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Originally Posted by highlander  Claiming that test results mean "nothing" after someone has contact with someone else is just plain statistically inaccurate. The significance of the test results does degrade over time. However, the chance of someone who has a 6 month old test result showing up HIV+ in 6 months is still less than someone who is untested. |
Here (in bold) is the problem with your arguments regarding testing. The fact is their is no statistical evidence to support that claim.
First of all, regarding HIV, one swinger is less likely statistically to contract HIV from another swinger than they are of being hit by lightning walking from their car to the club on a clear skied starry night. Unless you have open sores in your genital area and play with IV drug users or have anal sex without a condom, the chances of contracting HIV from another swinger is astronomical. Even if the person you are having sex with has active AIDS, the odds of you catching it without any mitigating factors is high enough for it to be a non-issue for the average swinger couple. Even the most pessimistic studies by researchers with an agenda put the odds at about 200 to 1 for women and around 2000 to 1 for men who have vaginal sex with a known HIV+ partner.
Back to the point though, regarding someone who has been tested 6 months ago being less likely to be HIV+ than someone who wasn't tested. The fact of the matter is, it is just as likely that they both contracted HIV 5 months before you played with them as it is that neither one of them has, or ever will contract HIV.
Therefore, while I have no problem with someone who wants to get tested for their own peace of mind, that information is totally useless to me when deciding to play with them or not.
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Originally Posted by highlander I'd LOVE to see some clubs/web sites that required periodic test results for participation. |
I got a chuckle when I read this, it is too bad you don't live in Reno, then their could be two people that had this desire in one town.
A few years ago their was a couple here that tried to get one of the local clubs to institute such a policy. The club owners handled it pretty well I thought. They told them that if they had some other folks that wanted the same thing, they could make a list amongst themselves thereby having a reference they could refer to to check on the test status of anyone who wanted to participate. They tried the hard sell on club patrons for a few months to try and get people to get tested and ad their names to the list, until the club owners had had enough complaints and told them to cease badgering the customers. They never did get even one other person to do it though and nothing ever came of their idea.
One additional point here. It is a fact that both the porn industry and Nevada's legal brothel industry have used testing for some time with positive results. That said, it is important to keep in mind that their results are highly effected by the way they implement the testing. While I am not as familiar with the way the porn industry handles testing as I am they way it is handled in the brothels in Nevada. I can tell you that in Nevada, the women that work in the legal brothels are required to be tested once a week. Obviously, it would be impractical to implement such a testing program amongst swingers. Which begs the question, how much is the effectiveness of testing for risk reduction, reduced by less frequent testing? It appears to me, from reading much the same data as you have, that testings effectiveness at reducing risk is highly reduced as frequency of testing is reduced. After a few months, or sexual contact with one person, it appears to me the test results are pretty much useless.
Don't get me wrong here, I have no illusions that I am going to convince you here that you are wrong. Based on your posts on the subject here, I have no doubt you truly believe this, just as our friends at our local club did. The only reason I even comment is that maybe, at the least, you will also realize that your view is a definite minority view among the swinging community. I further submit that, as with anything dealing with research and statistics, it is possible that two people, like you and I, can read the same research and come to two totally opposing conclusions. That is why you so often see organizations with different agendas using the same research to promote and justify their apposing views.