2005- Low Heterosexual HIV Risk Continues to be confirmed

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Promoting Intimacy and Other-Centered Sexuality

2005- Low Heterosexual HIV Risk Continues to be confirmed

HIV can't transfer female to male via sex, but it is very difficult and rare absent other risk factors. If the Female is HIV+ and man has open std sores on penis it can pass, although the concentration in vaginal fluid is very low...if on period could be higher risk.

In the U.S., and most of the world, the heterosexual risk factor is extremely low for males. It is higher for females since if their partner is bisexual or injecting drug user it can easily transmit to a female via anal sex. But absent the male being bi or injecting drug user his and the risk of his female partners is extremely low. Your more likely to have an airplane fall on you vs getting HIV from only heterosexual sex.

Here is my latest summary - as of 12/31/03 Report updated March 2005- Source CDC Surveillance Report
As of 12/31/03 only 13% of males with HIV is in the category of heterosexual contact. As prior reports have shown, this is most certainly overstated since many men will claim to be heterosexual although they are actually bi and have had anal sex with men, but won't admit in it a survey. Or, they be using illegal drugs but will not admit it.

There are also huge racial differences due to culture - i.e. many African men do anal sex with other men but not all the time, so they claim to be heterosexual. That may be why there is such a huge disperportionate numbers of black males with HIV vs White.

Of White Males only 5% of total male HIV cases are classified (probably overly) as Heterosexual contact.

Prior to 2002, the CDC data shows the percentage of heterosexuals getting HIV without any other risk factors is too low to even have its own category (classified as other)... very low % and concentration of cases is also very large in certain cities (with high drug rates). More recently, they have dropped the allocation of multiple categories of risk so some of these "heterosexual" contacts may also do drugs, but their prime claimed risk factor is heterosexual sex (and may not admit to illegal drug use which inflates the heterosexual numbers).

In Africa anal sex is used for birth control, and non circumcised males have been show to be at higher risk. There are far more untreated STD infections including genital ulcer disease - sores on penis and vagina which makes spread easier. And many reported heterosexual cases are really from bi males who got it from anal sex with males.

It simply is very hard to transmit female to male with intact genitals without STD sores. It is much easier to pass male to female although still low vaginally. But the man would have to be doing high risk activities to be HIV+ to be a risk to his female partner.

Thailand had a great example of drastic reduction in HIV and other STD's by their extensive condom program. But heaven forbit we suggest condoms in at least U.S. schools where our religious right insists on sexual ignorance and only unnatural abstinance teaching in schools, or they don't get federal funds.

Good article "Whatever Happened to AIDS and Straight Men"
March 2004
“Health officials have known this for years, but the politically incorrect truth is rarely spoken out loud: The dreaded heterosexual epidemic never happened. The result is a conspiracy of silence. And it’s not in anybody’s interest to clear this up.” Extensive historical details of the spread of false fear at http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/risk_realities/whatever_happened.html

The real problem in some cultures in that bi males refuse to think they have high risk when having anal sex with other males.
This is unbelievable ignorance but true:

HIV in Az Truckers
Example of why Bi Men increasingly getting HIV - Since they think anal sex is safe if they don't consider themselve gay! How accredibly dumb and right here in AZ not a third world country where this ignorance is so common.

Across State Lines - Truckers and HIV
Yorghos Apostolopoulos, a sociology Ph.D and a researcher at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, has been studying the spread of the HIV virus between truckers through behavior patterns and networks - with astonishing results. Backed by the National Institutes of Health, Apostolopoulos launched a mission to determine in the United States what had already been found in sub-Saharan Africa: that many truck drivers become infected on the job. Alongside a squad of ethnographers in 2001, researchers began to study the phenomena of rural truck stop interaction in Phoenix, Arizona.

The study also deduced that some truck drivers - when questioned about their knowledge on AIDS - indicated a belief that condoms were ineffective in prevention of the disease, and that AIDS was only a threat to gay males. It should come as no surprise, then, that straight-identified male truckers who participate in sex with other men feel relatively safe from contracting the HIV virus.

According to Donna Smith, one of Emory University's researchers, "Many of these truckers identify as straight. Because they define risk as being associated with identity - and because they are not gay - they believe they are not at risk. We've collected ethnographies in which truck chasers are asked by truckers, 'Are you married?' They perceive safety in a sexual encounter with another married man."

One truck-chaser in particular revealed in an interview with Apostolopoulous, "Sometimes [truckers] will ask you if you are married because sometimes they feel safer having sex with other married men. I don't know why they think they are not going to contract HIV from having sex with other married men. I think they feel like they are not having sex with gay men, so it is going to be okay."

And as far as knowledge about protection against HIV goes, another truck-chaser declared, "It's definitely a trust issue. Using condoms means no trust. I carry condoms, so if someone asks, then yes, I'll use it. But I never take it out myself. I do look their bodies over for karposis sarcoma, drainage, red marks, anything out of the ordinary. I don't do anything unless I can see their body. But I'm trained in health."

The Emory research team called the truck-chaser's confidence that he could tell if someone was HIV-positive by looking at them, "a shocking level of ignorance regarding HIV transmission."

One prostitute, when asked what she did if a customer refused the use of prophylactics, reportedly responded, "Well, I make sure I use baby wipes."