[highlander]

First thank you for the reply.

I've established a space on yahoo groups for swingers that are getting STD tested and want to share results.
Yahoo! Groups

Originally Posted by good times

Actually, those studies are pretty misleading in my opinion. The reason for that is the same reason why they don't find any women in Nevada brothels with std's, the ones with std's don't get tested and left the business when testing became required. The reason this could never work in swinging is that their is no regulatory body that could require all swingers to be tested.

testing of Swingers is harder. What could be required is STD testing of patrons of commercial swing club establishments that maintain a business license. That is something a local government might theoretically do-but there may be some legal issues there.

Here's the thing: we have this gradual creeping of of various STD's. It is happening slowly. Right now, the risk isn't that great(whether it is acceptable or not depends on your perspective). However, what is clear is that the risk, over time is growing. When Penicillin came out, some docs were talking that syphilis might go the way of smallpox. It hasn't-and in fact has been growing the last two decades. Promotion of condoms hasn't reversed that trend-and there is no compelling case that promotion of condoms will reverse that trend. There is a new liquid condom that is now in testing-and that may
gain some widespread use-but it is years away. The big recent advance that is available now is better testing. The PCR tests are a big deal-and we have clear evidence that when used in a community they can over time reduce STD incidence significantly.

Is it cost effective? Maybe, Maybe not. However, I would MUCH rather be proactive here and get a testing protocol in place that was coming out of the swinger community(and for that matter the community of sex workers) than wait to have regulations imposed by governmental authorities. What history has shown us is that when that happens, it typically doesn't involve a lot of sympathy for minority lifestyles(i.e. One of the big Nazi issues was getting rid of syphilis).

Most I have seen (grossly pessimistic, in my opinion) puts it that the average person in the US has something like a 1 in 100,000 chance of contracting HIV (some say that 1 in 100,000 is also the national average chance of one getting hit by lightning, hence my reference). If you believe like I do, that in the swinging community in which one only plays with couples like we do, the risk is lower, the odds then more than double (more in line with the odds I have seen printed when the researchers eliminated the high risk groups like IV drug users and homosexuals at less than 1 in 220,000).

I think your odds are overly optimistic. The CDC figure had some data behind it. Now, I would suggest that there is an incidence of bisexual men and IV drug users even among stable couples-as well as men that frequent sex workers outside of swinging. How high is this? my honest guess is that in clubs that are exclusively for couples it is pretty low--but I have no figures to back that up. Now, if one is going to a commercial swing club that admits single men-in an area like San Francisco or Portland, I think you might be surprised just how many bisexual men or IV drug users show up there. Many of these folks won't announce themselves. Can we really spot such folks by talking to them for 5 minutes in a club situation?

I agree, but have you actually been tested for HSV and HPV? Most of the time, unless specifically requested, when a full panel of tests is ordered HSV is omitted, and I know of no test currently available for HPV in males.

I _have_ been tested for HSV(and was negative, something that surprised me a bit). AIM Foundation does HSV testing. the test is still fairly new, but they are doing it.

There is a test for HPV that some doctors use on men(the HPV DNA test which uses PCR technology I think). It is NOT FDA approved for use in men-that use is an "off label use". The accuracy in that context may be a bit limited(I've seen figures that claim it would spot only 94% or so of the male carriers). The cost I saw was $235.00-which is almost as much as a comprehensive panel at AIM Foundation.

What AIM Foundation is doing is acting as an experimental site for the use of Gardisil in men. That may make more sense. My understanding is that some folks can clear themselves of HPV, but there is a problem with sexual active folks of reinfecting each other.

I assumed, as we are talking about typical swingers, that their behaviors would be similar. The later is not really a consideration to me as I have yet to meet someone personally who is HIV+.

I would suggest that many HIV+ folks don't broadcast that fact.

I used to know a nurse in the bay area that was involved in explaining test results to folks. It really bothered her the attitudes she saw there.

I think most folks would inform their partners of this status.

However about 20-30% of the folks that are HIV+ don't know it, they simply haven't been tested-and some of those are folks in earlier stages of infection when they are most contagious.

Right, I assume you do have an idea of what the odds are of all swingers deciding to participate in this program is though.

Right now, the battle I think it just creating some spaces where swingers that
are interested in STD testing can communicate with each other. The next step may be establishing a few clubs that have an STD testing protocol in place. I expect this to be a real minority interest for some time.

Also keep in mind that we, as swingers, have sex with strangers on a much more regular basis than porn actors do. The porn actors that I know personally, typically work for as much as a week straight were they might make dozens of movies, then they often don't work again for months or years.

Actually, all the porn actors I've known well were also swingers. Now, I know that isn't necessarily an accurate sample, that is just the ones I've known.

Now, the swingers comfortable with testing and the general swinger population may be rather different here. Both populations are pretty variable to. There are swingers that only swing say 1-2 times per year on vacation.

Whereas, swingers will often have sex with different partners several times a month on an ongoing basis. Based on that, if one were to endorse your belief in the value of testing, swingers should be tested more often than porn actors, not less.

What I will admit, is there is a much more variable population with swingers than porn actors. I'd still suspect that less frequent testing is ok for folks that might be going to clubs/parties 1 time per month or so-and particularly if they are only swinging in clubs where there is a testing protocol in place.

Honestly, I have to say that the other problem with comparing swinging to the porn industry is that, for the most part, we are two totally dissimilar groups. Porn stars often engage in sexual behavior that we would never consider ( I admit it, I've seen some pretty raunchy porn), and I suspect drug use in the porn industry is much more widespread than in swinging

I still think there is a good indication that swingers would get better results
from a testing protocol. Basically porn actors usually test tested only while
acting(on a monthly basis). Now, as you pointed out, a lot of folks drop in and out of acting. I can imagine a club protocol that goes something like this:
you get tested either every 4 months or every 8 visits, depending on whichever comes first. For larger commercial clubs, having a staff member take a vocational ed course (2 days) that would let them draw blood for samples, isn't that big a deal. The club could become a test center.

Some of us do, we just came to different conclusions based on it than you did.

Regarding condoms, with a simple search on this forum you will find that my views about them are somewhat similar to my views on testing. You see, I am just not much of a fan of false senses of security in any form.

We might actually be able to look at the numbers and agree with the odds. My main point here is I want to see a trend in the opposite direction and see at least one identifiable community of swingers that has a clearly lower STD risk than the general population.

As far as the poll results go, I hate to burst your bubble, but I suspect that the poll results do not include those that "don't see a problem" or just "go with the flow" and probably most of the "DEEPLY attached to condoms as a safety mechanisms-and the ONLY valid precaution" crowd as well, because frankly they don't care enough about the issue to even read this thread, let alone vote in the poll.

there is always sample bias. What I think is there is a population that is staying out of swinging specifically because of the perception (right or wrong)that swinging carries too much STD risk.

Now, what is "too much" risk? Well that is a highly personal decision. We might agree on the risk level in numbers and have very different attitudes on what that means.

I can believe that if the numbers were actually available, there would emerge data that showed that couples and singles that swung in clubs with a testing protocol were at less risk for STD's than the general population including less sexually active populations.

There is an article titled "More sex is safer sex". Basically the point that this mathematician makes is that what matters in terms of STD transmission is not just average number of partners, but distribution of parters. If you have a situation in which most men have their outside contacts with a few prostitutes and most women with a few "super studs" you have more incidence of some STDS than if you have a more even distribution of partners.

Another factor is "compartmentalization". In swinging, you sometimes have folks going to the same club almost exclusively for at least some period of time, so there is a pool of folks they are choosing from(even if they don't know many of those folks very well). A lot of time, these epidemics are pretty dang local and affect specific pools of people(i.e. specific zip codes).

One of the only swing clubs I've known that had a testing protocol in place was in the SF bay area(this was in the 80's). The big one they had problems with was Chlamydia, which spread so fast that as soon as they saw a single case, they knew they had a problem and they had to put out an alert to all members. Now they got to the point where from their perspective, this wasn't that big a deal. Basically the first case they saw, they'd get everyone retested-and that months party would be a bit curtailed in the activities.