Gay unprotected sex

Having unprotected penetrative sex is the most likely way to pass on a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

Using a condom helps preserve against HIV and lowers the risk of getting many other STIs.

If you’re a man having sex with men (MSM), without condoms and with someone fresh, you should have an STI and HIV examine every 3 months, otherwise, it should be at least once a year. This can be done at a sexual health clinic (SHC) or genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinic. This is important, as some STIs do not result in any symptoms.

Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is a liver infection that's spread by a virus in poo.

Hepatitis A is uncommon in the UK but you can find it through sex, including oral-anal sex ("rimming") and giving oral sex after anal sex. MSM with multiple partners are particularly at risk. You can also get it through contaminated food and drink.

Symptoms of hepatitis A can materialize up to 8 weeks after sex and add tiredness and feeling sick (nausea).

Hepatitis A is not usually life-threatening and most people make a occupied recovery within a couple of months.

MSM can escape getting hepatitis A by:

• washing hands after se

  Unprotected sex eight times more common in serious relationships than casual ones, US gay youth study finds

  The strongest single predictor of not using condoms in anal sex in a group of youthful US gay men was that the relationship was regarded as ‘serious’, a study has found. Unprotected sex was eight times more likely in stern relationships than in casual encounters.

  This study, conducted conducted by Northwestern University in Illinois, USA (Mustanski) reinforces previous findings that over two-thirds of HIV transmissions between US homosexual men happen between central sex partners and only a third between casual partners (Sullivan).

  In this study, the researchers comment, “there was almost no unprotected sex occurring in relationships classified as casual”. This suggests that HIV prevention strategies amongst US gay men may ask for to focus more on HIV risk and safer-sex negotiation within couples than on individual risk-taking decisions.

  Glossary

  statistical significance

  Statistical tests are used to judge whether the results of a explore could be due to chance and would not be confirmed if the study was repeated. If result is probably not due to chance, the results are ‘

  Gay men having unprotected sex think that having HIV is still a massive deal, but that it’s now harder to transmit

  A study of Australian gay men examining unprotected sex and the values that are associated with it has found that the concept of ‘treatments optimism’ needs to be unpacked. While some men do think that having HIV is less solemn than it used to be, there is more of an association between unprotected sex and men believing that treatments include made HIV-positive people less infectious.

  But writing in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases, the researchers warn that the relationships between facts, beliefs and behaviour are not straightforward, with individuals managing risk, desire and pleasure in complex ways.

  Soon after the advent of combination therapy, commentators began to explain unprotected sex in gay and pansexual men in terms of ‘treatments optimism’ – the theory that reductions in illness and death had caused men to be less concerned about HIV infection, and so more willing to have unprotected sex. While a number of studies have confirmed an association between views characteristic of treatments optimism and risk behaviour, it is unlikely that

  
  
  

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