Quote:
|
Originally Posted by sammyboyfor
1. The risk of transmission for STDs such as Herpes, Hepatitis B, Syphillis etc via unprotected oral sex is NOT very low. In fact, transmission of these infections via oral sex is very common.
2. Many STDs.. eg Chlamydia, Herpes, HPV don't exhibit any symptoms whatsoever so NEVER assume that you're OK just because there are no visible symptoms.
3. If you don't know your facts, you should refrain from making comments. It does no favours for anyone... least of all those who are worried about being infected.
|
DEFINING WHAT IS "LOW RISK"
On the basis of scientific evidence such as that presented above, some social-service organizations are now issuing guidelines that place oral sex in a low-risk category. One of these groups is the AIDS Commision of Toronto, Canada. Ed Johnson, director of education for the commission, says, "Because different organizations are saying different things - and there is often great discrepancy between them - we took every study available into consideration and, through the Canadian AIDS Social Coalition, came out with a statement that anal and oral sex cannot be considered of equal risk." Johnson's group then developed three catetories of risk, placing oral sex in the "minimal/theoretical" risk category. Unprotected anal or vaginal sex is in the high risk category; abstinence is listed as no risk.
Wayne Blankenship of the Tuscon AIDS Project, which is following Canada's lead, says that in the United States "We're so invested in having to see transmission in either black or white terms that we've painted ourselves into a corner. A real issue is that there is nothing positive said officially about any form of sex between men. This is a disservice to those trying to make rational choices."
While admitting that "no one would say that there's a 100% guarantee that oral sex won't transmit the virus," Blankenship says critics have sensationalized his group's guidelines as "advocating that people should be having oral sex without a condom. But that's not what our information is about. It's about the relative risk."
According to Kevin Armington, coordinatior of medical information for Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York City, the group's "safer sex" guidelines emphasize "safe, creative sexual activities." GMHC educational materials recommend either using a condom during oral sex or; if no condom is used, refraining from ejaculating in a partner's mouth. The group's concern over possible transmission through oral sex is based on several letters in the mid 1980s in the British medical journal The Lancet, which reported that a few people who claimed that they had participated in no other sexual activities than oral sex nonetheless became infected. Several I.V. drug-using lesbians have reportedly passed the virus to their partners through oral sex. This, GMHC argues, indicates that oral sex is not in a no-risk category.
Marcus Conant, a physician in San Francisco who sees a large population of AIDS patients, emphasizes, "You have to ask what is meant by 'low risk' - which does not mean 'no risk'. If you mean low, you have to decide what risks you are willing to take." Conant draws on the analogy of risks that people take every day: "On a California freeway you have a 1-in-4,000 chance of being killed; in a lightning storm, a 1-in-12,000 chance of being struck. A pregnant woman has about a 1-in-8,000 chance that her baby will have a severe birth defect. The risk of getting HIV from oral sex is clearly lower than 1 in 4,000 but whether it's lower than 1 in 12,000, I don't know.
"People are caught back in a 1983 frame of mind and haven't [stopped to think], Now anyone can get tested," Conant continues. "I wouldn't [advise people] to have rectal sex with anyone without a condom, but they might engage in something that has a low risk - if both were negative and being tested periodically."