust Cecil Adam's summary. It doesn't seem out of line with other things that I have read. In any case, it may be a moot issue because the more recent UCSF report is available to everyone online.
I did not do any extrapolation of the numbers presented by Cecil. I did take reciprocals of some of the numbers to make calculation easier. I don't believe that changes any of the conclusions and do not feel that what I presented is a "subjective and anecdotal interpretation."
I am sorry if I did not make it clear that I was dealing strictly with HIV. I am not an MD and there is a lot of good information about these STDs online. I don't feel that I have anything to add to what may be found there.
-- Modified on 11/1/2005 5:35:16 PM
that the numbers you used from the cdc were not appropriate for the provider and hobby community (were the risk is much higher). Did you respond to that point? It's hard to tell because your postings make me dizzy. (:
I thought I had already dealt with the question. (See related link.)
I don't know about you but I am blown away by the fact that Nevada has required testing of all legal prostitutes in the state for HIV once a month for 20 years and none has ever tested positive. (I made a mistake on my calculator. That is about 2,190,000 prostitute-days and not the 2.6 million I said.) Some ladies have applied for work at the bordellos and been rejected because of being HIV positive, but none has ever become HIV positive while working. I know (from talking with ladies in the bordellos in the 1970s and 1980s) that the bordellos are extremely stringent about drugs. Remove the drug factor and sexually transmitted HIV from the clients is about all that is left. The clients are not tested and even with condoms there should be a few transmissions a year unless HIV infection rates in the hobbying population are much lower than the general population. There is a mystery here.
What I would like to know is, what is the average number of clients that a lady working in a bordello sees each day? Perhaps someone has some statistics.
If nobody has any statistics perhaps Summer could give us an estimate. I believe that she has worked at the Chicken Ranch and must have some feel for the number. (Total clients per day and total number of ladies working at the ranch would be even better.)
Incidentally, multiple partners is bad from the public health standpoint because it tends to spread infections. However, from the standpoint of personal safety NOTHING is more dangerous than a single partner who is HIV positive. High risk for the individual does not equate with having many partners.
Also, and I've given these numbers before (with links to the studies, which I will not repeat) an individual with a HIV positive partner stands about a 7% chance of becoming HIV positive in the first year if condoms are not used and a 1% chance if condoms are used. (A person with a HIV positive partner stands a 50% chance of becoming infected in 9.6 years if condoms are not used with the corresponding number being 69.0 years if condoms are used. This number corresponds to the concept of "half-life" in physics. Double the time and the probability becomes 75%. Triple the time and the probability becomes 87.5%.)
-- Modified on 10/31/2005 6:37:21 PM
"I know (from talking with ladies in the bordellos in the 1970s and 1980s) that the bordellos are extremely stringent about drugs. Remove the drug factor and sexually transmitted HIV from the clients is about all that is left."
---- How about Hepatitis C, chlamidia, gonorrhea, warts, herpes, and more?
"The clients are not tested"
---- Hello!!! Exactly....
Do the numbers, Math, and see these are radically different populations from the average male/ female who has sex with 7-9 people in his/ her entire lifespan.
out-of-date, and anecdotal. I would consider Summer's to be pretty definitive and am grateful she took the time and effort to share her first hand knowledge with the rest of us.
I am not an MD, but I will make a couple of comments on your list of STDs. Hepatitis C is not considered to be a STD (although I gather there is risk of contracting it from some of the things you see on porn DVDs). I think that everyone who is sexually active with multiple partners should be vacinated for Hepatitis A & B (I am). Condoms are excellent for reducing the number of infections you can expect to get from gonorrhea. Gonorrhea is very infectious and oral transmission is a major problem so condoms should be used for oral sex (such use by escorts in Los Angeles is rare) as well as vaginal sex if you are concerned that your partner has gonorrhea. I think (and I repeat that I'm not an MD) that warts and herpes are more of a skin-to-skin issue than a body fluid issue and that condoms aren't much help in preventing transmission. (A HazMat suit http://www.xs4all.nl/~zappy/hazmat1.html would probably be good, however.)
I think a testing program for clients would be an excellent idea. TER once tried to arrange such a thing with AIM but it fell through. Nobody has told me what the problem was. I suspect it has to do with the fact that this hobby isn't legal (and porn, of course, is legal).
Do you have a source for the assertion that the population visiting escorts (not the population visiting streetwalkers) is greatly different from the average male/female? The guys I have met in this hobby (accountants, architects, lawyers) haven't exactly struck me as wild and crazy guys. And some of the nicest, most health concious women I have every met have been providers.
-- Modified on 11/1/2005 7:26:42 PM
If you have sex with an infected partner 500 times a year, your chance of getting infected is much, much higher than if you have sex with 500 different partners one time each with two being infected.
It's apparent that at least as far as sexual transmission is concerned, the spread of this disease looks controllable.
There is a puzzle to all of this, though. How could the overall chance of sexual infection be so low and still cause an epidemic? I brought this up before, that it is more sexually transmitable at the beginning of the infection. And there are ways of making it more transmitable (dry sex, unprotected anal, herpes sores).
Still, when you break it down, the chances do look terribly low, even with an infected partner.
The most devastating thing about HIV might be its very long-term effects on humankind. I don't know if we'll ever be rid of it, and as a retrovirus, it damages the DNA. It does effect the long term evolution of the human species.
a newly infected male. Unfortunately, the porn industry learned this in early 2004. (All the women who were infected did double anal with Darren James.)
The big puzzle, to me at least, is why Africa seems to be so different from the United States (and the rest of the first world). In the first world HIV has never really broken out to become an epidemic among hetrosexuals who do not do drugs.
Sharing IV needles is perhaps the most important way the disease spreads in the first world.
In the early days of AIDS when nobody knew what they were facing the number of cases in San Francisco was doubling each year. Think about that for a moment. Young gay men were not using any protection--they didn't know they needed any. They were sexually active at a level that most of us hetrosexual males can only dream about. They were doing anal sex, which next to double anal is the most dangerous sexual act you can perform. Given all this, each infected person only managed (on average) to infect one other person per year!
In Africa the disease seems to be hetrosexual. I have read a number of studies and there doesn't seem to be any clear reason for the difference. Perhaps the practice of female circumcision and the lack of male circumcision account for part of it.
An article published in Discover said that in Africa multiple sexual partners are very common. The newly infected individual is more highly infectious than they will be later and can spread the disease to several partners, who spread it on to several others. In the United States serial monogamy is more common limiting the spread of the disease during the highly infectious phase.
Think of a chain reaction in U235. If the number of new neutrons produced by each fission is less than one the reaction dies out rapidly. If the number is somewhere around two you get a large mushroom cloud. A relatively small difference in the number of neutrons produced by each fission produces a very large difference in final outcome.
I understand something similar happens in the spread of diseases. A relative small difference in the number of people infected by each infected person can be the difference between the disease dying out and becoming an epidemic.
Still there is a mystery and I have yet to see a good clear definitive explanation.
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-- Modified on 11/1/2005 6:35:59 AM
with a strap-on scares me. I've not experimented with the S&M scene. In general I don't find pain to be erotic. And no major fetishes have surfaced. However, I couldn't tear my eyes away from "The Fashionistas" (See link) so who knows what is buried away.
I do Greek occasionally and only covered. But I ask myself, what if the condom broke?
insertive vaginal. They consider receptive anal to be about 5 times as dangerous as receptive vaginal.
If the condom breaks (or slips) your risk increases by a factor of 7 (some researchers say by a factor of 20).
Of course, the increase in risk is only relevant if your partner is infected with HIV. If your partner has a negative HIV test done within the previous 30 days the risk should be very close to zero.
But I've read an article in the paper not too long ago that stated that males in Africa engage in homosexual practices a lot more than they admit, and hence the epidemic there. Don't know if it's true or not, but something to consider.
1. Girls are tested either once per month for aids or every time that they leave the brothel and return for the Southern Nevada counties.
2. You're correct in that no one has ever tested positive for aids except for a few cases where the girl came in to work and was found to have aids before ever starting to work. I saw this only 1 time in all of my yrs and she was a street girl and iv drug user.
.....I've seen only twice where a girl that was working left and came back and tested positive for gonorea or clamidia (girls are tested coming in and going out...so the problem generally lies in the boyfriend being of more danger than the client)
3. to average the number of girls and how many partners that they see in a day isn't easy to do because it varies not only from girl to girl but from house to house. I would say that the average is about the same that I find in the indy market and that would be @2 per day and 3 at the most (probably more like 2). If you take high volume and low volume girls into account....That was my average taking in the yrs that I spent with high volume building clients and the yrs that I spent seeing just regulars at very low volume.
The risk of HIV or any other disease is going to be so extremely low in brothels due to a few factors:
There is no contact with bodily fluids in any way. Some girls will kiss some guys but the general rule is NO. There is no BBJ. There is very little to no DATY without protection. This sounds like no fun.....but, you would be surprised .
Also, guys are checked physically prior to the money being booked. A lot of times things like warts, herpes, and any bad discharge are found there.......I find that people who are a danger sexually and that have one disease will also show signs of some others.......So it may be that some of these lessor problems sort out the bigger ones (not to imply that because someone has warts, herpes, or gonorea have HIV......but, to say that people with HIV probably also have some of these other lessor diseases).
If you go to the chicken ranch website and email Debbie the manager she will be most helpful in answering any of your questions. The Chicken Ranch keeps records of the statistics done by the state of Nevada and are happy to share them with anyone that would be interested.
PS. There is a great deal of talk about Aids here but the things that scare me more because they are so common are things like warts (which are cancer for women and can create problems not only for you health wise but wreck havic on your health insurance), herpes, and Hep A,B,C. Hep C never goes away and it can kill you....if you have not had your shots......Get THEM!
Hope that information helps,
X's Summer
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-- Modified on 11/1/2005 11:09:00 AM
-- Modified on 11/1/2005 11:11:13 AM
This is exactly what I wanted and I greatly appreciate your taking the time to respond in detail.
Incidentally, I have had my Hep A and B shots from AIM and I strongly agree that everyone having multiple partners should get them.
-- Modified on 11/1/2005 2:32:10 PM
BBBJ and DATY are much more common in Carson City, my quick theory would be it's more of a local, repeat clientele in CC as opposed to a tourist, one shot clientele in Pahrump (although you modify your comment re BBBJ and DATY from never to rare, I'd agree with that).
HIV and Hep C are the lifetime achievement awards of high risk behaviour. You have to work really, really hard to acquire these microbes. Doing hard drugs with dirty needles is in most cases a necessary part of the equation. These people generally will have caught most of the more common venereal viruses and bacteria beforehand.
A vaccine for HPV-17 and -19 should come to market next year. These has been some recent discussion in the scientific community whether HPV actually causes cervical cancer. One recent article I read stated that at least 75% of the world's population carries the virus.
Good post....