Safe Sexual Practices In The Thai Gay Community

[Ijustwannateach]

I am posting this poll with a view to finding out how our forum members see things as they are recently (in the last 5 years, say): both how they perceive the awareness of Thai men and what their own attitude is.

When I say "initiated or has knowledge of safer sex" above, I mean that in a sexual encounter the Thai man was the one to mention condoms first, or that in other intimate behaviour he showed awareness and concern for his own and your safety. Safer sex means use of condoms and avoiding exchange of body fluids (except kissing).

I've also included two options for those who may have primarily been in committed relationships the last five years.

There's no need to comment directly or explain your answer, obviously, but I hope that the poll will give us something to talk about.

When you've finished, please also try the followup poll on language demographics here.

"S"

[peter991]

Thank you for starting what I hope will be an interesting and enlightening topic, IJWT.

Speaking as a former 'butterfly,' with all my early encounters with city Thai guys, they insisted we use protection. This is something I was happy to do.

When I asked them what happened if some one refused to wear protection, they were in two minds. Some said yes - they had unprotected sex, others insisted 'if it's not on, it's not on.'

Country Thai guys seem to have more unprotected sex than city Thai guys. That's my personal experience.

Peter

[JonnieB]

Most Thai guys seem fairly well versed in the basics of safe-sex.

Personally, my practice is BBBJs (with occasional fill-up), BB anal-play, but always were a jacket for the main event. (Though did do a LDB once BB...that was nice but knew "her" a long time and she was very clean.)

[chuck_s]

As far as Thai practicing safe sex. The older ones tend to use a condom and practice safe sex, while the younger ones they say, do you have a condom, if you say no, they say, ok, not worry but will just have sex.

[geriatrickid]

Depressingly dismal.

chuck s. you nailed it. When the AIDS prevention campaign fell off and fewer people stopped dying of HIV related complications, complacency set in about safe sex. With the exception of IV drug users,the trends in new diagnoses are younger people, which is something that hadn't been seen in awhile. It's depressing because so much of it is avoidable. Heartbreaking in some cases.

What I find even more depressing is that there have been sporadic reports of resistant syphilis in adolescents there are of course the ever increasing Hepatitis and HPV numbers. All in all, a very public service your thread, and you might just save someone some heartache. Bless you.

[Ijustwannateach]

Thanks, GK!

[Paagai]

A good topic, worthy of discussion. However, I suspect the answers you will get from what I assume are mainly non Thai respondants may not be the same as if you asked the same question direct to Thais.

I know several HIV positive young gay Thai guys in Chiang Mai, as far as I know (given this is a difficult subject and real facts and honesty can be hard to come by...), infection has been acquired from unprotected sex with other Thais in local cruisng grounds and saunas. Whereas, with a farang safe sex seems to be mandatory among them and their peers. This is highly contradictory; is there a tendancy among Thais to believe the only risk is from sex with Farangs whilst unprotected sex with other young Thais is safe?

[Ijustwannateach]

^Very astute, Paagai. I'd like to see a few more respondents before I go further with any speculation, though.

[bangsecks]

I am curious as to how many people here consider oral sex without a condom to be unsafe. This always seems to be a gray area; I've always used a condom for everything, but don't want to for oral sex, and so have thought about not using one for oral sex with someone I feel is clean, though going on a hunch is no science by any means...but any ideas about this? Is it a big risk in your view? Would you give a blow job to someone you just met without using a condom?

[peridot]

I am curious as to how many people here consider oral sex without a condom to be unsafe.

Statistically speaking, oral sex is a low risk activity. There are very few documented cases of HIV passing through oral sex, despite all the cautions about it's dangers. The main risk is to someone who has open sores in their mouth, or seriously bleeding gums. Swallowing is probably safer than keeping it in your mouth, because stomach acid kills HIV quickly. Brush your teeth more than 2 hours before you have sex. But really, with the huge numbers of people having oral sex and the tiny number of documented cases of HIV transmission through oral sex, you can enjoy yourself without much worry.

[Ijustwannateach]

I think this poll has pretty much "matured" now; nearly 50 actual votes which is pretty good for this part of the forum.

I'd like to introduce a followup poll in another thread, so click on the link here or in the OP to vote in the followup AFTER you've voted in the initial poll.

"S"