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Originally Posted by highlander  Folks keep saying the differences between folks that test regularly and require similar results from partners is zero compared to the general population with similar behavior. |
Huh, I haven't seen anyone say that, I know I haven't. What I did say is that their is no such thing in swinging. I have been swinging for some time, and have met a lot of swingers. I have met some that have been tested, I have met none that have been tested more often than once a year. While it wouldn't surprise me if their were a few who test regularly and expect the same from their play partners, it would surprise me if they amounted to more than a hundred people in the entire US.
So, what I am saying is that if everyone who is a swinger was tested regularly it might make a difference. But the reality is they are not, and a tested person playing with an untested one is no different than two untested ones playing. Failing everyone being tested, the only benefit to testing is the piece of mind you get knowing you haven't caught anything. But currently, and as far into the future as I can imagine, getting tested will not reduce the odds of any individual swinger catching anything in the least. And to expect that at some not to distant point in the future a significant number of swingers are going embrace testing, is delusional in the extreme, it just isn't going to happen. It is just too expensive, time consuming, and indiscreet to do, and provides too little benefit for too insignificant of a problem to ever happen.
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Originally Posted by highlander I'd be very interested in seeing a valid study to that effect-and for that matter the claim that testing produces a false sense of security when it is used. |
You probably never will either, the fact of the matter is, you couldn't get a large enough group to be in a study to see a statistical difference. Thousands of swingers play with thousands of others every week without catching anything from one another. The vast majority of them are rarely tested, and a majority of them use no form of, so called, protection at all. So you would have to study millions over a considerable period of time to see any statistical difference. That leads to the next reason you won't see such a study. That is that the problem just isn't significant enough for a study to ever be worthwhile.
Regarding the false sense of security, that is just human nature and needs no study to prove it. The fact of the matter is, the only reason a person would get tested is to ease their mind. The only reason they would desire to only play with others who have been tested is that they feel more secure in doing so. Yet, unless all the people you play with are regularly tested, and all the people they play with are regularly tested, and so on, and so on, testing really makes no difference. So having a group, say a club that requires all to be tested, would give some a sense of security. Yet the expectation that all, or even the majority of the group are not playing outside of that group is unrealistic in the swinging world. So, common sense would dictate, that the people who are all gung-ho about the group requiring testing are obviously operating under a false sense of security.