The Safe sex debate after an HIV vaccine and cure.
I don't think they will want to stop having safe sex programs
The use of condoms by the Gay community started as a measure to prevent the spread of HIV infections.
The question needs to be asked what is likely to happen when when there is a vaccine for HIV and later when there is a cure for HIV, what will happen to the safe sex programs and the recommendations for condoms.
I think that it is likely that there will continue to be pushed to the Gay community recommended practices of safe sex and the use of condoms even after an HIV vaccine is available. I think we need to consider this possibility and what our response should be. With the mRNA HIV vaccines already underway with Phase I trials, this is likely to be a question we will face not too far off in the future.
I think that those who are involved with safe sex promotion campaigns and education will want a reason to continue these programs rather than have their programs shut down. Also, safesex was useful for some to repress the Gay community.
It is not impossible that an HIV cure will come first, though I think it is unlikely, since at this time the HIV cure research is still at an investigative stage and the HIV vaccines are already started with Phase I trials, so I am going to go with the vaccine first, cure second for this scenario.
A. Initially it might make sense.
When the vaccines come out, I think that the safesex programs will still be pushed. There is the possibility of break through infections, that is when the vaccine fails to protect, and there still isn’t a cure. Typically vaccine would be considered good if it was 80% effective. The over 90% effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 were considered quite remarkable. So it is possible that the HIV vaccine is less than 90% and even with 95% effectiveness it is still possible that you might still get HIV. There will be people with HIV out there, but not yet aware, and spreading it. So initially it might make sense to use a condom until the percentage of Gays vaccinated is fairly high.
B. However, the Gay community will likely get vaccinated quickly.
For Covid-19 the vaccination rate of LGBT has been reported to be over 90%. So I expect that Gays will get vaccinated for HIV. Also, Gays will be interested in the vaccination status of potential sexual partners. The hot guy you might want to pick up won’t be interested in your anti-vaxxer arguments. If the word is out that a person is an anti-vaxxer they will find themselves to be very undesired.
As the Gay community gets vaccinated the transmission should continue to drop. Though there will be some contradictory trends. Some will stop using Prep because they are vaccinated and others will not use a condom because they are vaccinated and have a breakthrough infection. Some HIV positive persons might rationalize since they are undetectable and the other person is vaccinated it is okay not to use a condom, and it might be, I don’t know.
Even with these counter trends against HIV transmision droping, the number transmissions by persons who don’t realize they have HIV infection giving it to another person will drop. I think the Gay population will become that of those who are vaccinated and those who got HIV prior to the advent of a vaccine and taking meds and are undetectable.
It might be that those who are HIV vaccinated, even if they have a breakthrough infection, will be able to recover or suppress the infection. This is just a speculation.
C. Then it will be the situation that HIV transmission is very low, mostly among the unvaccinated.
Bathhouses might require proof of vaccination for entry. Also, what is the possibility of transmission of HIV between two vaccinated persons? In a population which is 95% vaccinated what is the possibility that that the other person is unvaccinated if it was random chance and you didn’t ask about vaccination status?
D. Then the safe sex debate will start.
At this point it will become a question whether to use condoms or not.
I expect that Safe Sex establishment to continue to urge condoms.
However, this argument will be weak. There is HPV vaccines which are over 90% effective. There are hepatitis vaccines also. The risk of STDs without vaccines for them is reduced.
This is an article about HPV vaccines.
Vaccine technology also improves over time. They look at adjuvents and other things which can increase vaccine effectiveness.
So the argument will be about gonorrhea, syphilis, and herpes simplex for which there isn’t as of the time of writing this essay a vaccine. However, gonorrhea, syphilis and herpes existed before HIV was a pandemic and it wasn’t the practice of Gays then to wear condoms then. They got anti-biotics instead for gonorrhea and syphilis. Electrocauterization for anal warts which didn’t re-occur when you got older.
I expect the Alphabet Soup scolds will try to advance the argument that as Gays we are more advanced than the gays of the 1970s, or that our sexual habits then was because we were oppressed and it was something to do with internalized homophobia or perhaps some other concocted rationalization. Perhaps some other disease will be the basis of them pushing safe sex.
Or maybe if vaccinated Gays have lots of sex, people who are HIV positive are claimed to feel bad about it because they feel left out.
One thing that will differentiate “cis” Gays from transmen identifying as Gay is that condoms won’t be necessary with two “cis” Gays, but is adviseable if pregnacy is to be avoided when having sex with a transman. This article explains how it might happen accidentally. Of course, with a transman they could decide to become inseminated on purpose.
This article explains that for anal sex it is unlikely, but still a risk. Evidentally semen can leak from the anus to the vagina a.k.a “front hole” for some transmen.
https://www.healthline.com/health/can-you-get-pregnant-from-anal#possible-but-unlikely
Things like this of course aren’t really thought about by “cis” Gays. Maybe not wearing a condom will be considered transphobic.
Besides the producers of safe sex materials and educational campaigns facing unemployment, I think that there are others who don’t want the regime of safe-sex and restrained sexual activity to come to an end.
The Respectability Gays worried about what the straight people will think, will worry what the straight people will think when the sexual activity of Gays increases, bath houses expand, more bathhouses are opened, there are other Gays in other venues which embarrass them.
I think the other letters in the LGBTQIA+ initialism will not be comfortable. The asexuals will likely to complain when the sexual expression of the Gay community isn’t restrained by HIV.
Also, some Gays are just not happy when other Gays are not having fun. People who aren’t very sexually desired now, will feel even less popular if other Gays are doing it more.
I expect that breakthrough infections will get prominent coverage in the Alphabet Soup media as part of a scare campaign.
In any situation, there are people who are invested in that situation, that is, they have an interest in the current situation, status quo, continuing, even if they might not be aware of it.
The question does need to be asked is why there is no vaccination for gonorrhea and syphilis. If the Alphabet Soup brings up gonorrhea and syphilis as an issue it should be asked how much effort have they put into getting the government to have a serious program in finding a vaccine. They are both caused by bacteria, it might be a challenge, but it probably just needs more effort put into it more than any fundamental technical barrier. As will be mentioned later in this essay the federal government has recently (2019) launched a major effort into STD vaccines.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) are a Gay concern since Gays like sex. Also, the Gay community is more sexually active and more likely to get an STD. This should be part of a political agenda of any group claiming to represent the interests of Gays.
E. mRNA vaccines for other STDs will likely impact the debate.
This article in Nature magazine, one of the two leading scientific magazines in the world discusses the potential of mRNA vaccines for cancer and many other diseases.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03072-8
The mRNA vaccine technology has gotten a lot of interest in being applied to other diseases besides COVID-19 and HIV. The mRNA vaccine technology, also called the first “digital vaccine,” allows the rapid development of a vaccine as well as creating antigenes, the molecules that stimulate an immune response, in specific ways that weren’t possible before. It is very possible that many diseases will have for the first time a vaccine that works, or an mRNA vaccine which is much more effective than the current vaccine made with the old technologies.
The following article discusses the advantage of mRNA vaccines and the potential to treat herpes simplex. (Go down a ways in the article, there are a lot things for which they hope to vaccinate.)
This following link is to an article points out that Moderna is going to add three more vaccine candidates in development for latent viruses. These are varicella-zoster virus (VSV), herpes simplex virus (HSV) and a cancer vaccine.
https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/moderna-mrna-vaccine-pipeline/
They also point out that they already are working on cytomeglovirus (CMV), Epstein-Bar virus (EBV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
So they are working on five viruses.
Moderna isn’t the only company working on viruses with mRNA. This is an article about Pfizer and BioNTech developing a vaccine for Shingles, (herpes zoster, HZV).
https://www.yahoo.com/now/pfizer-biontech-sign-global-collaboration-114500210.html
The thing is that mRNA vaccine development is quick and it might be that some of the other viruses of concern as STDs, herpes simplex, might have a vaccine at the same time as an HIV vaccine becomes available, maybe even before the HIV vaccine becomes available.
Of course as these mRNA vaccines are developed there will be what is called the learning curve in both making the vaccines more effective and making them more easily and perhaps even learning how to develop the vaccines faster. There will be learnings from failures and difficulties faced on how to make vaccines for other diseases which might present difficulties.
As a vaccine is developed successfully for one disease, research on mRNA will move on to another disease. It probably isn’t possible to go after every disease lacking a vaccine plus all the cancers at once.
Of course mRNA isn’t the only technology for vaccines, there are others. The government is now focusing on developing vaccines for Sexually Transmitted Infections. This article takes about research centers to work on gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia.
F. HIV cures research is still continuing. During the roll out of vaccines for STDs it could happen that a cure for HIV might become available.
G. The end debate.
The advocates of safe-sex will have to assert that there is risks with sex without condoms even as more and more diseases have vaccines and with the vaccines these diseases become much less frequent in the general public. I expect them to attempt to keep their programs to the end. However, at some point Gays will just find them annoying.
The resistance to ending the safe-sex practice of using condoms might extend until an HIV cure is found and then only if it is 95% effective. Whether Gays will take the safe-sex promotional persons seriously until the bitter end I think is unlikely.
We will need to be ready to oppose the safe-sex people if this is how it plays out. It will be an excellent example for us to show what the neoliberal management of desire is all about.
OTHER POLICY ISSUES
There simply can’t be any tolerance for anti-vaxxer sentiment in the Gay community or by the LGBTQXYZ or the Alphabet Soup media. This is likely not going to be a problem, but rememember prior to 2016 anti-vaxxer sentiment was chiefly among counter-cultural types and in places like Santa Cruz, California. With COVID-19 receding and HIV receding we can expect certain elements in the LGBTQXYZ to want to free load on the herd immunity of our community. If the Alphabet Soup media isn’t solid about vaccinations this needs to be raised as an issue.
For one reason or another the failure to vaccinate for STDs outside the Gay community will put the Gay community at risk for breakthrough infections. The Gay community needs to be entirely supportive of pro-vaccination policies for the general public.
The Gay community needs to support vaccine research for diseases in general as well as STDs. All research into vaccines results in learning about making vaccines which increases the ability to make vaccines. What might be learned with a non-STD vaccine might be the scientific or technological breakthrough or just a refinement for a vaccine against a new STD.
Our goal should be that sexual activity should have zero health risks.