Sex, Internet and the DR

[Jim Hinsch]

The Odds

If your partner is HIV-positive, your chances of getting AIDS after one night are 1 in 500 without a condom.

If .6% are infected, your chances of being infected from one night of unprotected sex is 1 in 83,333, or approximately 3 times the odds of dying from being struck by lightning in your lifetime (1 in 32,000, ref: http://www.righto.com/theories/lightning.html).

Source: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_373.html.

 

[Pib]

*Warning!*

Nice to see another fan of good ol? Cecil.

Please read the entire Straightdope article. The optimistic views of Jim have hidden the fact that the odds may be against you. Now, another advice: if you get to score with a girl you meet ?out there? chances are she belongs to the high-risk group. Having unprotected sex might be a lot more fun than playing Russian roulette but it is just as deadly. Just don?t be dumb; it is not worth the risk.

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: Stick to the facts, not hysterics

Why is my stating the odds, "optimistic"? They are not MY statistics, and I did not comment on them beyond stating the probability of a commonly referred to rare event to put things in perspective.

It looks like you are trying to put some kind of hysteria scare spin on this. Stick to the facts. Let people decide for themselves what is and isn't worth the risk.

"Having unprotected sex might be a lot more fun than playing Russian roulette but it is just as deadly."

Hardly. The odds of death in Russion roulette (between two people) are 1 in 2.

 

[Thomas]

1 correction, 1 question

Well Jim, that's not exactly true. It's always 1/6 in your favor as there is only one bullet out of 6 possible chambers (Unless you are Polish playing with an automatic) and once one person loses the game of Roulette, it is over. So each time you are handed the gun, you ahve a 1 in 6 chance of being unlucky, if you are unlucky, the other person has a 0 chance as the game ends

But mt question was actually "what happened to all the answers about my Aids questions?" I wanted to get some further answers about specific places but I can't find the posts" They were adreeesed to Mr Santiago, I read them about 30 minutes ago, talked to my Buds, had some further questions and they are gone?

Can someone tell me how to find them?

Gracias

ST

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: 1 correction, 1 question

I belive they were deleted, as the webmaster said, any additions to that thread would be.

In Russian Roulette, I believe you play until somebody loses, back and forth. If two people play, your chances of death are 1 in 2. Your chances of death are 1 in 6 with the first trigger pull.

 

[Thomas]

Re: 1 correction, 1 question

Thanks Jim, I received the email with the explanation (Why is a thread "closed" I still don't get that one?)redirecting me to another area. I still can't find any of the answers that people posted to my question, any idea how do do that? Are those pieces of information lost forever or can they be retreived?

And about the Roulette, I defer to your correct answer, when worded like that it cartainly is a 50/50 or 1/2 chance of dying. I was thinking of you having a 1/6 chance of losing each time you pulled the trigger when it was your turn. Guess I should have read the remark a little more carefully

ST

 

[Stephen Hadley]

Re: The Odds

excellent point about the 1:500 chance of contraction.. The point of my post was that 0.6% of the population may be infected but the person you are most likely to "encounter" would be in a much higher risk group.

based on age alone you could easily drop the odds by a factor of about 10

then take that and divide by the ratio of promiscuous adults who associate with strangers ( a very high risk group ) lets say factor of 10

you quickly end up with a very select high risk group.

1 in 83,000 applies to have sex with a completely random individual once with a 1:500 chance of contraction.... I am sure these fellows would be out more than one night (lets say 5 times.. Thats pulling the trigger a couple times. 1:500 works out at (499/500)^5 or about 1:100

feel free to fill in your own numbers and run the calculation interesting to see what it comes out to..

poplation * age range * promiscuous = encounter rate
6/1000 * 10/1 * 10/1 = 6 out of 10 or __60% encounter rate__

assuming you do this 5 times
infection chance 1:100

you end up with a risk factor of 0.6%

that mean you have a 1 in 200 chance of getting DEAD

I know this may seem off topic, but sex tourism is an issue in the DR...

 

[Thomas]

The Aids thread

Guess I don't know how to get around this site, this is part of the missing questions I was looking for, even though a bunch of the questions are still are missing.

A simple question; how is the Aids situation in the Dominican compared to Jamaica, Cancun, Aruba, St Croix?

I KNOW it is never safe, I just want to know if the "local girls" are almost sure to be infected, or is it a reasonable gamble when you use protection etc that you will be safe.

ST

 

[Susanne]

Re: The Aids thread

Hi Thomas,

I am afraid that I can find no statistics to cover the whole subject, probably because Aruba is part of Holland and St. Croix, though it used to be Danish, is now part of the USA.

But, according to the LATEST fact sheet from WHO/UNaids, Haiti and the DR have the highest rate of HIV prevalence in all of the Caribbean. Haiti has a sad record with a prevalence of an average of 5.17 percent (adult population). In the DR it is 2.8 percent (adult pop.). Jamaica reaches 0.71 percent in comparison, again it is the adult population that is counted.

The overall average in the Caribbean is 2.3 percent. Blame that on Haiti. But even so, the DR is still above average and the second highest.

More info on www.unaids.org

Regards,
Susanne

 

[Susanne]

Re: The Aids thread - I forgot one thing

Oh, about women whose services you can rent by the hour:

In certain districts - again according to UNaids - 11 percent of the sex workers lived with HIV/AIDS in certain districts. The overall percentage was less than half of that.

In other words: If you don't mind a slow and unpleasant death, go ahead and take your chances. Yes, I know Jim Hinsch will argue that the risk of contracting the virus is one to a zillion or something like that. But people still contract it, also on a one night stand, even if the odds are against this. So don't count on the odds.

Regards,
Susanne

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: Wrong again

Wrong again. The 1 in 500 is for UNPROTECTED sex with an individual that IS infected. You can't get more high risk than that.

But since the chances of a person actually being infected is only .6%, the risk is 1 in 83,333 for UNPROTECTED sex with a random person, higher of course if the person is a member of a high risk group.

Even if the high risk group had an infection rate 10 times higher than the general public, your risk is still only 1 in over 8000 for each UNPROTECTED encounter.

In reality, your risk is probably half that if you are a male, because the transmission rate from female to male is at least half that of male to female transmission, depending on whose stats you take.

 

[Pib]

My final words on the subject before being deleted

I am sure Rob has his mighty index finger on the delete button already...

Some people think sky diving is cool despite the risks, some are for unprotected sex. Now, each and everyone of us have a responsability with one's self and with society and family. If sky diving goes wrong: splash! you become scrambled eggs on the ground, finitto, end of the story. We attend a nice burial, and drink coffee and crackers with cheese cream if you are Dominican.

But if you get AIDS, not only you become a burden to the country (whatever that might be) and to your family (if you happen to have a family that actually cares) but you also become a RISK for other people as you go ahead hurting them, other families other countries. Unprotected sex is DANGEROUS. Even if the dangers are smaller of say being abducted by an allien spaceshift. I wouldn't have unprotected sex with a stranger (or with most people I know for that matter), not only because I care for myself, but also because I have a loving family that expects me to live a long and healthy life. And we haven't even gotten around talking about fidelity to your spouse.

I have seen people die of AIDS, fortunately none of my relatives. It is as Susanne said a painful, slow death, and I would add that it is humilliating for most people. Just be careful outthere. There couldn't be a laid worth dying.

"I disagree with what you say, but I defend to death your right to say it"
Voltaire

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: Good. Maybe now we can stick to the point

Why are your crying out for people to use protection? Most people will, and those that won't aren't going to be convinced by your silly posts.

This thread is about facts vs. fabrication, truth vs. hysteria, common sense vs. paranoia, perspective vs. sensationalism.

Find 1 post anywhere on this board where someone advocated unprotected sex. All show you several where unprotetected sex or sex with prostitutes was touted with false statistics bordering on hysteria, paranoia, and sensationalism - some of them being YOUR posts.

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: The Aids thread

The most recent AIDS report I've been able to locate is from Dec 98:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hpb/lcdc/publicat/aids/aic04-99/aid99es4.html

As you can see, the Dominican Republic, according to this report, has less AIDS than many other Caribbean islands.

Rate (per 100,000):

Bahamas 1037.9
Bermuda 535.41
French Guiana 408.42
BARBADOS 338.16
TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS 266.56
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 231.17
GUADELOUPE 191.83
HONDURAS 142.87
ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 142.77
GUYANA 139.35
SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS 138.75
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS 119.69
MARTINIQUE 108.19
DOMINICA 108.05
GRENADA 107.81
SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES 93.21
JAMAICA 92.9
ANTILLES & ARUBA 92.07
BELIZE 88.13
BRAZIL 78.31
HAITI 75.13
SAINT LUCIA 72.36
CAYMAN ISLANDS 60.85
PANAMA 60.15
MONTSERRAT 54.69
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 53.76

Any rapid change in statistics over the last year or so that you might encounter is more likely politically and financially motivated rather than fact. Also note that HIV statistics reporting is unreliable because there are so many different versions of what it means to be "HIV" infected and different countries use different testing methods and criteria, dramatically affecting the numbers. That's my opinion.

 

[Susanne]

Re: The Aids thread

Then you haven't looked long enough. The latest report from UNaids - link given in another posting - is from December 2000. The statistics are different than yours.

Regards,
Susanne

 

[Thomas]

Everything

I posted some questions about the Dominican Fiesta, places to hang out, the Aids situation etc a few days ago, and can't explain what happened.

There were a lot of answers, especially about hang outs and aids, but they are gone?????

I really wanted to discuss them with my 3 buds, but I can't find them and there were some very different views, so I don't know what to think.

We were very lucky and explained to American express our concerns and they let us change to Cancun, so maybe we will get to see Dominicana next time

Thanks to all of you who helped, sorry I lost your answers, I can't figure it out, my messages are "broken up" all over the place, so this will be posted a few times so no one will think I didn't receive their report and say thank you

ST

 

[Thomas]

For Future Trip.Aids in Santo Domingo???

I posted some questions about the Dominican Fiesta, places to hang out, the Aids situation etc a few days ago, and can't explain what happened.

There were a lot of answers, especially about hang outs and aids, but they are gone?????

I really wanted to discuss them with my 3 buds, but I can't find them and there were some very different views, so I don't know what to think.

We were very lucky and explained to American express our concerns and they let us change to Cancun, so maybe we will get to see Dominicana next time

Thanks to all of you who helped, sorry I lost your answers, I can't figure it out, my messages are "broken up" all over the place, so this will be posted a few times so no one will think I didn't receive their report and say thank you

ST

 

[mrbean]

Re: For Future Trip.Aids in Santo Domingo???

I am not going to quote stats, etc, but you should know that the rate of HIV infection in the Caribbean is second only to that of Africa, and may in fact soon pass it. That means lots of risk should you choose to have unprotected sex (DON'T!!!!!). My suggestion would be to use 2 condoms with any partner (they may believe they are clean, but consider thier last partner etc...). There are lots of great places to hang out, many in the Zona Colonial (try Ochas Puertas, for example, or Jet Set on the other end of town). But be CAREFUL!!!!
Enjoy.
AF