“For 32 months, researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco tracked the health of over 600 people as they used Truvada daily to prevent the virus in a real-world setting. The average age of the study participants was 37, and 99 percent were men who have sex with men. No one in the study contracted HIV…However, 30 percent of participants did contract at least one sexually transmitted infection within six months of the study’s commencement. This number jumped to 50 percent after one year.”
According to estimates from the CDC: the next highest percentage of STI infection in a sub-group was among adolescent females with an infection rate of 25 percent.*
Why the great disparity?
A near majority of gay men have either been emotionally neglected by their fathers, sexually abused, and or grew-up in highly dysfunctional and abusive homes. These traumatic early childhood experiences have left many gay men susceptible to severe psychological disorders in adulthood. In the current social and cultural milieu, in which homosexuality is no longer considered a mental illness, officially since 1973 in the US, gay men are left completely unaided and must “self-medicate” these painful and wholly unresolved issues from their past. What most have done is seek healing in sex; again, bolstered by an environment which celebrates homosexuality as a natural variation and downplays or completely ignores the continuing health threats to gay men in the post-AIDS era. While Truvada is a remarkable drug in that many are being saved from the horror of AIDS, it’s also a tragic facade that hides the continuing prevalence of uncontrollable and self-destructive promiscuity in the gay male population – perhaps setting the stage for an even deadlier wave of disease and death; in wording eerily similar to the very first reports on a new epidemic sweeping the gay population – “Men who have sex with men are vulnerable to the emerging threat of antimicrobial-resistant N. gonorrhoeae.”
The evidence:
“This retrospective study compares memories of the father-son relationship between lifelong socially well-adjusted, non-patient homosexual and heterosexual men. No homosexual subject reported the presence of a reasonably intact, positive relationship with his father or father surrogate during preadolescent years, whereas 12 of the 17 heterosexual men did. Previous investigators have hypothesized that a constructive, supportive father-son relationship precludes the development of homosexual orientation. This hypothesis stemmed from investigation of men who in general suffered from significant global psychopathology. The data in the present investigation supports the notion that a meaningful association, which is not attributable to confounding psychopathology, exists between quality of father-son relationship during early life and male sexual orientation.”
“Fathers, sons, and sexual orientation: replication of a Bieber hypothesis.”
Friedman RC, Stern LO.
Psychiatr Q. 1980 Fall;52(3):175-89.
“The authors examined the communication of affection in men’s relationships with their fathers. Drawing from Affection Exchange Theory, the authors advanced four predictions: (a) heterosexual men receive more affection from their own fathers than do homosexual or bisexual men, (b) fathers communicate affection to their sons more through supportive activities than through direct verbal statements or nonverbal gestures, (c) affectionate communication between fathers and sons is linearly related to closeness and interpersonal involvement between them, and (d) fathers’ awareness of their sons’ sexual orientation is associated with the amount of affection that the fathers communicate to them. Participants were 170 adult men who completed questionnaires regarding affectionate communication in their relationships with their fathers. Half of the men were self-identified as exclusively heterosexual, and the other half were self-identified as exclusively homosexual or bisexual. The results supported all predictions substantially.”
“Human affection exchange: VI. Further tests of reproductive probability as a predictor of men’s affection with their adult sons.”
Floyd K, Sargent JE, Di Corcia M.
J Soc Psychol. 2004 Apr;144(2):191-206.
“Self-reported identification as non-heterosexual (determined by both orientation and sexual partnership, separately) was associated with unhappiness, neurotic disorders overall, depressive episodes, generalised anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobic disorder, probable psychosis, suicidal thoughts and acts, self-harm and alcohol and drug dependence. Mental health-related general practitioner consultations and community care service use over the previous year were also elevated.”
“Mental health of the non-heterosexual population of England.”
Chakraborty A1, McManus S, Brugha TS, Bebbington P, King M.
Br J Psychiatry. 2011 Feb;198(2):143-8.
“In all U.S. regions except the West, isolates from MSM were significantly more likely to exhibit elevated MICs of ceftriaxone and azithromycin than isolates from MSW. Isolates from MSM had a high prevalence of resistance to ciprofloxacin, penicillin, and tetracycline and were significantly more likely to exhibit antimicrobial resistance than isolates from MSW.”
“Neisseria gonorrhoeae antimicrobial resistance among men who have sex with men and men who have sex exclusively with women: the Gonococcal Isolate Surveillance Project, 2005-2010.”
Kirkcaldy RD et al.
Ann Intern Med. 2013 Mar 5;158(5 Pt 1):321-8.
“The studies reported childhood sexual abuse (CSA), childhood physical abuse (CPA), childhood emotional abuse (CEA), childhood physical neglect, and childhood emotional neglect. Items of household dysfunction were substance abuse of caregiver, parental separation, family history of mental illness, incarceration of caregiver, and witnessing violence. Prevalence of CSA showed a median of 33.5 % for studies using non-probability sampling and 20.7 % for those with probability sampling, the rates for CPA were 23.5 % (non-probability sampling) and 28.7 % (probability sampling). For CEA, the rates were 48.5 %, non-probability sampling, and 47.5 %, probability sampling. Outcomes related to SCE in LGBT populations included psychiatric symptoms, substance abuse, revictimization, dysfunctional behavioral adjustments, and others.”
“Stressful childhood experiences and health outcomes in sexual minority populations: a systematic review.”
Schneeberger AR, Dietl MF, Muenzenmaier KH, Huber CG, Lang UE.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2014 Sep;49(9):1427-45.
