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Comment by speeder | Hacker News Reader

The article blames aids spread on "machismo" and discrimination against gays.

But at least on my country, aids spread is much slower among more patriarchal segments of the population, but spread quite fast, even among the rich, in groups that are more liberal, with the fastest spread I saw personally among gays and feminists.

So I wonder, what is the logic that the article used.

I know nothing abou Africa, so maybe I missed something important regarding that, but still, the article generalized the "thirld world" too, thus why I commented about what I see where I live.

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>with the fastest spread I saw personally among gays and feminists

Per sexual encounter, homosexual men have a substantially higher infection risk than any other group, and heterosexual woman still have a much higher risk than heterosexual men. That's mostly caused by the different lengths of exposure to body fluids of the partner and different probabilities of skin damage in the relevant areas.

Since feminists are disproportionaly often female you would expect both gays and feminists to have a higher infection rate than the average population, regardless of their political views.

Not exactly.

I have a family member that is very feminist, and homosexual.

and another family member, that is evangelical and very faithful.

This made me have close contact with both groups, I even loaned my apartment (when I had one), to a group of friends of the the homosexual feminist person, they were going to a party in the city where I lived, and lived in another city.

So, talking with both groups, it became clear to me, that HIV spread is not related to political belief directly, but related to how much sex (And the kind of sex) a person has.

Even among women, anal sex spread HIV faster, the evangelical group I knew, think anal sex is a sin (even heterosexual).

Meanwhile, the politically liberal group, believe sex should not be tied to marriage and monogamy, and some people in the group have lots of sex.

Of course, if you have more sex, and with more risky ways, you get more HIV.

Discrimination, has nothing to do with it (even because homosexualism here is not completely "underground" anymore, there are harsh laws against discrimination of any kind, and civil unions with gays is already allowed, with now the government thinking about authorizing gay marriage or not).

From the article:

> People are not robots. Sex happens in a context. It is about power. Southern African girls and young women are infected by men who are much older than themselves. It’s about poverty. It’s also about a culture of machismo.

As I understand it, older men target girls and young women in order to reduce their own risk of infection. But many of those older men are already infected, and are either asymptomatic or in denial.

Do you have any citations to support this?

I can't imagine there's any statistics about the rate of HIV infections among feminists, but if we limit the discussion to men who have sex with men, he is correct.

https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/statistics...

In 2014 in the US, men who have sex with men constitute more than two-thirds of new HIV diagnoses despite being 1-10% of the population.

In the 21 worst-off US cities, 1 out of every 5 gay men (!) have HIV: http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/news/20100923/1-in-5-gay-bi-me...

None of that, of course, means discrimination is not involved. Frankly, I don't think enough attention is being paid to the problem, if we have these grand plans of ending AIDS by 2030 while 20% of a subpopulation has the disease.

He's not correct, because that's totally orthogonal to the point being made.

The issue is that when there is active discrimination against men who have sex with men, those men are more likely to contract HIV – for a whole bevy of obvious reasons.

Looking at this from the perspective of HIV spreading fastest in "groups that are more liberal" is obviously missing the whole point.

It is correct that men who have sex with men are far, far more likely to be diagnosed with HIV in developed countries – this is kind of disconnected from the issues being discussed in developing countries, where infection of young girls in particular is far more of a problem.

I don't think you can ignore the underlying fact of transmission rates being vasty different for each party and based on the type of sex. For example vaginal sex has a 4 in 10,000 chance of transmission for men, and 8 in 10,000 for women, whereas anal sex has 138 in 10,000 odds for the receiver -- worse chances than sharing a needle.

Edit: compounding makes this even worse. Having the same kind of sex 10 times makes the best case odds 16 in 10,000 but the worst case odds become 540 in 10,000.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/estimates/riskbehaviors.html

I tried to read his comment in the most favorable light - the article is focusing on Africa, I read him as trying to make a point about more developed countries. Clearly, as the article mentions, if 60% of new infections are Africa are in women, the infection rate there has little to do with men who have sex with men; there is culture difference. I read him as insinuating that if the West had a different culture, its HIV infection rates might be lower than they are, a dubious but plausible claim which nevertheless is probably not morally acceptable.

How could discrimination against gays be the cause for the spread of HIV? Did some country sign a law that forbids the sale of condoms to gays?

Gays are at higher risk for contracting this disease because they have more sexual partners. The same is true for any person (doesn't matter if heterosexual or homosexual) that has more than average sexual partners.

You know it's called a sexually transmitted disease for a reason, so anyone that has lots and lots of sexual partners has a higher risk.

> How could discrimination against gays be the cause for the spread of HIV?

People are less likely to seek testing, diagnosis or treatment if they will or think they will be at the receiving end of discrimination. Avoiding discrimination that could put your job, living situation or life at stake could also prevent treating a disease that does the same.

> You know it's called a sexually transmitted disease for a reason, so anyone that has lots and lots of sexual partners has a higher risk.

You're right, but there's a reason that certain subpopulations have a higher risk and occurrence rate and it has little to do with number of partners.

Men who have sex with men do report having more sexual partners than heterosexual men [1]; the number of sexual partners is a factor in the rate of HIV infection among gay men.

I think it would be reasonable to speculate the other major contributing factors are (as posted elsewhere) the hugely increased likelihood to transmit HIV during anal sex vice other kinds of sex and discrimination.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21884382

If you're constantly told that your life is worthless and there's no community support for open, healthy, gay relationships, there's a tendency for more risky behavior.

Where in the West do we have a culture that tells gays that their lives are worthless? Use a condom! It's what every sane (doesn't matter if hetero or homosexual) does instead of constructing strange reason why it is always other peoples fault!

Just because the country (legally) recognizes gay marriage and rights for gays doesn't mean their families have to.

Still common though admittedly less acceptable for families to disown other family members over being homosexual.

Step outside of any major city for a reminder of what the rest of the US is actually like.

And I do agree that this type of shaming and rejection can definitely drive people to engage in reckless/self destructive behaviour.

What does homosexuality have to do with liberalism?

No, he has actual observations.

Anecdotes.. the word observations sort of implies a method.

I believe the word you're looking for is "anecdotes".

Same thing.

When did those went out of fashion?

Science is for getting additional and more rigorous confirmation (or refutation) of some empirical observation or theory.

Not for forgetting to make empirical observations and thinking independently and relegating all that to "citations" in the first place.

It's not like we're inside some huge institution and we are required to have 10 levels on bureaucracy and massive statistical findings before we even attempt to discuss anything.

Anecdotal evidence can support the initial inquiry into gathering actual evidence, but isn't evidence towards a claim itself.

Everyone in my family has brown hair and is at least 5'8". This anecdote doesn't support the claim that everyone in your family is the same.

> It's not like we're inside some huge institution and we are required to have 10 levels on bureaucracy and massive statistical findings before we even attempt to discuss anything.

If you want your argument to have a leg to stand on, using facts and citations are key.

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