See also: “If only people would choose good, unique passwords!”
Sex is literally why we’re alive. It’s what we’re evolved to do. Creatures without strong sex drives don’t multiply as quickly, or go extinct. We’re the end result of billions of years of being rewarded for getting it on. Anything that requires abstinence or safer sex is magical thinking and will never work.
Of course only speaking of the first world countries.
There are lots of problems in third world countries, where numerous behaviours are not related to sex promote transmission of HIV
It still is more of less.
It wasn’t idiotic, it was all we had.
Education about transmission vectors coupled with availability and normalisation of the use of condoms.
Although PREP is now available for some as an option.
In other words, reading your comment made me less sympathetic to your position.
Actually, this doesn't work. Many people who are homeless--and thus, constantly committing small 'crimes' like loitering--actually have jobs. According to recent statistics, 53% of people in shelters and 40% of people living on the street are 'working homeless'.[1] It's simply not practical to live off of a single job in parts of the country where it's easy to get a single job--which makes it harder to make an honest living. And if you can't make an honest living anymore...
> Avoid prison to be sure you have a good life...
This is another problem with "Get a job". Most places will not hire someone once they have a criminal record of any kind, which means that going to jail once permanently ruins your life--there are some places that hire people with a record, but those are few, far between, and take full advantage of how desperate the people who work there are. Of course, this is only exacerbated by flaws in the criminal justice system, which include things like "evidence presented as rock-hard proof may actually be complete bunk"[2].
> Crime continue to exist because selfish people put selfish needs ahead of sociology and human rights...
I mean, I'd agree with you if you were talking about tax evasion or wage theft. In fact, wage theft makes up a larger percentage of overall theft than any of the things people think of when you say the word 'theft'. However, you explicitly stated that you're talking about people who are poor or who have a risk of going to prison, which excludes a lot of white-collar crime.
[1] https://endhomelessness.org/blog/employed-and-experiencing-h... [2] https://www.propublica.org/article/putting-crime-scene-dna-a...
I'd wager the guess that a lot of crime committed by poor people is committed because they are poor. Think of a single mother stealing food for her and her children. They are putting their "selfish needs ahead of sociology and human rights", but I don't think people would call them unethical. You're proposing too simplistic a framework.
*Millions* of people contracted HIV as children. Either as infants, or as victims of sexual assault. That's not an "edge case". And tens of millions of people were infected in countries where testing wasn't/isn't available. That's not an "edge case" either. Or the millions who got infected because they didn't have access to accurate information/education about what HIV was or how it spread.
Just like how "if only everyone listened to me and stayed locked up in their house for two weeks" was never a realistic solution to Covid.
Has anyone in the history of mankind successfully advanced to third base after such a request?
Turning this around and saying that the gay community "tried to downplay the risks of unprotected sex" is a flat-out lie. The LGBT community has been working harder to share resources about safe sex than most US state governments do, through sites like the Trevor Project. What they have 'downplayed' is the idea that AIDS is more common among gay men because it's more easily transmitted through anal sex. The actual reason that HIV incidence happens more often among gay men is that, up until very recently, getting tested for HIV meant having to tell someone about your sexuality in the 80s and 90s, a time when violence targeting gay men was on the rise[2]. Getting tested could mean getting beaten half to death--or worse--if the wrong person found out, so people avoided getting tested. Would you let someone beat you half to death for 'moral superiority'? (If the answer is 'yes', I suspect you might not understand how severe a beating that is.)
Simply put, you are spreading misinformation. I hope this post helps others recognize that misinformation for what it is.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/health/monkeypox-lgbtq-slow-r... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/23/us/violence-against-homos...
I love science.
