http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031015/hl_nm/pope_aids_dc_1

Given what went on in Boston, hopefully he passes good information to some of his Priests and Alterboys (with due respect to the underage girls that were also abused).

...but I didn't realize the Vatican was an authority.  I'd prefer to place my trust in the findings from other sources while knowing that nothing is absolutely safe unless it's celebacy.

I'd rather take advice from a monkey!!!!

WHO says that condoms protect against HIV.

The Cardinal says that condoms do not give perfect protection.

This is not a contradiction.

It is estimated that about 1% of the U.S. adult population is infected with HIV. The infectivity of HIV varies widely over the course of the disease but 1 chance in 500 seems to be the commonly accepted number for the average chance of becoming infected from a single act of insertive vaginal intercourse with a HIV positive person if a condom is not used (assuming no cofactors such as other STDs are present to increase the risk).

WHO says that using a condom reduces this risk tenfold (90% reduction in risk). From a public health standpoint this is very important. A tenfold reduction in risk significantly reduces the rate of spreading of the disease. Note that unless (on average) every infected person infects at least one new person the disease dies out of the population. Condoms can make the difference between eliminating (or nearly eliminating) the disease (insofar as sexual transmission is concerned) and having a rapid increase in the fraction of the population that is infected.

In San Francisco at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic (when nobody knew what they were dealing with) the number of infected persons was doubling each year. That means that (on average) each infected person was infecting one new person each year. (Considering the number of partners and frequency of sex in the gay community at the time, that is an amazingly low rate and testifies to the low infectivity of HIV.) Even with no other changes in behavior, condoms would be expected to reduce the infection rate by a factor of ten (each infected person infecting one new person in ten years not one year). That in turn means that there would be a good chance that an infected person would not pass the disease on to anyone else.

Sex without a condom is like playing Russian Roulette for the individual. Sex with a condom is also just like playing Russian Roulette (although the odds are ten times better when using a condom). The Cardinal is right on that point. Condoms do not prevent infection for the individual. They just increase the mean time to infection by a factor of about ten.

The Cardinal argues that the game is not worth the risk, but that is his personal interpretation. I think most on this board would argue that the game is worth the risk (with a condom but not without).


-- Modified on 10/16/2003 2:02:10 AM

Why are people always trying to create controversy where there is none? The only 100% sure prevention of HIV transmission, and pregnancy for that matter is abstinence. The Cardinal has his facts right. The choices we make based on those facts are up to the individual.

Will the real notsafe please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

There have been more posts on here about "health" related issues than any single other subject by far.  While safety is a big factor in this area of activity, we are adults here, and if one of the two parties involved in the transaction isn't playing safe, in this arena, it is pretty likely that the other will be.  

Truly, if there are any more "health" related posts out there, could whoever feels inclined to post them just do it FREAKING RIGHT NOW and get it over with, just post them all in one day, so we can go back to talking about enjoying the hobby like adults, instead of people putting little "anti sex" threads out there?  

One of three things is happening: 1), the threads are from clients or potential clients, in which case they should either adjust their routine (always use a condom) or freakin' get out of the kitchen if they are that worried, 2) the threads are from providers, in which case they should just state that they would prefer that their customers do this or do that, and stop putting out statistics that just bring everyone here down (I mean, really...any adult knows there are risks), or 3), some of the posts are from LE or people trying to screw with our good DB, and if that is the case, then take the mind games somewhere else.  We all know what we are doing, and if we wanted to think about the risks of being here, we wouldn't be here in the first place, whether provider or client.

'Nuff said.

The guy wants to know where he can find a provider offering BBFS! Ay!

I am encouraged to see some in the church distancing themselves from this guy.  I guess some people just enjoy using their position to scare people into doing what they want.  Just because you resent other guys for being able to have sex with women and not choirboys doesn't give you the right to protest condoms.  Religious wierdos are always trying to mess with people.  Hey padre, how about leaving science to the scientists?
cheers,
cy

Hi Mathesar,

You have written a thoughtful post.  Thanks.  

My interpretation of the situation WRT me and most of the people in this community is even more optimistic.  The rates quoted by WHO include uneducated people, very young people, and gays (I don't have the original study) -- people who either don't have the education to understand how to use condoms effectively or who have sex MUCH more frequently than most hobbists and who often don't have the good sense that providers have about their own health.

I will be careful to make sure protection is effective and used correctly when I have sex.  I expect you will do the same.  I also expect that the ladies I see care a lot about their own health and follow the same guidelines.  

I'm still no fan of the Cardnal and expect that he has an agenda that isn't really about people's health.

I hope that in the future posts about these issues are providing information about how to be as safe as possible.  We get into fruitless rounds of arguments about semantics, and avoid talking about the practicalities that would provide people here the maximum benefit.    It's almost like we were involved in auto racing,  and all our posts about safety were about the dangers of speed.

Thanks again...Harry

-- Modified on 10/16/2003 6:16:55 AM

Sorry, that's not how statistics work.   Statistics is what I do.   This is the same classic misinterpretation on which most casinos and lotteries bank (pun intended), that somehow because a coin has come up heads 5 times in a row or the number 30 on a roulette table [or that a disease has not been transmitted after 100 sex acts], it [you] are due.  Sorry.  Wrong.  The chance of something happening is the same each time, every time.  

This is true even for games like craps where the odds for various results are not linear. Even though the odds of getting a 7 are greater than other numbers (because of something called the Center Limit Theorem) just because you didn't roll a 7 last time or didn't roll a 2 last time doesn't mean you automatically won't/will next time.  

A person could live to 98 while smoking 3 packs a day and drinking a fifth of bourbon every 3 days.  My Grandfather did.  A person could never smoke a day in their lives and die of cancer.  My best friend did.

What upsets me is when I see poorly interpreted statistics or intentionally misrepresented statistics (the more likely scenario here) used to cow/intimidate people.    That's what I see happening here.  The intent of the article seemed to pretty clearly to be that if you do this thing, you WILL get a horrible disease and die.  That it  is somehow inevitable.  

I also agree with harrylime that the statistics quoted by the cardinal are skewed and untrustworthy.  

Statistics lesson number 2: Never believe any statistic if you don't know howthey were collected  and analyzed or what the data sources were.

"...we all know what we are doing, and if we wanted to think about the risks of being here, we wouldn't be here in the first place, whether provider or client. 'Nuff said."

Well I guess you could have just as easily said that we should all adhere to the philosophy of the three monkeys--"speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil"  The evil in this case being health-related issues.

The vision I saw from reading your post was the next time I see an escort bent over with her head in the sand, I will adjust my blindfold and then nail her from behind (covered of course.)

Maybe if we don't say or see anything about STD's, they won't see and find us either.

Let us consider the case where the possible outcomes of an experiment can be classified into 2 categories "success" and "failure". Let p be the probabilitiy of success, and q the probability of failure. Now q = 1 - p. Let the experiment be repeated n times, when n is some fixed integer. If x is the number of successes, then x is a discrete random variable having the range x = 0, 1, 2, ..., n. The distribution of such a random variable is known as a BINOMIAL or BERNOULLI distribution.

Without copying the entire derivation from my college text, I will state that the probability of x successes and n - x failures (mu), where the outcomes are obviously independent as in tossing a coin, is mu = n * p.

The mean time to success is defined as the n that makes mu equal to one and in the case of a coin toss is 2. (Probability of no heads is 0.25, the probability of one head is 0.5, and the probability of two heads is 0.25.) The average number of heads in two tosses of the coin is one.

I quote from the article "The Role of Disease-Specific Infectivity and Number of Disease Exposures on Long-Term Effectivenuess of the Latex Condom" by Mann et al. in the June 2002 issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

----------

Calculating Infection Risk

The probability (q) that a nonuser of condoms will remain uninfected after n episodes of sexual intercourse with an infected partner can be calculated as

         q = (1 - inf) ^ n

where [^ is the power (exponentiation) operator and] inf represents the per-episode infectivity of the disease in question (that is, the likelihood of becoming infected during a single act of sexual intercourse with an infected person). This is the familiar Bernoulli process that has been used to model HIV infection risk and condom effectiveness for HIV prevention.

-------

Here is a link to the entire article: http://theeroticreview.com/msgBoard/viewmsg.asp?MessageID=26860&boardID=12&page=108

Also, see the link below.


-- Modified on 10/16/2003 6:35:27 PM

I am using the term "mean time to infection" in way closely related to the term "expected value of a bet".

I agree that history does not enter into it. The "mean time to infection" is the same if you have never had sex or if you have had sex thousands of times without becoming infected. We agree on that point.

This is another way (besides the possibility of dying) that sex resembles Russian Roulette. The odds are the same on each spin regardless of how many (or how few) times you have played and won.

Using the estimate of 0.002 as the probability of infection for a single act of insertive vaginal intercourse with a person infected with HIV if not using a condom, the mean time to infection is 500 acts. In the following table "Acts" is the number of acts and "p" is the probability of being infected.

Acts   p
----   -----
100    0.181
200    0.330
300    0.452
400    0.551
500    0.632

Note that no matter how times you have had sex with the infected person without becoming infected that the probability of NOT becoming infected in the next 100 acts is 81.9%.


-- Modified on 10/17/2003 12:36:43 AM

I don't think almost anyone on this board, provider or client, wants to stick their head in the sand regarding safety.  If they did, everyone would be bareback everything.

I am just saying that there has been enough of this subject on the boards of late, and that all the angles have pretty much been covered (no pun intended), so it would be nice if people gave it a rest for a while.  Compare it to discussion board for SUV owners, and someone posts something numerous times about wasting gas and foreign dependence on oil. Valid points, yes...however, people have already made their choice to buy the SUV, knowing the issues as much as they care to know them.  The guys on here know the issues and the risks, and while if something truly new is introduced here it is welcome, repeated threads about this subject become tedious after a while.  We are here to enjoy the hobby, not to fret over information most already have a position on if they are here in the first place.  Albeit, that may not include some newbies, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a rest for a while.  It is like reading the paper...after reading bad news so often, you lose interest in reading at all.

BTW, I dropped my alias just for my original post, so please do yourself if you respond to this.

I also now a whole lot about statistics:  what they mean and how to apply them.  

Your incidents (sex acts) aren't independent -- this means conclusions from your statistics are incorrect.  Your analyses are only correct if  people have sex more or less randomly.  

That doesn't happen.  Most escorts don't have sex with everyone they talk to.  Many of the people on this board don't perform every sexual act with a new person every time.  No independance, no Bernoulli Theorem, no simple conclusions.  Further, you can't appeal to some overarching theorem to make the dependence problem go away.  If almost all of your sex is with one woman, then you would expect that your risk is different than if you have sex with many different women.  Sadly, without more information, you cannot conclude which alternative is risker (since it depends on the behavior of the women involved).  

When it all comes down to it, we can be pretty sure of several things from the evidence.

1)  some of the things we do in our "hobby" / "game" / whatever are not
    completely safe.
2)  medicine and very careful statistics indicate there are ways to make
    some of those unsafe things safer (good condoms for sex), (condoms
    or careful hygene for oral sex)  I, for one, would love to know more
    about how to make DATY safer for myself (I am not going to stop doing it).
    No, I do not want to cover the wonderful area with some barrier.  
    Additionally, I would be interested if it is fairly safe allready.  (one way to
    look at it would be to check out the levels of STDs among exclusively gay
    women).
3)  we should know something about the people we see.  More selective
    people "probably" reduce the risk.  It is not a guarantee.  (Read the
    Reviews).

If I end up with a problem, it will be from my behavior, not population behavior.  I think the best thing we can do for each other, is to study how to do what we want to in life as safely as possible.  We all agree on that...Harry

I agree with everything in HL and M's responces.

I think we can put this thread to bed as I'm sure that everyone besides HL, M and I are bored to tears with all the math.

I enjoy playing with numbers (almost, but not quite, as much as playing with the ladies) and sometimes get carried away and vest them with a significance that they don't really possess.

Sorry.

Although I do think that population behavior affects your safety in that it affects the prevalence of HIV infection in the population and you have no sure way of detecting who is infected and who isn't (they may not even know themselves) when you and they have multiple partners (although regular testing on everyone's part obviously helps -- an example of population behaviour affecting individual safety).

Mathesar


-- Modified on 10/17/2003 1:06:18 PM

I agree with your observation about population behavior.  It's sort of an "a rsing tide floats all boats" observation.  However, even there, there are problems since changing the level of infection will affect  the behavior in the population.

You cannot quantify this by saying that the actual risk is 1 in 500 ... Unless there has been some new wonderful study to show this, there are so many other factors that go into condom use that I believe it's frankly impossible to ever give someone a 1 in x00 type of statement about their useage.

Please do not make statements like this without a link to a CDC or similar organizations article to back it up... so many people do believe things they read on a message board, unfortunately.

If I'm wrong, I'll gladly say so, but after all the research I've done I've NEVER seen anyone say "your risks with consistent condom use are about 1 in 500."

Best,
Tamara

That your numbers are NOT taking into account.

Are we talking about condom usage between a suburbanite gentleman and an intelligent woman who live in middle class neighborhoods?

Are we talking condom useage between a crackhead in a ghetto and some guy who happens to walk by who might've been shooting up heroin the night before?

There are so many BAZILLION factors that go into what level of risk you are dealing with... which is why the CDC will never say your risk if you engage in oral sex is X, or vaginal sex Y, or anal sex Z. It will never happen and can never happen.

Sincerely,
Tamara

and not using a condom.

The only experimental study of which I am aware was done in Haiti by NIAID using couples where initially one partner was infected with HIV. The report ( http://www.niaid.nih.gov/newsroom/releases/haitihiv.htm ) states "The investigators observed a seroconversion rate of 1.0 per 100 person years for couples who always used a condom, and 6.8 per 100 person years for couples who used condoms irregularly or not at all."

The rate of 6.8 per 100 person years is lower than I would have expected from the estimate of a 1 in 500 chance each time you have sex with an infected person. Unfortunately, the report does not give any information about frequency of intercourse. Either the probability is less than 1 chance in 500 each time you have sex with an infected person or these couples were having sex only about 35 times a year.

Your caveats are related to estimating the probability of infection in a partner of unknown HIV status. Basically, you are saying that the best way to reduce your risk of HIV infection is to be fussy in your choice of sexual partners. I couldn't agree more.

As to your second point about why the CDC will never estimate the risks of various sex acts, you are just plain wrong. They have made such estimates. ("Reducing the Risk of Sexual HIV Transmission", Varghese et al, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, January, 2002) See link.

-- Modified on 10/20/2003 4:11:28 PM