Another bullshit article about PrEP from the BBC.
This man is age 35. The earliest he could have been born is 1983. He would have been age six or seven at the beginning of 1990.
Yet the article states “Chris said growing up as a gay man in the 1980s meant HIV was a lingering spectre.”
Really? He was aware of the “spectre” of AIDS and was “growing up as a gay man” during the 1980s as a child of six or seven years old at most?
He also claims to have seen the AIDS iceberg ads which were first screened in 1987 when he would have been aged three or four! They weren’t shown on toddlers TV…
This is another tickbox PR piece from the PrEPsters and their media cronies. They can’t resist shoehorning in the usual virtue-signalling stuff despite it being extremely dubious if you think about what is being claimed.
Read between the lines… He believes that “everyone” takes risks and isn’t always “entirely safe.” This is completely untrue. Many of us use a condom every time and have stayed free from HIV for decades.
He’s in an open relationship in which condoms aren’t used. Yet believes that anyone who criticises PrEP is not “fully educated.”
As the article points out, the jury is still out on whether PrEP users contract and pass on more sexually transmitted infections. We believe they do.
Yes PrEP users are checked every three months at the clinic. However most mix with others who are into bareback sex and who may not be on PrEP and so not be checked for STIs regularly. A PrEP user may pick up an STI hours after his latest appointment and then spend weeks or months passing it on to others.
Because many PrEP users and so many of the men they meet for sex don’t use condoms, it stands to reason that STIs are more likely to be passed on orally too because of where else those penises have been! Anal sex without a condom is a primary route for infection with an STI.
Look at the stats from Wales in the article and make up your own mind. Despite being checked every three months for STIs “screenings show of the 841 people taking PrEP, 137 had gonorrhoea, 112 had chlamydia and 25 had syphilis.”
When experts say there may or may not be a connection between PrEP and STIs, we think what they mean is that these individuals may have ended up with the same STIs anyway even if not on PrEP because they are reckless.
They aren’t “typical” gay men. On the contrary they are high risk for STIs either way. Whether on PrEP or not.
Looking from an individual point of view, PrEP use DOES then become an indication of a gay man who poses a great STI risk to you if you hook up for sex. Though the gay “health” organisations will never tell you this.
How can PrEP users in general not be promiscuous as the headline claims but yet have these phenomenal rates of STIs? Of course there will be a few who are aren’t.
To paraphrase that old gay phone dating ad, these are gay men you don’t want to get to know better!
“Condomless” bareback sex is the issue. As we’ve said before, once you start it’s like falling off a cliff into a swamp in terms of risk and the sort of gay men you meet.