Only 6.5% Of AIDS Victims Are Gay Men

Interesting statistics. Is the source reliable? Not that I doubt you or anything, don`t misunderstand me, but I have learned to be careful with statistics, because some of them tend to be a bit shady, lol!

 

If you're going to talk about statistics, you need to cite your sources. Can you provide a link to a reputable source of information?

 

Yeah, Boi we need some sources to prove this.

 

Guys, even if it's true, we have to think about what this actually means.

It's easy to imagine a distribution where a subset of a population has a higher proportion with a characteristic, but those in the subset who have that characteristic represent a very small minority of all individuals in the population with that characteristic. That doesn't mean the subset is less at risk.

 

I don't want to bring hate to your community, but I really doubt this is true. Or is this possibly from someplace other than the mainstream?

I know that this is not true in the US. It just isn't. It doesn't mean any harm to any of the gay men here. We aren't bad people. It's just something our community deals with.

 

It probably is true actually. It's just committing a fallacy about proportions of a subset versus a total. Consider the following completely made up numbers:

There are 1000 people. 30 have HIV. 100 people are gay, and 10 of them have HIV. Therefore, 20 asexual, heterosexual or multisexual people have it. In this example, 10% of gay people have HIV, but 2.22% of non-gay people have it. Gay people are 450% more likely to have the virus, but I can claim that "only 1% of people infected with HIV are gay." Presenting the statistic in this way causes people to think initially that gay people are at less risk, but that's not really true because the proportion is considered over the whole population rather than the demographic.

---------- Post added 1st Feb 2013 at 01:46 PM ----------

I should also add that multisexual men are still at considerable risk.

 

Is this figure supposed to represent the global population or one in a particular country? I should think the straight/gay proportions would vary between certain developing countries and developed ones.

Let me know if the following maths or my inferrance is wrong:

Let's say for the sake of argument that 50% of people of men and 10% of people are gay. That would make 5% of the population gay men on average, assuming neither men nor women are more predisposed to homosexuality. If there was absolutely no correlation, significant or otherwise, between being a gay man and having AIDS the proportion of gay men with AIDS would be the same as the proportion of gay men in the population: 5%.

6.5/5 = 1.3 Thus the pecentage of gay men with AIDS is 30% higher than it would be with no correlation whatsoever.

This would mean that gay men are over represented. I don't know if it's that large a difference, but then I suspect that I have over estimated the number of gay men (based on my own casual observations of people around me, not statistics) and I'm not sure where bisexual men come into this. So if that figure is smaller, they are even more over represented e.g.

Let 4% of people be gay men: 6.5/4 = 1.625
62.5% more

 

Statistics - San Francisco AIDS Foundation

Perhaps it is a world statistic? Share your link, I want to see it!

 

I would like to send this source to Representative Baker of Wyoming because he told me that...

Only 1% of gay couples die of old age.
He cited the median ages of homosexual death is 39-45.
He cited Age of death for AIDS victims.
He opposed Domestic Partnerships because it would increase healthcare costs.
His sister is a lesbian, and has been n multiple same-sex marriages.
This country was not founded on gay couples.
This is not something rooted in tradition our constitution.

So what I get the source I can send it to come so he can educate himself.

 

More than 24 hours later, no sources. Boi where are you and your stats?

 

These stats don't surprise me at all actually. People who think that AIDS is only a "gay disease" are either living in the '80s or completely ignorant. In fact, most of them are probably both.

The vast majority of AIDS cases in the world at this point in time come from Sub-Saharan Africa, where the population, by and large, does not have access to sex education or means of sexual protection. And 91% of the childhood cases come from that continent as well. Children. That is the saddest thing. They are the real face of this disease now, not the gay male community, not anymore.

Statistics: Worldwide

 

Exactly the only thing one needs to know to debunk the 'gay disease' myth or any claims to causality between the two is that the largest and fastest growing group of HIV and aids infected people in the world is African (mostly straight) women.

 

I'd like to see the citation from Boy George cause of the same interests that others have shwon on something like this towards our community. When you claim a fact, you have to back it up with real research not just say something. This is really serious to many on here like myself cause of wanting some reassurance or comfort too. What I don't like about statistics is that I don't think they are honest cause my view is that there are more bisexuals than they say there are. I've known people who would probably disagree with me, but my experience with partners is that many had sex with women and they didn't know about the fellas. This is why I can't trust bisexuals even myself till I fully come out of the closet and perminently remain gay.

 

Yea, I'm still waiting for a citation of this claim. It must be of the total population which doesn't help our image since we're what, 3-10% of any population? Regardless, we all have a long way to go to stop spreading this and other diseases. Stop the irresponsible behavior!

 

Two reasons why gay guys are more at risk of contracting HIV:

1) Anal sex is higher risk than vaginal sex. The vagina secretes lubrication for one. Also, the anus/rectum is more likely to develop micro tears during intercourse because of the type of cells which line it.
2) Gay guys can go both ways. With heterosexuals the woman is at a much higher risk and HIV is way more likely to go from men to women than women to men. This means that it spreads much more slowly.

While the absolute numbers tend to be higher in heterosexuals this is only because there are more of them. If you speak in terms of percentages, there will be more HIV cases in a group of 100 gay men than in a group of 100 straight people. Also, in the Western world, most heterosexual cases tend to come from people who have sex with people from high risk places (like Sub-Saharan Africa).

If someone says HIV is a gay disease, I don't think the answer is to point to statistics as HIV affects our community much more than it affects straight people. Just tell them they're stupid, diseases aren't 'curses'.