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Originally Posted by good times  I hate seeing you just talking to yourself here Highlander, so even though my interest has died on this subject like it has apparently for everyone else here, your post does beg an obvious question.
Has it occurred to you that if you only ask folks who's very livelihood most depends on keeping the public as paranoid as possible about std's their opinion on this, that their opinions are likely to be highly biased toward your point of view? Or were we not supposed to notice that? |
Everybody has a lifestyle. It is human nature to imagine their lifestyle as having advantages relative to other lifestyles that it may not have. That is a problem that I saw with asking docs that swing about swinging. Now on one hand they have direct experience with the community-and that is a plus. On the other, you are selecting from people that are comfortable swinging with an untested population(though I wouldn't be surprised if they by and large are more careful with condoms than most swingers).
Anyhow, I generally will rely on the more quantitative papers on this sort of thing if I can find them. The former CDC stat adviser I talked to is NOT dependent on income from that area any more-and hasn't been for a while. He's also not a straight monogamous person.
Anyhow, I dislike "fear, uncertainty doubt" tactics for sales. I don't think the swinging community is a hotbed for AIDS. I'm not sure what the HSV level really is. Do think broader testing would be good for the community? Yes. do I think the existence of a few clubs that required testing and tracked their results would be a good thing? Yes. I do.
Given that the poll here says that most readers on this board are interested in the general idea, and we are seeing the emerging of some good testing infrastructure for the first time-and improvement of the tests available the question is will we see clubs trying testing? My sense is that we are still a ways from that. Even at $60/month, only some swingers are going to make the investment until there is a more obvious payoff. I'd guess that 10% of existing swingers might buy in-and a larger number of folks that are on the sidelines might participate if testing mandatory clubs were available.
Now if some public health authorities were to get behind the idea, the thing might take off. My guess is that it would be safer to swing in a testing mandatory club periodically than to enter a relationship with a partner who has a history of multiple sexual encounters and expect them to remain monogamous and rely on that as your primary safety precaution-but that is just a guess on my part.