question for Buzsaw (re: the 'Traditional Values Coalition')

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This message you are responding to is my reply to holmes regarding Hustler and Afghanistan.

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Are you confused?

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I was not as confused as I was mistaken. My apologies. What got me off here was your opening statement in 41 in which you were considering the one addressed to as a fundamentalist, and I thought that had to be referrng to me and certainly not Holmes.Then without checking the bottom message reference I was assuming the rest was for me.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 11-07-2003]

Thank you. I did have a couple of other questions there too though. You did answer the black death one.It seems you blame diseases (all of them?) on devine intervention then?

Dan Carroll responds to me:

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That's not what he asked.

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Only in the most naive sense.There was an unstated assumption in his statement which I was addressing: Sex requires the exchange of body fluids.If we start with that particular assumption, then yes...restricting the number of people you exchange body fluids with will reduce the likelihood of contracting HIV.But if we don't start with that assumption but rather with the assumption that we are only dealing with sex that doesn't result in the exchange of body fluids, then having sex with only one person will not reduce the spread of HIV. In this scenario, having sex with one person and having sex with every single person is irrelevant.buzsaw's argument is predicated on the idea that somehow the presence of HIV is affected by the number of people involved in the sex.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

buzsaw responds to me:

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HIV is transmitted primarily via heterosexual sex. Three-quarters of all cases of HIV transmission were from heterosexual sex. Are you seriously claiming that god finds heterosexuality unacceptable and thus has sent a fatal disease to spread primarily among those practicing the deviancy of being straight?

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I repeat, it originated primarily within the gay community.

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You can repeat it all you want, but that doesn't make it any more true.HIV originated primarily in the heterosexual community and it has always remained primarily in the heterosexual community.HIV is a variant of SIV. It jumped species due to the custom of eating chimpanzees. It spread through the human population via heterosexual sex.

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These diseases when pampered and tolerated by a culture which comes to accept it naturally eventually becomes uncontrollably infected such as is the case in parts of Africa wherein it is now finally becomming transmitted primarily among heters.

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Incorrect.In Africa, HIV has never, ever been transmitted primarily via gay men.It has always been trasmitted primarily via heterosexual sex.

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In less permiscuous cultures HIV is not a serious problem among heters.

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Incorrect.In all areas of the world except for the West, which has a tiny fraction of the cases, HIV has always been most common among heterosexuals.Worldwide, less than 10% of cases of HIV transmission are among gays.Worldwide, three-quarters of all cases of HIV transmission were through heterosexual sex.Now if you will indulge me, buzsaw, could you please divulge the source of your information that says that HIV in Africa originated in the gay community?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

buzsaw writes:

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bottom line, permiscuous and deviant sex is where the buck stops with these awful diseases.

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But I could have deviant sex with every single person in the world and not risk catching a cold let alone HIV.I simply have to do it right.What does promiscuity and "deviant" sex have to do with disease?

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I ainta gona sit here addressing all these excuses for devient practices which trigger factors present in the human body designed to check them.

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So you're saying that anal sex causes HIV? That there is something about the friction of a penis in a rectum that actually creates virus? How does this happen? Does the heat generated from the friction cause a chemical reaction that converts the epithelial cells into virus particles?

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Then maybe government can cut the funds extracted from me and you to be on par per capita with other diseases.

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I already explained to you why more money is spent on HIV than other diseases. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with reality.HIV is a new, communicable disease caused by an infectious agent.Cancer is an old, non-communicable disease caused by genetic and environmental mutations.What makes you think that these two things are similar?HIV could take us out as a species. We are already seeing this in some communities in Africa. The prevalence of HIV is so high that the children have nobody to take care of them, the parents having died from AIDS.Cancer can't do that.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Rrhain, why don't you divulge the source of your info. As I stated it begins with gay sex in society and spreads from there. That was certainly the case in the West. In places like Africa how did it get from chimpanzes to humans and from the first humans infected to the population?Your allegations of the transmission originating and higher incidence of transmission via heters is bogus. Certainly, as I've already stated, heters are by far the majority so naturally there's going to eventually be more transmission via the majority of the population. My position has always been that a FAR GREATER PERCENTAGE OF GAYS PER CAPITA ARE INFECTED BY AIDS THAN HETERS. This is especially true in the West.

Eating the meat of primates. He's told you this like three times.

He's already told you these answers, buz: HIV jumped to humans, probably in the 1930's or so, from people butchering chimpanzees infected with SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus). The virus mutated to better infect humans. The hunters/butchers went home and had straight sex with their wives, and maybe with some other guys' wives. They got infected, and spread it to different men. The medical community didn't notice, because these people were the poorest of the poor, living on the edge of the jungle.AIDS apparently came to the USA in the semen of a gay airline steward - "Patient Zero" - who was very promiscous, and spread the virus to the gay community on his stopovers. He presumably contracted it through gay sex somewhere in West Africa.Try thebody.com for documentation.
Better: Page Not Found - AEGIS Security & Investigations[This message has been edited by Coragyps, 11-08-2003]

Quite frankly, Rrhain, that's an absurd dodge. For three reasons:Firstly, it avoids the question I asked.Secondly, our best contraceptives aren't fool-proof. Using condoms will radically reduce the risk, but it will not remove it completely.Thirdly, most people do not practice effective safe sex (according to surveys of sexual practices).These things are called Sexually Transmitted Diseases for a reason, and one-partner-for-life is undoubtably the single most effective means of controlling their spread. To argue otherwise is nonsense.Of course, back in the real world, one-partner-for-life is neither a desirable nor atainable goal. So you are correct in arguing that AIDS can be more effectively controlled by pushing a safe sex message rather than an abstenance message.

Contraceptives are for preventing births, not STDs. Currently the only anti-STD items marketed are condoms and dental dams.They are now beginning to work with chemicals to add into lubricants, or use as agents on their own (kind of like the foam or gel contraceptives) to kill STDs.But you miss the point entirely. Masturbation, which is sex, can pretty much guarantee that you will never catch an STD. The only way for this to happen is if you have broken skin of some kind. Oral sex is also rather safe for HIV (one of the components of saliva being experimented as use as an anti-HIV compound), unless one has cuts or open sores in one's mouth.I suppose the sad part is everyone seems to jump to vaginal and anal sex as the only sex possible. It's not.And if one wants to go for those other two "traditional" sexual practices, one can make sure yourself and your partner are tested first. This does go on, even at some "anonymous" gangbangs I uhm... know about (sorry buz I know this is one of those things you were talking about, but it does seem evidentiary). Do you see the problem with the above statements? Rrhain {says}* that safe sex prevents the spread of HIV, which you counter by saying but no one realistically practices safe sex. Then you say it is obvious that one partner for life is the ONLY method of preventing its spread, yet admit no one really practices that either.Safe sex does (100%) prevent the spread of HIV infection via sexual routes. This can be performed even without protection (ie going "bareback"). It can even do so with groups of anonymous partners. If people don't take precautions then they are taking a risk and cast no shadow over safe sex as a nearly 100% foolproof method of avoiding HIV infection.A person that believes using a condom is safe sex and that's it, is wayyyyyyy off. It certainly is safer sex, but not guaranteed.In stark contrast, one partner for life guarantees nothing. Your partner may get HIV through blood transfusions, sharing needles, or contact with infected blood (on broken skin).This is why identification of one's state of health (ie infection) as well as any potential partner's health is the only significant method of preventing HIV transmission, short of relying only on masturbation for sexual release (and to some lesser extent oral sex).Even one's monogamous partner may bring it home, so safe sex must be practiced there as well.{}*- edited to remove an error in composing a sentence which actually made it read the opposite of what I was trying to say.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 11-10-2003][This message has been edited by holmes, 11-11-2003]

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So, Buz, were the 20 million people who died of Influenza in the single year of 1918 engaging in some kind of "unacceptable practices"?

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This thread is about sex disease and the obvious answer to your post refutes nothing I've said nor does it bolster your position.

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Nice try at a dodge, Buz, but I'm sorry to inform you that my influenza example killing nearly as many people in a single year as HIV/AIDS has in 20 years is entirely relevant, because you say things such as the following:

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Those so labeled idiots likely logically figure that if indeed there is a god and harmful practice forbidden by that god becomes rampant among his creatures, that god may have utilized fatal means to erradicate those who deviate from his prescribed habits for those creatures in order to preserve the whole human race.

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If we use your logic, that God is using "fatal means to eradicate those who deviate from his prescribed habits", then surely the 20 million people who died in 1918 must have been behaving in some pretty ungodly, deviant ways!The same goes for the 40 million killed by the Plague in the middle ages.Please tell us what kinds of deviant behavior all of these people were engaging in.If your logic of "Bad Behavior=God's fatal means" is to be followed, then considering that these other diseases killed more people, and killed them much more quickly than HIV/AIDS, you must believe that the people back then were utterly depraved and completely immoral and evil.

No big deal, thanks.

You are using a rather different definition of Sex to me. Mastarbation is not sex. Sexual, yes; sex, no. I'm aware of that. Condoms are, however, our major anti-STD method, and they are a contraceptive. You're twisting both my words and Rrhains. I said one-partner-for-life would masssively reduce the spread of STDs. Rrhain claimed this was not true. He is wrong.I have never claimed that practicing safe sex is not an effective method of preventing the spread of STDs. Nor have I suggested that we should push for a one-partner-for-life approach.

This may be part of the problem. I think Rrhain and I were quite clear regarding what we considered sex when addressing Buz. All I was doing was pointing out that you shouldn't use the word contraceptive when dealing with this issue. I'm pretty sure I didn't twist Rrhain's words at all. Look at his response to Dan. He may have gotten your position wrong but you seem to have gotten his wrong.In any case I am sure he'll let me know if I am wrong.As far as your assertion goes, I do not believe this to be true. What it would have done is radically altered the vector and history. Remember part of this entire horror is that it was a new disease which no one knew how to identify.Let's start with the assumption that everyone was monogamous. Instead of entering the sexual area first, it would have started making headway in the drug users and blood transfusions. In a way this could have made everything a lot worse.The cases would have started popping up (enough to recognize there was a problem) only after the blood supply was so contaminated that many people getting transfusions were ending up with extremely degraded immune systems. This itself may have gone unnoticed as most people receiving blood have suppressed immune systems due to other health issues.I do agree that right now (or after HIV was discovered as the source), people suddenly switching to a one partner (of known health) lifestyle would radically reduce the spread. I would not disagree with that at all.However you certainly did imply that safe sex practices would not work as well as one partner lifestyles. That is totally bogus. And in fact the spread would remain higher in your scenario than if everyone simply engaged in safe sex practices.Now that we KNOW that AIDs exists, and we KNOW that it is caused by HIV transmission, one partner lifestyles and safe sex lifestyles are valid measures to reduce its spread. One partner may reduce it tremendously, but safe sex would reduce it even more.So why are we getting arguments from buz on this? And why is your defense of his position not an argument against our own?I think it is a disservice when people bring up monogamy as a solution to HIV (or its spread), and worse still to fingerwaggle at others using the "Bible told us" argument. It undercuts the reality that safe sex is not only good, but BETTER than just monogamy, and props an anachronistic scarecrow which discourages efforts to increase safe sex practices.------------------
holmes

Mr Jack responds to me:

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Quite frankly, Rrhain, that's an absurd dodge.

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Only because you don't like it. You are certain that you've considered all possibilities but when I point out that you haven't, you react as you do.

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Firstly, it avoids the question I asked.

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Incorrect.It points out that you missed the point.

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Secondly, our best contraceptives aren't fool-proof. Using condoms will radically reduce the risk, but it will not remove it completely.

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Who said anything about condoms? I know I didn't. I can have sex with everybody in the entire world, without using a single piece of latex, and not risk catching a cold let alone HIV.You are confusing "sex" with "intercourse." The two are not the same.

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Thirdly, most people do not practice effective safe sex (according to surveys of sexual practices).

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Indeed. But that is irrelevant.The question is not whether or not people engage in risky behaviour. The question is whether or not the number of sexual partners one has is directly responsible for increased risk of HIV infection.And the answer is no. Number of partners is indirectly responsible for increased risk of HIV infection. The factors directly responsible are presence of HIV within the population (if nobody in the group has HIV, then you cannot contract HIV no matter how many people you have sex with) and the specific sex act undertaken, given the presence of HIV (sex that does not exchange body fluids presents no risk of HIV transmission.)

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These things are called Sexually Transmitted Diseases for a reason,

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Indeed. So?Just because a person has sex does not mean he is at risk for contracting a sexually transmitted disease.Again, you seem to be confusing "sex" for "intercourse."

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and one-partner-for-life is undoubtably the single most effective means of controlling their spread.

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No, not "effective." There are other methods that are just as effective. And you don't even mean "reliable," either, because the other methods are just as reliable.Instead, we're looking for a term that describes effective methods for typical behaviour.And, of course, one-partner-for-life isn't exactly the only method, either. A person who has one partner who has HIV is going to have a problem than a person who has multiple partners, none of whom have HIV.Now, if we include the concept of taking one partner who, like you, has never had sex until having sex with you (and you similarly) and maintaining fidelity with that person, then number still has no bearing on this so long as all the people involved share this trait. That is, 20 people who have never had sex who maintain fidelity within that group are no more likely to contract HIV than a group of 2 people with the same charactistics.The only time number has an effect is when we start with a population that has HIV+ members and we randomly start choosing sex partners. Choose enough and you'll eventually find someone who is HIV+ and, if you engage in sexual activity that exchanges body fluids, risk exposure.My point is that the reality is much more complex than those who make moralistic statements like HIV is god's curse would make it out to be.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!