1 in 12 gay people in London have HIV...

[Flat_Eric]

You also seem to be locked into the "everybody is at equal risk" mantra.

Yes anyone can get HIV. But not everybody is at equal risk of getting it. The two are not the same thing.

It stands to reason: If you're (just for example) a promiscuous African trucker having unprotected sex with multiple partners in countries where HIV rates are 10% ....

If you're a Ukrainian IV drug user sharing unsterlised works in the seedy backstreets of Kiev ...

If you're a sex tourist having unprotected sex with whores in Ghana or ladyboys in Bangkok ....

Or even if you're a promiscuous gay man with a penchant for bareback in London (where as Max points out 1 in 12 gay men are thought to have HIV)...

... you are at a much higher risk of catching it than a non drug-using heterosexual from (say) Shropshire or Cornwall who only has two or three partners from non-high-risk groups (such as the above) and/or uses condoms regularly.

Yes it can still happen if you're very unlucky, and you shouldn't be reckless. But your odds of avoiding it are far better.

Perhaps Gentleman was being overly simplistic in just mentioning Africans. But he is partly right in that they are one high prevelance (and therefore higher risk) group.

- Eric

[max_tranmere]

"a promiscuous African trucker".

Lol. That made me laugh.

I think people in society always assumed that gay people would be more likely to have it than straight people, and that included me too. I recently heard about someone, who is gay, who "has recently been diagnosed with cancer". My immediate thought was that maybe he actually has HIV or AIDS and this was a cover-up to say he had cancer. Maybe it was/is. A lot of people always assumed it was more common amongst gays, and now we have that '1 in 12 in London...' stastistic it seems they were right.

[max_tranmere]

I'm trying to conture up an image of the "promiscuous African trucker".

I picture some cat in purple chords, black zip-up platform boots, blue denim waistcoat, and bones hanging off the leather necklace he is wearing. He sports a huge moustache, smokes SM sweet menthol cigarettes, and is perched in the cab of his 18-wheeler Mac truck - cruising the motorways of Europe with his huge afro taking up most of the room inside. Calypso blasts out of the huge stereo system, and he changes gear with a large skull-and-crossbones motif on the tall gear stick. The promiscuous African trucker pulls up at a roadside bar, he climbs out of the cab, eyes are drawn to him as he strolls across the yard with his purple cords flapping in the wind. He drops the butt of his SM sweet menthol on the tarmac, squashes it out with his boot, and heads in. "I would like a Rock lager-beer", he instructs the barmaid. His eyes then scan the room for some local skirt to pull. Later, back in the cab, he disrobes from his cords and his denim waistcoat and says to the hussey "you don't mind if I go in bare-back do you sugar...?"

[Lol. No offense intended with the above - just me having some fun!]

[David Johnson]

Here's some facts from an HIV/Aids charity:

http://www.avert.org/uk-statistics.htm

I draw your attention to one graph in particular,

UK HIV diagnosis by ethnicity.

The graph appears to show that there has been a significant decline since 2004 in the number of black Africans diagnosed in the UK with HIV whereas the number of whites diagnosed with HIV during the same period has stayed pretty steady.

Have a good weekend.

[one eyed jack]

Its a funny thought Max but more likely to be a voodoo pimp from haiti given the description but I guess all blacks look alike as well.

I often get confused between white folks like Robbie Williams and Rab C Nesbitt myself

[max_tranmere]

Oh come on, I was just having a laugh in the comment above. I stated as much. I just found it funny when an earlier poster said "the promiscious African trucker". Reading it back it sounds a bit more like a dood from Harlem in the 1970's. Remember the cats in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die"? lol.

[one eyed jack]

Yes I did. Baron Samedi was my favourite..."it is going to be a buh-yootiful deeeh heh heh heh"

Anyway i guess the solution to the problem in reducing HIV statistics lies in this advice: Dont shag african immigrants ....and you'll be ok

[Flat_Eric]

David Johnson wrote:

> The graph appears to show that there has been a significant
> decline since 2004 in the number of black Africans diagnosed
> in the UK with HIV whereas the number of whites diagnosed with
> HIV during the same period has stayed pretty steady.


Which equates to roughly 1500 new diagnoses in a population group numbering less than 500,000 (black Africans) as against about 3000 new diagnoses in a group numbering about 53 million (whites).

The diagnosis rates in the former group may be falling (for whatever reason) but the proportion of positive tests in that group is still far higher.

You would agree though surely that HIV is in general a much bigger health problem in sub-saharan Africa than the UK, and that overall infection numbers there are far higher, no?

- Eric

[Flat_Eric]

one eyed jack wrote:

> Anyway i guess the solution to the problem in reducing HIV
> statistics lies in this advice: Dont shag african immigrants
> ....and you'll be ok


I don't think anyone has said that have they?

Do you shag African immigrants?

Or put another way: Would you feel most uneasy about shagging (a) an African immigrant (b) an Eastern European IV drug user or (c) a British divorcee from Devon?

Why are you (apparently) uncomfortable accepting that there are certain groups in which HIV is proportionally more prevalent (sub-saharan Africans being one) and therefore represent a statistically higher risk?

No-one is saying that anyone or any group is immune, but pretending that everyone is at "equal risk" or that there is no such thing as "high risk" groups is nonsense.

If you're in high-risk group (IV drug user, come from high-prevalence country, gay 'bareback' male with multiple partners etc.) or have sex with people in said high-risk groups, your chances of catching HIV are higher.

If you're not in a high-risk group and don't have sex with people in those groups, your chances of infection are far lower (although not non-existent). It really is that simple.

- Eric

[Flat_Eric]

max_tranmere wrote:

> Oh come on, I was just having a laugh in the comment above. I
> stated as much.


Unacceptable Max !tut!

You've been coming on here long enough to know that the word "laugh" or "joke" and the subject of "skin colour" do not and cannot go together. !tut!

Unless of course you're taking the piss out of bowler-hatted white blokes !laugh!.

- Eric