Safe Sex and Sex Related Discussions in Thailand

HIV is just one of the potential dangers. I would be more concerned about Hep B (presume you are vaccinated or you really are pissing into the wind), Hep C, Syphillis etc. Have you been tested for Chlamydia recently as many girls carry this nasty without symptoms and the same goes for men. Then there is HPV and Herpes which even wearing a condom will not protect you from, although they do help.

Your comment about stepping into the Sukhumvit traffic (possibly blindfold) is an appropriate metaphor for your actions. They are decidedly risky. Most people seek the safety of the overhead walkways.

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]HIV is just one of the potential dangers. I would be more concerned about Hep B (presume you are vaccinated or you really are pissing into the wind), Hep C, Syphillis etc. Have you been tested for Chlamydia recently as many girls carry this nasty without symptoms and the same goes for men. Then there is HPV and Herpes which even wearing a condom will not protect you from, although they do help.

Your comment about stepping into the Sukhumvit traffic (possibly blindfold) is an appropriate metaphor for your actions. They are decidedly risky. Most people seek the safety of the overhead walkways.[/QUOTE]
Yes, I get tested comprehensively every few months if I've been adventuring. Chlamydia is the only bug I've ever picked up, and a couple of Cipro knocked it out with no fanfare. And I am vaccinated for Hep B. Frankly, I have a bad knee from my football days, which gives me problems on steep stairways and the overhead walkways over Sukhumvit are an issue for me or I would use them. And a simple quick observation would confirm that MOST people don't use them. Most cross at the traffic light on Soi 3/4.

In any case, I am not really interested in having a debate here. I merely wanted to inject some factual discussion about a subject which is normally treated with stigma and panicked histrionics, even on a forum such as this. I am well aware of the risk vs reward decisions I personally make, just as a race car driver, or skydiver or anyone frankly should be. I am also quite sure that I am by no means unique in the hobbying population - I just may be more self-aware than many. The fact is, proper use of condoms would likely improve my odds by roughly 1.5 orders of magnitude compared to not using them. I am certain that they reduce my personal enjoyment of the experience by 2 orders of magnitude. And the fact is, I use them probably 65-75% of the time - but certainly nowhere near religiously. And I don't enjoy it all that much when I do use them which is why I frequently DON'T use them. I tend to go au naturale with a handful of regulars that I meet in whatever venue I am at - but I'm under no illusions about them being any safer than all but the skankiest random first time encounters.

In a good year, I might actually go bare in P4P a few dozen times. Given the orders of magnitude of the risk factors that are in play, I am well aware that it is an incremental risk that I am incurring. On an annual basis, the odds of me getting a really serious and incurable bug are lower than my risk of suffering a heart attack or a fatal car crash or a cancer diagnosis. The odds of getting a minor and/or fully treatable bug are well within the acceptable range for me relative to the consequences. I reduce my odds elsewhere - for example, I never drink heavily and never smoke. Many hobbyists excessive drinking or smoking adds FAR more risk to them than my ~25-40 bareback encounters a year with perhaps 5-10 different women adds to my risk profile.

I guess its an attitude to risk, and I don't see Bangkok any more risky than London, indded I have nver picked up a STD in Bangkok or indded other countries but I have caught clamydia in the UK and I think that was from a BBBJ as I do not do full sex unprotected. As I tend to punt once every couple of weeks in UK but a couple of times a day in Bangkok and given I am in Bangkok more than 14 days a year this evens out. I don't do unprotected sex more from the fear that the girl will 'accidently' get pregnent and start claiming child support off me, the UK is funny like that, I know this is unlikely in punterland but is a risk with casual sex and I have kept the habit. Has anyone here had any experience of their Thai 'girlfriends' getting pregnent to snare a Farang. My brother in Manchester once had a call from a girl in Bangkok who knew there boyfriend lived in Manchester and had the same surname as me. She then went through the telephone directory calling every one with my surname and looking for him to tell him she was pregent wih his child. Embarassingly he also had the same first name as me, so I had a difficult conversation with my brother who know I travel to Bangkok a bit.

As for crossing Sukhumvit, I have never felt any risk, compared to London streets with London Taxis and courier bikes its not really any different. If anything (and this is the same in China and Taiwan) its safer as the local expect you to step out in front of them. It may look chaotic on the road and it is from a western view point, but it works, indeed I suspect there are less prangs in Bangkok than in London, especially since we have had a migration of Eastern Europeans who tend to drive in the Bangkok style while UK drivers have not yet adapted.

Sorry for the digression, anyway I do not feel there is an increased risk of STD in Bangkok than in London, sure the statistic tell us that HIV is more prevalent but not I supect in the working girls, just the population at large. Indeed I find that thai (and other oriental girls) are much more focussed on cleanliness than Western girls, I have never had a girl in Bangkok with any body or pussy odour (apart from garlic breath) but same can not be said in the UK, and not just at the cheap end of the market.

Yes you appear to be cognizant of the actuarial odds of the risks you are running. Now try to get life insurance using your lifestyle model. GH

[QUOTE=Gamahucher]Yes you appear to be cognizant of the actuarial odds of the risks you are running. Now try to get life insurance using your lifestyle model. GH[/QUOTE]
I don't need Life insurance - I have no dependents. If I did, I have no doubt that it would alter my perspective on this.

[QUOTE=Member #2041]I don't need Life insurance - I have no dependents. If I did, I have no doubt that it would alter my perspective on this.[/QUOTE]Unless I'm mistaken, I seem to remember you calling me on the phone when I was in Costa Rica. You sounded like a smart guy, and you didn't sound old enough that one day you won't have dependents.

I don't get into the safe-sex debates anymore on ISG. Waste of time. The sex-disease facts are still the same (with HIV still on the increase). It's either preach to the converted, or be happy to let fools take the chance to fuck up their own lives and those of their sex partners.

[QUOTE=Piper1]Unless I'm mistaken, I seem to remember you calling me on the phone when I was in Costa Rica. You sounded like a smart guy, and you didn't sound old enough that one day you won't have dependents.

I don't get into the safe-sex debates anymore on ISG. Waste of time. The sex-disease facts are still the same (with HIV still on the increase). But it's either preach to the converted, or be happy to let fools take the chance to fuck up their own lives and those of their sex partners.[/QUOTE]
You're mistaken. I'm in my late 40s, and I haven't phoned anyone in Costa Rica, nor been there myself, in around 4 years.

For me, the bottom line is this. Life is MUCH more worth living as I am 15 months from my 50th birthday, if I am still able to enjoy having sex - and condoms largely prevent me from doing that. What is life about, and why do we care to be alive? That's a question each person has to answer for themselves.

Giving up nearly all of the enjoyment of having sex, for perhaps a couple percentage points of added life expectancy is simply not a reasonable tradeoff for me. I'd rather live to be 65 and enjoy my life to the fullest, than live to be 75 and effectively give up the enjoyment of sex for the final 26 years of it. And the likelihood is, the increased risk to me is actually far less than that.

[QUOTE=Member #2041]You're mistaken. I'm in my late 40s, and I haven't phoned anyone in Costa Rica, nor been there myself, in around 4 years.[/QUOTE]Fair enough - I was there 2-3 years ago when I got the phone call from a Member # xxx.

Still, I stand by the rest of my post. Good luck.

[QUOTE=Member #2041] And AIDS is no longer an untreatable disease. [/QUOTE]

True...but the treatment could kill you...or make you so sick that you would wish to die.

[QUOTE=Piper1]...preach to the converted...[/QUOTE]

Ha ha, good one! Preaching to the 'sero-converted' might be a waste of time.

But certainly you are correct that it is silly to try to preach to any thoughtful and independent minded person, which must include we punters almost by definition. Preaching is an activity well devised to control the dimwitted majority, who accept society's strictures without question.. we mongers do not, or we wouldn't be so flagrantly flouting sexual convention. However I do think it is worthwhile and enjoyable to debate public policy on this issue:

One interesting fact - and one which militates for the provision of free treatments in nations too savage and benighted to do so (such as my own sad land, the USA) - persons on said treatments are basically non-contagious regardless of sexual behaviour. This fact is of course ignored because 1) there remains some infinitismal risk, and 2) the real point is to prevent such behaviours, and not for epidemiological reasons.

Personally I find it the height of irony that the best strategy our puritan rulers can come up with for preventing the 'spread' of the hiv is to insist upon the use of an instrument which removes all enjoyment from the sex act. But, of course, as we all know, the real goal is not the prevention of the hiv, but rather control of the sex act.

[QUOTE=Opebo]One interesting fact - and one which militates for the provision of free treatments in nations too savage and benighted to do so (such as my own sad land, the USA) - [b]persons on said treatments are basically non-contagious regardless of sexual behaviour[/b]. This fact is of course ignored because 1) there remains some infinitismal risk, and 2) the real point is to prevent such behaviours, and not for epidemiological reasons.[/QUOTE]

Can you please elaborate on this statement?

[QUOTE=Daddy San]Can you please elaborate on this statement?[/QUOTE]

[url=http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=8035]Just something I read[/url] - who knows if it is true, or what might be true. But it seems reasonable.

Yes, it does seem reasonable.
But also very scary, if you immagine, that it is each HIV-positive individual's own decission if he/she fulfills the conditions mentioned in the article, required to go BB safely.
But then many of those go BB, knowing full well they do not meet those conditions or could not care less.
See you at Tulip's!

[QUOTE=Opebo]...But, of course, as we all know, the real goal is not the prevention of the hiv, but rather control of the sex act.[/QUOTE]Well, I for one didn't know that. Could you please elaborate on this statement?

[QUOTE=Piper1]Well, I for one didn't know that. Could you please elaborate on this statement?[/QUOTE]

I think I'm on rather firm ground here, Piper. Historically the powerful have always taken a somewhat surprising interest in the intimate sexual behaviour of commoners, making taboos and mores the purview of enormous religious establishments. Great efforts have long been made to force human sexual behaviour into very narrow and not particularly comfortable confines - for example monogamy or prohibition of prostitution. Why has this always been so? That discussion might be a bit too involved for this forum, but suffice it to say that the privileged only ever do anything (or rather order anything done) to keep or accentuate their power. I find it hard to believe they really care if one serf shaggs another serf, but if telling said serfs said shagging is 'bad' or shameful helps their project of absolute world domination, then it will certainly be done.

Interest in the epidemiological well being of the masses is a comparatively recent innovation, and like all such 'democratic' innovations, a bit of a ruse. A clever ruse, of course, and one which appeals to that most universal weakness - hubris - but a ruse nonetheless: 'I matter', for example, or 'My life can be better through Reason'.

I think it behooves us to be a bit more skeptical about the motivations behind the actions of the rulers and their agents. While understanding on the part of the powerless (that's you and I, Piper) makes, really, no difference politically, there is, on an 'individual' level, a sardonic delight to be had in understanding with clarity rather than being perpetually befuddled.