Cortigiana Onesta

Title catch your attention? Good. This is not directly escorting related, however HIV is a big issue for me. And being that I’ve heard the “Circumcision prevents HIV” line from men of all ages, I really feel this is important to write about. And I’m not going to add a “read more” to this, as I feel it’s important enough to take up half the screen on my blog.

A few years ago some studies came out saying that HIV transmission in males could be reduced by circumcision. The percentages varied based on who was reporting but it was anywhere from 30% all the way to 75%. What was never mentioned is that this only applied to female-to-male transmission, one of the lowest types. It was touted as “Circumcision can reduce HIV by up to 70%”. Very misleading, but the media ate it up.

This always struck me as odd, right from the beginning. The United States has one of the highest circumcision rates in the world and is the only country left routinely do it at birth¹. 3/4 of the women infected with HIV in the US are infected via heterosexual contact, most likely with circumcised men². While over in Europe, there is less HIV and barely any circumcised men.

Now, I am not saying the foreskin is the Holy Grail in HIV prevention. Not at all. What I’m saying is that it is not the almighty evil HIV magnet that the media made it out to be after one study that was shady, at best³.

What I am saying is this:

CONDOMS, not cosmetic surgery⁴, are the best way to prevent HIV.

This article is a pretty good read about the subject. This is the part that stuck out to me.

As thousands of young men in Nyanza Province troop to health centres to be circumcised in hopes of fending off HIV, new studies show it might be too early to claim victory. Although circumcision has been touted as one of the ways to prevent HIV infection, recent findings show an increase in HIV infection in regions where most males are circumcised.

Within a span of five years, HIV prevalence in North Eastern and Coast provinces increased from 0 to 1.0 per cent and from 5.8 per cent to 8.3 per cent respectively. In the same period, HIV prevalence in Nyanza Province, where about 48 per cent of males are circumcised, stood at 15 per cent, the highest in the country.

I’m not surprised. Sex with multiple partners WITHOUT a condom, no matter WHAT skin is on your dick, is going to eventually lead to HIV. Period.

The worst part is this: Even if circumcision was effective again, the important thing that’s not mentioned in most articles (but is available in the full study) is that it does NOTHING for male-to-female transmission. It was only ever described as effective in female-to-male transmission, the lowest type.

Maybe it’s just me but the “studies” done were irresponsible and ridiculous from the beginning, and they have gambled with people’s health. Not just to the men (and their partners) in Africa, but to the people in the US who heard these ridiculous claims in the media and believed them. I’ve heard MANY guys (mostly people I know, met, or have overheard) say that they were stoked about the studies because it meant they didn’t need condoms if their GF was on the pill because, and I quote, “cut guys can’t get AIDS”. This plus teenagers being told by abstinence only fanatics⁵ that condoms aren’t effective is going to lead nowhere good.

Would I be the only one surprised if the US HIV rate in young people dramatically goes up in the next 5 or so years?

1. The term routine in this instance refers to non-ritual circumcision [↩]
2. The circumcision rate in 1980 and before hung out around 80% and started to drop in the late 80s. Today it sits at 50/50 but infants aren’t having sex so I’m not really including them [↩]
3. The intact males were given NO condom education and started sexual activity 6 weeks before their circumcised counterparts, the circumcised men were given information on STDs and condom usage. Several months later when the numbers were starting to show the cut guys catching up to the intact ones the study was ended a year early [↩]
4. There are 3 medical reasons to ever remove the foreskin: cancer, frostbite, gangrene. Everything else is treatable with either pills, cream, or even masturbation [no joke]. All major medical associations consider the surgery non-therapeutic [↩]
5. I am fine with “wait until marriage”, but when they start saying shit like “condoms have holes in them” and “abortion makes you sterile” I get a little pissed off [↩]