Without knowing anything about how gay men have sex (I assume anal), is it somehow more likely for gay men to get these sorts of things? Would a condom help, or nah? Surely if a man and a women had anal sex it would be the same? Is it that anal sex isn't as likely between men and women and therefore the risk is lower?
For human-to-human, Monkeypox can transmit (according to current knowledge) by prolonged skin contact (or broken skin), by inhalation, or by eyes/nose/mouth. Put another way - like most viruses, it has to get into your body somehow, and most transmission vectors you can imagine work.
So like, you could get it from infected bedding if you had a cut, or it rubbed into your eye, or ....
Whether anything helps depends on whether it cuts down on most avenues above.
The sex part is mostly irrelevant, except that it is a very direct avenue to get it into your body vs "being coughed on" or "having cuts".
Chalk this one up to the media - someone identified that the current origination seems to have been a rave or two (or whatever), and that it can transmit sexually, and so now all the stories are about how it transmits by gay sex and blah blah blah. It's clickbait.
In that sense, lots of viruses transmit well by sex, monkeypox is not special or unique, nor is this likely to be the main transmission method as cases increase, even if it was the original transmission method. It has never been the main transmission mechanism of previous outbreaks.
I mean, heck, the fact that the media is focusing on the sex transmission helps guarantees it will transmit effectively the other ways - people think they are safe if they aren't having sex, but they are not!
The one part that isn't well-evaluated is the whole "how far do droplets travel" part. Right now the view of the CDC is that it requires prolonged face-to-face contact to get it that way because droplets can't travel very far (they are pretty heavy). The view of COVID started the same way.
Monkeypox is not sexually transmitted any more that covid or ebola is sexually transmitted. Not to be harsh, but you could have found this out (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Transmission) in addition how gay men have sex by just reading Wikipedia. Gay men also engage in oral sex and other forms of non-penetrative sex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_sexual_practices), for the record. Dan Savage is an extremely entertaining source for further information. At any rate, a condom would be largely ineffective with a fitted N95 and other personal safety gear given the mode of transmission and proximity of partners. Vigorously making out seems completely adequate here, no need to get all wound up about anal sex.
> The virus enters the body primarily through broken skin (even if not visible), or the mucous membranes (eyes, nose, or mouth). Human-to-human transmission is thought to occur primarily through close contact with an infected subject. There are indications that transmission is occurring during sexual intercourse
as far as I know COVID is not transmitted primarily through broken skin, so it does seem more likely to be transmitted through sex.
If you are having sex with someone, you are generally exchanging multiple fluids, breathing the same air, and having non-genital skin to skin contact. Because something can be transmitted sexually does not mean it's considered an STI. Based on what you have read, would preventing fluid exchange in intercourse prevent transmission?
You are technically correct about covid. However - and this was my point - if you have sex with someone with active, transmissible covid without substantial and properly fit PPE you are probably going to catch covid. It doesn't matter what type of sexual behavior you engage in, or what safer sex precautions that you take. That does not make covid an STI.
I've always just assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that gay men just have more sex with more partners, because men in general tend to be the "easy" half of the species when it comes to sex. So when it's a man on both sides of the intercourse, there's far fewer barriers to contact.
Maybe the kind of sex affects the odds of STD transmission too, but I'd expect the number of dicerolls to be the primary factor and to be substantially higher among gay men in general.
This is, for me, one of the biggest issues with gay culture. The sheer amount of sexual partners the average gay/bisexual man has, in comparison to straight ones, is, in my eyes a huge risk factor.
Sadly, it is very hard to have serious discussions about such topics nowadays, as one tends to get hit with the homophobia label.
Risk factor for sexually transmitted infections you mean? We know how to avoid spreading them: get tested regularly, and use barriers when necessary. The number of partners is less important than those two. If you don’t do the first two, even one partner can be a problem.
It’s less socially acceptable to shit on gay people directly nowadays, so some people use topics like the one you are mentioning as “proxy wars”, so to speak, where they can indirectly express their distaste.
Not saying you are doing this, but by bringing it up, some people might think that’s what you are doing. I feel like I have seen it often enough that it is a fairly reasonable concern.
Is there a specific reason you are focusing on this issue, out of all of the thousands of issues you could choose to care about?
> Is there a specific reason you are focusing on this issue, out of all of the thousands of issues you could choose to care about?
I am not focusing on it. I am just bringing it up on a thread where it seemed appropriate to. One person can care about more than just one issue at a time.
One of the subjects on an experimental HIV resistant drug managed to still get HIV while having sex with on average 20 men per month (iirc, it's been a while since I read the case study). While promiscuity isn't inherent to gay men, it is more likely among them, and generally to a greater extent than promiscuous women.
With that much risky behavior (with no protection), it is indeed a long series of dice rolls.
This essay is very long. While it does accurately touch on high risk activities (multiple partners, anal sex, sex clubs) it is primarily a deep dive into the author's wildly neurotic relationship to sex and his total misunderstanding of what is normal or common. His specific medical problems towards the end are extremely not normal, yikes.
N=1 indeed, but I think many are unfamiliar with the anatomical details of certain extreme behaviors, particularly the injuries. It's instructive to see it spelled out, but population-level conclusions shouldn't be drawn.
This just a gay conversion therapy propaganda piece. Please don't post this homophobic crap on HN.
I don't usually comment on votes on HN, but weirdly, this comment got two downvotes immediately after posting. And I guess no response because the posting of the article is indefensible.
There’s differences for diseases that are transmitted via blood or at least require heavy breakage of the skin barrier where sexual activity with less natural lubrication has higher transmission risks (HIV is a notable example).
But the main difference for most in general is just that gay men have vastly more partners in a short period of time. You don’t really have a straight (or lesbian) equivalent of gay bathhouses.
Anything going directly into the colon is bypassing a number of the body's protective mechanisms:
"Prostaglandin E2 in human semen given via anus during anal intercourse may cause an immune dysregulation in the male semen recipients; this immunosuppressive effect of prostaglandin E2 may be one of the underlying factors that stimulate AIDS-associated virus infection or that trigger the latent AIDS-associated virus. This hypothesis is supported by the following experimental results. Anal infusion of prostaglandin E2 or D2 into male rats reduced in vitro responses of T lymphocytes to phytohemagglutinin. However, the T-cell response of female rats was not reduced significantly by the anal infusion of seminal prostaglandins."
"This method of alcohol consumption can be dangerous and even deadly because it leads to faster intoxication than drinking since the alcohol is absorbed directly into the bloodstream and bypasses the body's ability to reject the toxin by vomiting."
>Is it that anal sex isn't as likely between men and women and therefore the risk is lower?
yes and it is common for gays to have sex with way more partners, way more frequently, without protection, often using drugs. so it's a wonderful way to spread disease. look up the epidemiology of STDs in relation to MSM partner counts, it's eye-opening.
amazes me that people don't actually know the basic facts of this. i suppose this is what happens after two decades of politely not mentioning it -- what goes unsaid eventually goes unthought.
A complete graph on N vertices has (N^2 - N)/2 edges. A complete bipartite graph on N vertices has <= N^2/4 edges. There are just more sexual interactions possible among non-heterosexuals, and men who have sex with men have more (relatively) dedicated social gatherings than women who have sex with women. The number of people who congregate in a particular event is generally unaffected by population and instead determined by the size of the venue.
Anal sex is a risk factor for certain diseases, particularly HIV, but monkeypox does not require genital contact (or significant fluid transfer) for spread, so it's not clear if condoms would make much of a difference in this case.
This is a good question to ask. It's very frustrating that health authorities have not released more information, but they most likely do not know exactly how the virus spread, either.
Anal sex occurs at these types of events but is not a dominating activity. People may engage in a wide variety of sexual activities. Some may not have sex at all. My guess is that sex was not a contributing factor, but rather close skin-to-skin contact among a large group of people wearing little more than underwear.
It's also possible the virus could have been spread through "breeding," a practice where one person will be penetrated by multiple people one-after-the-other much like a Tesla supercharger.
But get any group of half-naked people together in close quarters for hours and I am sure any type of virus like monkeypox will spread. As a gay person I would very much like to at least know the most probably theories.
It's very frustrating to see comments further down postulating that a lack of protection is the cause of the virus. Last time I checked, even sex with condoms involves skin contact.
Health authorities don't seem to have learned anything from COVID. The sooner information becomes available, even if the only information is "It could be this but we need to be sure," the better.
In the meantime, the LGBT community will have to deal with this kind of misinformation as well as not knowing how to protect themselves.
> one person will be penetrated by multiple people one-after-the-other much like a Tesla supercharger.
That's a rather unusual analogy. I don't recall ever penetrating a supercharger with anything, whether one-after-the-other or not! Is there some part of the joke that I'm missing?
Condom would help and yes, gays are more promiscuous, they tend to do more anal sex than straight people and they tend to use more drugs which cause them to be less responsible. The statistics regarding HIV are overwhelming, most of it is contracted by gay anal sex (the second cause is infected syringes among drug users). HIV almost doesn't exist among straight people.
I believe this comes from close contact via air droplets for pro-longed period. Not sure what the sex angle is here since its the air droplets becoming airborne but requiring close proximity.
my concern is then, is there a chance for this to become mutated and transmit? Say in a night club, stadium and concerts?
