Gender parties in which HIV-positive homosexual boys fulfill for non-safe sex could help reduce steadily the spread of HIV, but could involve a risk of sexually sent problems and superinfection with resistant stresses of HIV, relating to a pilot learn carried out in nyc and published from inside the Oct version of Sexually sent problems.
Although the study try provided in measured words, and it is careful to highlight the probably positive and negative fitness implications of intercourse activities regarding HIV-positive gay boys, or a€?POZ partiesa€? since writers call them, a mass media production through the writers of the record utilized a lot more sensational code and resulted in alarmist statements particularly a€?POZ events distributed extremely tension of HIVa€? within the common click.
Activities like POZ events may portray an effort by HIV-positive homosexual men to select sexual lovers of the same HIV condition, so-called a€?serosortinga€?. However, there has been substantial studies in to the intimate actions of homosexual people in recent years, little is famous about gay sex functions. For that reason scientists attempted to describe the properties of males just who sign up for POZ people, their unique reasons for this, the sorts of intercourse they engaged in at this type of events, their unique medication utilize at these occasions in addition to their intimate behaviour outside functions which involved different HIV-positive males.
Glossary
serosorting
Selecting intimate lovers of the identical HIV condition, or restricting condomless intercourse to couples of the same HIV standing. As a danger reduction strategy, the drawback for HIV-negative folk is the fact that they can only make sure regarding HIV condition when they past got a test, whereas HIV-positive everyone is confident they understand her reputation
pilot research
Small-scale, initial research, 
performed to guage feasibility, opportunity, expenses, bad occasions, and develop upon the style of a future full-scale research study.
superinfection
When a person already infected with HIV try confronted with another type of stress of HIV and turns out to be infected along with it in addition to their unique existing trojan.
strain
A variant characterised by a specific genotype.
poppers
Amyl, butyl or isobutyl nitrite, are recreational medications sniffed during sex to both heighten the experience and chill out rectal sphincter muscles.
Detectives questioned a total of 115 men at ten POZ party events in New York in the second half of 2003. Almost all of guys comprise white (70per cent) and 97per cent said that they had sex entirely along with other guys. The median duration of HIV illness is ten years, although this ranged between 2 months and twenty years. Antiretroviral treatment had been taken by 69per cent of men and also the typical years was actually 42 age. A sexually transmitted illness in in advance of participating in the intercourse celebration had been reported by a third of men.
Over a third of males asserted that her main reason for attending a POZ celebration had been possibly a€?dona€™t need to worry about disclosing my personal HIV statusa€? (35%) or a€?like creating uninhibited or unrestricted sexa€? (35per cent). In addition to that, 15% of males reported a€?dona€™t need to worry about infecting othersa€? because their biggest reason behind going to the event.
a past sex party concerning HIV-positive males was basically attended by 75% of males, almost all of who said that they attended her very first these types of show between 2000-03, indicating that this type of occasions got achieved in popularity in recent years. People reported going to occasions in a large amount north American urban centers plus in Europe.
A lot of the men (88percent) mentioned that they had oral intercourse with a minumum of one people at a POZ celebration, with 60% saying that that they had exposed open anal sex (with over three quarters among these people receiving climax) and 72per cent stating that they had had exposed insertive anal intercourse at such a meeting (with 69per cent of the guys stating that they ejaculated within partner).
There is little proof of medicine usage at POZ celebration happenings. Despite recent focus in the us about methamphetamine and impotence problems drugs fuelling intimate danger getting, the investigators learned that merely 11per cent of men reported the utilization of any amphetamine and simply 1per cent of men said that they utilized Viagra before or throughout the party. Besides, the detectives seen little proof medicine need aside from poppers.
The detectives suck several inferences off their study. First of all, the activities they examined are an endeavor at a€?serosortinga€?. Furthermore, medicine need just isn’t a principal feature of those occasions; and, finally, gender functions involving HIV-positive gay boys might provide an as yet unrealised chance of health advertisement.
a€?POZ activities have the potential to donate to decrease when you look at the scatter of HIV issues through self-selection of HIV-positive sexual partnersa€?, determine the detectives. But the many benefits of these types of a€?serosortinga€? could possibly be undermined from the scatter of intimately carried infection in addition to a€?diffusion of HIV superinfection, both among HIV-positive males at POZ parties as well as their HIV-negative intercourse associates various other locations.a€?
Clatts MC et al. an appearing HIV possibility ecosystem: an initial epidemiological profile of an MSM POZ celebration in new york. Intercourse Transm Infect 81: 373 a€“ 376, 2005.