The Negative Health Effects of Homosexuality Part I
Summary: Hollywood and the media relentlessly propagate the image of the fit, healthy, and well-adjusted homosexual. The reality is at polar opposites to this caricature: homosexual and lesbian relationships are typically characterized by instability, promiscuity, and unhealthy and risky sex practices, factors that greatly increase the incidence of serious and incurable sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including hepatitis, HPV, syphilis, gonorrhea, and AIDS.
Issue No.: 232 by: Tim Dailey, Ph. D. Homosexual activists attempt to portray their lifestyle as normal and healthy, and insist that homosexual relationships are the equivalent in every way to their heterosexual counterparts. Hollywood and the media relentlessly propagate the image of the fit, healthy, and well-adjusted homosexual. The reality is quite opposite to this caricature which was recently conceded by the homosexual newspaper New York Blade News: Reports at a national conference about sexually transmitted diseases indicate that gay men are in the highest risk group for several of the most serious diseases . . .. Scientists believe that the increased number of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) cases is the result of an increase in risky sexual practices by a growing number of gay men who believe HIV is no longer a life-threatening illness.
[1] Instability and promiscuity typically characterize homosexual relationships. These two factors increase the incidence of serious and incurable STDs. In addition, some homosexual behaviors put practitioners at higher risk for a variety of ailments, as catalogued by the following research data: Risky Sexual Behavior on the Rise Among Homosexuals. Despite two decades of intensive efforts to educate homosexuals against the dangers of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other STDs, the incidence of unsafe sexual practices that often result in various diseases is on the rise. · According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1994 to 1997 the proportion of homosexuals reporting having had anal sex increased from 57.6 percent to 61.2 percent, while the percentage of those reporting "always" using condoms declined from 69.6 percent to 60 percent.
[2] · The CDC reported that during the same period the proportion of men reporting having multiple sex partners and unprotected anal sex increased from 23.6 percent to 33.3 percent. The largest increase in this category (from 22 percent to 33.3 percent) was reported by homosexuals twenty-five years old or younger.
[3] Homosexuals Failing to Disclose Their HIV Status to Sex Partners · A study presented July 13, 2000 at the XIII International aids Conference in Durban, South Africa disclosed that a significant number of homosexual and bisexual men with HIV "continue to engage in unprotected sex with people who have no idea they could be contracting HIV."
[4] Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco found that thirty-six percent of homosexuals engaging in unprotected oral, anal, or ******l sex failed to disclose that they were HIV positive to casual sex partners. [5] · A CDC report revealed that, in 1997, 45 percent of homosexuals reporting having had unprotected anal intercourse during the previous six months did not know the HIV serostatus of all their sex partners. Even more alarming, among those who reported having had unprotected anal intercourse and multiple partners, 68 percent did not know the HIV serostatus of their partners.
[6] Young Homosexuals are at Increased Risk. Following in the footsteps of the generation of homosexuals decimated by AIDS, younger homosexuals are engaging in dangerous sexual practices at an alarming rate. · A Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health study of three-hundred-sixty-one young men who have sex with men (MSM) aged fifteen to twenty-two found that around 40 percent of participants reported having had anal-insertive sex, and around 30 percent said they had had anal-receptive sex. Thirty-seven percent said they had not used a condom for anal sex during their last same-sex encounter. Twenty-one percent of the respondents reported using drugs or alcohol during their last same-sex encounter.
[7] · A five-year CDC study of 3,492 homosexual males aged fifteen to twenty-two found that one-quarter had unprotected sex with both men and women. Another cdc study of 1,942 homosexual and bisexual men with HIV found that 19 percent had at least one episode of unprotected anal sex--the riskiest sexual behavior--in 1998 and 1997, a 50 percent increase from the previous two years.
[8] Homosexual Promiscuity. Studies indicate that the average male homosexual has hundreds of sex partners in his lifetime: · A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, in their classic study of male and female homosexuality, found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, with 28 percent having 1,000 or more sex partners.
[9] · In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al., found that only 2.7 percent claimed to have had sex with one partner only. The most common response, given by 21.6 percent of the respondents, was of having a hundred-one to five hundred lifetime sex partners.
[10] · A survey conducted by the homosexual magazine Genre found that 24 percent of the respondents said they had had more than a hundred sexual partners in their lifetime. The magazine noted that several respondents suggested including a category of those who had more than a thousand sexual partners.
[11] · In his study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, M. Pollak found that "few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners."
[12] Promiscuity among Homosexual Couples. Even in those homosexual relationships in which the partners consider themselves to be in a committed relationship, the meaning of "committed" typically means something radically different from marriage. · In The Male Couple, authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison reported that in a study of a hundred-fifty-six males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years, Only seven couples have a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men all have been together for less than five years. Stated another way, all couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationships.
[13] · In Male and Female Homosexuality, M. Saghir and E. Robins found that the average male homosexual live-in relationship lasts between two and three years.
[14] Unhealthy Aspects of "Monogamous" Homosexual Relationships. Even those homosexual relationships that are loosely termed "monogamous" do not necessarily result in healthier behavior. · The journal AIDS reported that men involved in relationships engaged in anal intercourse and oral-anal intercourse with greater frequency than those without a steady partner did.
[15] Anal intercourse has been linked to a host of bacterial and parasitical sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. · The exclusivity of the relationship did not diminish the incidence of unhealthy sexual acts, which are commonplace among homosexuals. An English study published in the same issue of the journal AIDS concurred, finding that most "unsafe" sex acts among homosexuals occur in steady relationships.
[16] Human Papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a collection of more than seventy types of viruses that can cause warts, or papillomas, on various parts of the body. More than twenty types of HPV are incurable STDs that can infect the genital tract of both men and women. Most HPV infections are subclinical or asymptomatic, with only one in a hundred people experiencing genital warts. · HPV is "almost universal" among homosexuals. According to the homosexual newspaper The Washington Blade: "A San Francisco study of Gay and bisexual men revealed that HPV infection was almost universal among HIV-positive men, and that 60 percent of HIV-negative men carried HPV."
[17] · HPV can lead to anal cancer. At the recent Fourth International AIDS Malignancy Conference at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Andrew Grulich announced that "most instances of anal cancer are caused by a cancer-causing strain of HPV through receptive anal intercourse. HPV infects over 90 percent of HIV-positive gay men and 65 percent of HIV-negative gay men, according to a number of recent studies."
[18] · The link between HPV and cervical cancer. Citing a presentation by Dr. Stephen Goldstone to the International Congress on Papillomavirus in Human Pathology in Paris, the Washington Blade reports that "HPV is believed to cause cervical cancer in women."
[19] Hepatitis: A potentially fatal liver disease that increases the risk of liver cancer. · Hepatitis A: The Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report published by the CDC reports: "Outbreaks of hepatitis A among men who have sex with men are a recurring problem in many large cities in the industrialized world."
[20] · Hepatitis B: This is a serious disease caused by a virus that attacks the liver. The virus, which is called hepatitis B virus (HBV), can cause lifelong infection, cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and death. Each year in the United States, more than 200,000 people of all ages contract hepatitis B and close to 5,000 die of sickness caused by AIDS. The CDC reports that MSM are at increased risk for hepatitis B.
[21] · Hepatitis C is an inflammation of the liver that can cause cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer. The virus can lie dormant in the body for up to thirty years before flaring up. Although less so than with hepatitis A and B, MSM who engage in unsafe sexual practices remain at increased risk for contracting hepatitis C.
[22] Gonorrhea: An inflammatory disease of the genital tract. Gonorrhea traditionally occurs on the genitals, but has recently appeared in the rectal region and in the throat. Although easily treated by antibiotics, according to the CDC only "about 50 percent of men have some signs or symptoms, and "many women who are infected have no symptoms of infection."
[23] Untreated gonorrhea can have serious and permanent health consequences, including infertility damage to the prostate and urethra. · A CDC report documents "significant increases during 1994 to 1997 in rectal gonorrhea . . . among MSM," indicating that "safe sex" practices may not be taken as seriously as the aids epidemic begins to slow.
[24] In 1999 the CDC released data showing that male rectal gonorrhea is increasing among homosexuals amidst an overall decline in national gonorrhea rates. The report attributed the increase to a larger percentage of homosexuals engaging in unsafe sexual behavior.
[25] · The incidence of throat Gonorrhea is strongly associated with homosexual behavior. The Canadian Medical Association Journal found that "gonorrhea was associated with urethral discharge . . . and homosexuality (3.7 times higher than the rate among heterosexuals)."
[26] Similarly, a study in the Journal of Clinical Pathology found that homosexual men had a much higher prevalence of pharyngeal (throat) gonorrhea--15.2 percent compared with 4.1 percent for heterosexual men.
[27] Syphilis: A venereal disease that, if left untreated, can spread throughout the body over time, causing serious heart abnormalities, mental disorders, blindness, and death. The initial symptoms of syphilis are often mild and painless, leading some individuals to avoid seeking treatment. According to the National Institutes of Health, the disease may be mistaken for other common illnesses: "syphilis has sometimes been called 'the great imitator' because its early symptoms are similar to those of many other diseases." Early symptoms include rashes, moist warts in the groin area, slimy white patches in the mouth, or pus-filled bumps resembling chicken pox.
[28] · According to the CDC, "transmission of the organism occurs during ******l, anal, or oral sex."
[29] In addition, the Archives of Internal Medicine found that homosexuals acquired syphilis at a rate ten times that of heterosexuals.
[30] · The CDC reports that those who contract syphilis face potentially deadly health consequences: "It is now known that the genital sores caused by syphilis in adults also make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV infection sexually. There is a two to five fold increased risk of acquiring HIV infection when syphilis is present."
[31] Gay Bowel Syndrome (GBS):
[32] The Journal of the American Medical Association refers to GBS problems such as proctitis, proctocolitis, and enteritis as "sexually transmitted gastrointestinal syndromes."[33] Many of the bacterial and protozoa pathogens that cause gbs are found in feces and transmitted to the digestive system: According to the pro-homosexual text Anal Pleasure and Health, " exual activities provide many opportunities for tiny amounts of contaminated feces to find their way into the mouth of a sexual partner . . . The most direct route is oral-anal contact."