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Opebo, I agree there's no settling the argument, though I'd say part of that is because if someone simply chooses to ignore all the best medical advice and insist something is safe, it's not really an exchange of information that can lead to changes in points of view, it's an expression of a faith or pure belief. To me, a 1 in 3300 chance is a pretty lousy one -- I've certainly had more sex than that, which would mean the odds are I'd be infected.
As for the motorcycle argument, well, duh! The odds even in the US are about 1.5 in a hundred that you'll be in an accident in any given year riding a motorcycle -- and Thailand has pretty much the highest accident rate in the world. That's hardly a worthwhile comparison -- though I'd frankly rather go through a cycle accident than AIDS, thank you very much.
Still, to use your comparison, I'd say the point is really simply this -- you can radically reduce your odds of being in a fatal cycle accident by wearing a helmet. Same same with HIV/AIDS. You call not doing either an acceptable risk, fine for you. I call it being unnecessarily irresponsible, and putting other people at risk.
As far as the photos go, it's very simple -- I'd avoid the girls you've been with as they clearly engage in higher-risk activity, and therefore are more likely to have caught something. Condoms break, shit happens, and if you're dealing with someone who engages in safe sex you improve your odds considerably simply because the odds go down that they've got any STDs. Since there are so many TGs who are available, I'd simply choose to choose someone else. Doesn't keep me from getting laid or having my fun, just means I've got less to worry about.
Since you're an adult it's your right to take whatever risks you want. I wish you absolutely nothing but luck, because apparently that's the only thing keeping you safe so far!
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Joe Zop,
I find this discussion of probabilities fun. Lets say the likelyhood is 1 in 3300 - about .0003. And lets say 25% of TGs are infected - probably wildly high.
.0003 X .25 gives us .000075 per sex act.
Assuming one sex act per day on average, and say 4 months per year in Thailand gives us 120 sex acts per annum.
.000075 X 120 = .009 annual risk. (or .9%).
So let say I'm the typical 40 year old hobbyist. How many years do I have left. Well, 100% certainty is 1.0 so 1.0 = .009(x)
1.0/.009 = about 111 years till 100% risk, or 'certainty'. Tack on another four years for it to do you in, and this 40 year old high-stakes gambler of a hobbyist is cutting life short to a mere 151 years. Sad really. Why couldn't he 'act responsibly'?
Of course I actually know almost nothing about math so I would welcome input from anyone who does. My 'common sense' reaction to odds or probability is that they 'reset' with each winning hand. For example if this hypothetical 40 year old hobbyist has lucked out up till now, his risk is back to .0003 with that next sex act on his 41st birthday. That would actually reduce the risk - I believe if anything the above analysis overstates it.
Anyway, a more apt comparison wouldn't be wearing a motorcycle helmet but say never leaving one's house or avoiding showers for fear of slipping on the soap - 'safe sex' is that absurd.
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Under what logic do you think the odds "reset" after each act? That might works for straight probability on coin flips, but I don't see how its application is relevant here.
Here's another way of looking at your "logic" using precisely your same mathematical approach: at any given point, there are probably well over 3300 mongers in Pattaya alone. (Let's just use that number cause it works easily; it's probably low, and there are certainly other places than Pattaya.) The most recent HIV infection rate reported in for sex workers in Pattaya is 11%. If all of those mongers are barebacking, then there's a 11% chance on any given day that one of them is getting infected. That means over forty would be getting infected each year. If I want to look at it in the opposite direction, and presume that 1% of all these barebackers are HIV positive, that would mean (according to the 1 in 50 rate for receivers) that about 20 sex workers would be infected each month by those 3300 mongers, or well over 200 in a year.
Somehow, looking at it that way, I don't find your dismissal of safe sex all that comforting. The bottom line in LOS is that it was the increase in condom use -- not any other change in behavior -- that was responsible for radically reducing the climbing rate of HIV infection during the 90s. A similar process seems to be occuring in Cambodia as a result of government campaigns there. I challenge you to find any even quasi-authoritative alternate explanation for that.
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Globo:Get checked at at Bumassgrad Hosital on Soi 3. Very good, complete STI checks. Lots of STIs in Thailand - told that by the doctor at the hospital. And as both Joe Zop and John Skinless are purple hearts (wounded, or diseased in action) we cna speak from bitter experience. My name is John Skinless but I know I am playing a crazy game. Just be careful about all the bareback propaganda: the problem with the Intenret is it is too easy to post dangeroulsy misleading bs.
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Opebo
I wonder if your theory on probability is correct. If it is then I suggest you look at the way you "play" in a different light.
Perhaps this might help:
If 11% of sex workers are infected with HIV (we discount all other diseases here for the moment even though there are over 8+ STD's you can catch!) and this means that for every 10 girls you bearback more than one will be HIV positive!
If a girl said to you, "I am HIV pos and would like you to fuck me in the ass bear back" would you still do it?
Ignorance is bliss huh?
By the way, "when" you do catch HIV and develop Aids, will you tell us on this site? Then, by using your own theory of relativity seen in earlier posts, at least we can accuse you of BB riding some rent boy and being a screaming homosexual!
In any case its your life, do what you want.
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Joe Zop,
Good points about receptive partners - for example sex workers in Pattaya. For them the risk is high enough that condom use is probably worthwhile - especially since for them there is no downside as they're not doing the sex for enjoyment, and condoms only rob the penetrator of pleasure. For me however there is a huge downside, namely total lack of enjoyment or senstation. Of course the reason prostitutes go without condoms is that some of their customers, like me, would decline to purchase their services under those terms. Thank god for the 'pay after' norm!
Swiss Tiger,
Thanks for the reassuring statistic - only 11% eh? I was assuming 25%. And yes, I've buttfucked a few girls - freelancers on Sukhumvit or Beach Road - that I figured almost had to be positive, if anyone was. I mean we're talking doing it multiple times per day porno gapers here (just my cup of tea).
Freeler,
Nothing new in your post - you just changed the estimated risk factor. Of course none of us knows exactly what it is. I never said the risk wasn't lower for the condom user - of course its lower. In fact its infinitismal. But the catch is that sort of sex is not worth having at all, much less traveling across the world for and paying. My own hand feels better than that nonsense! And ultimately my risk is so low I'll have fun sex all my life and never get it, and you'll have mediocre sex all your life, and also never get it. Probably the only difference will be a few cases of clamydia and gonorrhea.
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Joe Zop,
I really do not know about the HIV infection rate in Thailand now, whether it is actually raising slower or decreasing, and whether that most welcome change can be attributed to a more widespread use of condoms.
As far as I suspect (and no, I do not have official figures at my fingertip to prove that), the use of condoms in the general Thai population is still not widespread.
It is true that government agencies have done much to promote safer sex practices and healthier behaviors in general. How much of that has had an impact in actual cases of infection is not obvious to me.
In the area of factors having a favourable impact on public health, you could also cite the War on Drugs that the Thaksin administration is so famous for.
I would not put too much trust in anything Thai authorities do or say they do, or any success they claim. They have limited resources and skills available in that field, and they are not above putting forward unsubstanciated numbers.
As for Cambodia, it is actually far worse in that (and most other) respect.
Always the sceptic.
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And as you know, Seydlitz, I have full respect for your skepticism, and I certainly know the Thai government is hardly known for its stone-cold accuracy (such as its pronouncement this month that 90% of the drug trade has been "eliminated" by its recent bloody tactics. See, for example, its past pronouncements about there being utterly no terrorists in the country.) I rather doubt you can credit the "war on drugs" as having a substantial impact as of yet, since it's a very recent phenomenon, and its effects would not be showing up in statistics for a while. The most current reports I've read on the HIV rate (earlier this year) say that it's been starting to rise again -- though not among sex workers except for some in rural areas - but I fully agree that any such information needs to taken with large grains of salt. I know your perspective on what can or cannot be credited as an AIDS infection or death, per earlier conversations in this thread, but I will still go by the defined stats in the absence of anyone supplying something better to work with. To me, having statistics one acknowledges might be off to some degree is still better than having none at all.
While it's true that condom use among the general population in LOS probably hasn't risen all that much, there's absolutely no question that the usage among sex workers has risen dramatically in the last decade, and since there's been a corresponding slowing in the spread of HIV during that period, it's at least a reasonable conclusion that there's a connection. As I said to Opebo, if there's another valid explanation, I'd love to hear it.
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Joe Zop:
I guess there is little benefit in debating on this: increase in condom use is a good thing, the general health is improving, and the dreadful indicator (HIV infection) goes in the right direction.
Let's not spoil that warm feeling by suspecting God knows what inaccuracy ...
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Joe_zop, Seydlitz,
I saw plenty condomvendingmachines, B5 per condom, in Isaan last summer.
Every pro I was with had her own supply of rubbers, and I saw Navy boys showing their rubbers to other navy boys on the bus.
'Sai tum' was probably the phrase I heard the most!
Those are very good signs.
Opebo,
I tried to edit the post you are referring to, but I accidently deleted it, an old habbit:). I planned to spice it up a bit, but reading your reply it would have been a total waste of time.
If the girls you choose can't give you the real feeling because of condoms, choose better!
But hey, if your sex is to die for, I prefer sex to live for.
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Opebo, ah, now we've gotten to the crux of the matter -- it really doesn't matter to you what the risk factors happen to be because it's all about maximum sensation. Fair enough, if that's your decision, and I will of course admit there is some degree of diminishing of sensation wearing condoms, though the newer ultra thin ones do help in that regard. I don't happen to agree that it means total lack of sensation -- I've gotten tons of enjoyment out of sex with a rubber, and that slight decrease of sensation also means I can go on forever.
But the bottom line is that there's a big difference between going around and saying, "I don't really care -- I want it to feel this way regardless of the consequences" and saying, "My behavior really isn't risky." If you want to be a daredevil and aren't doing anything illegal, then it's your choice, but telling people it's always ok to jump from the top of a building because it's fun and because you personally have always landed in water is simply misleading and irresponsible.
Well said, Freeler, as always, and that's good news on Issan.
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Joe,
jumping from the top of a building kinda hurt every time, even if landing in water. Ouch !
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Joe Zop,
Jumping from a building is not an apt comparison since the risk is so small compared to that. Yes, sensation matters, but the reason it is worth the risk is only partially because sensation is a value - it is also because the risk is so tiny. So I stand by the statement 'My behavior isn't really risky', because the risk is statistically so remote that concern about it is a absurd. I might as well waste my time worrying about slipping in the shower.
Seydlitz,
Though I have nothing new to contribute on the rather low hiv prevalency rates in Thailand and Cambodia, here's a very recent article about the dubious nature of the African statistics -
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-12-13&id=3830
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1 photos
Dear fellow Mongers:
I have found where to buy Orasure Oral HIV Testing Kits in BKK for 2500 Baht for a box of 25 kits. The company name is Asia Pacific Biotech and the contact email for the company is: Supasorn--supasorn at brianet.com.
I contacted Supasorn and he responded to me in one day and also sent a map. I am attaching the map, however, with the size limitations, it may be impossible to read. I am sure if anyone is interested they can contact Supasorn for a detailed map of where to buy this product.
I will be in BKK in January and I am looking for weekly GFE and I really prefer testing the girls. These test kits are less than USD3 a piece and are 99 percent effective.
Anyways, I hope you find this information helpful and informative.
Thanks,
Wil
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Wilsafris,
I like your idea. The only downside to the test is sometimes the HIV hides in the system and they might come out negative now but six months from now turn up positive. Some people might not want to believe this but I discussed this topic a doctor.