Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Tuesday 1 June 2004

Is the Royal Free and University College Medical School latently homophobic?

Probably not, but I find the assumptions which seem to underlie this type of survey highly questionable, nevertheless.

The survey has found, for example, that "one third of gay men with the HIV virus do not know they are infected". How many heterosexual men (nominally, at least) know their HIV status? Very few, I venture. I suspect strongly that there is potentially a huge pool of travelling businesspeople (of both sexes) whose partners might benefit from knowing the status of the other; the same might also be said for the travelling partner not knowing the status of the stay-at-home partner.

A much more sensible attitude is taken by Lisa Power of the Terrence Higgins Trust:

"People are having unprotected sex across the board - it's not just gay men.

"We need to get the message across to say that we all need to protect our health - whether or not we think we have a sexually transmitted infection, whether or not we think our partner has - it's important that all of us should practise safe sex."

- the type of judgementalism seemingly (and perhaps unwittingly) displayed by the Royal Free and University College Medical School is perhaps less so.

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