Monkeypox and STDs - it isn't just sex, it's promiscuity

 kw: medicine, medical musings, disease, monkeypox, std's, sti's

At one time diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea were called Venereal Diseases, or VD's. "Venereal" refers to Venus, the Roman goddess of "love", actually, "lust." A generation or two later the preferred term vacillated between Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's) and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI's). These days the political correctness police don't know quite what to call these "social diseases." Also, in the past generation more diseases have attained this status, including Chlamydia, venereal warts, genital herpes, and, of course, HIV/AIDS.

The most recent disease to be tentatively added to the list is Monkeypox. It has mainly afflicted those in central Africa, particularly Nigeria. In those areas, it afflicts people of all ages, including children, and while more men than women are afflicted, the difference is not huge. In the rest of the world, now that it is spreading everywhere, the picture is different. Particularly in the West, most victims, 90% or more, are gay men. Thus there is a huge outcry in some quarters against those who would call Monkeypox a STD or STI, calling them "homophobic". What is Monkeypox, really?

The virus that causes Monkeypox is related to the Smallpox virus. Smallpox was very transmissible, but usually required contact. However, even the briefest contact, such as brushing by someone in a crowd, was often sufficient. Monkeypox is apparently not nearly that transmissible.

There used to be fears that one could catch syphilis from a solid handshake. That turns out to be slightly true, but only if both persons have very sweaty hands, and the person originally infected has been touching disease lesions (they do itch). It is actually quite hard to catch syphilis. It is easier to catch Monkeypox.

Let's step back a moment to consider a point nearly always missed: EVERY infectious disease can be transmitted by sexual contact. The small list of "STD" infections consists of those diseases that are so hard to catch, sex is required for transmission. 

Is Monkeypox such an infection? It is probably almost that hard to catch. It may inhabit a borderland, a near-STD-but-not-quite. That is, while it's safe to say that anyone who has syphilis caught is sexually, there are apparently a small percentage of cases of Monkeypox that were caught by less intimate contact. But the number is small.

The fact remains that in Western countries, more than 90% of those who have caught Monkeypox are gay men. The very few women who have caught it all seem to have a bisexual boyfriend.

What is it about gay men that has made them so susceptible? I point out the "Gay culture", characterized in the 1980's by the "San Francisco bathhouse" phenomenon, where a designated "receiver" (I don't know the real term, and I don't care what it is) would be sodomized by 30-60 men, one after another. One can imagine that any diseases found in that crowd would spread and spread and spread, week after week. Such practices fueled the early spread of AIDS. That culture may have died down somewhat since, but it is not extinct, and it is fueling the spread of Monkeypox.

The heterosexual spread of AIDS in Africa in the 1980's was fueled by both men and women having numerous partners, just not as intensely as in the bathhouses. Monkeypox in Africa is following a similar course.

The obvious conclusion is that we need a new term. Monkeypox and the other "social diseases" that came before are actually diseases of promiscuity. Someone who has either zero or one sexual partner for one's whole life will never catch any of such diseases (Rape counts as adding one more sexual partner, however unwilling the victim).

I tentatively propose the term Promiscuity Diseases, PD's, to give the medical establishment and society in general time to mull over what we have here, and possibly coin a better term.