Tweet
Heterosexual New Yorkers are having more unprotected anal sex than gay men, according to research conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygeine. This is serious business, because “Anal membranes are easily damaged during sex, facilitating the spread of infection. Past studies suggest that anal exposure to HIV poses 30 times more risk than vaginal exposure.” Pink News highlighted these statistics from the report:
[Only] 23 per cent of women required their male partners to use condoms during anal sex, compared with 61 per cent of gay or bisexual men.According to the department, an estimated 100,000 New York City women have anal sex every year.
Women who did not use condoms were also far less likely to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
While 63 per cent of those who use always condoms get tested regularly, only 35 per cent of those who bareback do.
The report goes on to say that women 18 to 24 years old are nearly six times more likely than those aged 45 to 64 to report unprotected anal sex. Also, women with three or more sex partners per year are almost four times as likely to engage in unprotected anal sex than women with one partner.
What’s going on here? Most heterosexual women who have anal sex apparently trust/hope/believe that their sex partners don’t have any sexually-transmitted infections (STIs). Even if there may be a whistling in the dark/denial element to human sexuality in all of this a la “I can’t get AIDS because my sex partner isn’t gay or bi (hope hope hope)“, HIV isn’t the only incurable STI out there. Ladies, grow a brain. If the man is interested in barebacking you, chances are decent that he’s barebacked others, been barebacked himself or engaged in other risky behaviors.
Related:
* Video: Gays are too promiscuous and disease-ridden to be ‘worthy’ of marriage
18 Comments
I wondercould it be also that many of the women who engage in unprotected anal sex are too afraid of rejection to ask their partners to wear a condom? I think this is a fair question for women and men. I know several people (M and F) who lack the self esteem to DEMAND protection during sex. He/she won’t have sex with me = he/she doesn’t love me so I should not stand up for myself. To me, this is the most difficult issue. Too many play russian roulette with their health out of low self worth and fear of rejection/need for acceptance. This leads not only to diseases but to unwanted pregnancies.
I’d like to see more research in this area at least ask this question.
When people have learned to love themselves I think they might be less likely to engage in these types of dangerous behaviors.
Right on targetA lifetime of observations tells me that your comment is probably right on target. I’m sure self esteem is an important factor in the equation.
There have been plenty of studiesconfirming the connection between lack of self-esteem in gay men and their willingness to engage in risky sexual behaviors.
People of color & Sex EducationI am in a working class black and Latino neighborhood. Some of the things I over hear would surprise you. I think part of the issue is people are very ignorant about sex for various reasons (some of it social (holding on to very traditional gender roles) or religious taboo). They can not even discuss being gay without calling someone the “f” word or each other without using the “n” word. I have heard women in groups claim that they never ever engaged in oral sex much less admitting to anal sex. In their mind, to admit to that means their boyfriend or spouse is ‘gay.” So, how can you have a real sex education where people are actively lying about what they do? Sometimes when I am in a bodega, and I am listening to all the bravado, I want to just yell out “you are human. Statistically speaking, what you are describing isn’t what “only white people do.” Not that pop culture helps. There is to much of this sense that they can identity who is gay and who is not because pop culture has this image of what gay is.
“survival sex” by poor women In addition to cultural and self-esteem issues, poor women may be vulnerable to pressure by a male sexual partner who provides financial support (husband, boyfriend, john). Also at risk are addicts who trade sex for drugs.
My comment is “ONLY 100,000 women have anal sex in the 5 boroughs????”
It’s amazinghow many people consider pregnancy to be the only possible negative consequence of straight sex. Once a woman is on the pill, or either partner is sterile for medical reasons, all other bets are off. Since anal sex cannot cause pregnancy, then there is no possible negative consequence, right?
There’s also an amazing percentage of people who believe that gay sex causes AIDS, independent of whether or not there is any disease present. Since it is a punishment from God, it appears spontaneously. By extension, it cannot happen from straight anal behavior, which, by the way, isn’t sex, because that’s only penis in vagina.
Amazing, yesand also true of the gay community. I find that a lot of gay guys (particularly in my age group) don’t treat safe sex seriously enough because, hey, it’s not like they can get pregnant! (-_-)
hmm
of the ~30 million hiv infected people in the world, the split is 50/50 male/female. the majority of these people, particularly those who will be most affected due to being unable to access medical care are straight, and contracted the disease through unprotected vaginal intercourse.
that in the usa, !11!zomg anal intercourse is a risk factor for straights!1!!, is old news, eg, from way back in 2002 http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/Mee… – “High level of HIV-1 infection from anal intercourse: a neglected risk factor in heterosexual AIDS prevention.”
“In absolute numbers, it is estimated that in the United States approximately seven times more women than men-who-have-sex-with-men engage at least occasionally in unprotected receptive anal intercourse.” etc etc.
anyways, this, and the previous article on phb about barebacking in gay porn are quite perplexing to me. like, ?hello?, this is 2010.
Yeah, I noticed that, tooA hundred thousand is only 2% of all women in New York City. Definitely an underestimate.
the risk may be old news to the well-informed,but clearly that news needs to be repeated and targeted at heterosexual as well as gay audiences.
Is that shocking?And people still hold on to the myth AIDs is exclusive to LGBT Whites.
yes, absolutelytbh, the perplexity comes from just how either audience in the USA can have failed to get the message by now.
another thing to think about in this contextAccording to the american red cross (website viewed on 4-25-10)
you are ineligible to donate blood and you are considered at risk for HIV/AIDS if…
hmmm…?
True and stupid, butActually, it is that you are a member of a high risk group for HIV/AIDS, not just that you are at risk.
And yet we still have the ban on gay male sperm donationOstensibly because of unsafe sexual practices.
(But really to please the unscientific bigots who think that if there’s a gay gene, such a ban will help to reduce the number of homosexuals.)
is there really?i didn’t know about that one. hilarious really, since heterosexuals do a fine job of siring gay children. my parents were heterosexual, and here i am, a big old lesbo.
Well…That’s just it. These words target (and stigmatize) a group (men who have sex with men), rather than a behavior like anal sex, or anal sex without condom use, or vaginal sex without condom use. There’s a lot of assumptions in their criteria for who is “at risk” and people are required to read it several times and internalize it each time they donate blood. It’s a form of indoctrination that says gay blood is contaminating and dangerous. And that just doesn’t make sense to me.
In Durham, NC there is a huge racial disparity for HIV with a prevalence much higher in blacks than in whites but we don’t see the Red Cross preventing black men and women from donating. (http://www.healthydurham.org/docs/Durham%20County%202009%20SOTCH-final.pdf)
What makes men who have sex with men any different? Even once? So it’s not okay be sexually active ever with someone of the same sex and still be considered safe? Ever?
Ugh.Honestly, I find heterosexual sex kind of disgusting for this very reason.