http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com

   The Strategy before sex potential sex partners get tested
   together for pharyngeal throat, urethral and anal STDs
   including acquired immune deficiency syndrome, tuberculosis,
   hepatitis B, hepatitis A, hepatitis C and
   vaccinated for hepatitis B and hepatitis A.

   http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/Archives.htm
   http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tested+together%22
   http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=%22tested%20together%22

   A webLog collaboratively open to thought experiments, comment,
   critique, heckling, attacks, feedback, debate, counterpoint,
   suggestions, ideas, questions, challenges, disagreement,
   dissent, dissing and kibbitzing !


   Reedited blog at http://NotB4WeKnow.BlogSpot.com

   Permanent link to archive for 11/30/05.  Wednesday, November 30, 2005

     Reedited blog at
     http://NotB4WeKnow.BlogSpot.com
     http://notb4weknow.blogspot.com---->

     Comment...
     
   Permanent link to archive for 11/6/05.  Sunday, November 6, 2005

     In quotes, enter the phrase...
      tested together
     at
     http://blogsearch.google.com
     _______________________

     Negotiated safety is not same as the strategy of
     let's get tested together before we have sex...
     for sexually transmitted infections.

     By implication negotiated safety involves each other saying to
     one another that they are negative.
     People making claims about their status.
     They each make the claim that they are negative.
     The strategy is for them before having sex to get tested together
     in a transparent way. Make the results of those tests available
     to each other
     http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com
     http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/not_b4_we_know
     With claims, there is no transparency. either one could be lying
     for example.
     The strategy of let's get tested together before we have sex
     for sexually transmitted infections is not the same as what
               > ...is called "Negotiated Safety"... it is a
               > process by which two uninfected men decide together
               > to not use condoms.
               >
               > Negotiated Safety was first described in the
               > professional literature by Kippax et al in 1993 from
               > research they conducted among gay men in Sydney,
               > Australia.
               >
               > It is an agreement between two gay men in a
               > relationship to have a process of getting ready to
               > stop using condoms when they have anal sex.
               >
               > The basis of this agreement is an explicit
               > understanding that both know each other's HIV status
               > and are both uninfected.
     There's ambiguity when you say
     explicit quote "understanding" unquote.
     There's not transparency.
     Which means there's a wink involved when you use the word
     "understanding" in this context.
     Because there's a way for both people to have the same knowledge.
     It doesn't mean that the information could be false,
     but there's no mendacity in it.
     The test could be false, the doctor could be wrong.
     But the same tests are used to ensure the safety of the blood
     supply.
     The strategy is about passing the information
     to the other person.
     No objection for people to choose to have sex when one or both
     have an infection.
     The problem today is that people have no idea if they are
     infected or when they got infected.
     The moral equivalent of saying about your blood donation,
     no don't test that blood, I don't care just give me the blood I
     need, no testing. How many people would take a blood transfusion
     under those conditions today? A very small number.
     No amount of negotiation will generate concrete knowledge about
     somebody's status.
     How much talk between two people, for example, will give you the
     same results as a test? There isn't any amount of talk.
               > In order to insure the men go together to be tested
               > at least three months after either has had any
               > unprotected sex.
     Okay, it's complicated.
     Why the three month figure?
     For example, with the blood supply they don't wait three months
     after the test.
     They test once when they get the blood.
     They test immediately.
     They try to use the blood as soon as possible.
     Why the three month wait?
               > They also go together to get their HIV test results.
               >
               > The only time that both partners do not use condoms
               > is when they have sex with each other, making this an
               > acceptable safer sex option.
               >
               > There must be no unprotected sex outside the
               > relationship; if either partner does so, then he must
               > immediately inform his partner prior to their having
               > sex again.
               >
               > They resume using condoms until subsequent HIV tests
               > prove that the partner who had unprotected sex is
               > still negative.
               >
               > Follow up research has shown that 90% of men in
               > negotiated safety agreements adhere to them, making
               > this an effective risk reduction strategy.
     Sure just like the strategy, of course it would work
     provided you follow it.
     The problem is the complexity
     with this whole arrangement, this protocol.
               > But the 10% who are not compliant with this agreement
               > are a major source of new HIV infections.
     Because you're dependent on interviews how can you possibly
     come up with ten percent?...
               > One study showed that young gay men in committed
               > relationships in the Netherlands were becoming
               > infected at high rates by their partners.
     They have created this complex process involving a lot of time
     and trouble between two people where the real problem is the
     compelling nature of sexuality. When what you need to do is
     reduce the complexity and the amount of time because sexual urges
     compel you to act in spite of all the danger.
     So, get the tests together before having sex, learn the results,
     then you can make a decision
     http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com
     http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/not_b4_we_know
               > Davidovich,  Udi
               > de Witt, John B.F.
               > Stroebe, Wolfgang
               > (2004) Behavioral and cognitive barriers to safer sex
               > between men in steady relationships:
               > Implications for prevention strategies.
               > AIDS Education & Prevention,
               > v16n4, 304-314 August 2004
               > http://www.extenza-eps.com/GPI/doi/abs/10.1521/aeap.16.4.304.40398
               > Kippax,  Susan
               > Slavin, Sean
               > Ellard, Jeanne
               > Hendry, Olympia
               > Richters, Juliet
               > Grulich, Andrew E
               > Kaldor,  John
               > (2003) Seroconversion in context.
               > AIDS Care,
               > v15n6, 839-852 December 2003
               > http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/link.asp?id=a20d9e8ub0d4ctp3
               > Xiridou,  Maria
               > Geskus, Ronald
               > de Wit, John B.F.
               > Coutinho, Roel
               > Kretzschmar, Mirjam
               > (2003) The contribution of steady and
               > casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection
               > among homosexual men
               > in Amsterdam.
               > AIDS,
               > v17n7, 1029-1038 May 2, 2003
               > http://www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/fulltext.00002030-200305020-00012.htm
               > Crawford,  June M
               > Rodden, Pamela
               > Kippax, Susan
               > Van de Ven, Paul
               > (2001) Negotiated safety and other agreements
               > between men in relationships:
               > risk practice redefined.
               > International Journal of STD & AIDS,
               > v12n3, 164-170 March 2001
               > http://tinyurl.com/ako6d
               > Davidovich, Udi
               > de Witt, John B.F.
               > Albrecht, Nel
               > Geskus, Ronald
               > Stroebe, Wolfgang
               > Coutinho, Roel
               > (2001) Increase in the share of steady partners
               > as a source of HIV infection:
               > A 17-year study of seroconversion among younger and
               > older gay men.
               > AIDS,
               > v15n10, 1303-1308 July 6, 2001
               > http://www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/fulltext.00002030-200107060-00013.htm
               > Davidovich, Udi.,
               > de Wit, John B.F, &
               > Stroebe, Wolfgang.
               > (2000) Assessing sexual risk behavior of
               > young gay men in primary relationships:
               > The incorporation of negotiated safety and
               > negotiated safety compliance.
               > AIDS,
               > v14n6, 701-706 April 14, 2000
               > http://www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/fulltext.00002030-200004140-00009.htm
               > Kippax, Susan
               > Noble, Jason
               > Prestage, Garrett
               > Crawford, June
               > Campbell, Danielle
               > Baxter, Don
               > Cooper, David
               > (1997) Sexual negotiation in the AIDS era:
               > negotiated safety revisited.
               > AIDS,
               > v11n2, 191-197 February 11, 1997
               > http://www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/fulltext.00002030-199702000-00009.htm
               > Kippax,  Susan
               > Crawford, June M
               > Davis, Mark
               > Rodden, Pamela
               > Dowset, Gary W
               > (1993) Sustaining safe sex:
               > A longitudinal study of a sample of homosexual men.
               > AIDS,
               > v7n2,  257-263 February 1993
               > http://tinyurl.com/b3u9k

   Permanent link to archive for 6/23/05.  Thursday, June 23, 2005

By John Sandy Bartlett
Thanks for your suggestion.  Getting tested together for before sex is an
excellent idea which I often recommend. Had I, rather than the
GayHealth.com editor & MD, written the entire first 8 paragraphs myself, I
probably would have included that. (I'd NEVER have used "phenomena" as a
singular noun! :-)  My message, however, would probably have been just a
bit different from yours:
In almost 20 years of HIV/STD education and counseling, I've been led to be
much more flexible and pragmatic about people's sexual behavior. One of the
toughest lessons that AIDS prevention counselors had to learn, early in the
epidemic, is that if the "demands" of safer behavior choices are TOO
burdensome or complex (i.e., if the advice is too absolutist), then they
are likely to be ignored, pretty completely. (Hence,
the accusation of "Sex police!", but that's another discussion...)
Regarding HIV/STD testing before sex, the observed reality-norm is that
either
(a) it's too late -- sex is already happening; or
(b) the couple is not willing to wait for intimacy.
So........the BACK-UP is to advise condom use for the first 3 months;
then test; and if the results are all negative, no symptoms are present,
and the relationship is trusted as monogamous  -- OK, dispense
with the condoms IF that's important.
(Obviously, needle use changes the equation.)
Granted that condoms are not perfect against all STDs, but they come close
enough for most folks, especially horny gay men. Besides, some of the
conditions you've listed as "STD" can be transmitted without sexual
contact.  (I once found 'crabs' crawling around on the weights bench at my
recently-gender-integrated gym; and caught scabies from sharing a towel
with a university rowing teammate.  Molluscum can spread without intimacy,
especially among children in daycare to parents, and so can almost anything
carried orally, symptomatic or not.)
I read your "Draft" of May 13 -- excellent and very thorough discussion.
[ at http://notb4weknow.editthispage.com/2005/03/14 ]
BTW, your points about STDs frequently being non-symptomatic were excellent
and cannot be stressed enough.  As a practical matter, however, I have a
couple of reservations about tone.
(1) See above about why advice is ignored;
(2) Gee, you take all the fun out of gettin' hot'n'sweaty with someone by
    making it sound as if everyone is (at least potentially) crawling with
    nasty germs.
Of course, I agree cognitively with most of what you say.
But, if a reader accepted everything you write, he'd be scared to touch
anyone intimately without dressing up like a rubber-clad frogman.
(Hmmm, now that presents some interesting images... :-)
The challenge, then, is in making this excellent information user-friendly
to the reader, who then is much more likely to incorporate it into his/her
decisions and behavior.  Life, sex and relationships included, is not
without risks -- the key is in
(a) learning to manage the risks; and
(b) learning what one is comfortable with and setting behavior limits
    accordingly.
Appropriate testing is an excellent tool. You touched on communication in
relationships, but one thing you overlooked is communication with one's
physician -- especially for gay men.  The most common reason(s) "not all
sites are tested" and "not all STDs are test for" is because
(a) the patient was not frank about what he/she had done; and/or
(b) the clinician was ignorant or possibly biased about the stated behavior
    and its consequences.  And unfortunately, given the present political
    realities in the US, public health clinic resources are so strained
    that they are NEVER going to do some of the more expensive tests.
Just a couple of errors:
1.  Yes, there is a test for HPV, even if it isn't "automatically" done;
   type of HPV is usually included, which is important. (You also list
   anogenital warts separately -- they are almost always HPV.)
2.  At one point, you state that an HIV-ab test is reliable at 3 months;
   several sections later you say one must wait 6 months.  Your first
   statement was the more correct: by 3 months, accuracy is in the
   99% range; like all medical tests, it will never be "perfect".
3.  Yes, molluscum can be "tested for", although not in the absence of the
   symptomatic bumps, from which a sample must be taken. In the absence of
   symptoms, there's not really a lot of reason to test for it, as it is
   overwhelmingly (exclusively? -- good research question) transmitted
   through the bumps. (Since it is a virus, I would expect that some
   company like Quest or ViroLogic will market an antibody test in time.)
Well, I've blathered on enough. (Feel free to post, with correct
attribution, any of the above that's useful.) Thanks for your intelligent,
interesting site [ at http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/not_b4_we_know ] -- keep it up!
Sandy
P.S. John James rules!  He and Martin Delaney are the most intelligent,
informed and insightful writers on HIV in the country!
John Sandy Bartlett
Information/Education Coordinator
AIDS Services of Austin
P.O.Box 4874
Austin Texas 78765
512 458-AIDS    dir 406-6163     fax 452-3299
http://www.ASAustin.org     Sandy.Bartlett at ASAustin.org
_______________________________________
By John Sandy Bartlett
http://www.gayhealth.com/templates/0/news/index.html?record=1033
Even HIV-negative partners in long-term relationships should give
each other a present by getting tested together to ensure that
they are both still negative. It is a sad but all too common
phenomena where one partner has sex outside the relationship and
brings HIV back home.
_______________________________________
> By Eric Rofes
> http://whitecranejournal.com/66/art6605.asp
> "Gay Men are healthy, happy, and life affirming."
          All except for that unknown subset who are HIV positive
          and infecting and killing some part of that community.
_______________________________________
15 October 2005 Boston Globe had an obit about Leroy Whitfield,
a non-believer in HIV as the cause of AIDS. As he got closer
to dying his beliefs started changing--but not quickly
enough to save him.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2005/10/15/leroy_whitfield_36_author_wrote_about_effect_of_aids_on_americas_black_community/
_______________________________________
Have you seen the well-to-do having sex like me and you?
http://faculty.mville.edu/comberiatic/images/Courses/muh1015/Disc%205/Music%20in%20American%20Culture/17%20Puttin%27%20On%20the%20Ritz.wma
They're afraid of STDs and unwanted pregnancies
The AIDS scare's reached it's apex
But who cares?  I want my safe sex
You feel that way too?  Then the Ritz is the rubber for you
If you screw and you don't know who you do screw
Why don't you use the brand that fits
Puttin' on the Ritz
Girls, you'll see, will be receptive
They don't want the contraceptive pills and kits
If you're puttin' on the Ritz
Other brands?  Well, friends, you can't compare theirs
When you can wear the brand that Fred Astaire wears
And the Care Bears
It's a glitzy, ritzy condom
Worn by even Stephen Sondh'm who admits
To puttin' on the Ritz
You won't need no diaphragm to trap her
Just slap your Mister Happy in that wrapper
And you'll look dapper
With your playmate you will get much more play
She'll help to put it on you during foreplay
At work or play
Keep a few right in your wallet
If you do then I can call it quits, that's it!
Puttin' on the ritz
_______________________________________
Stay tuned for... All of Me
the parody version, the strategy version.

   Permanent link to archive for 6/1/05.  Wednesday, June 1, 2005

     Denialism 2005. Joseph Lister. Ignaz Semmelweis. Robert Koch. By Berton Roueche. By Didier Fassin. John S. James, publisher.

     Enter the search keyword terms
     denialism 2005
     at
     http://www.google.com
     http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=denialism+2005

     Joseph Lister
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lister
     Ignaz Semmelweis
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis

     Robert Koch
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Koch

     By Berton Roueche
     The Medical Detectives
     http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0452265886/
     At about eight o'clock on Monday morning, September 25, 1944, a ragged aimless
     old man of eighty-two collapsed on the sidewalk on Dey Street, near the Hudson Terminal.
     A Man Named Hoffman
     http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/articles/011029fr_archive02
     Around ten o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, March 4, 1964, a man named
     Donald Hoffman presented himself fo treatment at the Student Health Clinic of Miami University, in
     Oxford, Ohio, some thirty miles northwest of Cincinnati.

     The Fog
     http://smccd.net/accounts/case/biol101/thefogtext.html
     http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=smccd.net%2Faccounts%2Fcase%2Fbiol101%2Fthefog.pdf
     At about eight-thirty on Friday Morning, one of Donora's eight physicians,
     Dr. Ralph W. Koehler, a tense, stocky man of forty-eight, stepped to his bathroom window for a
     look at the weather. It was, at best, unchanged. He could see nothing but a watery waste of rooftops, islanded in fog.
     As he was turning away, a shimmer of movement in the distance caught his eye. It was a
     freight train creeping along the riverbank just south of town, and the sight of it shook him. He had never seen anything quite like it before.
     "It was the smoke," he says. "They were firing up for the grade and the smoke was belching out, but it didn't rise.
     I mean it didn't go up at all. If just spilled out over the lip of the stack, like ink or oil, and rolled down to the ground and lay there.
     My God, it just lay there! I thought, Well, God damn-and they talk about needing smoke control up in Pittsburgh!
     I've got a heart condition, and I was so disgusted my heart began to act up a little. I had to sit down on the edge of the tub and rest a minute."

     By Didier Fassin
     Suspicion and denial: towards a political anthropology of AIDS

     In the Author search field, enter...
     fassin
     at
     http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/
     An understandable defiance is thus an important element of what is usually termed denial.21
     In fact, denial -- a common response among people facing an intolerable situation -- has two facets.22
     One is a denial of reality: a reaction that something can't be true, that it is not possible.
     The other is a denial of the unacceptable: a reaction that something is not normal, that although it exists it should not.
     Both facets are involved in the denial of the reality of HIV/AIDS.

     John S. James publisher
     http://www.aids.org/atn/a-376-04.html
     ...back-and-forth debate format is not especially useful here, because it tends to turn on technical points,
     asking readers to make their own decisions on the scientific merits of the issue, which most people are not prepared to do.
     A better format is to explain what the denialists are saying, then show with two or three examples that their arguments
     are not credible--that the assertions on which they ask others to base life-and-death decisions usually leave out far more compelling information than they include.

     Most importantly, we need to explain what is really going on in treatment and research--the human story as well as the medical/scientific one,
     a reality more interesting than the stick-figure ideologies of the denialists. Here we should
     avoid the argumentative style of trying to score points against the other side. Instead, follow the truth wherever it may lead;
     when there is truth in the denialist case, by all means acknowledge it.

   Permanent link to archive for 5/25/05.  Wednesday, May 25, 2005

     Bloggers write about getting tested together, enter...
     tested together before

     at
     http://www.technorati.com/
     http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=%22tested+together%22+before

     http://www.blogpulse.com/
     http://www.blogpulse.com/search?start_date=&end_date=&query=%22tested+together%22+before&x=30&y=9

   Permanent link to archive for 5/19/05.  Thursday, May 19, 2005

     By David Shore
     House, M.D.

     Click on... House M.D.
     at
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drama_television_series
     and at
     http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Television_shows
     See also
     http://fox.com/house
     http://housemd.blogspot.com/

     By Berton Roueche
     http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=berton+roueche
     http://tinyurl.com/dcyvf

   Permanent link to archive for 5/6/05.  Friday, May 6, 2005

     By Duncan Osborne.
     A group of leading New York City doctors are calling on the city health department to implement
     a kind of HIV testing that identifies people who are newly infected with the virus, but are undetectable on a
     standard HIV test because their immune systems have not yet produced antibodies to HIV.
     http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_417/newhivtestingurged.html

     By Christopher D. Pilcher, M.D.
     North Carolina has added nucleic acid amplification testing for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
     to standard^ HIV antibody tests to detect persons with acute HIV infection who are
     viremic but antibody-negative.
     http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/352/18/1873

   Permanent link to archive for 5/4/05.  Wednesday, May 4, 2005

     Responses to attempts at arguments
     that acquired immune deficiency syndrome does not exist,
     that human immunodeficiency virus does not exist,
     that tests do not work
     http://google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22answering+the+aids+denialists%22

   Permanent link to archive for 4/25/05.  Monday, April 25, 2005

     By Peggy Post

     Both people should be willing to have blood tests and medical
     checkups and to exchange the results. For a number of reasons,
     people may lie about test results, so a literal exchange of
     records is not only reasonable but advisable.

     Emily Post's Etiquette 17th Edition 2004

     page 75, Chapter Six Dating, Part Two Relationships
     BJ1853.P6 2004
     395---dc22
     ISBN 0-06-620957-9
     http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0066209579/
     http://www.harpercollins.com/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0066209579

   Permanent link to archive for 3/14/05.  Monday, March 14, 2005

     Draft


Getting STD & HIV Testing Before Having Sex


  One strategy for reducing the risk of getting a sexually transmitted
disease (STD) is for you and a partner to get STD testing (including
testing for HIV) before having sex.


Getting STD & HIV testing is always a good thing, IF the meaning of
the test results, and what they imply regarding risks and risk
reduction, is understood.


Getting STD & HIV testing before having sex also shows concern for
your own health and the health of your partner, and indicates a desire
for openness and communication, which are good things.


  However, it is important to understand that getting STD & HIV
testing before having sex might tell you little about the risks of
giving something to or getting something from your partner.
____________________________________________________________________
If testing before sex leads to a false sense of security and sexual
practices that are more risky (for example, not wearing condoms when
you fuck), then it is a BAD thing.
__________________________________


Before discussing getting tested, it is worth visiting the other
strategy--not getting tested.


____________________________________
Not getting tested -- a bad strategy
____________________________________


  Many people feel that they do not have to get tested for STDs.


"I know my body. If I had an infection, I would know it."
Unfortunately, this is FALSE.


  Many STDs can be present and transmissable without causing any
symptoms.


The majority of people with HIV probably acquired the disease from
partners who thought that they did not have HIV.


  Sometimes the symptoms of STDs are slight,
or are not recognized for what they really are.


  Often the symptoms go away without treatment
(even though the STD itself does not go away).


  Given all of this, getting testing for STDs, even when symptoms are
not present, is an important part of staying healthy, and keeping
partners and the community healthy.


But, as you will see from the following sections, getting testing for
STDs and HIV before having sex tells you less than you might think.


  "Knowing yourself" is no guarantee in you or in your partner that
you do not have STDs.


Your ability to detect an STD is actually quite poor.


Urethral infections
gonorrhea and
chlamydia in the throat
or butt,
syphilis,
warts,
molluscum, and
herpes are often not noticed by the people infected,
or are not recognized for what they are.


  If you have had unprotected contact with a partner for some days,
weeks, or months, and have not gotten anything from him or her as best
you know, then:


You might already have gotten something from your partner and failed
to recognize it


You might have not gotten something from your partner that he/she
has, but you might get it the next time you have sex.


________________
Common Fallacies
________________


  Many people who come to a clinic for STD testing expect
(1) to be tested for everything,
(2) that tests are 100% reliable, and
(3) that the test tells them their situation right now.


Unfortunately, none of these are true.


This is not Star Trek.


________________________________
Tests do not exist for some STDs
________________________________


  No tests (in the sense of DNA tests, antibody tests, or cultures)
are available for
anogenital warts,
molluscum,
lice, and
scabies.


___________________________
Not all STDs are tested for
___________________________


  Testing for STDs often does not include one or more of the following
tests:


A urine sediment that can detect evidence of some kind of infection in
the penis


Throat and rectal swabs that detect both gonorrhea and chlamydia


Tests for hepatitis


Tests for endoparasites


  No clinic or doctor tests for all STDs.


There are no tests for the human papilloma virus that causes
anogenital warts, and for
molluscum.


If these bumps are present, and the healthcare professional looks for
them, then they might be detected.


But no healthcare provider can see viruses.


There are also no tests for the causes of urethritis other than
gonorrhea and chlamydia when the infections are in the throat or butt.


  What tests are done vary.


Not every healthcare setting tests for chlamydia in the throat and
butt, for example, or does a urine sediment.


________________________
Not all sites are tested
________________________


  Many clinics and doctors omit tests of the throat and butt for STDs,
or do not offer the tests to everyone who has sexual contact at those
sites.


_________________________________________________
Some STDs can only be found by visual examination
_________________________________________________


STDs that can only be detected by a visual examination include:


Anogenital warts


Molluscum


Lice


Scabies


  For each of these, there are stages of infection that are
undetectable.


Also, the thoroughness of the healthcare provider in performing the
examination plays a central role.


If the healthcare provider omits the visual examination, then the
probability of their finding an STD falls to zero.


_______________________________________
STDs take time to reveal their presence
_______________________________________


  In all cases, there is a period of time between when a person is
infected with an STD and the person has symptoms, and until the STD
can be reliably detected by STD tests or visual examination.


This period is often referred to as the window period.


  STD tests taken today tell you your situation somewhere between
several weeks and 6 months ago.


For HIV, they tell most people their situation reliably 3 months ago,
and essentially everyone 6 months ago.


For warts, the window period can range up to a year or more, and some
people with the wart virus do not develop visible warts, though they
can still pass the infection to their partners.


____________________________
Tests are not 100% sensitive
____________________________


  No STD tests are 100% sensitive, that is, none detect the STD 100%
of the time.


Amplified DNA tests are in the high 90s, as are a blood test for
syphilis when the person is in the secondary stage and an HIV test 6
months or more after exposure to HIV.


Even these tests are not 100% sensitive because of the possibilities
of errors in collection, labeling, storage, and transport of samples,
as well as of laboratory errors.


  Other tests fall dramatically in sensitivity, especially if
infections are recent.


For STDs that can be only be detected visually, the sensitivity of the
test falls to zero percent if no signs of the STD are visible, or if
the healthcare provider does not look.


  For STDs for which there is a test beyond visual examination, STD
tests offer a reasonable degree of reliability (perhaps 95 percent)
for the things that are tested for 3 months after the most recent
exposure (counting sexual contact with any partner).


___________________________________
Results Do Not Equal Your Situation
___________________________________


  There is a difference between knowing the results of a test and
knowing your status.


A test can be negative, but that does not mean that you do not have
the STD.


Negative test results only mean that no evidence of the STD in
question was found.


If your last sexual contact before taking the test was before the
window period for the test, then the result of the test probably
reflects your situation.


But if you have had more recent sexual contact, then the result of the
test tells you less, and maybe nothing, about your current situation.


  Rapid tests versus standard ones are no different with respect to
the information they give you about your status.


_______________
Which Partners?
_______________


  If you are entering a relationship with a primary partner about whom
you are not concerned STD-wise (because you know him, and he knows his
body, and you are both getting tested), and you are getting tested
because you are concerned about other contacts, you need to understand
that you can also get STDs from your primary partner and, if he/she is
still in the window period, then the chance of detecting the STDs is
reduced.


From the standpoint of STD testing, what determines risk is what you
do with each partner, and what they have done with prior or other
current partners.


_____________
Communication
_____________


  Communication in the relationship is probably more important than
testing.


Knowing what infections a person already has, and whether the
relationship is open or closed, is important.


Even when getting tests now, you will often have to rely on the
honesty of your partner to give you the results.


______________
Best Practices
______________


  Best practices regarding STD & HIV testing for all open
relationships are:


Get tested routinely (for example, every six months) irrespective of
whether you have symptoms, and encourage all of your partners to do
the same.


Get tested if you notice (or a partner notices) any new symptoms that
might indicate STDs
(urethral symptoms, or
 new bumps, sores, or
 rashes)


Wear condoms when you fuck, inside and outside the
relationship.


Optimally, use them for oral sex.


  Best advice for relationships where you want to bet your life on the
monogamy are:


Get tested for STDs (including HIV) at zero months (before having
sex).


This might pick up some infections.


For six months, wear condoms when you fuck.


Optimally, use them for oral sex.


Get tested again for STDs at 6 months.


For another six months, wear condoms when you fuck.


Optimally, use them for oral sex.


The point of this is to make it less likely that warts will be
undetected (though it does not guarantee this).


After this, you can discuss not using condoms when you fuck.
But remember, it is always safer to wear condoms.


_________________
Recommended Tests
_________________


  We recommend the following STD screening tests every time you seek
testing, if they are available:


Blood test for syphilis


Urine sediment for white blood cells that are evidence of infection
in the penis


Amplified DNA testing for gonorrhea and chlamydia in the urine


If you have gone down on a male or female partner, DNA testing for
gonorrhea and chlamydia in the throat (amplified or nonamplified)


If there has been any sexual contact with a male or female partner
using your butt, including fingers and toys DNA, testing for gonorrhea
and chlamydia in the butt (amplified or nonamplified)


  Visual examinations for STDs:


Lips and
mouth


Genital area in front (between the navel and half way down the
thighs),
including the lower abdomen,
pubic hair,
penis,
urethral meatus,
scrotum, and
groin.


External anal area and
buttocks


Checking lymph nodes in the groin for swelling
or tenderness


   Permanent link to archive for 3/5/05.  Saturday, March 5, 2005

     By Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin
     http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/evolution/history/spandrel.shtml
     The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm:
     A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme

   Permanent link to archive for 3/1/05.  Tuesday, March 1, 2005

     Now they ride and live together.
     Life they can live it better just knowing.
     A love they created and made, now neither of them is afraid just knowing.
     But they got each others' back and respect is an action not an act now knowing.
     Each other they embrace and love and its face now knowing.
     Knowing is beautiful.
     http://www.knowhivaids.org/PSA/111204_knowing_bus.rm

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_techniques
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism

   Permanent link to archive for 2/24/05.  Thursday, February 24, 2005

     Public health officials have not observed the phenomenon, people who are doing the strategy of getting tested together before having sex.
     Mutual fidelity is an issue that would put public health officials who mention it in a position of being asked by their spouses,
     "What about you? Have you ever had another sexual opportunity besides me?"
     They would fear the truth could destroy their own families.

   Permanent link to archive for 2/21/05.  Monday, February 21, 2005

     Gay health consumerism. Learn about presenters' qualifications on their topics.

     Performance artists, motivational speakers and such go on tour around cities' gay health events.
     How knowledgeably, how accurately are the informative parts of their presentations communicated?
     Advance information about events could include background information about the presenters' qualifications on their topics.
     _____________________________________________________________________________

     > I have always seen this epidemic as two fold
     > 1 Corporate/social responsibility and
     > 2 Cure.

                         Neither of those go back to the original source.
                         It always go back to somone else.
                         Doctors finding a cure have nothing to do with the problem.
                         Corporations and their drug researching policies have nothing to do with it

                         Individuals passing on the epidemic have everything to with it.

                         When individuals stop passing on the epidemic it will be over.

   Permanent link to archive for 2/20/05.  Sunday, February 20, 2005


How to evaluate the gay health summits


. Social software
  are there web, email, blog type forums for deliberating concerns?
  are the web, email, blog type forums truly open for deliberations?
  are contributors with contrarian points of view encouraged?
  are all points of view encouraged?


  are there two versions of each forum one with editing for people who
  prefer it and one unedited with all contributed messages available?


  are the editors, moderators good at it, skilled in negotiation and
  responsive always to concerns about editing?


. Forums
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NC_Health_Summit/
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ugmhealth/
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INVENIOPlanning/


. Variety of gay health summits
  Gay Mens Health Summit
  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Health Summit
  LGBTI Health Summit
  GBT Health Summit
  Lesbian Health Summit
  state gay health summits
  city gay health summits
  Pre-Summit


   Permanent link to archive for 2/19/05.  Saturday, February 19, 2005


Asked by another contributor to a thread of deliberations
whether I am directing my words to the thread or not.


  to the whole group. i meant to contribute a contrarian view to the
  thread. moderator(s) would not let me. if you would, please try
  throwing my words into the hopper for consideration with all,
  with everybodys' deliberations.


A question... do i always just ask questions?


  do i always ask questions like you do?


Asked about believing that you must be infected to infect somebody.


  that's a reasonable conclusion about my opinion


Comment about not having spoke about murding anybody
and asking whether i believe that.


  i don't necessarily believe you've talked about murder
  but that's certainly one way to look at someone's behavior.


  there have been a number of murder convictions for people infecting
  others with hiv,
  q.v.
  "murder convictions" "hiv infection"
  http://www.google.com/search?q=%22murder+conviction%22+%22hiv+infection%22


Comment about having advocated education about and testing for
sexually transmitted infections.


  what coincidence, it seems that my opinion on this coincides with
  yours.


and asking how is it murder and infection.


  you are comingling two separate issues. the question of sti
  education is one that i agree with you on.
  on the question of murder, it seems to me it happens.
  confer with the above case histories.


Asked about another contributor to the thread.
Comment that he talks about murder.


  i have no idea who you are talking about
  and he can say whatever he wants.


Asked about believing in the devil.


 i believe some people believe in the devil. other than that there is
 no such thing unless you're referring to my five year old nephew
 chuckie who everybody in this family says is a little devil.


Comment about it not being right for him to murder or infect any person.


 i have no idea if your intent is to murder by infection or simply
 infect by infection, here's a reference to cases where individuals
 have been infected and the infector was convicted of murder
 "murder convictions" "hiv infection"
 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22murder+conviction%22+%22hiv+infection%22


Comment about sharing a belief that the loaded gun analogy does not
work toward reducing new infections and sharing observations about
behavior.


 i have no idea if that's the actual way you have behaved and
 consequently i have nothing to say about your behavior. but confer
 with the above url and you will see that the penis/loaded gun
 metaphor is appropriate because for example some of the people
 infected were infected by people who knew they were infected and that
 is the equivalent of russian roulette. people who did not tell.


 your projecting these things on me gives me
 an opportunity to respond.
__________________


Comment about extreme obsessive compulsion disorder


 thanks for your concern. i'm hiv negative. i'll go get tested with
 anybody who wants to be sure of my status. i don't want to be
 infected by anybody who is positive. that's my point of view on this
 topic. you don't have to like it. but if you don't want to hear
 or know of my opinions you can do the following to have my remarks
 removed from your comments stream...


 software filter techniques
 killfile faq
 http://www.google.com/search?q=killfile+faq


   Permanent link to archive for 2/17/05.  Thursday, February 17, 2005

     By Rebecca Cook
     Study: partner treatment works for STDs
     http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2005/02/16/stds/
     __________________________________________________


By Isaac Kohane
Slightly Controlled Personal Exhibitionism in the Genomic Era
http://www.csail.mit.edu/events/eventcalendar/calendar.php?show=event&id=333


In the new genomic world, we should all adopt personal health records
with the default access policy being one of full access to the public.


That is, your entire medical record and your entire genome should be
in your possession and control and also be made public.


The incremental risk to privacy will be negligible (because of our
reassuring delusions about the current state of privacy) and the
incremental gain to biomedical knowledge and improved therapeutics,
very large.


Recent developments in information technologies enable widely
distributed such personal control today.




Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD
Assoc. Prof of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School
http://www.chip.org/people/isaackohane.html/


Relevant URL
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/


For more information please contact
Tevfik Metin Sezgin 617 253 2663
mtsezgin at csail.mit.edu



Tevfik Metin Sezgin  mtsezgin at csail.mit.edu
First talk of the DIS series is today at 1:00 pm.
http://www.csail.mit.edu/events/eventcalendar/calendar.php?show=event&id=333


Refreshments at 12:50


Dangerous Ideas Seminar Series


Spring 2005 Dangerous Ideas Seminar
Speaker
Isaac Kohane


Date 2-17-2005
Time 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM


Refreshments 12:50 PM
Location
Seminar Room D463 Star


Seminars mailing list
Seminars at lists.csail.mit.edu
http://lists.csail.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/seminars




                 Danger! Danger! Danger! 
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/


     * Q: What is the Dangerous Ideas Seminar?
        The Dangerous Ideas Seminar is a informal seminar
            designed to spur cross-pollination of ideas in
            the lab and to foster creativity by challenging
            students, faculty, and research staff with each
            others' ideas.
            MIT, and particularly the labs in this building,
            have a history of daring innovation and visionary
            research which change the way the rest of the
            world works. We think this is how it ought to be,
            and are organizing these seminars to help
            stimulate people to think big.
     * Q: How does it work?
        Each week, we invite a speaker from the labs. That
            person may be a grad student, faculty, or
            research staff. They are encouraged to present
            something *different* from their most recent
            paper/talk. Emphasis is on informality, vision,
            and inspiration. In particular, we invite the
            speaker to consider the following questions when
            preparing their presentation:
         1. Why should I fear your research?
         2. Why should I rejoice that it's being done?
         3. What should I tell my mom about it?
         4. What's your most interesting discovery?
         5. What's your most recent discovery?
       The speaker's presentation is expected to last for
       approximately 20 minutes, at which point the floor is
       opened up for discussion for the remaining 40 minutes,
       to be moderated if necessary by the organizers.
       Audience members are encouraged to challenge ideas in
       the presentation, make connections to other, disparate
       fields of research, or say anything else they want.


     Q: Who should come to the Dangerous Ideas Seminar?
   We invite all members of CSAIL to attend.
       We particularly encourage you to come when the
       speaker's research is not closely related to your own.


     Q: Why are these ideas so dangerous?
   Because they should violate the status quo, and unsettle
       us from out comfortable seats in the ivory tower. If
       there aren't revolutionary consequences to our work,
       why are we doing it here and not leaving it for [fill
       in your least-favorite university here]?


     Q: How often will Dangerous Ideas Seminars happen?
   Roughly once every two weeks.
       Announcements and reminders go to  csail-seminar at ai,
       which encompasses  ai-seminar at ai  and  seminars at lcs


     Q: Will there be snacks?
   Of course. This is a CSAIL seminar!
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/




The Five Questions
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/5ques.html
                       How does it work?



   Each week, we invite a speaker from the labs -- that
   person may be a grad student, faculty, or research staff.


   They are encouraged to present something different from
   their most recent paper/talk.


   Emphasis is on informality, vision, and inspiration.


   In particular, Instigators are invited to consider the
       following questions
          in preparing their presentation:


    1. Why should I fear your research?
    2. Why should I rejoice that it's being done?
    3. What should I tell my mom about it?
    4. What is your most interesting discovery?
    5. What is your most recent discovery?


   Instigators present for twenty minutes. The rest of the
   hour is then opened for discussion.


   The audience is encouraged to
         challenge ideas in the presentation,
           make connections to other, disparate fields of
   research,
             and respond with hard questions and new ideas.
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/5ques.html




Who?
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/you.html


You!
                           [you.gif]


           We invite all members of CSAIL to attend.


    We particularly encourage you to come when the speaker's
          research is not closely related to your own.


                        All are welcome.




Dangerous?
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/why.html


                 Why are these ideas so Dangerous?


   Because they violate the status quo,


   and Unsettle us from from our comfy seats in the Ivory
       Tower.


   If our work doesn't have revolutionary consequences, then
   why are WE doing it?




                  Will you lure us with Food?
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/food.html


   We will lure you with Danger!!
        ...but this is a CSAIL Seminar!




Instigators
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/instigator.html
                "The Seminar on Dangerous Ideas"


                Informal, Evocative, Subversive.


      Thursdays    1 p.m.     Stata Center Kiva (32-G449)


   What: The Five Questions: (Fear, Joy, Mom, Cool, New)
    1. Why should I fear your research?
    2. Why should I rejoice that it's being done?
    3. What should I tell my mom about it?
    4. What's your most interesting discovery?
    5. What's your most recent discovery?


   Why:
   Cross-pollination of ideas within the Computer Science and
       AI Lab!
       Proving-ground for your big ideas, reactions from the
       best and brightest!


   Who:
   Recent presenters asked first, then random selection.
       Heavy emphasis on student instigators (as vs. faculty)


   Audience:
   20-30, primarily CSAIL students and faculty. Others as
       invited or wandering by.


   Possible Format:
   20 minutes instigation while people eat -- get 'em riled
       40 minutes reaction/discussion/war


                     Refreshments provided.


  If You Are Instigating:


     * Send your abstract (roughly 300-800 words) to
       dangerous-minds at csail.mit.edu  by THE FRIDAY BEFORE
       your seminar! This is so we can create and distribute
       posters, send out email, put you on the schedule, etc.
       The sooner you do this, the more we like you!
     * We will try to create a two to three sentence blurb
       (less than 42 words) from your abstract for the
       poster. This is so we know we get it, and don't tell
       people the wrong thing in conversation. You have veto
       power, and will approve posters before they go up.
     * If you need something besides a projector, tell us!
     * If there's anyone in particular we should strongarm
       into attending, tell us! ;-)
     * Be prepared to arrive at 12:30 to set up and make sure
       everything is working.
     * Practice your evil maniacal bellowing laughter.


  If You Want to instigate


     * Send mail to dangerous-minds with ramblings about your
       Dangerous Idea!
     * Catch any of our conspirators unawares and lure them
       into Dangerous Discussion.
     * Use ESP or The Force to schedule your talk.
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/instigator.html


Conspirators
http://projects.csail.mit.edu/dangerous-ideas/dangerous/www/conspirators.html


                "The Seminar on Dangerous Ideas"


                Informal, Evocative, Subversive.


      Thursdays    1 p.m.     Stata Center Kiva (32-G449)


                    Conspirators and History


   The Dangerous Ideas Seminar started at an ai party, with a
   conversation between two friends, Jake Beal and Greg
   Marton. Rod Brooks contributed the name and food, and some
   great discussions on how to get started. We've had some
   amazing rants, melees, and surprises, and the Seminars
   push on, challenging instigators with The Five Questions
   and looking for the biggest ideas around the lab.
   We're always recruiting for the Seminars. Talk to us about
   your Dangerous Ideas!
   --- Gremio and Jake


   Permanent link to archive for 2/16/05.  Wednesday, February 16, 2005

     By Steven Landsburg
     More Sex is Safer Sex
     http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=%22more+sex+is+safer+sex%22
     http://www.google.com/search?q=%22more+sex+is+safer+sex%22

   Permanent link to archive for 2/15/05.  Tuesday, February 15, 2005


> An effective strategy would be to only have sex on the first Tuesday
> of the month. Logically, it makes sense. If we all just had sex once
> a month, we could spend the rest of the month monitoring ourselves
> for symptoms of disease.
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/message/3940


          what kind of self monitoring detects human immunodeficiency
          virus ?


          or syphilis? do you self monitor for twenty years and note
          the first signs of brain deterioration?


> The Once-A-Month rule would naturally limit the number of partners
> and therefore the number of opportunities for disease transmission.


          is there any evidence that having sex on the first tuesday
          would do that or are you still in joking mode?


> I declare this to be effective.


          are you still joking or are you insane?


> Maybe tomorrow we can go back to thoughtful dialogue on gay men's
> health challenges.


          we could back to it immediately or as soon as you are
          finishing joking around.


          what are you so afraid of other people reading my replies?


          is your cutting me off how you are looking for thoughful
          dialogue on gay men's health challenges?




> I resent the consistent idea presented by Don that prevention efforts
> have not worked. Gay white men have come along way in bringing down
> the # of new gay white men becoming infected. It is not a failure if
> other at risk groups have not adopted or gotten behind their own
> prevention efforts.
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/message/3941


          what is your definition of worked?


          testing the blood supply for human immunodeficiency virus
          has stopped new hemophiliac infection for all practical
          purposes. that is my definition of saying something works.


          has it really worked for gay white males or are most of the
          infected gay white males, have they more resources to take
          advantage of new therapies instead of becoming statistics?


          gay white males are better educated and generally have
          access to more resources including money.


> Some how, many people expect that the programs that worked for gay
> white men should work for everyone else or they didn't work at
> all. I also know that there are still infections in gay white men
> and that there is still work to be done but the state of the
> epidemic in 2005 is much better than it was in 1985
> so there must have been some success somewhere.


          "...so there must..." when you make a statement like that it
          says you do not know anything about the state of the
          situation. what we do know is about the blood supply, that
          hemophiliacs are not getting infected because we are
          rejecting the infected blood.


          if partners get tested and the infected partner is rejected
          then we are reducing the infection spreading like we
          reject infected blood.


          and do not jump on me about rejecting a sexual partner
          because that happens all the time. people have all kinds of
          superficial reasons for rejecting a sexual partner.
          why shouldn't an infection be a perfectly legitimate reason
          not to have sex with somebody?


          anybody has a perfect right to reject you for any reason
          superficial or otherwise.




> No, sex on Thursday would not be safe.
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/message/3943


          what is the evidence for that?


> Those who dont do it are bad. How many more people must suffer?


          being a moralist is no way to solve this problem.




> Very well said.
> Right on the mark, and quite clever, too. Gave me quite a chuckle.
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/message/3945


          if only being on the mark and chuckling could cure acquired
          immune deficiency syndrome.




> If you miss Tuesday-Sex it's really just as well. The important
> thing is to not have sex any other time during the week. Remember,
> the strategy is ultimately about making the expression of sexuality
> so complicated and difficult that celebacy will start to look
> good. Only then can we really get to real the root of the problem:
> your homosexuality. (Our agenda to use public health issues to make
> everyone conform to our morality and religious ideals is a
> secret. If someone calls you on it, just pretend it isn't so. The
> more you say it, the more true it is.)
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/message/3947


          would it not be a better idea to follow the rules of
          traditional medicine and how they have solved problems over
          the centuries? for example, testing blood for human
          immunodeficiency virus and rejecting it.


          as to the moralists, those people are not going to moved or
          influenced until a clear genetic connection is found between
          homosexuality and a gene or genes at which point these
          moralists and reverers of life will work to allow abortions
          of fetuses shown to have the homosexual genes. it is like
          the third of the population that believes that saddam is
          responsible for nine eleven. some believe he flew both
          planes into the towers personally. that is how wacky some
          moralists are so you should give up any idea of trying to
          influence people who see things that way.


          is that not the problem here all along?
_______________________________________________________________


> > The decision to 'do' the strategy is, at least, dependent on
> > 1) willingness to wait before having sex;
> > 2) trust of the individuals and
> >    their willingness to share personal health information; and
> > 3) access to health services.


          Of course, to all of them but so what? None of those things
          prevent some people even many people from doing it.



> What advice do you have to those people for whom these are barriers?


> > 1) willingness to wait before having sex


          it in fact is unrestrained and unregulated impulses that are
          responsible for the epidemic. if people are that way then
          how could whatever you say influence them? they are likely
          to get infected with sexually transmitted diseases one way
          or another.



> > 2) trust of the individuals and
> >    their willingness to share personal health information


          trust, schmust, what you want are some facts about the
          person. one person's trust could be a lie or a successful
          deception. people lie, deceive.


          people recognize it in themselves all the time and they know
          they are not trustworthy themselves.


          people take advantage of sexual opportunities all the time
          and know other people will do the same.


          one way for an individual to short circuit this lack of
          trust is for them to expose the facts about themselves to
          the other person. that is to expose the information, all the
          results of all their tests.



> > 3) access to health services.


          it is a barrier for some people but not for the vast
          majority. public health clinics are underutilized.
          none are overwhelmed with people taking advantage of their
          services. it would be a good thing if they were but I don't
          think they are, see also
          http://www.knowhivaids.org



> You wrote, "Can you demonstrate the failure of the strategy where a negative
> person and positive person go get tested together, show their results to
> each other and the negative person decides not to have sex?  By what
> mechanism would the person negative for human immunodeficiency virus become
> positive using the strategy if they actually carried it out in that
> fashion?"


> Don, this is where you and I disagree.


> Logic alone does not effectiveness determine. You still haven't provided any
> social science which established effectiveness.


> It is not enough to simply develop a logical way of preventing disease.


          But we are not actually talking about logic we are talking
          about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
          a thought experiment, about people doing the strategy.
          it does not make any sense to say you disagree with me.
          it is my thought experiment. those are the qualities i have
          given it. you have to point out how it could fail if those
          steps were carried out. it is like having a mathematical
          function for computing something. you are not following the
          rules for computing the function.



> condoms prevent disease


          They only prevent it with a certain degree of reliability.



> The challenge is getting a critical mass of
> people using the strategy to have community impact.


          But like any new idea it has to start with two people


          I am one of two people who have done this. We met, two guys,
          and decided the next day to go get tested together.
          Our tests together, blood, pharyngeal throat, urethral, anal
          sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, hepatitis B,
          hepatitis C, hepatitis A were negative. We got vaccinated
          together for hepatitis B and hepatitis A. I know several
          heterosexual couples who did the strategy
          and a http://d-sites.net/english/m%C3%BChl.htm commune
          practicing collective sexuality where
          all the participants did the strategy together.



> The decision to 'do' the strategy is, at least, dependent on
> 1) willingness to wait before having sex; 2) trust of the
> individuals and their willingness to share personal health
> information; and 3) access to health services.


          Of course, to all of them but so what? None of those things
          prevent some people even many people from doing it.


          It is like the blood test for human immunodeficiency virus.
          before there was a test hemophiliacs regularly became
          infected. when the test was developed the infection rate
          went to zero.


          That is where point number three applies.
          There was no access to the test.


          With dead people, handling dead bodies, cultures all over
          the world have required families to handle dead bodies
          customarily. now in first world countries we do not do that
          because of disease. we do not want to pass infections along
          to the family. in africa with ebola you have to stop the
          family from processing the body of an infected person.
          it does not matter that their ritual are milenia old.
          you have to stop that. otherwise family members are going to
          die. you have to change those mores, those behaviors.
          there are places where people thought they were going to
          hell if they did not do those things.
          they gave those practices up.


          like kids going to school without a tuberculosis test.
          it does not happen in first world countries anymore.



          Here is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
          thought experiment...


          Two uninfected men are having anal sex. Is it true or false
          that one or both could get human immunodeficiency virus?


   Permanent link to archive for 2/14/05.  Monday, February 14, 2005

     Have any other folks out there got tested together with their potential sex partner(s) before having sex?...
     Tested together for human immunodeficiency virus and other sexually transmitted infections?...

     While not admitting it publicly, a few Dartmouth College http://www.dartmouth.edu/~health student health services clinicians
     have noted same sex and heterosexual potential sex partners have turned up saying
     they have not had sex yet and want to know what could happen before it might be too late.

     References
     http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tested+together%22
     _________________________________________________

     How to setup a gay health summit, more open, more diverse, less censorious, less politically correct...

     . Arrange a more fluid social software technology for conference attendees who would not be at the confab in person.
        http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/message/3861
        http://www.google.com/search?q=gay+health+summit
        http://www.google.com/search?q=gay+health+summit+2005

   Permanent link to archive for 2/13/05.  Sunday, February 13, 2005


Dialogue. Deliberation
http://www.thataway.org/resources/understand/what.html
______________________________________________


                                          Etsinn?n tulos 122
   Aihe:The strategy b4 sex. Response to points raised.
   See also link at
   http://notb4weknow.editthispage.com/2002/12/22
                       T?m? on t?m?n ketjun ainoa artikkeli


   Keskusteluryhm?t:
   soc.bi
   P?iv?m??r?:2002-12-27 00:16:47 PST
The strategy b4 sex. Response to points raised. See also link to thread at
  http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com/2002/12/22
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&selm=y448yylej31.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu&rnum=27
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&threadm=y448yylej31.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu&rnum=27&prev=/groups%3Fdq%3D%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26selm%3Dy448yylej31.fsf%2540nestle.ai.mit.edu%26rnum%3D27


  As a teacher it pleases me to watch as a student slowly
comes around to accepting and understanding a new idea.
You are doing fine, really.  No thought experimenter,
regardless of how slow, should be left behind.


But as to your thought experiment, that's for  later,
after exhausting the fruits of mine.


  Now you are getting obstreperous and stubborn again.
Do we really want to go down that road so soon again?


  That's only because you still have difficulty accepting
the idea of a thought experiment.  Give it try.  Just
the idea of a thought experiment.  Give it try.  Just
go a  long for a moment to get along.


  Exactly what do you refer to when you say "those"?


  There are only two assumptions: 1) HIV negative, 2) faithful.


It seems likely that such situations occur.


  I'm  sure there are a few of those.  Most will show up
when  tested.


  I'm not considering the latter at all.  How about you
considering my thought experiment again instead of throwing
everything but the kitchen  sink in every time you  have
something to say?


  Ah!  Yes, you are after all, a potentially good student.
You've now come to what all this talk is trying to lead
you to.  What's that expression about how you can  lead a
horse to oats, but you can't get it to make oatmeal
cookies?  Anyway, this is good.


This is the core of the problem.  In order to counter
these tendencies in human nature it makes sense for any
person to get tested with a potential sex  partner. The
solution to the problem of one person testing positive
is a question for both people to consider.  One possibility
is to not begin a sexual relationship.  If they don't then
there is no possibility of a failure of "safe sex" and  of
the  other becoming infected.  The other possibility is to
begin a sexual relationship.


Let me make it clear that I'm not against a person knowingly
becoming infected with HIV.  Everybody has that right.  But
they can only do so when they know the potential partner is
positive.  But in all cases, the  negative person has a right
to know the status of their partner.


One problem is, of course, a  negative test that could be
from a positive person. And a person has a right to not
have sex with a potentially negative person. They have a
right to wait till they find  someone who is positive.


So, from my point of view, every possibility should be
allowed--except where a person is completely ignorant of
the other person's  status.


  Personally I'd go with the test--followed by irresistable
horniness.


  Not being religious, but an absolute reductionist, I'll
skip the  faith and go with science--and the  test.


  Your certainty about "precisely" has me muddled.


  Which, theoretically, should  be reduced further by
testing.  One could say they are even reduced to zero
where you know the person is positive because you
aren't worried about becoming positive, and eventually
dying--after all, one dies eventually, anyway.


  And information like this is what leads to the conclusion
that testing before you have sex is a good idea so that
people can move forward, or somewhere else, with reliable
information.


  Could you refer me to some of the math/statistics that
deal with calculating faithlessness or faith, in general?


  Which would be the rational for getting tested before
beginning that adventure.  Unless more primitive impulses
are actually ruling ones behavior--in which case people
whould just go ahead and do it.  Oh, actually that's
exactly what happens in most cases--condoms or "safe sex"
or not.


  How can it really be out of the way when the plague
continues because the current efforts to get people
to practice "safe sex" don't seem to be effective?


  That's another issue, certainly.  As  an absolute
reductionist my approach would be to assume that human
nature will eventually drive nearly everybody to be
unfaithful.


  You can do that test.  I've got no faith.


  Not at the beginning when your new object of affection
turns out to be positive.  By not having sex with that
person you reduce your chances of becoming positive to
practically zero.


  On the other hand you can say the risk is zero or
irrelevant if you  begin the relationship knowing
that the other person is positive.


If the person tests negative then that risk has
been slightly reduced.


  Its those people for whom the word  naive  was invented.


  And my advice would be to include the test devised
by science--go to a clinic, together, get tested, and
share the results.


  Would those be the same people who are now dead and/or
suffering from AIDS?


And, again, let me assure you I'm not against anyone
getting HIV or AIDS--my only concern is that people  have
some knowledge of their chances of acquiring the infection
or the disease.  Really, I've got nothing against a person
getting either of these.  It should be a right, in fact.
Just one that you have foreknowledge of.


  And some of those turn out to be lucky or unlucky.


  My view is that most people are programmed to just
go ahead and do it.  It has nothing to do with sound
or unsound medicine.  Its the human condition.  Nature
doesn't care about the individuals of any given
species.  Nature has built in programs to make the
individual not care about their welfare when it comes
to reproduction.  Do it!  Now!  As often as possible!


  This implies that your first, and  only partner, was
HIV positive.  Or did you become monogamous  after
you became infected?  Did you tell subsequent partners?
Did you give them a choice?


On the other hand you have something to gain by using
both.  By testing you can eliminate some, if not most
positive people from your choices.  This reduces your
chances of becoming infected.  Or you can decide to
go ahead--but at least you have knowledge about a
future possibility.


 To use the word logical in any conversation about
the subject of human sexuality is to descend into
irrationality.  Possibly idiocy also, but we are
all idiots, to one degree or another, on this topic.


Receipt


Response to points raised. See also link to thread at
  http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com/2002/12/22
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&selm=y448yylej31.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu&rnum=27
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&threadm=y448yylej31.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu&rnum=27&prev=/groups%3Fdq%3D%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26selm%3Dy448yylej31.fsf%2540nestle.ai.mit.edu%26rnum%3D27


   Permanent link to archive for 2/10/05.  Thursday, February 10, 2005

     Thoughtful dialogue on gay men's health challenges
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gaymenshealthsummit/
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/messages/3919?expand=1
     http://www.healthsummit2004.org/programming.htm
     __________________________________________________


http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=581663
IAN AYRES
Yale Law School; Yale School of Management
http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/faculty/iayers/profile.htm


KATHARINE K. BAKER
Illinois Institute of Technology
http://www.kentlaw.edu/faculty/baker_bio.html


August 24, 2004
Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 80


Abstract:
This article attempts to make progress on both the problems of
sexually transmitted disease and acquaintance rape by proposing a new
crime of reckless sexual conduct.


A defendant would be guilty of reckless sexual conduct if, in a first
sexual encounter with another particular person, the defendant had
sexual intercourse without using a condom.


Consent to unprotected intercourse would be an affirmative defense, to
be established by the defendant with a preponderance of the evidence.


As an empirical matter, first-encounter unprotected sex greatly
increases the epidemiological force of sexually transmitted disease
and a substantial proportion of acquaintance rape occurs in
unprotected first encounters.


The new law, by increasing condom use and the quality of communication
in first sexual encounters, can reduce the spread of sexually
transmitted disease and decrease the incidence of acquaintance rape.


Keywords: aquaintance rape, sexually transmitted disease, criminal law


JEL Classifications: K14
Working Paper Series
Abstract has been viewed 1572 times


Contact Information for IAN AYRES (Contact Author)
http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/faculty/iayers/profile.htm
Email address for IAN AYRES
Yale Law School
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven , CT 06520-8215
United States
203-432-7101 (Phone)
203-432-2592 (Fax)


Yale School of Management
135 Prospect Street
P.O. Box 208200
New Haven , CT 06520-8200
United States


Contact Information for KATHARINE K. BAKER
http://www.kentlaw.edu/faculty/baker_bio.html
Email address for KATHARINE K. BAKER
Illinois Institute of Technology
Stuart Graduate School of Business
565 W. Adams St.
Chicago , IL 60661
United States
312-906-5391 (Phone)
312-906-5280 (Fax)


Suggested Citation
Ayres, Ian and Baker, Katharine K.,
"A Separate Crime of Reckless Sex" (August 24, 2004).
Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 80.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=581663


SSRN Electronic Paper Collection


Download the document from:
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Email to yourself or a friend:
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________________________________________________________


          But we are not actually talking about logic we are talking
          about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
          a thought experiment, about people doing the strategy.
          it does not make any sense to say you disagree with me.
          it is my thought experiment. those are the qualities i have
          given it. you have to point out how it could fail if those
          steps were carried out. it is like having a mathematical
          function for computing something. you are not following the
          rules for computing the function.



> condoms prevent disease


          They only prevent it with a certain degree of reliability.



> Condoms prevent disease. The challenge is getting a critical mass of
> people using the strategy to have community impact.


          But like any new idea it has to start with two people


          I am one of two people who have done this. We met, two guys,
          and decided the next day to go get tested together.
          Our tests together, blood, pharyngeal throat, urethral, anal
          sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, hepatitis B,
          hepatitis C, hepatitis A were negative. We got vaccinated
          together for hepatitis B and hepatitis A. I know several
          heterosexual couples who did the strategy
          and a http://d-sites.net/english/m%C3%BChl.htm commune
          practicing collective sexuality where
          all the participants did the strategy together.



> The decision to 'do' the strategy is, at least, dependent on
> 1) willingness to wait before having sex; 2) trust of the
> individuals and their willingness to share personal health
> information; and 3) access to health services.


          Of course, to all of them but so what? None of those things
          prevent some people even many people from doing it.


          It is like the blood test for human immunodeficiency virus.
          before there was a test hemophiliacs regularly became
          infected. when the test was developed the infection rate
          went to zero.


          That is where point number three applies.
          There was no access to the test.


          With dead people, handling dead bodies, cultures all over
          the world have required families to handle dead bodies
          customarily. now in first world countries we do not do that
          because of disease. we do not want to pass infections along
          to the family. in africa with ebola you have to stop the
          family from processing the body of an infected person.
          it does not matter that their ritual are milenia old.
          you have to stop that. otherwise family members are going to
          die. you have to change those mores, those behaviors.
          there are places where people thought they were going to
          hell if they did not do those things.
          they gave those practices up.


          it is like kids going to school without a tb test.
          it does not happen in first world countries anymore.



          Here is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
          thought experiment...


          Two uninfected men are having anal sex. Is it true or false
          that one or both could get human immunodeficiency virus?


   Permanent link to archive for 1/26/05.  Wednesday, January 26, 2005


The strategy includes ABSOLUTELY NO MECHANISM FOR FORCING COMPLIANCE.


It is ALWAYS a question of TWO people deciding to do this, and
neither being able to force the other to do it.


   Permanent link to archive for 1/25/05.  Tuesday, January 25, 2005


By Madeleine Brand
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4465574


Slate's Jurisprudence:


Disclosing HIV-Positive Status


Audio
Day to Day
January 25 2005
National Public Radio NPR's Madeleine Brand talks with Slate legal
analyst Dahlia Lithwick about two men sentenced to prison for not
disclosing their HIV-positive status to their sexual partners.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4465574


   Permanent link to archive for 1/23/05.  Sunday, January 23, 2005

     GayMensHealthSummit-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/

   Permanent link to archive for 1/21/05.  Friday, January 21, 2005


we have had promotional campaigns since the 80's and the epidemic
continues. a biological imperative in us that is too powerful to
respond to promotional campaigns. people do not change their behavior.


if there really would be a change in behavior we would see a change in
the birth rate. after magic johnson had his press conference was there
a dip in the birth rate?...


what could change behavior would be the having to step over the dead
bodies on the way to get tested together for sexually transmitted
infections before having sex.


cholera itself did not deter people from drinking water at the well.
it was the dead bodies.
then the pump handle was removed
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/removal.html
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/broadstreetpump.html


http://www.bayerpharma-na.com/healthcare/hc0104.asp


http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/plague/experts.html
http://www.theplumber.com/plague.html


in families one death from acquired immune deficiency syndrome may not
be enough to effect change in the behavior of the remaining family.
it takes more death in the family than only one to short circuit
behavior that risks exposure.


the force, the biological imperative is too powerful. people are not
diligent every time from beginning to end. believing in so called sex
education campaigns, safer sex practices and condoms miss what we know
from sociobiology, population biology, the evolution of our species
and a force that nature gives us more powerful than promotional
campaigns. reproductive behavior, sexuality is more important in
nature than being cautious, being diligent about using so called
protection.


consider the big picture from the beginning of the species,
sex and death. the powerful force ensures reproduction.
the species can continually improve, some genes go on
and some genes get weeded out.


sex education is a worthy goal but it does not prevent epidemics.
we still have the other epidemics of sexually transmitted infections.
we are not going to wipe human immunodeficiency virus off the planet
with sex education and promotional campaigns.


if acquired immune deficiency syndrome was not politicized we could
use available technology of testing to prevent new infections.
we do not have statistics of the rate of new infections because
of the reluctance to use testing. if we could test a random sample
of the general population we would be able to more accurately study
who develops infection, the people who did not get it and what
qualities the people who did not get it have that would help
prevent more people from getting it.


the promotional campaigns do serve a worthwhile purpose for
participants to meet, find new sex partners and develop careers.


here is a  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
thought experiment


would the cost be greater, for treating the people who got new
infections as a result of having sex with somebody they met at the
walk for aids, would the cost of their treatments be greater than the
money raised at the same walk ?


what is the cost of treatment for one person with acquired immune
deficiency syndrome?...


how many people can be treated with the money raised at the walk for
aids?...


how much money was raised at the walk for aids?...


given what we know of the prevalence statistics for the epidemic, at
any public event like a walk for aids would at least one person find
somebody who exposed them to the virus, two people, more?...


   Permanent link to archive for 1/12/05.  Wednesday, January 12, 2005


By Larissa MacFarquhar


    ...In 1992, he published a book called "Sex and Reason," which
    argued that the sex drive was subject to the control of rational
    calculation.


    The fact that sex was an instinctive urge, he claimed, did not
    preclude an economics of sex any more than the fact that hunger
    was an urge precluded a science of agriculture...


    ...


      In "Sex and Reason," Posner was interested in conscious sexual
    choices, but he is also committed to a theory of unconscious
    rationality: sociobiology.


    He is a thoroughgoing Darwinian, and believes that many of the
    social and moral ideas commonly held to be cultural are in fact
    traceable to the dictates of reproduction.


    He subscribes to the idea, for instance, that altruism derives
    from the evolutionary imperative to perpetuate one's genes by
    taking care of those who share them.


    This coheres nicely with his general economic approach.


    As he puts it,
    "Economic theory is closely related to the theory of evolution. . . .
      Evolution deals with unconscious maximizers, the genes;
      economics with conscious maximizers, persons."


--By Larissa MacFarquhar
  The Bench Burner
  December 10 2001  The New Yorker  p78
http://www.iconservatives.org.uk/richard_posner.htm



References


By Richard A. Posner
Sex and Reason
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0674802802/ref=sib_rdr_toc/104-8093935-6152755?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S002#reader-page
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/POSSER.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22sex+and+reason%22+posner


by E.O. Wilson
Sociobiology
http://www.2think.org/sociobiology.shtml
http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/GPWeiten/C1Intro/Sociobiology.html
http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~thompson/course/sociobiology2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiology
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0674002350/ref=sib_rdr_ex/104-4505657-3628754?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S006#reader-page


   Permanent link to archive for 1/11/05.  Tuesday, January 11, 2005

     Knowing each others' test results before having sex gives you more choice than not knowing.

     _______________________________
     Public Conversations Project
     http://www.publicconversations.org

     _______________________________
     Program on Negotiation
     http://pon.harvard.edu

   Permanent link to archive for 1/6/05.  Thursday, January 6, 2005

     The Red Cross and their blood supply program have effectively
     eliminated hemophiliacs becoming hiv+ through blood donations.
     Before they had a test about half the hemophiliacs ended up hiv+

   Permanent link to archive for 1/4/05.  Tuesday, January 4, 2005

     David Imagawa
     http://www.google.com/search?q=%22david+imagawa%22

   Permanent link to archive for 12/23/04.  Thursday, December 23, 2004


          The zinger to this bit should be... do the strategy,
          get tested together before you have sex


> Delivered-To: mailing list GayMensHealthSummit@yahoogroups.com
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/
> Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:24:35 -0800
> Subject: [GayMensHealthSummit] Season's Greetings as a PSA from across the pond
>
> ...and one more reason to admire our British cousins!  --
> Be sure your speakers are turned on
> http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/12stisofchristmas/12-STIs.html


   Permanent link to archive for 12/20/04.  Monday, December 20, 2004

     Sociobiology
     by E.O. Wilson
     http://www.2think.org/sociobiology.shtml
     http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/GPWeiten/C1Intro/Sociobiology.html
     http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~thompson/course/sociobiology2/
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiology
     http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0674002350/ref=sib_rdr_ex/104-4505657-3628754?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S006#reader-page
     _____________________________________________________________________________

     The 3 SEX RULES

     SEX RULE number 1:
     Sex is more important than dying.

     SEX RULE number 2:
     Sex is more important than murdering somebody.

     SEX RULE number 3:
     If people could change their sexual behavior we would not be here.
     _____________________________________________________________________________

     There is no test for mutual fidelity
     _____________________________________________________________________________

     Safer sex so called
     There is no zero risk. The term is always safer.

   Permanent link to archive for 12/14/04.  Tuesday, December 14, 2004

     The strategy. Get tested together before you have sex.
     a. human immunodeficiency virus
     b. pharyngeal throat, urethral and anal sexually transmitted infections
     c. tuberculosis
     d. hepatitis B, hepatitis A, hepatitis C
     e. get vaccinated for hepatitis B, get vaccinated for hepatitis A

     For responses, click in left sidebar on
       Today's Discussion

   Permanent link to archive for 12/10/04.  Friday, December 10, 2004

     Deception.
     Self deception.

   Permanent link to archive for 12/9/04.  Thursday, December 9, 2004

     If you needed a blood transfusion would you want the blood that had not been tested ?...

   Permanent link to archive for 12/8/04.  Wednesday, December 8, 2004

     If you needed a blood transfusion would you want the blood tested before the transfusion?...

   Permanent link to archive for 11/21/04.  Sunday, November 21, 2004


          What blood testing do you consider to be valid?... if you need a blood transfusion.


> The answer depends on the validity of the tests in question.
> If the tests are worthless I would not want it tested at all.
> This is the case with non specific 'HIV' antibody tests.


If you need a blood transfusion, would you want the blood tested before or afterward?


A thought experiment.
_________________________________________________________________________________
          a. What you would consider to be correct?... if you were ill with a sexually transmitted infection.


          b. How would you want your doctor to diagnose it if you had a sexually transmitted infection?...


          c. What steps would you want the doctor to take in caring for you?...


> Correctly. If the syndrome had nothing to do with sex, I sure would not
> want him to treat it as an std nor would I want him to prescribely deadly
> medications based on a flawed hypothesis.


If you were ill with a sexually transmitted infection,
how would you want your doctor to diagnose and care for you?


   Permanent link to archive for 11/20/04.  Saturday, November 20, 2004

     If you needed a blood transfusion, would you want the blood tested before or afterward?

     A thought experiment.

   Permanent link to archive for 10/29/04.  Friday, October 29, 2004

     Regarding the Fenway Community Health Center information at
     http://fenwayhealth.org/hotmale/articles.htm
     it would be a good idea to discuss the strategy of getting tested together before having sex.
     Potential sex partners do not or are not able to disclose everything important.
     Potential sex partners do not tell the truth every time. Deception is built in by nature.

   Permanent link to archive for 10/27/04.  Wednesday, October 27, 2004

     http://www.healthypenis.org/
     _________________________________________________________
     gay mens health summit
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GayMensHealthSummit/
     http://www.healthsummit2004.org/programming.htm
     http://www.gmhs2003.org/
     ___________________________________________________________________


Questions.
How is the logic you are using different than abstinence until marriage?...


Do public health leadership acknowledge the phenomenon of people who are getting
tested together before having sex ?...


Answers.
     Abstinence until marriage does not detect the presence of HIV.


     Marriage does not detect HIV.


     Honeymoons do not detect HIV.


     An HIV test detects HIV.


Public health leadership would acknowledge the phenomenon of potential sex partners
getting tested together before having sex when the leaders' spouses would ask...
What about you dear?... Have you had other sexual opportunities?...


Spontaneity for potential sex partners can involve a lot of things
including doing other things together before having sex, for example
doing somthing that would raise the level of health for the relationship.


If so called safer sex practices and condoms actually worked the
epidemic would have peaked. These propaganda campaigns have been used
for years with the misnomer safe sex. The correct term is
always... safer. There is no zero risk. Now with combination drug
treatments even more people with infections are exposing others.


The strategy is premised on that people do not wait. That most people
will not do the strategy. That potential sex partners should have as
much sex as possible and as often as possible. For those that take
this step the ambiguity is reduced more than by another other course
of action. It is not liberating to expose a potential sex partner to
infections, painful death. Potential sex partners do not or are not
able to disclose everything. Potential sex partners do not tell the
truth every time. Deception is built in by nature.


Safer sex practices do not include having more multiple partners.


Partners do not always agree on what are so called safer sex
practices.


Those men you mention can choose to do the strategy.


The strategy is one thing. People can choose the course of action of
getting tested together before having sex.


The diligence required to use so called safer sex practices and condoms
every time from beginning to end is more difficult.


Compare that diligence every time to testing before having sex.


Politically incorrect, the idea of the strategy would be suppressed by
most people even though it would save lives.


Education and counselling is not as effective as getting tested
together before having sex.


For example, education and counselling is not as effective as
getting vaccinated for smallpox.


   Permanent link to archive for 1/21/04.  Wednesday, January 21, 2004

     Books about sex
     http://artdeadlineslist.com/sexbooks/

     By Carlene Bauer. By Helen Fisher.
     http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/01/27/fisher/

     By Laura Miller
     http://archive.salon.com/oct96/gender961028.html

   Permanent link to archive for 12/24/03.  Wednesday, December 24, 2003


Sorry Don, but the ssg moderator rejected your post not because of its satire, but because it did not
add anything useful to the discussion. We are intelligent people and do recognize satire when we see it.
The discussion though needs to be kept on track and flowing.


One night stands happen, and thus we need to discuss them. Obviously they are possible occasions for sharing stds.
Most posters in the group, however, are very aware of this. New readers, however, may not be. As you know,
ssg sometimes does attract readers who have a very poor grasp of the fundamentals of safe sex
(and the fundamentals of many other things, too); they are the ones the moderators have to look after.
Talking about one night stands does not necessarily indicate irrationality, nor participating in them.
(I am of an age where one night stands were quite common [the '70s, I'm talking about]. I haven't had a one night stand since about '76.
  I wouldn't dream of it now.)


I admire your firm directed intention to publicize stds; to make as many people as you can aware of these dangers.
You are not alone. Sometimes, though, gently, gently does it better than repeating yourself in ways that turn people away.


   Permanent link to archive for 12/1/03.  Monday, December 1, 2003


By Jessamyn West
1Dec03
Hi. This year like many years past I am observing World AIDS Day.
Please go see what lii.org has to offer in this category and spend a little time
familiarizing yourself with this deadly pandemic which has not gone away.


Here is a list of online libraries and archives dealing with HIV/AIDS information
http://www.librarian.net/stacks/Dec03.html#000144


The Rural AIDS Action Network in Minnesota is launching a
Libraries Fight HIV/AIDS campaign in partnership with the MLA today.


   Permanent link to archive for 11/11/03.  Tuesday, November 11, 2003

     How to read the 2 or 3 times a week sexnewsdaily on the web...

     . Add 1 to the issue number
     . Then increase the date by 1, 1 by 1 until the next issue appears.
     Example
     http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b476-110603.html
     http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b475-110403.html
     http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/Archives.htm

     Or try
     http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/
     http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/Archives.htm

   Permanent link to archive for 10/20/03.  Monday, October 20, 2003


soc.sexuality.general


How to wipe out aids


>> Get tested together before you have sex.


> Well I'm all for getting rid of aids and not using condoms, but how would
> you get tested on a one-night stand?


      Print this message on a piece of paper.


      Cut around the small part of the piece of paper containing
      this and other text.


      Roll this small piece of paper into a very narrow tube.


      Shove this tube up any oriface that produces mucous.


      If it turns red then don't have sex.  Blue indicates
      that any amount and variety of sexual behavior will
      be safe.



Here you have in this group
somebody asking about a one night stand
which is of course the situation in which the disease is passed on and
irony or satire fails apparently.
The people are so controlled by their irrationality
that satire fails.


Perhaps they're concerned that people on the list
would take that advice seriously
when a person can say what about a one night stand and
how does your strategy apply to that?...


Here's the thread
[ http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&threadm=y44smlodf4g.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26group%3Dsoc.sexuality.general ]


   Permanent link to archive for 7/1/03.  Tuesday, July 1, 2003

     So called safer sex. condoms.
     http://snipurl.com/socalledsafersex
     http://snipurl.com/safersex
     http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y1DA22525
     http://makeashorterlink.com/?N1C923225
     http://makeashorterlink.com/?R11B42825

   Permanent link to archive for 3/13/03.  Thursday, March 13, 2003


The "Not Before We Know" Strategy: two individuals, before they have their
first sexual contact, agree to have standard STD clinic tests and share the
results with each other BEFORE they have their first sexual contact.


Sociobiology
by E.O. Wilson
http://www.2think.org/sociobiology.shtml
http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/GPWeiten/C1Intro/Sociobiology.html
http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~thompson/course/sociobiology2/
_____________________________________________________________________________


The 3 SEX RULES


SEX RULE number 1:
Sex is more important than dying.


SEX RULE number 2:
Sex is more important than murdering somebody.


SEX RULE number 3:
If people could change their sexual behavior we would not be here.
_____________________________________________________________________________


There is no test for mutual fidelity


Safer sex so called
There is no zero risk. The term is always safer.


Not B4 We Know the strategy before sex potential sex partners
get tested together for pharyngeal throat, urethral and anal
sexually transmitted diseases including acquired immune
deficiency syndrome, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis A,
hepatitis C and vaccinated for hepatitis B and hepatitis A.


   Permanent link to archive for 12/28/02.  Saturday, December 28, 2002

     [join.gif]
     Click to subscribe to bihealth-announce

     The online experience for Fenways outreach has been overwhelmingly positive.
     On the Internet, our team of 5 volunteers and 2 staff members answers many
     questions about the risk of certain sexual practices, such as oral sex, and about
     specific sexually transmitted diseases, such as genital warts. Even in cyberspace,
     Fenways non-judgmental approach to health and education puts people at ease.
     Welcome to Hotmale
     http://www.fenwayhealth.org/hotmale/homepage2.htm

   Permanent link to archive for 12/23/02.  Monday, December 23, 2002

     Do you and your sex partner know each others test results?...
     http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/id/mghstd.html

   Permanent link to archive for 12/22/02.  Sunday, December 22, 2002

     The Conversation so far...
     http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&selm=y448yylej31.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu&rnum=27
     http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&threadm=y448yylej31.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu&rnum=27&prev=/groups%3Fdq%3D%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26selm%3Dy448yylej31.fsf%2540nestle.ai.mit.edu%26rnum
     %3D27

   Permanent link to archive for 11/23/02.  Saturday, November 23, 2002


Question
What about it?... if doing the strategy before sex potential sex
partners get tested together for the standard sexually transmitted
infections, then after one of the partners finds another sexual
opportunity with a third and doesn't even talk about it?...


Answer
It's no problem! What you don't know can't hurt you!


   Permanent link to archive for 7/30/02.  Tuesday, July 30, 2002

     Tabulate hits at http://google.com
     for the search
     tested together AND sex

   Permanent link to archive for 7/25/02.  Thursday, July 25, 2002


In left sidebar click on
 Join Now
Open community weblog. The strategy.
 Potential sex partners getting tested together
 before sex for the standard sexually transmitted infections.
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=tested%20together&safe=images&ie=ISO-8859-1&lr=&as_scoring=d&hl=en
http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com/discuss/msgReader$20
http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com/discuss/msgReader$6
http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com/discuss/msgReader$5
http://NotB4WeKnow.EditThisPage.com/discuss


   Permanent link to archive for 7/15/02.  Monday, July 15, 2002

     http://sexnewsdaily.com
     SND Today's News archives
     http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/Archives.htm
                               Jeff Laurie, Editor
     [expert2.gif] 

   Permanent link to archive for 7/14/02.  Sunday, July 14, 2002

     Here're varied threads of coment about the strategy
     http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22tested+together%22+sex&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en

   Permanent link to archive for 7/12/02.  Friday, July 12, 2002

     How to find more information related to the strategy.
         http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22tested+together%22+sex&btnG=Google+Search
     How can I avoid...
         http://www.laglc.org/std/SyphilisFacts.pdf
     a proposed 'real-world' scenario for harm-reduction among new couples
         http://www.infoweb.org/top/safe/safe.html
     Call it a ritual of dating
         http://www.mid-hudsonhivcare.org/pagethree.html
     You're thinking about having sex but are concerned...
         The Dating Game
         http://www.ppnyc.org/new/extra/for_HIV.qxp.pdf
     We may be dreamers, but we recommend getting tested together first, too.
         http://personals.salon.com/personals/emlo/11_15_01/

   Permanent link to archive for 2/12/02.  Tuesday, February 12, 2002


Listen to this segment from NPR National Public Radio
http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=02%2F11%2F2002&PrgID=2

HIV - Blood Transfusions
Robert Siegel talks with Dr. Michael Busch, Vice President for Research at
Blood Centers for the Pacific and a Lab Medicine Professor at University of California San Francisco,
about a man who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. (4:30)
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20020211.atc.07.ram


   Valdez said blood banks always have been required by the FDA to test
   donor blood for 12 infectious agents. They're also required to do a
   brief medical history and a physical of the donor before blood can be
   donated.
   In 1999, blood banks began nucleic amplification testing, which closes
   the window period of detecting tainted blood. For example, if a donor
   gave blood today, the test would show if the person was infected seven
   to 10 days earlier, she said.
   That testing is not required by the Food and Drug Administration and
   is still under investigation, Valdez said.

Texan Infected With HIV From Donor
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-donated-blood-hiv0209feb09.story

   NEWS
   o  Health/Science

   Texan Infected With HIV From Donor

   [email.gif] Email this story

   By Associated Press
   February 9, 2002, 2:31 PM EST
   SAN ANTONIO -- A Texas ranch hand undergoing surgery was infected...


   Permanent link to archive for 11/9/01.  Friday, November 9, 2001


SND Today's News archives
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/Archives.htm


You are about to embark on a fascinating daily journey into
human sexuality around the world.  SexNews Daily! is the
groundbreaking email newsletter on sex, sexuality and
gender.  Every issue, a short, upbeat snapshot of events is
packed with fascinating, upbeat articles covering breaking news,
sexual research, sexual health, surveys, magazine articles,
sexual policy issues and more, all spiced with a point of view
that will amuse intelligent readers.
Volume B, Number 258  Wednesday, January 30, 2002
ISSN: 1527-1242  Jeff Laurie     Today's Issue
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b258-013002.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b257-012802.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b256-012502.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b255-012302.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b254-011802.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b253-011602.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b252-011402.html#TOP
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b251-011102.html


http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b250-010902.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b249-010702.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b248-010402.html
http://www.sexnewsdaily.com/issue/b247-010202.html


2000-2001 archives
http://notb4weknow.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$22


   Permanent link to archive for 8/9/01.  Thursday, August 9, 2001


Joseph Lister
At first Lister was regarded as an eccentric and nurses resented the extra work that his
  obsession with cleanliness caused. But deaths from blood poisoning
  and gangrene were reduced...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/medicine/nonint/indust/dt/indtbi5.shtml


Lister, for the first time, carried out the operation under antiseptic conditions.
  News of the operation was widely publicized arousing much opposition.
  Its success was instrumental in forcing surgical opinion throughout the world to
  accept that his methods greatly added to the safety of operative surgery.
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/b.gardner/Lister.html#op


Ignaz Semmelweis
Semmelweis proceeded to investigate its cause over the strong objections of his chief,
  who, like other continental physicians, had reconciled himself to the idea
  that the disease was unpreventable.
http://www.britannica.com/seo/i/ignaz-philipp-semmelweis/


Semmelweis was ridiculed by his colleagues
http://home.att.net/~emurer/works/semmel.htm


___________________________________________
If you're all for being totally open wouldn't that
include knowing your partners status before doing
anything?...


Why would you get tested with that someone special?
Is it because you suddenly decide you care about the
lives of other people? Do you jump in the sack with
other people because you don't care about them whether
you pass something onto them or
they pass something on to you?


Clearly Catholicism hasn't been much help or solice for
you. It's a closed system that doesn't want to talk
about the full range of human sexuality that people
actually exhibit and it certainly doesn't want to talk
about you and your sexual behavior.


Aren't the circumstances you mentioned typical
scenarios of how people contract STDs, impulsive sex
that won't allow for any thought or consideration for
your or the other person's welfare?...


Again, the powerful impulse for sex is part of what's
responsible for STD epidemics. People can't wait. They
won't wait. One could say that nature doesn't care
about any of us or our welfare. Nature only cares that
we exercise the reproductive act and from this we get
STD epidemics.


It took a long time for society to reach the point
where all doctors wash their hands before operating on
a patient. It's taken a long time for the water supply
to be clean and kept separate from waste water. It's
taken a long time to require everyone who goes to
school to have a TB test. It's going to take a long
time and a lot of deaths before people see the value of
STD testing before having sex with a new partner.


What else can you say if the question is am I infected?
Can you say go out and have sex with as many people as
you can and see it any of them die in the next few years.


We need to look around for the data, pull together a
compilation with the currently recognized window period
for each STD and make a table.


The world is changing its opinion about testing.
People who go in that direction are going to be safer.
Or like the doctors who wouldn't wash their hands,
put their patients at risk.


   Permanent link to archive for 7/28/01.  Saturday, July 28, 2001

     http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=tested%20together#=100&as_scoring=d
     http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Archive/Testing/Q9534.qna
     http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Archive/Testing/Q9530.qna
     http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Archive/Other/Q8846.qna
     http://www.thebody.com/cgi-bin/bbs/dosearch.pl?Cat=&Forum=All_Forums&Words=dsaklad&Match=Username&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts
     http://www.thebody.com/cgi-bin/bbs/dosearch.pl?Cat=&Forum=All_Forums&Words=don&Match=Username&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts

   Permanent link to archive for 7/14/01.  Saturday, July 14, 2001

     http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/agnes.htm
     By Tom Lehrer

     I love my friends, and they love me,
     We're just as close as we can be.
     And just because we really care,
     Whatever we get, we share!
     ...
     ...And if you will be my friend,
     Then I might...(Mind you, I said "might")...
     Give it to you!
     [ more... ]
     http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/agnes.htm

   Permanent link to archive for 5/9/01.  Wednesday, May 9, 2001

     http://www.unaids.org/epidemic_update/report/epi_core/sld007.htm

     Page 25
     http://www.unaids.org/wac/2000/wad00/files/WAD_epidemic_report.htm

     http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite.jsp?page=kb-01-03#S2X

   Permanent link to archive for 4/13/01.  Friday, April 13, 2001


   With sexual opportunity people can choose to do the
   strategy, but nature is a powerful force.


Human consciousness and will are more powerful.


         Say, aren't "consciousness" and "will"
         (also known as free will) qualities created by
         natural forces, time, and evolution
         (whatever you want to call it)?


         And did you have anything to do with the
         development of your own consciousness and
         will... or were you handed variations on these
         qualities by the genetic roll-in-the-hay dice
         thrown by your parents?


         Could your consciousness and will actually be
         fooling you into thinking that you are actually
         in control of your life and fate and the
         decisions you are making are your own, versus
         just the playing out of a program embedded in
         your flesh since conception
         (plus some amount of experience)?


         Could it be that what one person calls their
         "will" is nothing more than an embedded
         strategy that appears to be different from
         someone else's, even superior, if another
         person did something that caused their death
         before they had a chance to breed?


         What if the quality of will you posses is
         nothing more than some point on the spectrum of
         variations in will that the human gene pool
         allows?


         Perhaps everything I've written is nothing more
         than an automatic response generated by the
         previous writers words appearing in front of my
         eyes. And, no doubt, some people imagine me to
         be an idiot for suggesting that they don't have
         complete control of their lives through their
        consciousness and will power--which other
         people could imagine to be no more than an
         automatic response they have on seeing someone
         suggest they are little more than sophisticated
         robots.

         Yeah, wouldn't that be sad...

         Ah, what the heck.  What's on tv?

I'm 23 and a virgin,
so there is certainly precedent for people to be able
to wait for a decent relationship,

         Yeah, you could say you're waiting. Or perhaps
         you were programmed to wait till later.

         Take birds that fly to Wrangle Island for
         mating season. Some go too soon. Their
         offspring don't make it. Some go too late.
         Their offspring don't make it. Those that go in
         the middle of the breeding season have a better
         chance. But it makes sense for nature to
         generate individuals with these variations in
         mating behavior. For example, suppose weather
         conditions change radically around the
         world. Now some of those birds will be
         automatically programmed to go at what is now a
         better chance for breeding. Their kids will
         eventually come to dominate the mating season.
         But the species will continue to survive.

         So maybe you're still-a-virgin-at-23 behavior
         is nothing more than the program you were born
         with.

         Fathers aren't much different from birds in
         this respect. If a woman decides to mate with
         an older man its likely because he's got more
        resources for those kids. He's likely to be
         much more successful than other men his
         age--otherwise the woman would take a handsome
         young guy instead. So some women take younger
         guys and some take older guys. You know if the
        old guy is going to be a success. On the other
         hand his kids are more likely to have physical
        and psychological problems. Its a trade-off
         with these strategies.

        Darn, now I've gone and spoiled your day. Oh,
        what the heck, let's see what's on tv...

or in this case, until they are tested.

   Permanent link to archive for 4/3/01.  Tuesday, April 3, 2001


By Daniel Q. Haney
AP Medical Editor
Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2000; 5:00 p.m. EST


Kissing Tied to AIDS-Related Virus
http://www.gfn.com/archives/story.phtml?sid=7906
http://www.gfn.com/archives/author.phtml?aid=QHANEY
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001108/aponline170033_000.htm


BOSTON  A form of the herpes virus that causes an
AIDS-related skin cancer appears to spread through
kissing.


Herpes virus 8 was discovered six years ago and causes
a skin cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma. In the United
States, the cancer occurs almost exclusively in people
with AIDS.


[ more... ]


Dr. Anna Wald, another University of Washington
researcher, noted that herpes virus 8 is closely
related to the common Epstein Barr virus, which causes
mononucleosis, long known as the kissing disease.


"Teen-agers tend to get this when they start kissing,"
she said. "The reason they get Epstein Bar virus and
not herpes virus 8 is that most people have Epstein Bar
virus, but relatively few have herpes virus 8."
[ more... ]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001108/aponline170033_000.htm
http://www.gfn.com/archives/story.phtml?sid=7906
http://www.gfn.com/archives/author.phtml?aid=QHANEY



   Permanent link to archive for 2/23/01.  Friday, February 23, 2001

     Two guys getting tested together after, rather than before
     Click on
     episode guide
     season one

     Select
     Episode 11

     And click on
     Anxious Moments

     at the link
     http://sho.com/queer/seasonone_11.cfm
     http://sho.com/queer
     _______________

     get tested together first
     http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=#=100&as_scoring=date&btnG=Google+Search&as_oq=&as_epq=get+tested+together+first&as_eq=&as_ugroup=&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=&as_umsgid=&lr=&as_drrb=quick&as_qdr=&as_mind=15&as_minm=8&as_miny=2000&as_maxd=27&as_maxm=3&as_maxy=
     2001
     ___________________________________________

     By Erin McClam
     Alarm over California syphilis outbreak
     Feb. 22, 2001
     An outbreak of syphilis in Southern California last year has provided
     alarming new evidence that gay and bisexual men are lowering their
     guard against AIDS...
     http://www.aegis.com/default.asp?req=http://www.aegis.com/news/ap/2001/ap010220.html

   Permanent link to archive for 2/21/01.  Wednesday, February 21, 2001

     Altruism

     http://www.omnimag.com/archives/interviews/wilson.html
     Sociobiology
     by E.O. Wilson
     http://www.2think.org/sociobiology.shtml
     Local college and public libraries have the
     2000 edition of Wilson's book available for borrowing.
     Check out the altruism diagram! and other graphics...
     http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/GPWeiten/C1Intro/Sociobiology.html
     http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~thompson/course/sociobiology2/
     http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm
     http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,79182+1+77123,00.html
     http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/idxref/0/0,5716,78036,00.html

   Permanent link to archive for 2/15/01.  Thursday, February 15, 2001

     What harm could be caused if you and your potential sex partner
     get tested together before sex?...

Argued:
As far as the premise itself goes, it's about as well
 intentioned, and about as ineffective as
 Nancy Reagan's "Just say no to Drugs."


In order to do ANY kind of orchestrating change, one
 has to meet the person where they are.

 Any other attempt at creating change tends to more
 firmly entrench the old behavior.

 Harm reduction seems to be the most effective
 strategy in migrating people from Drug abuse.

 It probably would be the most effective way to migrate
 people away from health-damaging sexual practice.


The biggest population of people who would benefit from
 advice on how to change their behavior would have what
 is called a "polarity response" to the
 "Before we know" concept.

 Polarity response is a jargon term for
 "If you want me to do that, I trust you so little,
  I'm going to go out of my way
  to do the opposite of what you want."


It's good wanting to help cut sexually transmitted disease.

Unfortunately, "Before we know"
 will cause more harm than it remedies.

     Not before we know the strategy before sex proposes
     potential sex partners get tested together first.
     Not before we know without the first word
     is an example of polarity response to even identifying the correct premise.
     Not before we know the strategy before sex proposes
     potential sex partners get tested together first.
                         Not BeforeWe Know: a strategy for reducing
                         STD's, where two potential sex partners get
                         tested for a variety of STD's before they
                         have sex, after revealing their test results
                         to each other.
     Not before we know written without the first word
     is an example of polarity response
     to even identifying the premise correctly.
                         In your response to my proposition:
                                         Not Before We Know...
                         You refer to the proposition as:
                                         Before We Know
                         Which is, effectively, the opposite
                         of my proposition.
     Getting tested before you have sex is not harmful.
     To know your STD status is not harmful
     It might be harmful to the relationship
     if you for example are a woman and find out
     your potential husband is HIV positive.
     But is that more harmful having children
     who are HIV positive or her becoming positive
     than having sex?...
     Would it be better for them to have sex or for
     them to get tested together first and then for her
     to decide whether to have sex and have children
     who are HIV positive?...

     Peter Conley, David Hewitt, Wayne Mitic, Christiane Poulin, Diane Riley,
     Robin Room, Ed Sawka, Eric Single (chair) and John Topp
     Harm Reduction: Concepts and Practice
     A Policy Discussion Paper
     http://www.ccsa.ca/wgharm.htm

   Permanent link to archive for 1/5/01.  Friday, January 5, 2001


How to determine how widespread the phenomenon is
of people doing the ""Not Before We Know"" Strategy.


How widespread is the phenomenon of people doing the
"Not Before We Know" Strategy?:


Two individuals, before they have their first sexual
contact, agree to have standard STD clinic tests and
share the results with each other BEFORE they have
their first sexual contact.


The Strategy before sex potential sex partners get
tested together for pharyngeal throat, urethral and
anal STDs sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS
acquired immune deficiency syndrome, TB tuberculosis,
hepatitis B, hepatitis A, hepatitis C and vaccinated
for hepatitis B and hepatitis A.


1. How widespread is the phenomenon of people doing the
    "Not Before We Know" Strategy?...


2. Have there been any
    a. clinicians
    b. public health experts
    c. journalists
    d. or...?
    e. ?...


    who have reported on or observed that some potential partners
    are doing the strategy?...

   Permanent link to archive for 1/3/01.  Wednesday, January 3, 2001

     The "Not Before We Know" Strategy: two individuals, before they
     have their first sexual contact, agree to have standard STD clinic
     tests and share the results with each other BEFORE they have
     their first sexual contact.

   Permanent link to archive for 1/1/01.  Monday, January 1, 2001

     Sociobiology
     by E.O. Wilson
     http://www.2think.org/sociobiology.shtml
     http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/GPWeiten/C1Intro/Sociobiology.html
     http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~thompson/course/sociobiology2/

   Permanent link to archive for 12/30/00.  Saturday, December 30, 2000

     The 3 SEX RULES

     SEX RULE number 1:
     Sex is more important than dying.

     SEX RULE number 2:
     Sex is more important than murdering somebody.

     SEX RULE number 3:
     If people could change their sexual behavior we would not be here.

   Permanent link to archive for 10/29/00.  Sunday, October 29, 2000

     There is no test for mutual fidelity

   Permanent link to archive for 10/27/00.  Friday, October 27, 2000

     Safer sex so called
     There is no zero risk. The correct term is always...   safer.

   Permanent link to archive for 10/24/00.  Tuesday, October 24, 2000

     Not B4 We Know the strategy before sex potential sex partners
     get tested together for pharyngeal throat, urethral and anal
     sexually transmitted diseases including acquired immune
     deficiency syndrome, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis A,
     hepatitis C and vaccinated for hepatitis B and hepatitis A.



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