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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex
Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70044] Wed, 29 July 2015 15:32 Go to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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Apparently, kissing has overtaken smoking and drinking as the leading risk factor for developing head and neck cancers. That's according to Dr Mahiban Thomas, Head of Maxillofacial and Head and neck Surgery at the Royal Darwin Hospital.

"Royal Darwin Hospital doctor says human papilloma virus spread through kissing and other sexual contact has caused 'tsunami' of head and neck cancers"

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said studies suggest Oral HPV could be passed on during oral sex or open-mouthed or 'French' kissing, and about 7% of people have oral HPV, but only 1% of people have the type of oral HPV that is found in oropharyngeal cancers."

There are other (less sensational) articles:
"The leading cause of oropharyngeal cancer is from HPV"

HPV-Associated Oropharyngeal Cancer Rates by Race and Ethnicity

The pertinant information seems to be:
1) 70% of head and neck cancer cases are 'caused by' HPV. (I've not yet found what evidence there is that it's a causal relationship rather than just an association).
2) 7% of people have oral HPV but 1% of people have the type of HPV found in oropharyngeal cancers. (As far as I can see, that refers to populations in the USA?)
3) Risk is increased for those who've French kissed six or more partners. (Isn't that almost everyone over 16 years old??)

Personally, having obtained a science degree in a Medical School, I tend take such reports with a tiny pinch of salt, bearing in mind that it seems to be based on statical inferences. e.g. I haven't been able to find any original research based on scientific epidemiological studies that eliminate effects of smoking and alcohol as contributing factors.

Also, HPV can apparently cause penile cancer.

Anyway, if it is all true, why don't they make the HPV vaccine available to everyone rather than just advocating it for teenage girls to help prevent cervical cancers?

Kit
Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70047 is a reply to message #70044] Thu, 30 July 2015 21:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
larkin is currently offline  larkin

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I have always thought that kissing is underrated. 
 
It is one of the most sexually charged acts one can engage in with other person.  It can definitely lead to all sorts of other things provided you equally approve of each other's chemistries. 
 
I have never been against promiscuity for moral reasons.  A promiscuous person can make anyone feel desirable including themselves. 

That being said, being promiscuous does increase your odds in acquiring any number of evil demons especially when regularly engaging with other promiscuous people.
 
A promiscuous person decreases their odds by seeking out the sexually reticent and the overlooked.  The conquest offers a different sort of reward.   Possibly monetary...

Unfortunately, women are carriers of all kinds of vicious diseases and you'd be wise to have absolutely nothing to do with them..

[Updated on: Thu, 30 July 2015 21:23]

Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70052 is a reply to message #70044] Sat, 01 August 2015 07:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ray is currently offline  Ray

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Vaccination against HPV is indeed available and even recommended for Australian teen boys. 
But I hadn't realsied it was to protect them from girls.
Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70053 is a reply to message #70044] Sat, 01 August 2015 09:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
larkin is currently offline  larkin

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Snogging?

What an unfortunate term..

If we are talking about HIV, kissing is not unsafe sex.  And as it turns out, neither is oral sex. 

Your body does not have the usual set of biological defenses up your ass (arse) and this is why condoms are so important for that sort of sex.

I met an idiot who actually thought that he could get AIDS from his own ejaculant.

 
Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70054 is a reply to message #70052] Sat, 01 August 2015 09:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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"Ray wrote on Sat, 01 August 2015 07:45"
Vaccination against HPV is indeed available and even recommended for Australian teen boys. 
But I hadn't realsied it was to protect them from girls.


--
It's good to find out that it's recommended in some places for boys as well. As far as I know, that isn't true in the UK. Am I wrong?

In the absence of any real clue, I'm guessing that the bit about protecting them from girls is tongue-in-cheek? I've not seen anything indicating that the risk is based on gender. So it would seem that girls are at risk from boys as much as vice-versa. Indeed, boys are at risk from other boys as well as girls being at risk from other girls. It all depends whom you snog and/or have oral sex with.
Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70055 is a reply to message #70053] Sat, 01 August 2015 10:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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Quote:
larkin wrote on Sat, 01 August 2015 09:04Snogging?

What an unfortunate term..

If we are talking about HIV, kissing is not unsafe sex.  And as it turns out, neither is oral sex. 



--

Some people might find 'snogging' an inelegant word, but why is it an unfortunate term?
I think it has the advantage of being more specific than 'kissing', which can be anything from a chaste peck on the cheek to a tongue-down-throat experience. Although 'French kissing' might be more specific than just 'kissing', it does require an extra syllable and, to my ear, it sounds a bit demure and almost old-fashioned. Also, it's reference to a particular nation is inaccurate. It's a bit like calling a condom a 'French letter'.

I think that it would be unwise to limit the use of the phrase 'unsafe sex' just to HIV. Other sexually transmitted diseases (e.g. cancer caused by HPV) can be just as nasty and, in the absence of effective antibiotics, so could centuries-old scourges such as syphilis.

Having said all that, there's no such thing as a totally 'safe' anything, not even crossing the road or driving to the supermarket. There are only varying degrees of 'unsafe'. There is no such thing as a totally safe medicine. So it's a matter of deciding on whether taking a particular risk and hazard are reasonable in respect of a real or potential benefit.

BTW - in this context, 'risk' means the probability of a negative outcome, and 'hazard' means the how bad the negative outcome might be. So being struck by lightning is low risk but high hazard. By contrast, there might be a high risk of someone catching a cold this winter, but for most people (apart from those who have particular vulnerabilities) there is a relatively low hazard.

Personally, I think that the benefits of crossing the road are worth the risks, especially as I can minimise the risks by taking precautions. However, I don't find any benefit for myself in mountain climbing and so I think that, for me, the risks involved in mountain climbing would not be worth taking any risk at all. Others obviously disagree.

Thus anal sex with a condom is much safer than anal sex without a condom, but it can't be totally safe - e.g. condoms might burst or slip off after ejaculation. We all have to look at the risks and hazards and make our own decisions.
Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70057 is a reply to message #70052] Sun, 02 August 2015 02:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mark

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"Ray wrote on Sat, 01 August 2015 01:45"
Vaccination against HPV is indeed available and even recommended for Australian teen boys.

--

I've seen ads here in the U.S. that encourage parents to vaccinate their teen sons as well as their teen daughters against HPV.
Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70060 is a reply to message #70055] Sun, 02 August 2015 11:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
larkin is currently offline  larkin

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Location: Massachusetts
Registered: June 2015
Messages: 58



I suggested that snogging was an unfortunate term because it was inelegant and anti-poetic which is not how I like to think of love and sex together.
 
People like to think that the sexual revolution was the result of the birth control pill and perhaps also the uprooting effect of WW2.
 
Rarely mentioned is the effect that penicillin had on men's fear of syphilis and gonorrhea. This was an ongoing fear among homosexuals and rambling men in general.  During that time 30's 40' and 50's, condoms were in common use.   After the invention of penicillin, condom use slumped and there was a spike in syphilis and gonorrhea because its cure only required a trip to the doctor.   
 
During the 70's I remember knowing people that regularly engaged in anonymous sex that wore getting the clap or syphilis as a badge of accomplishment.  This of course was a foolish attitude.
 
Another over-looked contributor was the ease of international travel.  It was this that caused HIV to show up quickly in urban centers and more specifically gay enclaves.  This made homosexuals a target for blame but the truth was that they were a first alert, informing the rest of the culture.   
 
I do not view promiscuity as amoral behavior, it's just dangerous.

[Updated on: Sun, 02 August 2015 11:19]

Re: Snogging is (allegedly) unsafe sex  [message #70066 is a reply to message #70053] Mon, 03 August 2015 10:54 Go to previous message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



"Quote:"
larkin wrote on Sat, 01 August 2015 10:04Snogging?

What an unfortunate term..

If we are talking about HIV, kissing is not unsafe sex.  And as it turns out, neither is oral sex. 

Your body does not have the usual set of biological defenses up your ass (arse) and this is why condoms are so important for that sort of sex.

I met an idiot who actually thought that he could get AIDS from his own ejaculant.



--
I need to quarrel with this, I fear.

Kissing, mouth to mouth, is likely to be safe, unless there is gum disease or other forms of lesion which can allow infective agents to cross the barriers of skin (external) and mucous membrane (internal)

Oral sex has been considered to be to blame for throat cancer by one major film star. He says he was carpet licking and contracted his cancer in that manner.

Where the infective agent is capable of crossing the mucous membrane, the application of infected body fluids to that membrane must be considered high risk. The mouth, the inner foreskin, the rectum and the vagina all consist, amongst many other things, of mucous membrane. This is nothing to do with body defences. Many infective agents pass unhindered through semi-permeable membranes. The defences start to work inside the membrane. Some infective agents cannot be combatted by those defences and we become infected.

Sucking a penis applies pre-ejaculate and ejaculate directly onto mucosa, and the risk is high.

[Updated on: Mon, 03 August 2015 12:05]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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