Well, food orgies are a thing; at least in undergraduate co-ops in Berkeley, anyway…
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To paraphrase Delores from Westworld: These prurient concerns have prurient ends.
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Compare it with HIV/AIDS. In the US and Europe, HIV spread initially among gay men and injecting drug users, but it transitioned to the larger population soon enough (in Africa, it spread among heterosexual people almost from the get-go). The narrative that “only queers and junkies get AIDS” almost certainly helped it spread, because people who didn’t think they were at risk didn’t take precautions.
Yes, monkeypox is spreading among gay men now. But the history of HIV/AIDS tells us that it won’t stay that way. It’s not political correctness that makes health officials want to downplay “the gay angle”; it’s the knowledge that it’s headed for the wider population, and anything that suggests it’s found only in one group will weaken our response and encourage the spread.
The fact that the initial spread of HIV and monkeypox was within particular communities is largely circumstantial. Perhaps there are network effects at work – maybe people in those communities interact more frequently with each other and less frequently with those outside them, resulting in greater initial concentration within the community. But there’s nothing that makes HIV or monkeypox inherently “gay diseases”. In the case of HIV, certain practices such as anal sex (gay men) or sharing works (drug users) may have favored the spread of the virus; monkeypox doesn’t even have that. It’s absolutely an equal-opportunity disease.
Monkeypox is currently most commonly found among gay men, but it’s not going to remain that way. Any public discussion that focuses too much on the sexual orientation of the current crop of sufferers is a potentially dangerous red herring that will only favor the spread of the disease.
MTG, of course, is a vicious idiot. Like her idol Trump, she’s guaranteed to have the worst possible take on everything. But the rest of us need to do better, or we’ll just repeat the mistakes of the past.
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We don’t actually know this, in part due to our testing protocols. Right now tests are being almost exclusively given to MSM and aren’t being given if the lesions are internal, meaning we are almost certainly missing larbe populations of spread. Further we know, from the past few decades of outbreaks that it can and will spread outside of sexual contact.
But let’s actually talk about tbe role of people’s feelings in the spread of disease. When people feel that a disease is confined to a marginalized group both the general populace and people in power are less likely to take steps to minimize the risk. The US has a choice to declare this a public health emergency, which would free up funds for testing, vaccination, and surveillance. We’ve chosen not to. The cases we have seen in children have been turned into a culture war issue rather than an opportunity to discuss practical mitigations for spread in daycares.
No oneis saying that you ignore where the concentration is, but treating this as a gay issue is like thinking of Covid as a senior congregate care issue when the prominent US outbreak was the Washington nursing home.
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Will she tell her followers that she’s Haitian?
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This exactly. She’s replaying all the greatest hits of the AIDS epidemic. Bigotry against LGBTQ people, lies about how a disease is spread, bundled together with the conservative’s latest shibboleth about “grooming” to paint the LGBTQ+ community with the broad brush of “perverted sicko sex fiends.” It’ll play to her constituents, who are stewing in a toxic bubble of conservative yellow journalism, but the rest of us see how sick and vile she is.
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So, basically, everything is going according to plan.
Of all the things she could come up with, I hope not.
As said above, yes, MGT is a viscous idiot. And her Xian Nationalist party is millimeters from playing the divine retribution hate card we (or at least I) saw during the AIDS crisis.
But those downplaying the fact that this is almost entirely centered on men who sleep with men right now, or think that the national and media dialogue shouldn’t highlight this fact should really listen to the talk between Dan Savage and Dr. Carlton Thomas (both smart progressive queer voices) that was posted here on BB two days ago:
There are solid, non-fear mongering reasons to focus on this right now: lots of the big queer circuit parties are happening around the world right now, making these potentially high risk events; vaccine availability is currently determined at the state level so LGBTQ+ hostile states are making them difficult to get; etc.
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Ugh, not like that.
Food orgy was about consuming decadent food and smoking lots of weed; with the catch being that you couldn’t eat or puff using your own hands. Everyone feeds everyone else.
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Let’s compare it to covid. Based on absolutely no evidence, authorities leapt to close beaches and public parks. This persisted long after it was totally obvious that there’s zero transmission risk at the beach.
In contrast, it’s totally obvious that gay pride mega-parties have been monkeypox superspreader events. Whether it’s 99% MSM or only 98% MSM who are getting it and transmitting it, it’s obvious that any event where men are going and having lots of unprotected sex with a large number of partners is unsafe.
Why was it so easy to close beaches and public parks for covid, when that had absolutely no evidence ever of transmission, but it’s hard to even have a discussion about closing certain events where monkeypox is obviously spreading?
I get it, marginalized community and all that. I guess I care more about stopping a virus.
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Uhh… backfire with who?
The GOP base?
The voters in her district (a/k/a the inspiration for Deliverance)?
The mainstream media who are spreading the gay sex thing more than they’re downplaying it?
With libs, who by definition don’t matter here since they’re in no way supporters of her, so no backfiring possible.
Please.
Dissing #MAGAts and Trumpy politicians is such a waste of energy that accomplishes nothing other than making us feel good. I have nothing against mocking but the ignorant hubris that results in the characterization here of any backfiring, that’s what I have a problem with. Not going to be any backfiring.
I’ll be sure to tell my old gay friends who live that they are responsible for this and deserve to live with this person representing them. I’m sure they’ll appreciate being called “the inspiration for deliverance”… 
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Remember this young woman that Matt Gaetz tried to body shame?
She’s done much more than you ever will. Smarter too.
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No, no… we’re all just racist Trumpists down here… not a single one of us are worth treating with any respect. /s
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You say that it could take a year or more for a vaccine to be developed.
Untrue, there is already a monkeypox vaccine (Bavarian Nordic are the company) and a smallpox vaccine shown to be effective.
It took several months, but noticeably less than a year or two, to develop a Covid vaccine which, though not perfect, is effective.
Monkeypox is transmissible through fluids, which means semen, blood, saliva.
Not exclusive to gay men.
The last (or next to last) outbreak in Africa was transmitted by a zookeeper who was bitten by a monkey. Then he kisses his wife and kids, the next thing you know, outbreak.
The rumours around AIDS in the eighties crucified the gay community, although a lot of it was passed around by dirty needles, badly-policed blood transfusions etc.
Please do not encourage the same spurious rumours and mistakes of the past.
ETA: If you want to compare it to Covid, then yes, you can catch it by being sneezed at.
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That’s just what you call a circle jerk.
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Nah, fuck that shit.
Ridiculing MAGAts keeps their crap from slipping into the conversation with sane respectable people. Their base is irredeemable and the worst thing we can do is pretend they belong with the rest of us.
They deserve the censure and ostracism coming to them. Pretending they had anything worth saying is how fascist garbage becomes acceptable. Nope.
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