tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324975298989504774.post6917576286669570672..comments2023-04-14T05:17:42.999-04:00Comments on L's X-Ray Vision: In Barebacking Porn's CornerLeNair Xavierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02611811854575645709noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3324975298989504774.post-84777647761126214582009-08-11T10:31:44.984-04:002009-08-11T10:31:44.984-04:00Tré,
This is a very interesting subject, and betwe...Tré,<br />This is a very interesting subject, and between the three blog comments (MOC, Papi, and here) your opinion on the matter is crystal clear.<br /><br />Of course, yet again, you are exactly right. I appreciate what IML are attempting to do, and the message that they are attempting to send, but it's quite wrong.<br /><br />As a medical researcher, I find the culture of barebacking quite interesting. I am a huge advocate of safe sex, but enjoy watching bareback porn a lot. Fact is, most would actually be quite surprised at the ACTUAL statistics (stati-sex? Sorry... bad pun) on getting HIV from unprotected sex.<br /><br />The most at-risk unprotected sex (acting as the 'receptive' partner, with the other person having a viral load about as high as it gets) will only give you about a 0.5-1:100 chance of actually catching the virus.<br /><br />Now, of course, that's MUCH higher than 0:100 - but it's a LOT lower than most anticipate the statistics to be.<br /><br />Fact is: HIV is much harder to get than most people think. While it only takes one encounter to contract the virus, you're really not likely to get it from any given encounter.<br /><br />HIV is a very fragile virus. The magic receptors gp 160 and 120, and CD4 are easily damaged in transfer, and even in a drop of blood outside of the body, HIV is quickly killed at room temperature after about 20 mins (so a pool of blood on the floor would be essentially HIV free after an hour).<br /><br />In short, bareback sex, while largely responsible for the increase in recent (~5 years), this is a behavior which everyone makes based on their own convictions and morals, and frankly, it's disappointing to see some try to preach to the crowd.<br /><br />I do, however, have more personal trouble with people who KNOW that they are HIV positive have unprotected sex with others that are HIV positive - for the simple reason that you most certainly can make your medical life a WHOLE lot more complicated by contracting more than one strain of the virus. It's not clear that they understand this, and so it bothers me on a personal level to know that it's going on. Of course, it doesn't change my opinion of it - you choose what you wanna choose - but it pains me to know that they might be actually substantially reducing their quality and quantity of life by doing it.<br /><br />On a different note, I am sorry I haven't been able to write lengthy replies to some of your other blog posts, even though I have enjoyed reading them immensely.<br /><br />Yours,<br />The Doc (who, for the record is a doctor of Chemistry/Biochem... and will happily answer any book-related questions on HIV, but knows next-to-nothing on the details of the social stuff. That's not something I excel at.)The Dochttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13486351768519930543noreply@blogger.com