I see there is impressive knowledge of HIV-AIDS among the board members, so I have a question I want to air. It has to do with how people catch HIV.

In some circles there has been a debate about how reliable the statistics are for how those who are HIV+ got the virus, in particular in developing countries. Some have said that the heterosexual, vaginal-sex transmission that supposedly dominates transmission in Asia and Africa canтАЩt be true. They say that for reasons of cultural taboo, transmission happens via heterosexual and gay anal sex but that this is denied when people are asked about their risk behaviour. This camp says that the virus is so hard to transmit that blood transfusion and the sharing of used needles, along with sperm injection in the anus, are main ways it happens. According to this view vaginal and oral transmission should be rare. Specifically receptive anal sex is seen as the big risk, with the тАЬbottomтАЭ being at much greater risk than the тАЬtopтАЭ.

The conclusion from this is that people in developing countries lie about how they got HIV, with African men, for example, refusing to admit that they have been buttf**ked. They also refuse to admit that they had anal sex with their women (a poor manтАЩs contraception).

In the West iv drug users and gay men dominate among HIV-positive, which points to dirty needles and anal sex as the route of transmission. Why should this be different in developing countries?Africans are upset about what the HIV epidemic implies about Africans having a frivolous sex life, which can explain some of the denial coming out of that continent.

In Thailand, it seems to me that ladyboys (who are traditionally at the receptive end of anal sex) are over-represented among those who get HIV. Another group who seem to get it a lot is the rough moneyboy type, the ones who may have done prison time or done hard drugs. (Disclaimer: This is just my impression and nothing scientific. I am talking about trends, not about every individual case). And of course Thai female prostitutes get it. If the Thai situation is as I think it is, it is consistent with the anal+iv drug use view how HIV transmits.

So what do you think, gentlemen? Is the politically correct view that vaginal and oral sex also carries risk of HIV wrong? Is it all down to bareback butt**ing and drug injection? Is HIV so hard to catch that you basically need a load of it right into the bloodstream via vein injections or rifts in the anal area to get it?

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