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 Ouze wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
I'm not really sure what you mean.

What I mean is I think nearly everyone here knows exactly what you mean. It's a sure way to a locked thread, and not really on-topic, though.

On topic, it's pretty depressing that someone be harassed over who they choose to have, or not have, sex with. What a lousy thing to do.

It's extremely ironic in this current climate of sexual predators being brought to book.

 Witzkatz wrote:
I guess the "presumably" part is something that August Ames would probably have known a lot about in regards to her current employers, and maybe she wasn't putting a lot of faith in their protocols for theses cases. In the end, we don't know a lot of details here, I guess. Also it's very possible that Ames was not intimately knowledgeable about sensitivity and specificity of HIV detecting tests and arrays and might've been worried regardless - maybe irrationally, maybe not.

If she isn't confident in the testing protocols for heterosexual porn then why does him having done gay porn, with apparently laxer testing, matter? If the heterosexual porn testing works, then he won't get to participate if he comes out positive. If it doesn't work, then she is already potentially being exposed to every STD out there, whether they did gay porn or not.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Witzkatz wrote:
I guess the "presumably" part is something that August Ames would probably have known a lot about in regards to her current employers, and maybe she wasn't putting a lot of faith in their protocols for theses cases. In the end, we don't know a lot of details here, I guess. Also it's very possible that Ames was not intimately knowledgeable about sensitivity and specificity of HIV detecting tests and arrays and might've been worried regardless - maybe irrationally, maybe not.

If she isn't confident in the testing protocols for heterosexual porn then why does him having done gay porn, with apparently laxer testing, matter? If the heterosexual porn testing works, then he won't get to participate if he comes out positive. If it doesn't work, then she is already potentially being exposed to every STD out there, whether they did gay porn or not.

This Stephan Fry documentary talks about testing at about the 11 minute mark and how it isn't 100% At the time it was made, it seems gay men in Britain had harder times getting home loans due to AIDS fears.
I'm sure there is nowadays equal danger between gay and straight sex, but the ideas from the early 80's when it was primarily confined to gay people and drug users linger. This is actually quite dangerous if straight people are walking around thinking their orientation is protection enough.
All that being said, it was her concern for her personal health that led her to not want to work with this particular person. She voiced her concern and was bullied to suicide.

From the documentary:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u6H1Q19OQck

the ideas from the early 80's when it was primarily confined to gay people and drug users linger.

It was never primarily confined to either group. The virus strains all originated in Africa jumping ship from monkeys to humans likely through consumption of raw meat/under cooked meat. HIV's genetic ancestor is a relatively weak virus that has been on the continent for centuries and mutated sometime after WWII into HIV. It spread rapidly among drug users and gay men for different reasons* and so rapidly it gained a lot of press and media attention. The early cases in the west were from these groups but by the time western doctors were diagnosing the bizarre break outs of several rare diseases most people fight off naturally HIV and AIDs were already rapidly spreading in Africa mostly through prostitutes in major urban centers (the oldest identified cases are from the Congo in the early 60s). In the west it was already spreading among both gay and straight populations. Exactly why the gay community drew so much attention likely has more to do with the innate biases of the time than anything. It's always politically correct to bash addicts, and was in the 80s still politically correct to bash homosexuals especially since the identification of HIV/AIDs coincided with a resurgence of LGBT political activism.

The stigma to be fair was produced by as much by the prejudice of the time as on ground realities and the hysteria produced a number of counter productive behaviors among the gay community that took a long time to repair (not even mention that there still exists a myth that being gay is what causes the disease among certain groups and that proper straight people can't contract it).

*(needle sharing among drug users being a prime example, and a lack of safe sex precautions foremost among gay men)

Are gay porn actors subjected to the same standard of testing as heterosexual porn actors?

If the answer is no, then this is not homophobia.
If the answer is yes, then its still not homophobia, its simply ignorance.

Being ignorant and mistakenly believing in a myth does not make a person homophobic. Worrying about your own safety and the risk of STI's is a valid concern. Trying to paint this person as homophobic (who then went on to commit suicide) is victim blaming. Anyone who believes this was homophobia should be ashamed of themselves.

Yeah, to be honest I have seen a ton of aggressiveness name-calling in this recent years when in many cases is just people being ignorant.
I'm more in the school of teaching people why what they say is wrong (If it is), before calling them names. And even if they double down in what they believe, I won't call them names. Thats disrespectfull, and you win nothing with that.

 LordofHats wrote:

the ideas from the early 80's when it was primarily confined to gay people and drug users linger.

It was never primarily confined to either group. The virus strains all originated in Africa jumping ship from monkeys to humans likely through consumption of raw meat/under cooked meat. HIV's genetic ancestor is a relatively weak virus that has been on the continent for centuries and mutated sometime after WWII into HIV. It spread rapidly among drug users and gay men for different reasons* and so rapidly it gained a lot of press and media attention. The early cases in the west were from these groups but by the time western doctors were diagnosing the bizarre break outs of several rare diseases most people fight off naturally HIV and AIDs were already rapidly spreading in Africa mostly through prostitutes in major urban centers (the oldest identified cases are from the Congo in the early 60s). In the west it was already spreading among both gay and straight populations. Exactly why the gay community drew so much attention likely has more to do with the innate biases of the time than anything. It's always politically correct to bash addicts, and was in the 80s still politically correct to bash homosexuals especially since the identification of HIV/AIDs coincided with a resurgence of LGBT political activism.

The stigma to be fair was produced by as much by the prejudice of the time as on ground realities and the hysteria produced a number of counter productive behaviors among the gay community that took a long time to repair (not even mention that there still exists a myth that being gay is what causes the disease among certain groups and that proper straight people can't contract it).

*(needle sharing among drug users being a prime example, and a lack of safe sex precautions foremost among gay men)

Check out the Stephan Fry documentary I posted. It was made in the 2010s and he even states during the 80s it was primarily gays and addicts that were the victims. This is also true of other documentaries I have seen that were made after the 80s.
I also knew doctors specializing in infectious diseases saying this was the case.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Are gay porn actors subjected to the same standard of testing as heterosexual porn actors?

If the answer is no, then this is not homophobia.
If the answer is yes, then its still not homophobia, its simply ignorance.

Being ignorant and mistakenly believing in a myth does not make a person homophobic. Worrying about your own safety and the risk of STI's is a valid concern. Trying to paint this person as homophobic (who then went on to commit suicide) is victim blaming. Anyone who believes this was homophobia should be ashamed of themselves.

Regardless of the standard of testing, it's still a matter of trust. Between getting tested yesterday and getting the results today to start filming a scene, an actor could still go off and get infected in that timeframe.
Adult film actors have to trust each other, and Ms. Ames didn't have that trust, and it's not. Her. Fault.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Are gay porn actors subjected to the same standard of testing as heterosexual porn actors?

If the answer is no, then this is not homophobia.
If the answer is yes, then its still not homophobia, its simply ignorance.

Being ignorant and mistakenly believing in a myth does not make a person homophobic. Worrying about your own safety and the risk of STI's is a valid concern. Trying to paint this person as homophobic (who then went on to commit suicide) is victim blaming. Anyone who believes this was homophobia should be ashamed of themselves.

Regardless of the standard of testing, it's still a matter of trust. Between getting tested yesterday and getting the results today to start filming a scene, an actor could still go off and get infected in that timeframe.
Adult film actors have to trust each other, and Ms. Ames didn't have that trust, and it's not. Her. Fault.

Agreeing with you here.
The amount of virus copies in a patient's blood also depends highly on the timeline since infection. It's also possible to be infected already and the tests being done too early to show anything, but being infectious a week later. Theoretically that also means somebody infected the day before might not necessarily infectious yet. Virology is complex overall, and HIV makes no difference here. All in all there's enough things that could go 'wrong' that, while staying objective and open-minded, a certain dose of caution is warranted.

One would hope that any woman always has the final say in choosing who's penis would or wouldn't be allowed inside of her, regardless of her reasons it's exclusively her decision to make and nobody else should feel they have a say in it. It doesn't matter if she's bigoted/ignorant/racist/homophobic, etc end of the line is that she still has ultimate authority to say No and refuse anyone she wants because it's her body.

Two things I want to comment on about this.

#1 - Porn stars have thick skin - they wouldn't be able to do what they do if they didn't. I find it exceptionally odd that she killed herself over something some trolls were saying on the internet. I wouldn't be surprised if after some investigation they find foul play was involved.

#2 - It's really scary how progressive ideas have created this environment where you are labeled a bigot/racist even if you are just quoting facts or making intelligent observations.

#1 No, they do not have thick skin. In fact, many get in to the business due to underlying mental health issues, which can cause them to do very irrational things such as this.

#2 Every group, no matter how good the intentions are, is going to have that one gak who doesn't really understand what he is saying or doing.

Edit: had notoriously in there for no reason, because why not

Hmm. Well, it's sad that a young woman took her life for any reason.

I guess this means words can actually hurt, and maybe there should be some limits to free speech.

Relapse wrote:
]Check out the Stephan Fry documentary I posted. It was made in the 2010s and he even states during the 80s it was primarily gays and addicts that were the victims. This is also true of other documentaries I have seen that were made after the 80s.
I also knew doctors specializing in infectious diseases saying this was the case.

The claim is simply preposterous. Stephen Fry is a comedian. Not a researcher, and any doctor in infectious disease should know the viruses origins which instantly invalidates the claim.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hmm. Well, it's sad that a young woman took her life for any reason.

I guess this means words can actually hurt, and maybe there should be some limits to free speech.

There already are. Don't try to score cheap political points out of this.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hmm. Well, it's sad that a young woman took her life for any reason.

I guess this means words can actually hurt, and maybe there should be some limits to free speech.

There already are. Don't try to score cheap political points out of this.

To be honest in Europe we have much bigger limitations for Free Speech than in USA. I don't believe it is a problem. Of course people will always try to use those limitations to push their agendas, just like people in USA will try to use the free they have to push their agendas.
So at the end of the day, is not that one is better than the other, they have both their pros and cons, and they both have people that will use them to their own interests.

But as others have nothed, online harasshment is a big problem. If in real life someone yells at you at the street, or a bar, etc... is not like anything is gonna happen. But if that same person starts sending you letters to your house, leaving you messages in your door about wanting to do bad things to you, one day, and another, and another, and starts following you, appearing where you are, etc... then the police will do something about it. But not on the internet. I obviously totally understand the GIANT difference between one kind of harassment and another.
But the fact that the internet one is much more easy to do without consequences doesn't mean we should just say "Well, we can't do anything about it, whatever"

I think that social media sites bear some blame. They presume to not support cyber bulling and harassment and have rules against it but you have to push pretty hard before the people running the place actually do anything about your behavior. There's more that social media managers can do to curtail these things than they're doing.

 LordofHats wrote:

the ideas from the early 80's when it was primarily confined to gay people and drug users linger.

It was never primarily confined to either group. The virus strains all originated in Africa jumping ship from monkeys to humans likely through consumption of raw meat/under cooked meat. HIV's genetic ancestor is a relatively weak virus that has been on the continent for centuries and mutated sometime after WWII into HIV. It spread rapidly among drug users and gay men for different reasons* and so rapidly it gained a lot of press and media attention. The early cases in the west were from these groups but by the time western doctors were diagnosing the bizarre break outs of several rare diseases most people fight off naturally HIV and AIDs were already rapidly spreading in Africa mostly through prostitutes in major urban centers (the oldest identified cases are from the Congo in the early 60s). In the west it was already spreading among both gay and straight populations. Exactly why the gay community drew so much attention likely has more to do with the innate biases of the time than anything. It's always politically correct to bash addicts, and was in the 80s still politically correct to bash homosexuals especially since the identification of HIV/AIDs coincided with a resurgence of LGBT political activism.

The stigma to be fair was produced by as much by the prejudice of the time as on ground realities and the hysteria produced a number of counter productive behaviors among the gay community that took a long time to repair (not even mention that there still exists a myth that being gay is what causes the disease among certain groups and that proper straight people can't contract it).

*(needle sharing among drug users being a prime example, and a lack of safe sex precautions foremost among gay men)

Only SOME in the homosexual community have worked hard to combat those prejudices and myths. Many more in the homosexual community actually revel in it. One only has to go to a Pride event in a heavily gay-friendly city (like San Francisco). It's like a encyclopedia of homosexual stereotypes (and people who have legitimately embraced those supposedly "stereotypical" lifestyles) on parade, along with risky sexual behaviors and other forms of degeneracy going on in public. And a lot of times, in front of kids. You would think the city in question was being invaded by aliens from outer space during the event.

Then you have the fact that some sick individuals who have incorporated HIV into a subsets of gay "culture" (i.e. so-called "bug chasers"), putting gays who would prefer to avoid HIV infection at risk in the long term (i.e. those that don't engage in "high camp" for some sort of questionable BS notions of "taking back" stereotypes and anti-gay slurs).

Make no mistake. It isn't all due to prejudices and myths among heterosexuals, conservative-leaning individuals, and fundamentalist religious types. The gay community, as a whole, does jack to combat bigotry. Instead, many of them contribute to the problem in a desire to flaunt it in the face of the "breeders", just because they can. And those who desire for legitimate acceptance in society have another weight chained to their necks in their uphill battle, performing legit activism. Such nonsense just reinforces the idea that all homosexuals are hedonistic, sick, disease ridden freaks, when in fact, that is an unfair broad brush painted across the group as a whole.

As for the thread topic itself, the porn industry is a shady business, where the majority on performers are either on drugs or have emotional/mental issues. The rest are either exhibitionists, attention whores, or in it for the easy money (Porn is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, where women tend to be better paid than their male counterparts, and performers who learn the biz can easily climb up the corporate porn ladder. Examples: Sunset Thomas, Ron Jeremy, Peter North, Jenna Jameson, etc). August Ames was a fairly new performer just getting recognition in the industry, and probably one of those women in porn that has a grab-bag of personal issues affecting her. She really didn't do anything wrong except one thing: She used social media that is populated by trolls, wannabe "activists", and internet social justice warriors. In today's social climate, it is prudent to take a more private route to pass on such information. Information that knee-jerk morons, special snowflakes, and malicious seekers of "the lulz" will jump on in a heartbeat, and try to screw with your head or (even worse) your very livelyhood/personal life (and in a supposedly "free" society, at that).

It's a tragedy that Ms. Ames took her own life. But it's also a tragedy that we've come to the point that public expression of (at least in the minds of the sane and rational) non-offensive/helpful information, can lead to such horse without censure or action taken against the perps in question.

There are laws against Malicious Communication. Social Media sites have Terms of Service rules that forbid abusive behaviour.

There are already restrictions on "Free Speech", they just aren't enforced adequately.

 LordofHats wrote:

Relapse wrote:
]Check out the Stephan Fry documentary I posted. It was made in the 2010s and he even states during the 80s it was primarily gays and addicts that were the victims. This is also true of other documentaries I have seen that were made after the 80s.
I also knew doctors specializing in infectious diseases saying this was the case.

The claim is simply preposterous. Stephen Fry is a comedian. Not a researcher, and any doctor in infectious disease should know the viruses origins which instantly invalidates the claim.

You really should watch the show and see that he gets his information from some of the top specialists who also appear in the broadcast as well as personal experience in watching friends die on an almost weekly basis.n

Some CDC statistics on AIDS:

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/index.html

From the link:

"In 2014, gay and bisexual men made up an estimated 2% of the U.S. population, but accounted for 70% of new HIV infections. Approximately 492,000 sexually active gay and bisexual men are at high risk for HIV; however, we have more tools to prevent HIV than ever before."

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
There are laws against Malicious Communication. Social Media sites have Terms of Service rules that forbid abusive behaviour.

There are already restrictions on "Free Speech", they just aren't enforced adequately.

While I totally agree with you, those Terms of Service rules are worth jack gak in a case like this. There should be criminal penalties for bullying that leads to a suicide. At the very least, some sort of thing like being an accessory to murder. Maybe when some of these people end up behind bars for a while people will take notice.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
There are laws against Malicious Communication. Social Media sites have Terms of Service rules that forbid abusive behaviour.

There are already restrictions on "Free Speech", they just aren't enforced adequately.

Laws that are usually unenforced, and can't be unless there is a report made to the right authorities. And social media ToS are either selectively enforced. Or not enforced unless it's something that could bring down heat on the social media companies (i.e. something criminal).


Political speech is protected in the United States, and should be. However, little is done regarding outright harassment. And nobody in the FCC or FBI has either the time or inclination to deal with harassment claims unless they are criminal in nature (death threats, witness intimidation, terrorism related, etc.), because of the headaches involved in sorting through the BS claims (of which there would be many) to get to the legitimate complaints.

Relapse wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Relapse wrote:
]Check out the Stephan Fry documentary I posted. It was made in the 2010s and he even states during the 80s it was primarily gays and addicts that were the victims. This is also true of other documentaries I have seen that were made after the 80s.
I also knew doctors specializing in infectious diseases saying this was the case.

The claim is simply preposterous. Stephen Fry is a comedian. Not a researcher, and any doctor in infectious disease should know the viruses origins which instantly invalidates the claim.

You really should watch the show and see that he gets his information from some of the top specialists who also appear in the broadcast as well as personal experience in watching friends die on an almost weekly basis.n

Some CDC statistics on AIDS:

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/index.html

From the link:

"In 2014, gay and bisexual men made up an estimated 2% of the U.S. population, but accounted for 70% of new HIV infections. Approximately 492,000 sexually active gay and bisexual men are at high risk for HIV; however, we have more tools to prevent HIV than ever before."

I’m not disagreeing that homosexual men led the chart for infection and I think still do. I only object to the idea that HIV is ‘confined’ to them at all, primarily or otherwise. HIV is not confined and I think when discussing everyone has to be careful not to slip into the kind of behavior that leads to people wanting to downplay the plight (which is not specifically you Relapse). HIV effects everyone. The only way to be safe from it is to never have sex ever, never have a blood transfusion, or eat any undercooked meat in Africa. That last one is probably pretty easy but that’s part of why STDs suck so much. Sex is incredibly awkward especially if you’ve never had it before or are with someone new. It sucks that people have to worry about it. I don’t think Ms Ams meant any harm by her comment truthfully but it does play into the sterwotypes and biases we have about HIV and gay men in particular.

Hats, I think you're just getting hung up on a slightly poor use of language that had relatively clear intent. "Confined" on it's own is an all or nothing term, either something is confined or it's not. Relapse used the phrase"primarily confined", which clearly means not entirely confined but simply more prevalent.

Because it is more prevalent among gay men, a woman is more likely to get HIV off a gay man than a straight one by simple statistics. If Ames had reason to believe STD testing in the porn industry is fallible then a natural way to mitigate the risk is to stick to straight men, and mitigating the risk to her female friends by letting them know that an actor has a history of gay porn (though perhaps a mistake on her behalf doing so on twitter, maybe she didn't have the phone number of that person to contact them directly).

Obviously risk can't be completely eliminated, in any professional field we always talk about minimising risk.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Hats, I think you're just getting hung up on a slightly poor use of language that had relatively clear intent. "Confined" on it's own is an all or nothing term, either something is confined or it's not. Relapse used the phrase"primarily confined", which clearly means not entirely confined but simply more prevalent.

I'm getting hung up on poor word choice because it's important to use good word choice when talking about sensitive subjects.

HIV is not restricted to gay men, and talking about it like it's a concern less relevant to the rest of us betrays a basic reality that should be obvious; anyone can have HIV. People, straight and gay, have exhibited a rare pathology in which they purposefully spread the disease and anyone can spread it without realizing they are infected. That's why I'm being a stickler about it because how we say things matters and if HIV is a concern for someone (and really STDs should be a concern for everyone) then only being concerned about it when a gay guy shows up is kind of silly especially since the disease certainly didn't start there and has never been isolated there. I mentioned a case at Ft. Bragg just a page back where a soldier knowingly infected a teenager and was himself married to a woman with children, as well as mentioning two separate cases of men purposefully infecting women. I did this to avoid the thread stumbling into the narrative of HIV as the "gay disease" which seems to be the pitfall that Ames herself ran afoul of when a bunch of raging internet trolls decided to start brutalizing her on social media.

This thing is not confined in any way. We shouldn't treat it like it is. HIV can effect anyone. That doesn't mean ignoring that it's especially endemic in the gay community, but it also doesn't mean we selectively only become concerned about it or talk about it within the context of gay men. The hysteria of the early years of the disease were like that, and it led to a lot of men in Western countries dismissing HIV/AIDs as a hoax or scare tactic with regrettable effects, and there are still men and women in the world who think you can only contract it if you're gay.

If Ames had reason to believe STD testing in the porn industry is fallible then a natural way to mitigate the risk is to stick to straight men, and mitigating the risk to her female friends by letting them know that an actor has a history of gay porn.

If the guy is in a straight shoot he's presumably been through the same scrutiny as any other man taking part in a straight shoot, and if HIV is a concern (and it should be) only bringing it up in reference to a man who has had sex with other men is unfortunately selective (EDIT: Especially since unlike straight porn gay porn has more proactively embraced the use of condoms in shoots as a basic precaution). The fact people in this thread fail to accept this despite it being brought up numerous times in the past three pages is kind of a testament to how ignorant people can be about HIV transmission, or just how weakly people think things through before speaking.

Certainly it should remind us all how easy it is to innocently say somethings without meaning any harm by it, and that jumping so harshly down their throat that they end up croaking isn't something to be proud of.

Obviously risk can't be completely eliminated, in any professional field we always talk about minimising risk.

I'd actually wager the porn industry (either straight or gay) is probably safer than your local dive bar. In its bid to avoid being regulated by the state professional porn has been very adamant in policing itself. Sure there are failures but that's hardly unique. Hospitals have missed HIV in blood for transfusions before as well and lots of people infect others before realizing they themselves are infected. If there were a concern I would direct it at the blooming "amateur porn" industry because anyone with a camera and an internet connection can make a prono these days and distribute it. I doubt they're nearly as self-conscious as the professional industry is.

 LordofHats wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Hats, I think you're just getting hung up on a slightly poor use of language that had relatively clear intent. "Confined" on it's own is an all or nothing term, either something is confined or it's not. Relapse used the phrase"primarily confined", which clearly means not entirely confined but simply more prevalent.

I'm getting hung up on poor word choice because it's important to use good word choice when talking about sensitive subjects.

Yeah sure, but this is an internet forum where you can't expect people to get wording right every time and the intent of the message was clear even if the wording was perhaps a bit clunky.

If the guy is in a straight shoot he's presumably been through the same scrutiny as any other man taking part in a straight shoot, and if HIV is a concern (and it should be) only bringing it up in reference to a man who has had sex with other men is unfortunately selective

Just because it's been subject to the same scrutiny doesn't mean it's equally as safe.

(EDIT: Especially since unlike straight porn gay porn has more proactively embraced the use of condoms in shoots as a basic precaution).

It has? I wasn't aware of that, without having to watch a whole heap of porn and keep a tally of who's wearing a rubber do you have any evidence of that?

The fact people in this thread fail to accept this despite it being brought up numerous times in the past three pages is kind of a testament to how ignorant people can be about HIV transmission, or just how weakly people think things through before speaking.

Sorry your points are getting a bit mixed up here, are you talking about the use of condoms or a lack of acknowledgement that people are held to the same level of scrutiny?

If it's the former, I don't think that has been brought up in this thread, if it has I missed it.

If it's the latter, no one is ignorant that in a straight shoot people are going to be held to the same level of scrutiny, you can jump off your high horse for a moment, what people are saying is maybe that level of scrutiny isn't infallible, and if it's not infallible then it's still a risk and if it's still a risk actors and actresses can perhaps be a little bit proactive about mitigating the risk themselves.


I'm not going to pretend I'm intimately familiar with the rate of STD's in the porn industry, but in the absence of data to the contrary I'm willing to give Ames the benefit of the doubt as being someone who is probably better informed about the happenings of the porn industry than anyone posting on Dakka.

Obviously risk can't be completely eliminated, in any professional field we always talk about minimising risk.

I'd actually wager the porn industry (either straight or gay) is probably safer than your local dive bar.

Probably, but then I also wouldn't recommend people having unprotected sex with someone they picked up in a dive bar either.

Saying something is safer than something else that itself isn't entirely safe doesn't mean the former is perfectly safe and thus that risks can't be further mitigated. Just because flying is safer than driving doesn't mean we've reached a point where we are no longer concerned about improving the safety of flying.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah sure, but this is an internet forum where you can't expect people to get wording right every time and the intent of the message was clear even if the wording was perhaps a bit clunky.

Yes which is why I’m working to be nonjudgmental about it. This is something I think everyone needs to work on in general not just on this issue but a lot of issues. Once things sink and become misheard the point becomes lost.

It has? I wasn't aware of that, without having to watch a whole heap of porn and keep a tally of who's wearing a rubber do you have any evidence of that?

It’s noticeably more common. I’m just gonna leave it at that because that in itself probably says more about me than I really want to share.

As to the next matter I refer to the selective way Ames hose to be concerned about HIV. I don’t think she meant any harm by it but HIV break outs have occurred in straight porn as well. In general I think people conflate the prevalence of HIV among gay men with not needing to be concerned if they are not in that group. It’s a little offensive by more than a little and it’s just foolish on a personal security level.

 LordofHats wrote:
I’m not disagreeing that homosexual men led the chart for infection and I think still do. I only object to the idea that HIV is ‘confined’ to them at all, primarily or otherwise. HIV is not confined and I think when discussing everyone has to be careful not to slip into the kind of behavior that leads to people wanting to downplay the plight (which is not specifically you Relapse). HIV effects everyone. The only way to be safe from it is to never have sex ever, never have a blood transfusion, or eat any undercooked meat in Africa. That last one is probably pretty easy but that’s part of why STDs suck so much. Sex is incredibly awkward especially if you’ve never had it before or are with someone new. It sucks that people have to worry about it. I don’t think Ms Ams meant any harm by her comment truthfully but it does play into the sterwotypes and biases we have about HIV and gay men in particular.

Who said it's "confined" to them? Primarily implies most but not all. It implies you have higher risk of running into one in that group than on other group. Not that there's zero chance elsewhere.

 LordofHats wrote:


As to the next matter I refer to the selective way Ames hose to be concerned about HIV. I don’t think she meant any harm by it but HIV break outs have occurred in straight porn as well. In general I think people conflate the prevalence of HIV among gay men with not needing to be concerned if they are not in that group. It’s a little offensive by more than a little and it’s just foolish on a personal security level.

I don't think that's true anymore, and hasn't been for a long time. Obviously I can't know exactly what she was thinking, but I, and I think pretty much everyone in this thread has read it somewhat differently from that.

IMO, the reasoning goes something like this: HIV is much more prevalent in the gay community (and by extension presumably the gay porn community) than elsewhere. Porn actresses have to have unprotected sex with porn actors. There are safeguards in place, but those aren't foolproof even in straight porn. So if an actress has to have unprotected sex with someone who also does gay porn, she's increasing the already higher than average chances of contracting HIV, because she's now not only having unprotected sex without perfect safeguards, but that person has an increased chance of infection because he also does (or did) gay porn.
That's not being unconcerned because you're not a part of that group, that's being cognizant of the reality and odds of the situation. If she then decides she doesn't want to run that extra risk and warn others that the risk is, in fact, increased, then good for her. Not even remotely a reason to call her homophobic.

Sleeping sickness is primarily confined. Stay out of a specific region and your chances of getting it are minuscule bordering on zero (but it has happened). Ebola is primarily confined. Sickle cell anemia is primarily confined. HIV is not and never will be confined, primarily confined, or any combination of terms expressing the similar. Anyone can get it. Anyone can transmit it. It’s prevalence in specific demographics is a fluke of cultural and social variables and is unique to the West particularly the United States where the prevalence is higher. There isn’t exactly a big gay community in the Congo but there are a lot of prostitues and piss poor medical standards. HIV doesn’t discrimate and we shouldn’t pretend it does. That’s all I’m saying and I didn’t say fit to start some big tangent but merely because again the way we approach this kind of topic is important and how we talk about it needs to be carefully framed or the message will get lost. Some people of course just seem hellbent on being lost anayeY so maybe it’s best to just not bother.