SEX-RELATED DISEASES: THE AIDS VIRUS (HIV)-HOW CAN I AVOID CATCHING HIV?
One answer is to avoid both sex and injecting drugs. For most the former would be considered worse than AIDS. So the answer is to have safe, or rather, safer, sex. This means restricting yourself to one faithful partner or avoiding all high-risk group partners. But even in a stable relationship it is not always possible to know with certainty what risks our partner might have taken previously. Women would be wise to note that about a third of all heterosexual men have had some sort of homosexual experience and that 15 per cent of homosexual men have had heterosexual intercourse in the previous year. Some couples now insist that each has a test before they become intimate in a relationship. In some States in the US testing is compulsory before marriage.
However, the risks of actually picking up the virus from intercourse with even a casual heterosexual partner who is not in a “high-risk group are small. One estimate puts it at 1 in 50 million. Because the HIV is not easily transmitted and because, as we have said, many go through a stage of low infectivity, the risk of catching the virus from a partner who is HIV-positive are calculated to be only i in 500. If a condom is used the risk is estimated to fall to 1 in 5,000 which assumes a failure to protect in condoms of 10 per cent. Having said this it must be remembered that some people draw the short straw and records show that women have become infected during a single act of intercourse and from receiving donated semen. The chances are affected by such things as the infectivity of the partner; the health of the recipient; whether blood is drawn or not; and the actual sexual activities involved.
Arising from research, mainly in homosexual men, sexual activities can be classified by the risk involved:
No risk Self masturbation
Massage of partner away from genitals
Low-risk Dry kissing
Body rubbing
Mutual masturbation
Medium-risk Wet kissing
Water sports
Sucking penis (especially to climax)
Cunnilingus
Licking anus
Vaginal intercourse with condom
High-risk Any sex act drawing blood
Sharing sex toys and drug needles
Stretching of the anus with the fingers or hand
Vaginal sex without condom
Anal sex without condom
Risks fall with safer practices, fewer partners, and the use of condoms. Risks can be further reduced by using condoms lubricated with nonoxynol-9 which kills HIV. It is reported that in sex clubs in the US so called ‘teasing’ has been developed to cut down risks. By such means as stripping, inspecting genitals, blowing on them and rubbing bodies, the participants safely work each other up and then watch each other masturbate. Thin sheets of latex, called ‘dams’, are also used to fix over the vulva to make cunnilingus safer. Specially thick condoms to make anal sex safer are also available, even in the UK.
The results of adopting safer sex practices have been dramatic amongst homosexuals in San Francisco where 2.1 per cent of them became HIV-positive in 1982 compared with only 0.8 per cent four years later in 1986. A local health education programme ‘Stop AIDS’ has closed down as there is no more work to do!
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