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From: Hoffman.El_Segundo@xerox.com
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: Not a high risk group?
Message-ID: <40267@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 17 Oct 90 15:03:29 GMT
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Note:	Copyright 1990 by Daniel R. Greening.  Permission granted for
Note:	non-commercial reproduction.
Archive-number: 2652

In article (2648), Jim Flare questions some of my assertions about the only
"high risk groups" being behavior based.

I made no claim for my behavior being typical or untypical of all gay men.  I
do claim that my behavior puts me in a distinctly low risk group, despite my
being gay.

Perpetuating the myth of a high risk group such as "all gay men" is plain
wrong.  It is also harmful in many ways.  As Ward Chanley pointed out here
recently, it fosters denial (often unjustifiably) in people outside those
groups.  Also, for all too many people, it justifies their hatred of and even
violence against those groups.  It is also an argument used against gay rights.

I agree when Jim says, "a "high risk group" is a group which is both
describable and which is also statistically harder hit by a disease than their
relative proportion to the general population.  By that definition, "gay men
who engage in unsafe sex" is a far, far riskier group than "all gay men."

Yes, "gay men who engage in unsafe sex" is even less quantifiable than "gay
men", making it perhaps less useful to statisticians.  However, it is more
accurate, and, even more importantly, it is far MORE useful to the individuals
affected:  With some effort, you can actually REMOVE yourself from that risk
group!

Finally, Jim wonders about my saying "it is a group which has diminished
drastically in both absolute and relative size in the past decade, thankfully."
First, this is NOT due to "all gay men" being a high risk group, but to "unsafe
sex" being a high risk behavior.

And, as for that word "thankfully":  I apologize if I wasn't clear enough here;
I certainly hope most people interpreted me correctly:  There are far fewer
"gay men who engage in unsafe sex" today than 10 years ago, both in absolute
numbers and as a percentage.  OK, the group has been diminished by deaths which
I am not thankful for, but an overwhelming majority of the drop has been due
not to people leaving the group through death, but through people leaving the
group through behavior changes, and to younger gay men never joining that group
in the first place.  I am sad beyond words about the 100,000+ deaths, but I am
happy about, even proud of, the behavior changes by many millions of
responsible gay men.

  -- Rodney