[highlander]

Originally Posted by good times

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.

I've met two the last month that test every 90 days(and both in my area). Now, the thing is, having actual test results in hand made it a LOT easier to meet those folks(I don't think they would have given me the time of day otherwise).

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.

Just the polls here suggest it is a bit larger than that. I don't think it is an overwhelming factor in the swinger community. Now, the things that are changing in this regard are better tests and better means of securely (and privately) sharing STD test results. Both those are changing gradually too.

So, what I am saying is that if everyone who is a swinger was tested regularly it might make a difference.

I think the point we are at now is the development of any kind of identifiable sub-community where there is a real emphasis on testing. Now if that happens and if it can point to any real benefits, we'll see if it catches on.

There are a few docs that are supporting the general idea-but it is clearly a minority opinion.

But the reality is they are not, and a tested person playing with an untested one is no different than two untested ones playing.

From a mathematical standpoint, that isn't true. If you have someone that tests negative for everything, and and untested person, the untested person has less probability of picking up something new than they might otherwise.
How much less? Well that is a question I'd love to see a good paper on.

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.

What helps you reduce the odds is specifically selecting partners that don't have any diseases you don't-or using more careful safer sex measures than you might otherwise if you choose to play with a partner that is positive for anything.

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.

I tend to doubt the _existing_ community of swingers will change their habits much. What I think will happen-if this happens-is we'll see changes adopted by younger folks that haven't really established their habits yet.

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.

When reading papers looking for material related to this thread, I noticed a couple things:
1) conventional wisdom in public health seems to be that multiple sexual partners is one of the single highest correlations for having STD's

2) "selective avoidance" of partners perceived as being high risk for STD's seems to be a poor strategy for avoiding STD's for many of the higher risk communities.

I saw various papers published on both these points. Now there is a real question why swingers are an anomaly here?

One thing I noticed, just looking at the Red Rooster site, there are some major selective criteria going on that might be factors:
1) age-Red Rooster requests party attendees be 25 or older. Most New STD
cases are in people under 25.

2) drug use--any party house is going to tend to screen out folks that are visibly loaded or sick looking.

3) the fees. A big chunk of STD's are spreading among people that are in tough enough financial situations than requiring fees would weed them out.

For party houses that require one to be part of a stable couple, that is another factor.

Now are those really important enough factors to explain the difference we see here?

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

That sure doesn't jive with the statistics I was taught in college/grad school. Just swaying the sample towards fewer untested partners and more partners that have tested negative would tend to reduce incremental risk somewhat. How much? well that is an interesting question for which I have seen no good empirical study.

and all the people they play with are regularly tested, and so on, and so on, testing really makes no difference.

You seem in an all or nothing mentality here. When I do the math, it makes more of a difference when you move towards a closed group. however, a lot of these diseases move pretty dang slowly. Gonorrhea and Chlamydia can move towards a group like wildfire. however, even there, having a group you can contact as soon as you see a case or two makes a big 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.

Well the question here is do folks lie about outside encounters just because they are bore or for other reasons? My sense is if folks get the message they get more variety by telling the truth-and being responsible they'll tend to do so.