HEADLINE HEALTH – The more sex partners a person has, the higher their risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection. So says the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
You don’t need a medical degree to figure out that this makes the safest number of sexual partners to have in life either zero or one.
Promotion of condoms, on the other hand, gives nodding approval to having a high number of sex partners and transient intimate relationships. Therefore condom promotion and giveaways — which have been common since the AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s — promote the exact opposite behaviors required for avoiding STIs.
Public health statistics bear this out, as STD levels are the highest ever and continue to rise. The latest — monkeypox — now spreading globally.
There is, however, a common device that does work effectively to prevent STIs. There’s no need to go out and obtain one — in fact, almost everyone already owns multiple copies.
And it’s frequently one of the very last items a person touches before initiating sexual conduct with the latest in a string of sex partners.
We’re talking about the interlocking slide fastener — aka, the zipper. When kept in its proper upright and locked position, the zipper is highly effective in reducing STI transmission. Using it consistently is one of the best ways to comply with ACOG guidance to minimize the number of sex partners.
Homosexual and bisexual men — who comprise the bulk of carriers and victims of STIs — may have dozens of sex partners in their lives. Women who have sex with bisexual men are also at high risk; both ovarian and anal cancer in women are typically caused by the human papilloma virus, common among homo-and bisexual men:
- Porn star August Ames committed suicide in 2017 rather than perform sex acts with bisexual men.
- “Desperate Housewives” actress Marcia Cross has been in remission from anal cancer since 2018.
- Famed actress Farah Faucet died of anal cancer in 2019.
The advice to have no more than one sex partner in life has of course been with us for millennia. It appears on page 2 of the world’s all-time bestselling book:
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” – Genesis 2:24
A few pages later, the same book describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Will history repeat itself? It often does. We currently have health officials in this country publishing such “safe sex” guidelines as telling homosexual men to stay six feet apart from one another during group masturbation. How the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came up with this precise distance, we don’t want to know.
MONDAY, July 4, 2022 (HealthDay News) – The symptoms of patients with monkeypox in the United Kingdom differ from those in previous outbreaks of the virus, a new study shows.
It said there have been fewer reports of fever and tiredness while reports of skin lesions in the genital and anal areas have been more common.
Location of the lesions suggests transmission during intimate contact, and researchers called for more resources to support sexual health clinics.
Dr. Nicolo Girometti of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in London, said:
“Currently, the U.K. and several other countries are seeing a rapid increase in monkeypox cases among individuals attending sexual health clinics, with no apparent links to countries where the disease is endemic,”
“Monkeypox is a novel diagnosis within the sexual health setting and our study, the first to publish on cases from this U.K. outbreak, will support future case finding and clinical care.”
The study includes 54 cases collected from four London sexual health centers. Each had a laboratory-confirmed infection.
All but two of the patients said they were unaware of having been in contact with a known monkeypox case. None had traveled to sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease is common. Many had recently visited other European countries.
Each of the patients identified as men who have sex with men. About 90% reported at least one new sexual partner during the three prior weeks. Nearly all reported inconsistent condom use. More than half had more than five sexual partners in the previous 12 weeks.
About 94% of patients had at least one lesion on their genitals or around the anus. Most had mild illness, though five were hospitalized for pain or infected skin lesions. All were discharged later.
“The commonly observed symptom of skin lesions in the anal and penile areas, and the fact that a quarter of the patients tested positive for gonorrhea or chlamydia at the same time as the monkeypox infection, suggests that transmission of the monkeypox virus in this cohort is occurring from close skin-to-skin, for example in the context of sexual activity,” said Dr. Ruth Byrne of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust … READ MORE.
