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Comment by Consultant32452 | Hacker News Reader

Statistically speaking HIV isn't spreading through everyone else. It's still almost entirely a gay men and intravenous drug user disease. The idea that it's spread to everyone else is part of the mythology that was spread with the intent of getting the attention of the general public to help with funding/research/etc.

A quick search found that 86% of new HIV cases are among men who have sex with men. I couldn't find what % of the population is gay men, but all of LGBT makes up only 3-4% of the population.

There is practically zero risk of HIV to straight people who do not use iv drugs.

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I'm pretty sure the vast majority of new HIV cases are in Africa, amongst heterosexual clients of sex workers. Maybe your 86% figure might apply in countries like the US where health care is a privilege and not a right.

Your last sentence reminds me that COVID was going to be over by Christmas 2020...

How about the UK?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-hiv-diagnoses-in-gay-...

>A new report by Public Health England shows that for the first time the number of new HIV diagnoses in gay and bisexual men outnumber new diagnoses in heterosexual adults by only 100 cases.

So there's as many new HIV diagnoses among gay men as straight people, except gay men are only around 2% of the population. Notice you have to include all heterosexual people, not just the men, and it doesn't get up to just the cases among gay/bi men. The difference is staggering.

I'm sorry, but the real world data doesn't match the mythology around HIV. You are right about prostitutes though, I should've included that as a risk factor.

Does it surprise you that a sexually transmitted disease doesn't spread easily between people of different sexual orientations?

> gay men are only around 2% of the population

This is a dramatic underestimate by at least a factor of two. Only about 2% of boomers identify as gay, but it's five times that (or more!) if you ask younger generations. Unsurprisingly, younger folks have more sexual partners.

The general trend of the younger generations is towards fewer sex partners, not more. Millennials had fewer sex partners than their parents. Gen Z had fewer still. There's not great numbers on gen Alpha, but it's unlikely to have leaped past millennials.

All of LGBT combined is only about 3-4% of the population. I will grant you that it's entirely possible 90% of LGBT is gay/bi men. I don't know.

I can't find out the article, it was about the evolutionary advantage of having homosexual individuals in highly social species (penguins, wolves, cats), and the number was 4 to 5%. At that you can add dismorphia, heterosexuals with homosexual comportements and bisexuals, i wouldn't be surprised with a 10% figure.

Are those numbers from the same people that tricked you into believing that HIV was not primarily a disease among men who have sex with men?

I did not participate in the thread, i have no knowledge of HIV, so probably not.

I am however interested in social comportements in cats clowder/colonies (I'm from the countryside and i saw interesting comportements), and i am pretty sure i was researching information on homosexuality in cats due to homosexual comportements in two non-castrated cats from the clowder (we called it a gang). I found interesting articles about hormonal triggers during pregnancy (a bit disproven by homosexuality amongst penguins imho, but I'm not a researcher), and multiple studying homosexuality amongst social animals in multiple settings. I'm sure about the 4 to 5%, the rest is bad extrapolation and shouldn't be taken into account (i thought that was clear). Sorry if I ruffled your feathers.

Have a nice day!

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