what do you think?

[BobLeeSwagger]

Originally posted by MarkSavage+Aug 21 2004, 04:32 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (MarkSavage @ Aug 21 2004, 04:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-ponybilt@Aug 20 2004, 04:48 PM
OK, now I feel like I&#39;ve been spanked. And I don&#39;t get into being spanked.

Hmmm...I never thought about spanking you Pony, but I sort of like the idea.

Thanks to you all who understood my point. I have a feeling that it bothered me more than it bothered iceman. Oh well. I didn&#39;t care for the direction of some of the comments, and I wanted to say something. [/b][/quote]

No harm done. Getting different sides of the story is the whole point of airing it here, right?

 

[jonb]

It gets confusing. I mean, if I were in such a situation, I&#39;d make sure it was open. The worst part about cheating, besides the diseases, is the deception. (Besides which, I don&#39;t want the rest-area kind of life. Tried a het version of it when I was a teen, found out I was endowed, realized it basically felt like a hot, sticky kind of masturbation.)

With men, the only way I can think of that it could be considered somehow worse than with women is because of AIDS, since men, especially men who have sex with men (That&#39;s a fancy way of saying gay/bi/curious men.), are statistically more likely to carry HIV.

When it comes to the taboo against homosexuality itself, most of these sexual taboos go back to kinship, which in turn goes back to economics. I think the taboo against homosexuality goes back to Jewish kinship, with its focus on preserving patrilineal lines. (Other societies tend to have taboos which restrict, but don&#39;t prohibit, it, just like how the law against polygamy restricts, but doesn&#39;t prohibit, heterosexuality.)

 

[ponybilt]

Originally posted by jonb@Aug 23 2004, 01:23 AM
... With men, the only way I can think of that it could be considered somehow worse than with women is because of AIDS, since men, especially men who have sex with men (That&#39;s a fancy way of saying gay/bi/curious men.), are statistically more likely to carry HIV...

Your homophobia and ignorance are showing, Jonb.

Please show me the statistics. A credible source, please. Because according to the CDC:

- You&#39;re statistically more likely to carry HIV if you&#39;re from NY, CA, and FL.

- HIV diagnoses among heterosexuals in the 25 states that report to the CDC have increased by 10% from 1999 to 2001. (latest figures available)

- In the US, HIV infection is rising fastest among teens, white women, and Hispanics.

If you want to talk statistics, then it&#39;s straight men and women that account for more than 90% of all HIV infections worlwide.

HIV and AIDS is a sex issue, not a gay issue. And it doesn&#39;t discriminate between promiscuous people and people who "Tried a het version of it when I was a teen, found out I was endowed, realized it basically felt like a hot, sticky kind of masturbation"

It&#39;s the kind of ignorance you display in these comments that lead you to believe you&#39;re safe from infection -- and worse, potentially influence others to believe that they too are safe because they&#39;re straight. That&#39;s a 1983 attitude, it&#39;s irresponsible, and I&#39;m surprised that you&#39;d even put it in print.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

Originally posted by ponybilt@Aug 23 2004, 04:10 AM

Your homophobia and ignorance are showing, Jonb.

I think you&#39;re reading too much into this, again. I could easily counter those explanations with:

- New York, California, and Florida have the highest gay populations of any state.

- HIV infections are indeed rising faster among the heterosexual population, but that&#39;s because those increases are from a much lower base than the number of gay/bisexual men. A few years ago Mitsubishi could claim it was the fastest-growing Japanese car company in the United States, but only because they were one of the smallest already.

There were already a very large number of HIV+ gay/bisexual men out there when heterosexual infections started to rise. So infections among straight men can increase faster for several years before rivalling the infections among gays. Thanks to medical advances, those HIV+ gay men aren&#39;t dying nearly as quickly as they used to, so they&#39;re still out there. Gay/bisexual men and IV drug users still comprise the majority of HIV infections in the United States. (Not NEW infections, just TOTAL infections.) Considering that gay men and IV drug users are a much smaller minority than the overall straight, non-IV-drug-using population, it&#39;s clear that, all other things being equal, your HIV-infection odds are much worse for a guy having sex with a guy than with a woman.

Having said that, your point about transmission being a sex issue is also true. In terms of risky sexual behavior for HIV transmission, anal sex is at the top. And it&#39;s equally true for a woman receiving anal sex as it is for a man. But gay men are far more likely to be having regular anal sex than a straight man is. That, combined with the fact that gay men tend to have more partners (which, despite our differing explanations, we did agree on in that other thread), means that in general having sex with a man is more risky than having sex with a woman.

As you point out, it&#39;s hard to generalize about that because who embodies an "average gay man" or an "average straight man"? Almost nobody. But don&#39;t call it homophobia when somebody says that gay anal sex is riskier than heterosexual sex. The facts behind the trends say that this is true.

 

[ponybilt]

Originally posted by aloofman@Aug 23 2004, 07:19 AM
... But gay men are far more likely to be having regular anal sex than a straight man is. That, combined with the fact that gay men tend to have more partners (which, despite our differing explanations, we did agree on in that other thread), means that in general having sex with a man is more risky than having sex with a woman.... But don&#39;t call it homophobia when somebody says that gay anal sex is riskier than heterosexual sex. The facts behind the trends say that this is true.

Aloofman, while thoughtful, you miss the point. You can use the stats to make a point, but what Jonb said makes straight people believe they&#39;re not at risk. You don&#39;t distinguish the behavior of sex versus the who of sex, and you fail to back up your statements with fact. (and yeah, statistics can be twisted any way we want, that&#39;s why I pointed to the CDC who publishes raw, parametric data).

There&#39;s a myth in the gay community that the top in anal sex is safe from contracting HIV because statistically there&#39;s far less of a chance of contracting it that way. And yet if you take a look at male-for-male personals online, there are many &#39;exclusive tops&#39; who are HIV positive. Nothing is absolute.

Most concerning is that the myth extends to the straight community: people believe they&#39;re safe because &#39;it&#39;s really just a gay issue&#39; -- and this is the attitude that will turn HIV into a straight issue in the US as is it everywhere else in the world. These are the numbers from the CDC that are alarming. So the fact is straight men *can* contract HIV from women through both anal and vaginal intercourse. So what would the odds have to be for not contracting HIV? 1:500? 1:1000? 1:10,000? Good luck with that.

Jonb didn&#39;t say gay anal sex is riskier than heterosexual sex. He said that gay men are more likely to have HIV without backing up his claims or qualifying it, just as you did in your post.

Opinion and speculation stated as fact doesn&#39;t make it fact -- but it does lead people to make behavioral and attitudinal choices based on the influence of false statements. And that&#39;s my issue: stating things like that make straight people believe it&#39;s unrealated to themselves.

According to Norman Hearst and Stephen Hulley in the Journal of the American Medical Association, if your partner is HIV-positive, your chances of getting AIDS after one night are 1 in 5,000 with a condom, 1 in 500 without a condom. There&#39;s little difference between the risk for men and women in this regard. Additionally, there&#39;s a 45-90 day incubation period where a person tests negative and can still infect others.

And the chances of getting AIDS from *one* encounter with someone from a high-risk group range as high as 1 in 10,000 using a condom to 1 in 1,000 unprotected. High risk would mean anyone that&#39;s ever shared needles, a woman who&#39;s had sex with a bisexual man, or a hemopheliac.

Even if you alone can state with 100% knowledge that everyone who&#39;s had sex with everyone you&#39;ve had sex with doesn&#39;t fall into any of those categories doesn&#39;t make it right to make statements that appear all heterosexuals are safe regardless of behavior.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

Originally posted by ponybilt@Aug 23 2004, 01:16 PM

Aloofman, while thoughtful, you miss the point. You can use the stats to make a point, but what Jonb said makes straight people believe they&#39;re not at risk. You don&#39;t distinguish the behavior of sex versus the who of sex, and you fail to back up your statements with fact. (and yeah, statistics can be twisted any way we want, that&#39;s why I pointed to the CDC who publishes raw, parametric data).

Most concerning is that the myth extends to the straight community: people believe they&#39;re safe because &#39;it&#39;s really just a gay issue&#39; -- and this is the attitude that will turn HIV into a straight issue in the US as is it everywhere else in the world. These are the numbers from the CDC that are alarming. So the fact is straight men *can* contract HIV from women through both anal and vaginal intercourse. So what would the odds have to be for not contracting HIV? 1:500? 1:1000? 1:10,000? Good luck with that.

I didn&#39;t get the impression he was saying that straight men were safe from HIV and gay men were doomed. I thought the point was that, speaking very generally, a gay man is more likely to have HIV than a straight man is. I don&#39;t know how you can&#39;t reach that conclusion. It&#39;s not an indictment of every gay man (although some choose to see it that way).

You&#39;re right that there are still plenty of straight people out there who think they can&#39;t get infected from heterosexual sex. But neither jonb nor I ever said that, as car as I can tell.

 

[ponybilt]

Aloofman, simplifying the argument and then changing what Jonb said gets you no points.

QUOTE
With men, the only way I can think of that it could be considered somehow worse than with women is because of AIDS, since men, especially men who have sex with men (That&#39;s a fancy way of saying gay/bi/curious men.), are statistically more likely to carry HIV.
END QUOTE

Presenting one statistic while omitting others is not only poor debating skills, but in this case is much more onerous as Jonb, who still hasn&#39;t chimed in, is insinuating the obverse.

And I claim Jonb not only irresponsible for doing so, but homophobic based on the nature of this comment and his history of patronizing and derogatory comments toward gays.

 

[jonb]

Originally posted by ponybilt@Aug 22 2004, 08:10 PM
Your homophobia and ignorance are showing, Jonb.

Okay, you take one sentence and blow it all out of context. How is that homophobic? I mean, the flip side of it is that lesbians are less likely to get AIDS since their partners, being female, have less likelihood of being HIV-positive. (And because I cannot think of any sexual position which can cause female-to-female transmission.)

My point was, that&#39;s the only thing about it which is different, but the thought processes behind married men "playing around" with other men is the same as when married men "play around" with other women. But whatever; Derrida&#39;s more fun.

 

[ponybilt]

And making provocating statements and then denying the offense must be so much fun for you.

*but some of my best friends are Jewish*

 

[jonb]

BTW, if we&#39;re playing "cards", should I bring up your racism for assuming non-Westerners are more homophobic? I mean, look at Fred Martinez, Jr., the Navajo transvestite who was killed in 2001. The typical story in the gay press went somewhat like this:

• The "noble nadleeh" paragraph. Basically, this paragraph explained same-sex marriages and transvestitism among Indians. The important thing is the use of the perfective throughout the article rather than the imperfective, the latter being more appropriate since most tribes which did have them still do.
• The "the past is over" paragraph. This is basically the paragraph to overstate the influence of missionaries on traditional Navajos and other tribes mentioned in the "noble nadleeh" paragraph.
• The meat of the story: Martinez was murdered by one Shaun Murphy. No gay magazine cared to explain that Murphy was white, which wouldn&#39;t be so bad if not for the "the past is over" section implying that Murphy was an Indian. Only two publications showed a picture of Murphy: The Navajo Times and the Durango Herald.

 

[ponybilt]

Jonb, I have no idea why you&#39;re bringing up racism and non-westerners. I made no assumptions I was aware of. If so, please point them out directly rather than indirectly. Neither do I make assumptions about anyone else&#39;s level of homophobia, either as a group or individually, until someone demonstrates it or the lack of it.

And media? Well, that&#39;s been pretty one-sided for a long, long time.

 

[iceman061278]

well, I certainly didn&#39;t expect my question to turn into such a heated debate. After reading all the replies, I&#39;m sitting here now trying to remember what I even asked in the first place... oh yeah

for those of you who mananged to give your opinion in any of your replies, I appreciate the thoughts/concerns/advice. I&#39;ve come to a decision and, right or wrong, here&#39;s what it is:

I love my wife and what we have, and I&#39;m going to stay with her and continue to build our relationship. But I will not stop "playing" with my friend. In one of the posts someone mentioned that they couldn&#39;t stop at doing it just once - I understand completely. I find myself craving that cock and I have already "gone back for seconds". I will try my best to keep things as "two seperate worlds" and just take my lumps if/when they come.

 

[jonb]

Then I don&#39;t know why you were bringing up homophobia. You&#39;ll notice I said that all cheaters have the same thoughts going on in their heads, regardless. You picked up the little bit where I mentioned AIDS and decided I was homophobic from that.

 

[ponybilt]

Jonb, it&#39;s over. Just so that your old posts coincide with what you say now, please go back and edit the old ones. Take out the references singling out gay men or add qualifiers that make you sound less phobic.

Thanks and have a good day.

 

[jonb]

Better to be correct than politically correct.

 

[ponybilt]

Originally posted by jonb@Aug 26 2004, 02:36 AM
Better to be correct than politically correct.

Twisted retoric neither makes you cute nor correct.

Think about it this way: Someone comes up to you on the street and says, "How."

You tell them they&#39;re racist; they&#39;ve clearly made an offense. But the idiot that made the offending comment refuses to believe he&#39;s racist. He just can&#39;t see it. Does that make him any less racist? No.

And it doesn&#39;t make you any less homophobic.

 

[Xin]

Originally posted by ponybilt@Aug 26 2004, 05:59 AM
Does that make him any less racist? No.

Even though in the eyes of the law, strictly speaking this may be true, but in all reality it does not make this hypothetical person racist. It just means they have said something that has been interpreted as being racist.
Similarly, a comment has been made by jonb that was obviously not intended as being homophobic, perhaps it was just phrased awkwardly, but for whatever reason, you have judged it as homophobic and are thus taken insult.
I&#39;m sure that jonb is sorry that you took offence to his comments, and, to myself at least, it seems obvious that the two of you are never going to agree; so please, let&#39;s just leave it there and agree to disagree, and no more arguing. I&#39;m sure we&#39;ve all heard that age old eSaying:

Arguing on the Internet is like taking part in the Special Olympics... Even if you win you&#39;re still retarded.

Now someone, for the sake of the integrity of LPSG, please lock this topic?

 

[jonb]

Originally posted by ponybilt@Aug 25 2004, 08:59 PM
Twisted retoric neither makes you cute nor correct.

What? We&#39;ve been over the reasons MSM are statistically more likely to have HIV: First off, men in general are more likely to have HIV because men are more likely to use injection drugs, need blood transfusion, or be hemophiliac. (Those are the "other ways" you can get AIDS.) Secondly, there&#39;s the social pressure against same-sex couples staying together. Also there&#39;s the "anal factor", namely the absence of rectal lubrication, and the fact that receptive partners in general are more likely to get AIDS, while heterosexuals are more or less stuck in anatomical roles, and you can&#39;t get AIDS from a strap-on.

The flip side of the anal factor is that lesbians are less likely to have HIV because of the absence of semen.

You see, it&#39;s none of the "Typical gay man has over 4000 partners by age 25" shit you see on Fox News. So, is AIDS God&#39;s revenge against hemophiliacs, people who get blood transfusions (Jehovah&#39;s Witnesses need not answer this one.), and heterosexual women?

 

[jonb]

Originally posted by Xin@Aug 26 2004, 04:03 AM
Similarly, a comment has been made by jonb that was obviously not intended as being homophobic, perhaps it was just phrased awkwardly, but for whatever reason, you have judged it as homophobic and are thus taken insult.

Yeah, I was more trying to be balanced about it, showing the only way I can imagine the other side. If I hadn&#39;t mentioned that, I would&#39;ve been reporting unfairly.

 

[lacsap1]

Do I care if Iceman gets fucked by this highschool sweetheart, NO &#33;
Do I care if Iceman is or isn&#39;t "cheating" on his wife, NO &#33;

What I do care is cheating to society, meaning this whole homophobic thing.
Iceman, I hope your not an "conservative/rightwing" republican. Playing the typical "all american happy family" and holding narrowminded views at public, friends and family and in the meantime having a "closet" life.

Be proud of your sexual freedom & enjoy life.

Peace.