10 ms·

Well, 99% means eradication of the virus very quickly. People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many othe

Well, 99% means eradication of the virus very quickly. People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave.

soneca 9y ago
I disagree. I (annedoctally) heard several times stories about how today's youth (~20yo) doing more unprotected sex than my generation (~35yo) only because HIV "does not kill anymore". If AIDS is actually curable, I would bet that all other STD would explode in the short term
- always_good 9y ago
  My friends weren't wrapping it when I was in uni 6-10 years ago because every girl was on birth control.
  - jliptzin 9y ago
    I am gay so I have used condoms my whole life but my straight friends routinely go out and have unprotected sex all the time, I'd say about 5% of my straight friends consistently use condoms.
    - SeoxyS 9y ago
      It's a design problem. Sex with condom sucks. Non-condom sex is 10x better. The real solution will be when you have male birth control available as well; and then it comes down to only having sex with people you trust. I great partner is better than a bunch of lousy partners anyways.
      - jliptzin 9y ago
        Don't they have vasectomy already?
        always_good 9y ago
        Irreversible, so not a solution. I'm 29, and so far every woman I've fucked, I ended up deciding I didn't want to marry / have children with. But that's still on the table like it is for the vast majority of men, so vasectomy is not an option.
    - matwood 9y ago
      As someone who came of sexual age in the 90s, between HIV and getting someone pregnant I was (and still would be - I'm married now so...) terrified of sex without a condom.
  - devy 9y ago
    The other big factor people don't like to use condom is that it greatly reduced the sensation, regardless how the condom companies have been advertising it.
  - overcast 9y ago
    That's horrible, and nonsensical for the time period. With the amount of advocacy, and information available. Why would ANYONE consider not using a condom in uncommitted relationships?
    - aianus 9y ago
      Because it doesn't feel the same, duh. Might as well ask why people have sex at all instead of staying home safely and jerking off.
    - always_good 9y ago
      One reason is that the STDs you do tend to catch from casual uni sex are cured by a $20 pill, if that's even on your mind when you're drunk in someone's dorm bed. "Shit, I got HIV/warts from hooking up" just isn't something I ever heard in uni. It just isn't part of the discourse. Those just don't seem to penetrate the uni bubble. But everyone I know had to deal with the clap.
- joshstrange 9y ago
  Not only that I've had friends on Truvada (PrEP) that use condoms less because they know they won't get HIV.
  - hashmal 9y ago
    Why is that a bad thing? I don't know for the US, but in other countries you have mandatory tests (hepatitis, gonorrhea, many others) to do every 3 months in order to get the treatment. This alone makes you more protected than people who only use condoms as protection and think they don't need tests.
    - joshstrange 9y ago
      They only check Liver/HIV every 3 months (I have to ask for liver every 3, my doctor was going to do it only every 6). I make my doctor also do a full screening but by default he doesn't.
      - hashmal 9y ago
        One could expect better indeed. Undiagnosed STDs can be nasty.
    - kentosi 9y ago
      The concept doesn't exist in the States, sadly. Americans please correct me, but here it's more symptomatic with sexual health: You have a rash/etc, so you go see the doctor. There's no early-detection system where you are reminded to get into a clinic every 2-3 months and get a full test (blood test, swabs, etc) for all the usual suspects: HIV, herpes, chlamydia, etc.
      - cloistered 9y ago
        I live in Baltimore, and I'm on PrEP. Everyone I know who takes it, including myself, is required to get tested for STDs every 3 months.
- vtange 9y ago
  Isn't there a lot of talk about how today's youth is much less likely to date/engage in sexual activity? So what you're saying is, they don't always have sex, but when they do it's unprotected? That sounds pretty normal to me.
  - soneca 9y ago
    I think this is the time we should start using some data in this discussion, but my view is that people in their twenties are doing much more sex today. Due to tech (eg Tinder) and less stigma for sexually active women.
    - vtange 9y ago
      According to many articles that's a common misconception - that younger people empowered by Tinder can bang each other more and casually.[1] From my own anecdotes Tinder is actually a hindrance, since it creates a picture-oriented, extremely competitive environment where lack of physical attractiveness effectively shuts down the world of dating to the majority of men and women who aren't 8s, 9s, or 10s.[2] I mean, on the net you'll often hear stories about kids scoring big but that's survivor bias. You don't hear anything from those who didn't bang. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/no-sex-please-were-millennials/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/no-sex-please-were-mill... [2] http://time.com/4435058/millennials-virgins-sex/ http://time.com/4435058/millennials-virgins-sex/
  - cJ0th 9y ago
    > Isn't there a lot of talk about how today's youth is much less likely to date/engage in sexual activity? could be but those two things needn't be mutually exclusive. maybe the youth is just more extreme in both directions whereas earlier people might have been more similar.
  - rosege 9y ago
    I'm at the age now where my friend's kids are getting to the sexually active stage of their life. They seem waaay tamer than what me and their parents were like at their age. I doubt that they are having more sex or even trying as hard. They certain Dont party like we did our have massive benders either.
- UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
  That's factually untrue according to the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior[0]. The facts are[1] that the younger the age group the higher the condom usage is. And while condom use has fallen a little since its height, it still remains significantly higher amongst the young than any older generation or group. [0] http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/ http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/ [1] http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/condomgraph.html http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/condomgraph.html
  - soneca 9y ago
    My anedoctes are from Brazil (São Paulo), I don't think that paper's conclusion extends to a different group.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - sbov 9y ago
    It's really hard to interpret that graph when you consider things like relationships and marriage, and that older people are probably more likely to be married.
- otakucode 9y ago
  There is also a sort-of vaccine for HIV called PrEP or something like that. I'm not sure how you get it but I've seen mention of people using it prophylactically (which is what its designed for). And really without HIV, there isn't too much to be afraid of. HPV has a vaccine for many of the dangerous strains, and the other strains infect the vast majority of the populace anyway so even calling them a 'disease' is arguable. Same with herpes. It's for life, but almost everyone has it. Gonorrhea, chlamydia, etc, are easily treatable except for the antibiotic resistant forms which are (thankfully) very isolated in their spread. Aiming for 'less sexual activity' is a very bad goal. Abstinence is harmful. The tremendous health benefits of sexual activity are myriad. The amount of research backing up the idea that modern society is dangerously sexless is huge. One of my favorites was a study of ALL men, across all ages, socioeconomic groups, everything, of an entire town I believe somewhere in northern Scotland (maybe Ireland?)... those who had the most frequent orgasms had a 50% lower chance of having died of any cause over the 15 year period of their study. They also had very significantly reduced incidence of heart disease, cancer, and other health problems. But, of course, such things get reported as 'health benefits of sex' and not 'health dangers of abstinence' because they assume people are abstinent by default which is ludicrous. We'll know if public sentiment is changing when the headlines change.
  - allendoerfer 9y ago
    > One of my favorites was a study of ALL men, across all ages, socioeconomic groups, everything, of an entire town I believe somewhere in northern Scotland (maybe Ireland?)... those who had the most frequent orgasms had a 50% lower chance of having died of any cause over the 15 year period of their study. They also had very significantly reduced incidence of heart disease, cancer, and other health problems. But, of course, such things get reported as 'health benefits of sex' and not 'health dangers of abstinence' because they assume people are abstinent by default which is ludicrous. We'll know if public sentiment is changing when the headlines change. There seems to be a causality, but to me it is not obvious, what its direction is. The most healthy men, are probably also the most attractive.
    - otakucode 9y ago
gwbas1c 9y ago
I think the 1960's unprotected sex wave was more a symptom of ignorance of STDs. People used to see condoms as primarily for birth control, and not really a sanitary measure. Remember, the birth control pill came out in the 1960s! Even then, knowledge of condoms wasn't widespread like it is now. My grandmother was super-pissed-off when my grandfather told her about them after she was pregnant for 18 months straight! She made it a point to tell me that I had to tell my future wife about birth control! (What made it funnier was that, at the time, if you didn't know what a condom was you were living under a very large rock!)
- anovikov 9y ago
  Ignorance of STDs was okay in 1960s, because antibiotics worked really great back then and just about every STD was easily curable.
  - rconti 9y ago
    This is being downvoted to oblivion but I'm not sure if it's true or not; hopefully someone can weigh in before it disappears.
    - anovikov 9y ago
      Well hepatitis C wasn't and isn't easily curable, but i guess awareness of it was pretty low.
      - jjtheblunt 9y ago
        Is a stronger statement that hepatitis C is NOT curable, as it's a retroviral infection, thereby rewriting host DNA? [ Edit: i'd remembered incorrectly from decades ago: it's an RNA virus ]
        matthewmacleod 9y ago
        To be clear, hepatitis C now has a 95+% cure rate with modern treatments.
gizmo686 9y ago
Even at 100% eradication would be very difficult. As far as I am aware, smallpox is the only disease we have successfully eradicated. If you count non-human diseases, this number climbs to 2 with rinderpest. This is assuming that we can get the vaccine to everyone. In first world countries with developed and trusted this is mostly possible, but would still be a massive undertaking.
- otakucode 9y ago
  We were VERY close with Polio... but the CIA absolutely destroyed that when they ran a fake polio vaccination scam in Pakistan to get info on Bin Laden. Now it's making a comeback and doctors get shot trying to vaccinate.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    We were also very close on measles, but politics and the anti-vaxx crowd have done a number on it.
    - matwood 9y ago
      Yeah, herd immunity is an interesting concept and one the anti-vaxx people completely hose up. For example, a measles vaccine doesn't work on a small percentage of the population. Herd immunity says though that as long as some large percentage of the population is immune, those which the vaccine do not work will be fine. The anti-vaxx people end up pushing the percentage vaccinated below what's required for herd immunity and hose the whole population. Idiots.
      - sethrin 9y ago
        I was thinking that we need a stronger term than idiot, but it occurs to me that this behavior is actually criminal. It causes grievous harm to one's society, which is the criterion for criminal behavior. Therefore if social pressure is not sufficient to correct this behavior, legal means will need to be employed.
Someone 9y ago
99% of strains isn’t necessarily 99% of all infections, and won’t be anything close to it soon after this gets used in humans. If one assumes that the different strains also compete against each other the total number of infections may not go down much, and if it does, that may only be temporarily.
Amorymeltzer 9y ago
Not really, no. Modern antiretrovirals are exceptionally effective, and for those with access[1] HIV/AIDS has become a chronic illness, with nearly-similar lifespans (due mostly to chronic inflammation). We still haven't come close to "eradicating" or curing HIV/AIDS; the issue lies in the virus' insidious biology. HIV is a retrovirus, meaning it incorporates into the target cell's genome, specifically CD4+ T-cells. An obvious barrier to "only" 1% of virions is that an infected person produces billions of virus particles every single day[2]. A less obvious barrier is the "latent" reservoir of the virus in cells. Essentially, not all cells with an incorporated HIV genome are producing virus, and thus these proviruses can evade detection. A 2013 paper in cell[3] provides what I think is the most devastating example of this. Basically, an idea that has gained more traction lately has been to activate these T-cells, thus alerting the immune system and hopefully clearing the virus. It turns out that not all cells are activated, and the size of this reservoir is ~60X larger than previously thought. When it comes to something like cancer, we often define "cure" or "beating it" differently — look no further than Randall Munroe's heartbreaking visualization, Lanes.[4] We need to do something similar for HIV. We can't get rid of the virus, but we're already pretty good at making life not so bad if you have it. Access and affordability are larger barriers to preventing mortality/morbidity. There's also a quiet undercurrent that a standard vaccine for HIV is biologically impossible, but that's for another day. tl;dr HIV sucks but we're okay at managing it. 99% sounds good but it's probably not enough. 1: Read: moderately well-off people with health insurance in wealthy, industrialized nations. 2: DOI: 10.1038/nrg1246 The oft-cited rule of the thumb is that every base of the viral genome is mutated every day. 3: DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.09.020 This one is absolutely worth reading. 4: https://xkcd.com/931 https://xkcd.com/931
- nonbel 9y ago
  >"an infected person produces billions of virus particles every single day... The oft-cited rule of the thumb is that every base of the viral genome is mutated every day" Isn't it pretty weird that, despite this massive diversity, infections seem to be only caused a single, or sometimes a few, distinct virus particle(s): >"we show that 78% of infections involved single variant transmission and 22% involved multiple variant transmissions (median of 3)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19193811 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19193811 To me that means something is horribly wrong with our understanding of HIV.
hashmal 9y ago
"sexual responsibility" is quite an odd concept, it should be defined more precisely.
- otakucode 9y ago
  Children are the property of their fathers. Preserving the value of that property through preserving the virginal status of females is the responsibility of both sons and daughters. For a son to have sex with the daughter of another man, both the daughter and that boy have committed a property crime against the girls father. If she gets pregnant, he will never be able to get as big of a dowry when he sells her into marriage. At least, that's where the idea of tying sexuality to economic considerations like 'responsibility' and phrases like 'saving yourself' come from.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    Totally impossible for a term like "responsible" to have multiple meanings. Obviously people mean the economic term. Couldn't possibly be the everyday meaning.
  - selimthegrim 9y ago
    You mean bride price, dowry is what the bride's family gives
dalbasal 9y ago
thank god.
jMyles 9y ago
> People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave. The way you've phrased this, it sounds like you are casting "other hard to cure STDs" as a protective measure against the "threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave." Isn't sexual freedom a goal?
- deleted 9y ago
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  - deleted 9y ago
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- namelost 9y ago
  Even if there were a perfect HIV cure, and antibiotics were 100% effective, there is a risk of infertility from chlamydia, etc. So no, unprotected sexual freedom isn't a practical goal for medical science. Better to use condoms instead.
  - alreadyhere 9y ago
    Unprotected sexual freedom is completely a practical goal; condoms work well but many choose not to use them, for better or worse. Prevention doesn't even need to center around eradication of the disease; it could come in the form of home detection kits. For better or worse people will always have unprotected sex with strangers. It's a thing. I'm a little tired of the disconnect between medical advice and reality when it comes to sexual practices. Dental dams, anyone? Sure they're smart; I don't think I've seen one outside of health class. Doctors could easily provide more helpful advice.
    - SirZimzim 9y ago
      Maybe in the age of nanobots will we have practical ways to allow for unprotected random sex.
otakucode 9y ago
If there is no significant chance of untreatable disease, it is not 'irresponsible' to have a very active sex life. The irresponsibility stems purely from the danger. Without it, it becomes a moral issue and is quite different from 'irresponsible'. And yes, there are people who actively oppose any development of an HIV vaccine or cure due to their moral fear that people will start having more sex. The chaplain of the CDC announced in the 1990s that he would do anything in his power to prevent any research into an HIV vaccine, for example. The most likely significant health threat as far as STDs go in the future are anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea. There were a couple of those spreading in Asia a couple years ago that were positively nightmarish.
- Fomite 9y ago
  "The most likely significant health threat as far as STDs go in the future are anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea. There were a couple of those spreading in Asia a couple years ago that were positively nightmarish." FYI, they're in the United States now and circulating.
- dsr_ 9y ago
  ... why does the CDC have a chaplain? It's a non-military government organization.
  - grzm 9y ago
    A chaplain is a member of the clergy that's attached to a chapel (hence "chaplain") or organization. The organization isn't necessarily military. Other examples include both branches of the US Congress, hospitals, and universities.
  - otempomores 9y ago
    Where these guys go getting into trouble with the law is one of the better outcomes.
hellofunk 9y ago
> so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave That's your takeaway from this interesting news? I don't understand how you jumped from this article to immediately drawing some opinions about sexual responsibility and behavior. The article has nothing to do with sex behavior, and HIV is hardly the sole deterrent for reckless sex.
noncoml 9y ago
> no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave. Are you implying that unprotected sex is bad in itself? Edit: It was an honest question.
- grzm 9y ago
  Please default to the strongest possible interpretation of another's comment. Give them the benefit of the doubt. If you have an honest question that will move the discussion productively forward, please, by all means ask it. But if you're just looking to pick something apart, please just refrain from doing so. I find Rapoport's rules a good starting place for reflection on how to move a discussion forward, particularly on contentious topics: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapo...
  - noncoml 9y ago
    > Please default to the strongest possible interpretation of another's comment. Give them the benefit of the doubt. But... it was a question... The topic is sensitive and you will see a lot of people hide their moral beliefs behind "health concerns". I'd rather make a blunt and direct question rather than play hide and seek and be lured into a masqueraded conversation about morals and believes.
    - grzm 9y ago
      > But... it was a question... Which is why I addressed this in the next sentence: > If you have an honest question that will move the discussion productively forward, please, by all means ask it. Does it move the discussion productively forward? What is the motivation for your question? Where do you expect the discussion to go from here? This isn't a question like "Where's the post office?" where the expected response is likely the effective end of the conversation. You're asking about morality. Do you think your parent has the same values as you? Are you looking to tease out some difference so you can argue about them? Show them that they're wrong? Find some points of agreement? Solve some underlying common issue? HN really isn't the place for general ideological debates. They're by definition off-topic. And regardless of what another has commented, we can show restraint and not continue a thread that is wandering off into incendiary weeds. Edit (in reply to your addendum above): It does seem clear that you're looking for some kind of argument. Please don't. Let the thread die on the vine. I don't intend to continue this any further. I do encourage you to review the link I provided, and perhaps review the recently updated HN guidelines, which includes similar points. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

soneca 9y ago

I disagree. I (annedoctally) heard several times stories about how today's youth (~20yo) doing more unprotected sex than my generation (~35yo) only because HIV "does not kill anymore". If AIDS is actually curable, I would bet that all other STD would explode in the short term

always_good 9y ago
My friends weren't wrapping it when I was in uni 6-10 years ago because every girl was on birth control.
- jliptzin 9y ago
  I am gay so I have used condoms my whole life but my straight friends routinely go out and have unprotected sex all the time, I'd say about 5% of my straight friends consistently use condoms.
  - SeoxyS 9y ago
    It's a design problem. Sex with condom sucks. Non-condom sex is 10x better. The real solution will be when you have male birth control available as well; and then it comes down to only having sex with people you trust. I great partner is better than a bunch of lousy partners anyways.
    - jliptzin 9y ago
      Don't they have vasectomy already?
      - always_good 9y ago
        Irreversible, so not a solution. I'm 29, and so far every woman I've fucked, I ended up deciding I didn't want to marry / have children with. But that's still on the table like it is for the vast majority of men, so vasectomy is not an option.
  - matwood 9y ago
    As someone who came of sexual age in the 90s, between HIV and getting someone pregnant I was (and still would be - I'm married now so...) terrified of sex without a condom.
- devy 9y ago
  The other big factor people don't like to use condom is that it greatly reduced the sensation, regardless how the condom companies have been advertising it.
- overcast 9y ago
  That's horrible, and nonsensical for the time period. With the amount of advocacy, and information available. Why would ANYONE consider not using a condom in uncommitted relationships?
  - aianus 9y ago
    Because it doesn't feel the same, duh. Might as well ask why people have sex at all instead of staying home safely and jerking off.
  - always_good 9y ago
    One reason is that the STDs you do tend to catch from casual uni sex are cured by a $20 pill, if that's even on your mind when you're drunk in someone's dorm bed. "Shit, I got HIV/warts from hooking up" just isn't something I ever heard in uni. It just isn't part of the discourse. Those just don't seem to penetrate the uni bubble. But everyone I know had to deal with the clap.
joshstrange 9y ago
Not only that I've had friends on Truvada (PrEP) that use condoms less because they know they won't get HIV.
- hashmal 9y ago
  Why is that a bad thing? I don't know for the US, but in other countries you have mandatory tests (hepatitis, gonorrhea, many others) to do every 3 months in order to get the treatment. This alone makes you more protected than people who only use condoms as protection and think they don't need tests.
  - joshstrange 9y ago
    They only check Liver/HIV every 3 months (I have to ask for liver every 3, my doctor was going to do it only every 6). I make my doctor also do a full screening but by default he doesn't.
    - hashmal 9y ago
      One could expect better indeed. Undiagnosed STDs can be nasty.
  - kentosi 9y ago
    The concept doesn't exist in the States, sadly. Americans please correct me, but here it's more symptomatic with sexual health: You have a rash/etc, so you go see the doctor. There's no early-detection system where you are reminded to get into a clinic every 2-3 months and get a full test (blood test, swabs, etc) for all the usual suspects: HIV, herpes, chlamydia, etc.
    - cloistered 9y ago
      I live in Baltimore, and I'm on PrEP. Everyone I know who takes it, including myself, is required to get tested for STDs every 3 months.
vtange 9y ago
Isn't there a lot of talk about how today's youth is much less likely to date/engage in sexual activity? So what you're saying is, they don't always have sex, but when they do it's unprotected? That sounds pretty normal to me.
- soneca 9y ago
  I think this is the time we should start using some data in this discussion, but my view is that people in their twenties are doing much more sex today. Due to tech (eg Tinder) and less stigma for sexually active women.
  - vtange 9y ago
    According to many articles that's a common misconception - that younger people empowered by Tinder can bang each other more and casually.[1] From my own anecdotes Tinder is actually a hindrance, since it creates a picture-oriented, extremely competitive environment where lack of physical attractiveness effectively shuts down the world of dating to the majority of men and women who aren't 8s, 9s, or 10s.[2] I mean, on the net you'll often hear stories about kids scoring big but that's survivor bias. You don't hear anything from those who didn't bang. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/no-sex-please-were-millennials/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/no-sex-please-were-mill... [2] http://time.com/4435058/millennials-virgins-sex/ http://time.com/4435058/millennials-virgins-sex/
- cJ0th 9y ago
  > Isn't there a lot of talk about how today's youth is much less likely to date/engage in sexual activity? could be but those two things needn't be mutually exclusive. maybe the youth is just more extreme in both directions whereas earlier people might have been more similar.
- rosege 9y ago
  I'm at the age now where my friend's kids are getting to the sexually active stage of their life. They seem waaay tamer than what me and their parents were like at their age. I doubt that they are having more sex or even trying as hard. They certain Dont party like we did our have massive benders either.
UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
That's factually untrue according to the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior[0]. The facts are[1] that the younger the age group the higher the condom usage is. And while condom use has fallen a little since its height, it still remains significantly higher amongst the young than any older generation or group. [0] http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/ http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/ [1] http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/condomgraph.html http://www.nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/condomgraph.html
- soneca 9y ago
  My anedoctes are from Brazil (São Paulo), I don't think that paper's conclusion extends to a different group.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sbov 9y ago
  It's really hard to interpret that graph when you consider things like relationships and marriage, and that older people are probably more likely to be married.
otakucode 9y ago
There is also a sort-of vaccine for HIV called PrEP or something like that. I'm not sure how you get it but I've seen mention of people using it prophylactically (which is what its designed for). And really without HIV, there isn't too much to be afraid of. HPV has a vaccine for many of the dangerous strains, and the other strains infect the vast majority of the populace anyway so even calling them a 'disease' is arguable. Same with herpes. It's for life, but almost everyone has it. Gonorrhea, chlamydia, etc, are easily treatable except for the antibiotic resistant forms which are (thankfully) very isolated in their spread. Aiming for 'less sexual activity' is a very bad goal. Abstinence is harmful. The tremendous health benefits of sexual activity are myriad. The amount of research backing up the idea that modern society is dangerously sexless is huge. One of my favorites was a study of ALL men, across all ages, socioeconomic groups, everything, of an entire town I believe somewhere in northern Scotland (maybe Ireland?)... those who had the most frequent orgasms had a 50% lower chance of having died of any cause over the 15 year period of their study. They also had very significantly reduced incidence of heart disease, cancer, and other health problems. But, of course, such things get reported as 'health benefits of sex' and not 'health dangers of abstinence' because they assume people are abstinent by default which is ludicrous. We'll know if public sentiment is changing when the headlines change.
- allendoerfer 9y ago
  > One of my favorites was a study of ALL men, across all ages, socioeconomic groups, everything, of an entire town I believe somewhere in northern Scotland (maybe Ireland?)... those who had the most frequent orgasms had a 50% lower chance of having died of any cause over the 15 year period of their study. They also had very significantly reduced incidence of heart disease, cancer, and other health problems. But, of course, such things get reported as 'health benefits of sex' and not 'health dangers of abstinence' because they assume people are abstinent by default which is ludicrous. We'll know if public sentiment is changing when the headlines change. There seems to be a causality, but to me it is not obvious, what its direction is. The most healthy men, are probably also the most attractive.
  - otakucode 9y ago

gwbas1c 9y ago

I think the 1960's unprotected sex wave was more a symptom of ignorance of STDs. People used to see condoms as primarily for birth control, and not really a sanitary measure. Remember, the birth control pill came out in the 1960s! Even then, knowledge of condoms wasn't widespread like it is now. My grandmother was super-pissed-off when my grandfather told her about them after she was pregnant for 18 months straight! She made it a point to tell me that I had to tell my future wife about birth control! (What made it funnier was that, at the time, if you didn't know what a condom was you were living under a very large rock!)

anovikov 9y ago
Ignorance of STDs was okay in 1960s, because antibiotics worked really great back then and just about every STD was easily curable.
- rconti 9y ago
  This is being downvoted to oblivion but I'm not sure if it's true or not; hopefully someone can weigh in before it disappears.
  - anovikov 9y ago
    Well hepatitis C wasn't and isn't easily curable, but i guess awareness of it was pretty low.
    - jjtheblunt 9y ago
      Is a stronger statement that hepatitis C is NOT curable, as it's a retroviral infection, thereby rewriting host DNA? [ Edit: i'd remembered incorrectly from decades ago: it's an RNA virus ]
      - matthewmacleod 9y ago
        To be clear, hepatitis C now has a 95+% cure rate with modern treatments.

gizmo686 9y ago

Even at 100% eradication would be very difficult. As far as I am aware, smallpox is the only disease we have successfully eradicated. If you count non-human diseases, this number climbs to 2 with rinderpest. This is assuming that we can get the vaccine to everyone. In first world countries with developed and trusted this is mostly possible, but would still be a massive undertaking.

otakucode 9y ago
We were VERY close with Polio... but the CIA absolutely destroyed that when they ran a fake polio vaccination scam in Pakistan to get info on Bin Laden. Now it's making a comeback and doctors get shot trying to vaccinate.
- Fomite 9y ago
  We were also very close on measles, but politics and the anti-vaxx crowd have done a number on it.
  - matwood 9y ago
    Yeah, herd immunity is an interesting concept and one the anti-vaxx people completely hose up. For example, a measles vaccine doesn't work on a small percentage of the population. Herd immunity says though that as long as some large percentage of the population is immune, those which the vaccine do not work will be fine. The anti-vaxx people end up pushing the percentage vaccinated below what's required for herd immunity and hose the whole population. Idiots.
    - sethrin 9y ago
      I was thinking that we need a stronger term than idiot, but it occurs to me that this behavior is actually criminal. It causes grievous harm to one's society, which is the criterion for criminal behavior. Therefore if social pressure is not sufficient to correct this behavior, legal means will need to be employed.

Someone 9y ago

99% of strains isn’t necessarily 99% of all infections, and won’t be anything close to it soon after this gets used in humans. If one assumes that the different strains also compete against each other the total number of infections may not go down much, and if it does, that may only be temporarily.

Amorymeltzer 9y ago

Not really, no. Modern antiretrovirals are exceptionally effective, and for those with access[1] HIV/AIDS has become a chronic illness, with nearly-similar lifespans (due mostly to chronic inflammation). We still haven't come close to "eradicating" or curing HIV/AIDS; the issue lies in the virus' insidious biology. HIV is a retrovirus, meaning it incorporates into the target cell's genome, specifically CD4+ T-cells. An obvious barrier to "only" 1% of virions is that an infected person produces billions of virus particles every single day[2]. A less obvious barrier is the "latent" reservoir of the virus in cells. Essentially, not all cells with an incorporated HIV genome are producing virus, and thus these proviruses can evade detection. A 2013 paper in cell[3] provides what I think is the most devastating example of this. Basically, an idea that has gained more traction lately has been to activate these T-cells, thus alerting the immune system and hopefully clearing the virus. It turns out that not all cells are activated, and the size of this reservoir is ~60X larger than previously thought. When it comes to something like cancer, we often define "cure" or "beating it" differently — look no further than Randall Munroe's heartbreaking visualization, Lanes.[4] We need to do something similar for HIV. We can't get rid of the virus, but we're already pretty good at making life not so bad if you have it. Access and affordability are larger barriers to preventing mortality/morbidity. There's also a quiet undercurrent that a standard vaccine for HIV is biologically impossible, but that's for another day. tl;dr HIV sucks but we're okay at managing it. 99% sounds good but it's probably not enough. 1: Read: moderately well-off people with health insurance in wealthy, industrialized nations. 2: DOI: 10.1038/nrg1246 The oft-cited rule of the thumb is that every base of the viral genome is mutated every day. 3: DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.09.020 This one is absolutely worth reading. 4: https://xkcd.com/931 https://xkcd.com/931

nonbel 9y ago
>"an infected person produces billions of virus particles every single day... The oft-cited rule of the thumb is that every base of the viral genome is mutated every day" Isn't it pretty weird that, despite this massive diversity, infections seem to be only caused a single, or sometimes a few, distinct virus particle(s): >"we show that 78% of infections involved single variant transmission and 22% involved multiple variant transmissions (median of 3)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19193811 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19193811 To me that means something is horribly wrong with our understanding of HIV.

hashmal 9y ago

"sexual responsibility" is quite an odd concept, it should be defined more precisely.

otakucode 9y ago
Children are the property of their fathers. Preserving the value of that property through preserving the virginal status of females is the responsibility of both sons and daughters. For a son to have sex with the daughter of another man, both the daughter and that boy have committed a property crime against the girls father. If she gets pregnant, he will never be able to get as big of a dowry when he sells her into marriage. At least, that's where the idea of tying sexuality to economic considerations like 'responsibility' and phrases like 'saving yourself' come from.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  Totally impossible for a term like "responsible" to have multiple meanings. Obviously people mean the economic term. Couldn't possibly be the everyday meaning.
- selimthegrim 9y ago
  You mean bride price, dowry is what the bride's family gives

dalbasal 9y ago

thank god.

jMyles 9y ago

> People won't become totally sexually irresponsible after the preventive shot, because there are many other hard to cure STDs now, especially as antibiotics are not as potent as they use to be, so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave. The way you've phrased this, it sounds like you are casting "other hard to cure STDs" as a protective measure against the "threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave." Isn't sexual freedom a goal?

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namelost 9y ago
Even if there were a perfect HIV cure, and antibiotics were 100% effective, there is a risk of infertility from chlamydia, etc. So no, unprotected sexual freedom isn't a practical goal for medical science. Better to use condoms instead.
- alreadyhere 9y ago
  Unprotected sexual freedom is completely a practical goal; condoms work well but many choose not to use them, for better or worse. Prevention doesn't even need to center around eradication of the disease; it could come in the form of home detection kits. For better or worse people will always have unprotected sex with strangers. It's a thing. I'm a little tired of the disconnect between medical advice and reality when it comes to sexual practices. Dental dams, anyone? Sure they're smart; I don't think I've seen one outside of health class. Doctors could easily provide more helpful advice.
  - SirZimzim 9y ago
    Maybe in the age of nanobots will we have practical ways to allow for unprotected random sex.

otakucode 9y ago

If there is no significant chance of untreatable disease, it is not 'irresponsible' to have a very active sex life. The irresponsibility stems purely from the danger. Without it, it becomes a moral issue and is quite different from 'irresponsible'. And yes, there are people who actively oppose any development of an HIV vaccine or cure due to their moral fear that people will start having more sex. The chaplain of the CDC announced in the 1990s that he would do anything in his power to prevent any research into an HIV vaccine, for example. The most likely significant health threat as far as STDs go in the future are anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea. There were a couple of those spreading in Asia a couple years ago that were positively nightmarish.

Fomite 9y ago
"The most likely significant health threat as far as STDs go in the future are anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea. There were a couple of those spreading in Asia a couple years ago that were positively nightmarish." FYI, they're in the United States now and circulating.
dsr_ 9y ago
... why does the CDC have a chaplain? It's a non-military government organization.
- grzm 9y ago
  A chaplain is a member of the clergy that's attached to a chapel (hence "chaplain") or organization. The organization isn't necessarily military. Other examples include both branches of the US Congress, hospitals, and universities.
- otempomores 9y ago
  Where these guys go getting into trouble with the law is one of the better outcomes.

hellofunk 9y ago

> so i think there is no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave That's your takeaway from this interesting news? I don't understand how you jumped from this article to immediately drawing some opinions about sexual responsibility and behavior. The article has nothing to do with sex behavior, and HIV is hardly the sole deterrent for reckless sex.

noncoml 9y ago

> no threat of 1960s style of unprotected sex wave. Are you implying that unprotected sex is bad in itself? Edit: It was an honest question.

grzm 9y ago
Please default to the strongest possible interpretation of another's comment. Give them the benefit of the doubt. If you have an honest question that will move the discussion productively forward, please, by all means ask it. But if you're just looking to pick something apart, please just refrain from doing so. I find Rapoport's rules a good starting place for reflection on how to move a discussion forward, particularly on contentious topics: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-rapo...
- noncoml 9y ago
  > Please default to the strongest possible interpretation of another's comment. Give them the benefit of the doubt. But... it was a question... The topic is sensitive and you will see a lot of people hide their moral beliefs behind "health concerns". I'd rather make a blunt and direct question rather than play hide and seek and be lured into a masqueraded conversation about morals and believes.
  - grzm 9y ago
    > But... it was a question... Which is why I addressed this in the next sentence: > If you have an honest question that will move the discussion productively forward, please, by all means ask it. Does it move the discussion productively forward? What is the motivation for your question? Where do you expect the discussion to go from here? This isn't a question like "Where's the post office?" where the expected response is likely the effective end of the conversation. You're asking about morality. Do you think your parent has the same values as you? Are you looking to tease out some difference so you can argue about them? Show them that they're wrong? Find some points of agreement? Solve some underlying common issue? HN really isn't the place for general ideological debates. They're by definition off-topic. And regardless of what another has commented, we can show restraint and not continue a thread that is wandering off into incendiary weeds. Edit (in reply to your addendum above): It does seem clear that you're looking for some kind of argument. Please don't. Let the thread die on the vine. I don't intend to continue this any further. I do encourage you to review the link I provided, and perhaps review the recently updated HN guidelines, which includes similar points. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html