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I think it should be obvious that your suggestion doesn't work, because that's already an option right now... and it doesn't work. People's lives aren't neat and tidy, and people don't always do the safest things in the heat of the moment. Even if they want to, this kind of testing likely isn't available everywhere, or easily, or cheaply.
A twice-a-year shot is much more likely to be effective and actually used than ad-hoc, on-demand testing.
> ... unless you are extremely active.
Some people are. Are you suggesting that if someone is "extremely" sexually active, they don't deserve a reasonable, affordable way to avoid getting HIV?
> it's better to address the root cause—being hyperactive
If people want to be "hyperactive" when it comes to sex, that's their business, and there's nothing wrong with that. Measures that can make that safer are good things, not bad things.
Reading between the lines, I'm guessing you have some pretty puritanical views toward sex, and some misconceptions about the availability of healthcare and health-related testing in different places in the world. Maybe dial down the level of judgment, and learn a bit more about how people different from you live.
Well, clearly nothing except for the increased risk of STD exposure. I'm not GP and I wouldn't call myself puritanical, but let's not pretend like choices don't have consequences, and activities don't have risks. Yes, maybe the risk is more palatable for some, but when they knowingly take on that risk, they don't get to cry in conginitive dissonance about how their situation (STD) is not somehow a consequence of their choices (lots of different partners who are untested). In my opinion they knew what they were getting themselves into.
Now, yes, people are stupid, so it's good that backup options exist and are being developed. Still, let's just call it what it is: stupid.
I think the modern trend of acting like nothing is ever anybody's fault and consequences don't exist is very harmful. People need to take personal responsibility. And if they can't or won't, we need to recognize that for the bad thing that it is.
It's just this incessant infantilisation of people who are perfectly capable of reasoning and agency, where we pretend like nothing is every anybody's fault and therefore don't feel bad about it nor change anything about your ways.
And all of that is completely orthogonal to being either a puritan or sex positive.
Or maybe it's stupid to refrain from enjoying your sex life when the technology exists to enjoy it safely. All a question of perspective.
One thing's clear: there's nothing in your comment that's actually actionable. Sourpusses have been droning on about personal responsibility for centuries – and everyone else has been happily ignoring them. Making PrEP and other such treatments available will actually make a positive difference to people's health.
Look, I'm not arguing against backup options here. I'm just saying people should be as responsible as reasonably possible.
Edit: it's good that this exists. However, anecdotally: I know some promiscuous people and none of them are on prep. Some don't use protection at all because they are gay and there is no risk of pregnancy for them. When one person acts this way, it's their problem. When many people act this way, having sex at all becomes riskier for everyone. Recently, STDs have been on the rise. People just want to have fun and not feel bad about anything. They think they're the exception or something. And if you dare say something about it, you get called names like "sourpuss" or worse.
I think you and I are in agreement about how awesome sex is. It's not about that. It's about people acting stupidly. I don't want a dating pool full of STDs but we're getting there. There's pros and cons to everyone leading a short-term-pleasure hedonistic lifestyle.
And yes, I'm happy about this PrEP development. Because when treatments and cures get better, it changes the risk calculus, and makes behavior which is today risky, no longer as risky or maybe even not risky at all.
I empathize with people who simply love to fuck a new body every week. They have their reasons for not picking a person and sticking with them. But I can't realistically say "well that's their business" because it's not just their business, it's the business of our whole society.
Food for thought: why is short-term greed looked down upon when it's about finances or business, but it's looked up to when it's sexual in nature?
And how did that work out? Despite quarantine being a millennia-old practice even when we had to invent evil spirits to enforce it.
No one has said or claimed that... and it isn't about "my" preference or yours; it's about the scientific approach to resolving an issue by addressing its root cause, or at least adhering to the 80/20 rule.
The issue here is exploitation. All I see is a greedy company trying to profit from a demographic instead of resolving the root cause, offering a "subscription-based" medicine. It's strange how all these new "breakthrough" medicines are supposed to be taken for life, like Ozempic. Meanwhile, the best prevention is to get tested in advance. It takes a few minutes and it's reliable, safe, and obviously cheaper than paying for pills/shots for life for the chance of getting that disease/virus.
If that medicine were a "treatment," on the other hand, then it would definitely be a breakthrough, especially if it's taken once, like some treatments for other STDs. Obviously, it isn't, and there's an entire business model built around that.
Both of those things are not root causes. The first is your value judgment (which others do not share, and there's nothing wrong with that; your moralizing around this is unwelcome), and the second is just a fundamental understanding about the availability of healthcare and people's ability to access it when they need to.
If there is any kind of "root cause" here, it's the existence of HIV itself. We should do our best to eradicate it, and taking every measure possible to help prevent people from contracting it in the first place is a good way to do that. Sure, some of that will be through education, teaching people to avoid risky behaviors, and get tested regularly if they're in a high-risk group. But creating vaccines and other prophylactics is also a good way of doing that, arguably even better, because it doesn't require that you educate everyone and change everyone's behavior. That never works all that well.
South Africa has a double digit prevalence rate of HIV. Quite possibly many women get it the very first time they have sex, with their husband to be.
If they get it, is it just their fault and society should not make any effort to prevent that from happening or help them if they do get it?
rigor and standards are often the enemies of passion, so it's a hard sell. Your base logic is right, prevention is the best cure, but humans just don't work that way.
They’re being hysterical!
Anyways, this isn't an either or situation, we can do both.