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Comment by kstrauser | Hacker News Reader

It’s not politically incorrect. It’s idiotic. Any “solution” that ignores human behavior ain’t a solution.

See also: “If only people would choose good, unique passwords!”

Sex is literally why we’re alive. It’s what we’re evolved to do. Creatures without strong sex drives don’t multiply as quickly, or go extinct. We’re the end result of billions of years of being rewarded for getting it on. Anything that requires abstinence or safer sex is magical thinking and will never work.

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This might be politically incorrect, but: only procreative sex (i.e. in some sort of marriage) is literally what makes us alive, and other types - not necessarily. This sexual behaviour statistically does not create STD spread, because of negative feedback, while other behaviours create positive feedback of amount of people infected. In current state of standards in medical procedures other transmission vectors are negligible.

Of course only speaking of the first world countries.

There are lots of problems in third world countries, where numerous behaviours are not related to sex promote transmission of HIV

All I'm reading is "gay people cause AIDS" in more exotic and roundabout language. This an argument older than time at this point, tired and beaten into the ground over and over again.

Yes, indeed.

I think people conflate promiscuity risk with sexual act risk.

PIV is lower risk as it is less likely that semen will come into contact with blood.

Whereas anal sex has a risk of tearing the anal wall and thus blood coming into contact with semen.

Other STDs have run wild in straight sex communities.

Oral sex presents virtually zero risk of HIV transmission.

That’s not what I’m taking from this at all. There is nothing preventing gay people from having safe sex using protection and testing for diseases regularly.

> This sexual behaviour statistically does not create STD spread, because of negative feedback...

You know that it's possible to infect someone while also impregnating them, right? In fact, this leads to more STD spread than non-procreative sex, because the child then runs the risk of infection as well. There is no 'negative feedback' here beyond "being upset that your partner infected you", which is already a factor in non-procreative sex.

yes of course. this is about negative feedback (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_feedback) in terms of statistical infection. People who infect each other and who will despite remain loyal to each other will not spread the infection. The child might and as well might not get infected (https://www.who.int/teams/global-hiv-hepatitis-and-stis-prog...) but this is transmission to the next generation. Also HIV positive parents could consider refraining from further procreation, once they noticed it (the infection), while maintaining their closeness and loyalty. This could break the infection positive feedback loop.

You seem to be under the impression that gay people don't get married.

What are you talking about? The comment you’re replying to doesn’t mention anything about gay people at all.

It’s 2023, yes we know gay people get married.

Parent comment's argument is that married heterosexual couples are less likely to spread HIV, on the grounds that a married couple won't spread HIV outside of that pairing if they remain faithful to each other.

Begging the question...gay people can be monogamous too, does that not count for whatever reason?

I'm straight. My wife and I have kids together. When we decided to stop doing that, we both got snipped. Although it's astronomically unlikely that we'd procreate again, my body doesn't take that into consideration when I look at my wife.

To be fair, the message to use condoms was the answer to the problem of transmission.

It still is more of less.

It wasn’t idiotic, it was all we had.

Education about transmission vectors coupled with availability and normalisation of the use of condoms.

Although PREP is now available for some as an option.

Seeing you throw up this stream of flimsy arguments makes me suspect that the current equilibrium in the West (of most people's believing it is futile to have social norms against sexual behavior) is held in place mainly by motivated cognition.

In other words, reading your comment made me less sympathetic to your position.

It’s futile to expect perfect compliance with social norms, especially when our evolved biological drives are basically:

1. Breathe

2. Eat

3. Procreate

with everything else being a fraction as powerful as those.

You're only arguing the punishment for taboo violation isn't harsh enough.

Using punishments and taboos to control these things does not work. You're not incentivizing 'good behavior', you're incentivizing not getting caught--not to mention that, inevitably, the power structure that forms around these taboos starts rewarding people who punish others with the ability to do the taboo themselves.

You're only arguing that all lies would end if all lying was an immediate death sentence.

There are consequences to doing any of those activities in excess.

Breathing too fast = hyperventilating

Eating too much = obesity

Procreating with too many partners = likely sexually transmitted infections

I agree that abstinence is not the answer, but safe sex with fewer partners is.

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