Details magazine is openly discussing what many in the singles crowd are practicing: unsafe sex.
Using condoms is a passe proposition, according to the article in the October issue, which author Ian Daly researched in part on the roof of New York City’s Hotel Gansevoort, “the white-collar meat market.”
The basic argument is that new drug cocktails have been developed that have transformed the once surely fatal AIDS epidemic into a manageable condition that some liken to chronic diseases similar to diabetes.
And sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia and even syphilis no longer strike fear into the hearts of those having sex with new partners. Or multiple partners.
A Kaiser survey the article quotes says only 15 percent of people polled said they were very concerned with contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as opposed to the 24 percent who were concerned in 1997.
But log on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site — www.cdc.gov — and you can find information that is alarming.
Take genital herpes, for which there is no cure. The CDC says “genital herpes infection is common in the United States. Nationwide, at least 45 million people ages 12 and older, or one out of five adolescents and adults, have had genital HSV infection.”
The CDC also says that male-to-female transmissions are more likely than female-to-male transmissions. That might reinforce the attitudes of some of the guys hanging out on the Hotel Gansevoort’s rooftop.
But the government’s approach, as mentioned by Details, focuses first on abstinence in most of its fact sheets, herpes included. And that, of course, is a sure way not to get infected with any sexually transmitted disease.
That, “or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and is known to be uninfected.”
But while you would expect encouragement to use condoms, the facts as presented by the CDC are almost discouraging for their use as a herpes preventative.
“Genital ulcer diseases can occur in both male and female genital areas that are covered or protected by a latex condom as well as in areas that are not covered,” the CDC fact sheet says.
“Since a condom may not cover all infected areas, even correct and consistent use of latex condoms cannot guarantee protection from genital herpes.”
The true guarantee? Having sex with someone who does not have herpes, and the only way you can be sure of that is if that person is honest about his or her infection or has a blood test done.
And that used to be the rule for protection against HIV/AIDS. The rules, however, seem to be changing.