Now I'd like to take a moment to do some historical backtracking as to why there has been, in the past, a very exaggerated tendency to promiscuous sex in the gay community.
When I was younger, homosexuality was not only illegal in Canada, it could also prevent you, if you were suspected of it, getting a job, renting an apartment and a whole slew of other things, up to and including being excluded from your own family and community. These are huge issues, that I think some of the holier-than-thou religious heteros on this forum might give some though to. For these reasons, a whole lot of people tried mighty hard to keep their homosexuality a secret. Many went so far as to have pseudo-straight relationships, even marrying, causing a whole world of unhappiness for even more people. And I have know many of these, and been witness to the family breakdowns and pain caused to so many.
These same people, however, while living pretend "straight lives" publicly, still had to find ways to satisfy their own basic and powerful needs. And they did, though much of it was anything but pretty -- you've all heard some of them: anonymous hook-ups in public washrooms (check out a Senator or two, like Larry Craig, or many pastors like Ted Haggard), forested city park areas at night, and the lot. These things do not lead to strong, stable relationships -- quite the contrary.
But since society has started being more accepting, having come to understand that homosexuality and other orientations are natural, more and more stable relationships are forming. In Canada, we've been able to marry since 2005, and from 2006 to 2011 (the last I've got stats for) the number of same-sex couples rose 42%. That's a steep rise in just 5 years, and it continues.
So, on that basis, when the virus that causes AIDS was first really identified in the early 1980s, when hating gays was still pretty much de rigeur, and therefore such indiscriminate practices were the norm, it is little wonder at all that it became "the gay disease." But as society changes, that changes. We're not there yet, in the west, but look at Africa, where the vast majority of sufferers are heterosexual, and were infected having heterosexual sex.
Now I want it clearly understood that I would never say, based on the last sentence in the above paragraph, that heterosexual causes AIDS. I would note, however, that the Catholic Church holds a lot of sway there, and forbids the use of condoms, and therefore the sex is unsafe, even if you are not particularly promiscuous.
But @1robin might notice that sub-Saharan Africa has about 15.2% of the world's population, but 69% of the world's population living with AIDS, and they are mostly heterosexual. In that case, using 1Robin's logic, could we then rightly conclude that "African sex is too costly to be worth the benefits?" Of course not! It would be ludicrous.
Yet that is precisely what @1robin insists on doing, and does it more out of antipathy towards a sexual orientation he or she can't understand, or simply hates on religious grounds.
When I was younger, homosexuality was not only illegal in Canada, it could also prevent you, if you were suspected of it, getting a job, renting an apartment and a whole slew of other things, up to and including being excluded from your own family and community. These are huge issues, that I think some of the holier-than-thou religious heteros on this forum might give some though to. For these reasons, a whole lot of people tried mighty hard to keep their homosexuality a secret. Many went so far as to have pseudo-straight relationships, even marrying, causing a whole world of unhappiness for even more people. And I have know many of these, and been witness to the family breakdowns and pain caused to so many.
These same people, however, while living pretend "straight lives" publicly, still had to find ways to satisfy their own basic and powerful needs. And they did, though much of it was anything but pretty -- you've all heard some of them: anonymous hook-ups in public washrooms (check out a Senator or two, like Larry Craig, or many pastors like Ted Haggard), forested city park areas at night, and the lot. These things do not lead to strong, stable relationships -- quite the contrary.
But since society has started being more accepting, having come to understand that homosexuality and other orientations are natural, more and more stable relationships are forming. In Canada, we've been able to marry since 2005, and from 2006 to 2011 (the last I've got stats for) the number of same-sex couples rose 42%. That's a steep rise in just 5 years, and it continues.
So, on that basis, when the virus that causes AIDS was first really identified in the early 1980s, when hating gays was still pretty much de rigeur, and therefore such indiscriminate practices were the norm, it is little wonder at all that it became "the gay disease." But as society changes, that changes. We're not there yet, in the west, but look at Africa, where the vast majority of sufferers are heterosexual, and were infected having heterosexual sex.
Now I want it clearly understood that I would never say, based on the last sentence in the above paragraph, that heterosexual causes AIDS. I would note, however, that the Catholic Church holds a lot of sway there, and forbids the use of condoms, and therefore the sex is unsafe, even if you are not particularly promiscuous.
But @1robin might notice that sub-Saharan Africa has about 15.2% of the world's population, but 69% of the world's population living with AIDS, and they are mostly heterosexual. In that case, using 1Robin's logic, could we then rightly conclude that "African sex is too costly to be worth the benefits?" Of course not! It would be ludicrous.
Yet that is precisely what @1robin insists on doing, and does it more out of antipathy towards a sexual orientation he or she can't understand, or simply hates on religious grounds.
"
If you had wanted to stick to the issue of homosexuality you shouldn't have brought yourself into the conversation.
