Peter Lawler offers some thoughts on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large sugary drinks, seeing it as a somewhat intelligible proposal and yet also further evidence of ascendant Belmontian neo-Puritanism:
Bloomberg’s policy is full of barely concealed class consciousness. Prosperous and sophisticated Americans never buy those giant drinks. They are, first of all, unimpressed by the bargain. Plus they’ve long ago sworn off sugary drinks. [...]
The mayor’s policy is part of the NUDGE theory of economics–a kind of fashionable paternalism. (Paternalism, I hasten to add, isn’t always bad.) Those who are enlightened when it comes to health and safety have the duty to nudge the unelightened in the direction that’s really best for them.
Given that the private sector is nudging pretty hard in favor of drinking ridiculous amounts of sugar, why shouldn’t government nudge back? It’s still possible for the poor sucker to drink as much as he wants. He just has to do it 16 ounces at a time. The bet is he’s too fat and lazy to get up for a refill.
On the other hand, some might find it odd that government is regulating sugar consumption more than it’s regulating abortion. Others might say that we free people should accord the same dignity to sugar preferences as we do to any other area of personal choice.
Actually, this regulation is schoolmarmish but trivial. But what’s next on the health-and-safety front?
While Bloomberg’s proposal certainly isn’t a death knell for human freedom!, as talk radio hosts will probably claim, nor is it really any kind of imaginative new stand on public health. It’s simply further regulation in the vein of his already well-publicized interdicts against smoking, salt, and trans-fat. But each of these bans do raise the question, as Lawler notes, of “what’s next?” Where do the non-negotiable limits of government nannying come in? Or are there any, provided rules are being made on the basis of what’s beneficial for us physically? A cousin of this mentality, indeed, seems to factor into the thinking of many supporting the HHS mandate: it’s not a question of liberty, or right and wrong, it’s a question of health. There’s a kind of dehumanizing deracination at work.
Perhaps most tellingly, these municipal prohibitions expose the contradictions of those on the left who seem so concerned to “keep the government out of my personal life.” (At least right-libertarians are consistent, though wildly and anthropologically wrong, on these issues).
Amusingly, the best counter-argument in defense of Bloomberg from the “my body, my choice” crowd is that this ostensibly personal decision is in fact not so personal–because the cumulative health effects of consuming vast quantities of sugar ultimately impact the medical system, raising rates and forcing higher public outlays to subsidize the consequences of poor choices. If only this interconnected moral imagination extended to other topics.
May 31st, 2012 | 4:21 pm
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May 31st, 2012 | 4:32 pm
While I think the proposal is absurd, I would have to say that as a nonsmoker, I am very pleased that I can, say, eat in a restaurant without breathing second-hand smoke. As for trans-fats, I try to avoid them, and I appreciate not having to worry about them in restaurants. The smoking and trans-fat bans (and the campaign to reduce salt—not the one by a state assemblyman to ban salt!) were to protect citizens from things they wanted to avoid. What makes the soda ban offensive is that it is to protect people from themselves. Sometimes that’s not such a bad thing to do, but here it is practically guaranteed to have no discernible effect.
I can’t speak for other prosperous and sophisticated New Yorkers, but on the admittedly rare occasions I go to Dallas BBQ, if I want to have a 32 ounces of Coke (it comes in what looks like a punch bowl, with a straw), I don’t want the mayor telling me I have to order two 16-ounce glasses.
May 31st, 2012 | 5:40 pm
Cantirino and Lawler are spot on. Under liberalism (the political philosophy), the state oversees the actions of and seeks the salvation of the body. The body is a moral realm, of course, governed by medical professionals who are the body’s soteriologists. If they (AMA, APA, etc.) say sugar soft drinks are a mortal sin but abortion is not, then they are as such. The priestly caste has spoken.
It helps that sugary soft drinks are heavily consumed by children as well as adults, for children are easily subjected to the designs of the state.
Bloomberg is great for contemporary American political analysis because he is a nearly perfect representation of the culture and interests of the country’s professional class.
May 31st, 2012 | 6:38 pm
Under liberalism (the political philosophy), the state oversees the actions of and seeks the salvation of the body.
Darel,
I would say, rather, that any government has an interest in preserving and promoting the public health. I am grateful for most of the food safety laws and health regulations in New York City. I am glad they inspect, rate, and sometimes shut down restaurants. I am glad I don’t have to breath second-hand smoke. I think it was worthwhile to have fast-food restaurants and similar places one buys food divulge calorie counts. I think banning supersized sodas is going too far, but it is true that we have an epidemic of obesity, and it is not preposterous for the government to do something. It’s not as if we don’t all pay a price for public health problems in one way or another.
May 31st, 2012 | 8:22 pm
The ban wouldn’t be necessary without corn subsidies. There’s a reason, e.g., European restaurants, don’t sell 64oz soft drinks with unlimited free refills. Misguided government action at one point creates misguided govt action all down the line.
May 31st, 2012 | 10:47 pm
“At least right-libertarians are consistent, though wildly and anthropologically wrong, on these issues”
As a left libertarian I wonder how my right wing kin is “widly and anthrpologically wrong” in these issues? Specially the “antropologically” part…
May 31st, 2012 | 10:49 pm
Jamie:
Excellent point.
June 1st, 2012 | 6:49 am
Actually, the Hard Left can be quite vitriolic on the subject.
Here is a typical example, an excerpt from the Tarnac 9’s L’insurrection qui vient
“Ecology isn’t simply the logic of a total economy; it’s the new morality of capital… Without ecology, nothing would have enough authority to gag any and all objections to the exorbitant progress of control. Tracking, transparency, certification, eco-taxes, environmental excellence, and the policing of water, all give us an idea of the coming state of ecological emergency. Everything is permitted to a power structure that bases its authority in Nature, in health and in well-being.”
June 1st, 2012 | 10:29 am
[...] As nationalization of health care proceeds … freedom suffers. [...]
June 1st, 2012 | 2:39 pm
I find myself confused by what appears to be a contradiction. I get that “for the public good” has become a useful trump for an increasingly intrusive state — the rallying cry echoed by David above “it is not preposterous for the government to do ~something~” encapsulates it nicely.
But, David and others, if it is indeed part of the government’s job is to “do something” in the name of the greater good why just go for such low hanging fruit? Why not direct government sanctions against behaviors that are far riskier and more costly to the society as a whole? I’m not in favor of the approach in general; but for the sake of argument, wouldn’t it be in the very selfsame “public interest” to propose sanctions against high risk sexual behaviors, for example?
The contradiction, it appears to me, is the willingness on the part of some on the Left to accede to and even advocate for state intrusion into all sorts of minimally to moderately harmful behaviors while at the same time screaming bloody murder at even the suggestion that the state might have a stake in seeking to eliminate or at least severely restrict certain much more obviously high risk behaviors?
June 1st, 2012 | 3:15 pm
David C,
I am not supporting this proposed regulation, but I am not backing away from saying the state can do something. The state has been quite successful in anti-smoking campaigns, which have been largely about educating people, giving them help to quit smoking, limiting advertising, and the like.
I live in New York City and I don’t approve of this regulation, but otherwise I don’t feel I am living in a police state or a nanny state.
You’d have to be specific about the kind of high-risk behaviors the state might try to regulate. Someone made a very reasonable comment somewhere that it was strange to regulate sodas but not alcohol. But we tried prohibition, and it didn’t work.
June 1st, 2012 | 4:05 pm
David,
I think you’re being coy. I think we both know the kind of high risk sexual behaviors I am talking about. But even if you don’t, the specifics are not really my point — it’s the clear contradiction in the impulse itself that I find curious. Peter Lawler sums it up well earlier in the blog post quoted above:
“We used to have laws promoting sexual repression, Sunday closing, and whatever. Then we thought we were being intrusive for the good of people’s souls. Now we’ve moved on from the questionable and contentious soul to the undeniable goods of the body. We’ve become increasingly puritanical and prohibitionist when it comes to health and safety.”
I’m with Lawler on this. I don’t think the state ought to be more than minimally involved involved in trying to improve either folks souls or their bodies. That’s work much better left up to Burke’s “little platoons” in my view.
As for your subjective assertion that you “don’t feel” like you are living in a police or nanny state, I’m not sure what I am supposed to take from that? For two reasons 1) the plural of “anecdote” is not “fact” and 2) a major selling point of this new “soft paternalism” is to make sure that folks are minimally discomfited by this transfer of power from the individual to the state.
In other words, your comfort or lack thereof does not address the central point at issue. What are the limits of state power? And what is the mechanism by which we reach a common understanding of and consensus about those limits?
The Mayor of your city, deciding by executive fiat, how big a cup of restaurant soda can be is an act of raw political power. It may be silly and unenforceable, but the impulse is, not to put too fine a point on it, dictatorial, paternalistic, state sanctioned overreach. The fact that folks only want to look at the regulation itself, or justify it by a single metric (“health”) without ever examining the attitude behind it is what truly troubles me.
June 1st, 2012 | 5:48 pm
I think you’re being coy. I think we both know the kind of high risk sexual behaviors I am talking about.
David C,
I must have read too fast, because on my first reading, my eye skipped over the word sexual. Apologies.
I don’t see how New York City, or New York State, or the United States has any authority or ability to significantly regulate high-risk sexual behavior. Even before the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws, it was extraordinarily rare for them to be enforced. What is the government going to do?
I doubt that you will be impressed, but before AIDS, New York City had many, many gay bathhouses and both gay and straight sex clubs, and they are all gone. I know that they survived in many much more conservative cities and states, but they were all closed here (and not without a lot of protest from many in the gay community, which is powerful here). That is the kind of thing public health departments can do.
Perhaps I am not thinking hard enough, but I really don’t see any oppressive government rules. To be perfectly honest, the regulation I most intensely dislike is the bottle bill. It results in homeless people picking through all the trash cans of the city, which are not clean (especially because of the “pooper-scooper law”) and bringing huge bags full of filthy empty soda cans back right into supermarkets, sometimes to be handled by the same people who touch all the food everyone buys as they scan it at checkout. Ewww!
Perhaps we should pick another intrusive regulation, because I am not supporting the mayor in his effort to limit the size of a soda serving. I will say, however, that it does not really limit anyone’s freedom. You will be able to drink all the Coke you want here. You’ll just have to order it in 16-oz glasses. It is more symbolic than anything else, which is one of the reasons I oppose it.
The Mayor of your city, deciding by executive fiat, how big a cup of restaurant soda can be is an act of raw political power.
New York is still a democracy. There are already politicians discussing legislation to prevent the regulation. There will no doubt be lawsuits from the beverage or restaurant industries. This is Bloomberg’s last term. If the regulation goes through, the next candidates for mayor can campaign against it. I don’t know how the regulation will be worded, but perhaps restaurants can offer the first 16-oz soda full price and the second for a minimal charge. There really isn’t that much “raw political power” in the United States.
It used to be—back in the 1960s, especially during the protests against the Vietnam war—conservatives were fond of saying, “America—love it or leave it.” Now that is what I feel like saying back to them! New York is a great city and the United States is a great country. Neither is filled with oppressed people. We are not living under dictators. There is no tyranny in the United States, contrary to what the Tea Partiers claim. If the American people like Mitt Romney better than Barack Obama, then Barack Obama will be booted from office next November 6. It’s still a free country. Why do conservatives seem to hate so much about it?
June 1st, 2012 | 11:37 pm
Per:
“I don’t see how New York City, or New York State, or the United States has any authority or ability to significantly regulate high-risk sexual behavior.”
Glad to see you acknowledge gay sex is high risk. It is. Your acknowledgement does shoot a hole below the waterline in the ship of “Gays-are-just-like-heterosexuals.”
Moving on, until Obamacare, most Americans (rightly) believed the government couldn’t force any American, by penalty including jail time, to buy health insurance but now, thanks to a unique reading (abuse) of the Commerce clause and corrupt politicians (see Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker Kickback) the government now can.
Under Obamacare pregnancy is classified a disease. It requires free mandated preventive care -see Catholic lawsuits. If the (local or federal) government can regulate how much sugar you can drink under the guise of public health and pregnancy is classified a disease, how long before government turns its turret upon the gay community and their high risk sexual behavior? Surely it can and, thanks to the support of the gay community over Obamacare (because that stuck it to the Catholic Church and all those religious geeks) someday the government will muster a legal argument to regulate the gay community’s high risk sexual behavior. Why would the gay community think they are so special their health issues/costs will get a pass?
Oh and nice try with the gay bath houses being history in NY. They’re not and let us not forget NY”s S&M clubs which are both gay and heterosexual and totally high risk.
June 2nd, 2012 | 2:55 am
David, you say:
“While I think the proposal is absurd, I would have to say that as a nonsmoker, I am very pleased that I can, say, eat in a restaurant without breathing second-hand smoke.”
So where do you draw the line? Why not allow restaurants to choose whether to allow smoking. Presumably they will draw (or repel) customers on that basis. If you insist on “nudging” by the gov’t how about higher licensing fees for smoking establishments.
June 2nd, 2012 | 9:22 am
David,
As I said, I don’t really want to discuss the particulars of legislating against high risk sexual behaviors. “It can’t be done” is, however, utter nonsense as you yourself concede in noting that all the gay bath houses and sex clubs that once existed in New York have been shut down. Did they do so voluntarily? No. They were shut down by the state. The fact that it was the public health department not the police is a distinction without a difference. It was an action of the state to control high risk sexual behavior. So tell me again why it can’t be done?
But that’s not the question to hand David, at least for me. I thought I made it pretty clear above that my concern is ~not~ about particular legislation but about freedom and the limits of power. And about the curious contradiction I see in folks on the Left who get incredibly exercised over certain kinds of regulatory actions aimed at behaviors and are completely on board or at least indifferent to others.
The fact that you keep wanting to return to particulars, and the fact that you are willing to say that my disagreement with the notion that government can do whatever it wants amounts to “hatred for the country” means that we are at an impasse and clearly speaking past one another.
I love New York City, by the way, and have enjoyed every visit to the city I have ever made. I look forward to returning there someday. That doesn’t mean I can’t think your mayor is a paternalistic, elitist, primping, bully who has used his office like a personal fiefdom.
I love my country. I don’t love (or even respect/admire) a great many of its leaders and we both know there’s a difference. To imply that to disagree with a petty dictator’s regulations about sugar water amounts to hating the city he represents is absurd. I don’t think I am oppressed. I don’t think I am living under a dictator (and wouldn’t if I lived in NYC) but that’s not my argument, as i believe i have made clear. What concerns me is the increasing tendency, in the name of some common good to accede to government control of private behaviors and actions with a shrug. Unless of course it’s a behavior the Left favors. Then it’s back to the barricades. Have a nice weekend in your fair city.
June 2nd, 2012 | 11:02 am
And about the curious contradiction I see in folks on the Left who get incredibly exercised over certain kinds of regulatory actions aimed at behaviors and are completely on board or at least indifferent to others.
David C,
I don’t see how this can be discussed without specific examples.
June 2nd, 2012 | 11:27 am
Thomas Collins,
There’s simply no question that second-hand smoke is a serious health hazard. You can always ask the question where the line should be drawn, but it’s a question, not an argument for never taking any action.
June 2nd, 2012 | 12:52 pm
Mr jackson:
Excuse me, but I do not concede that homosexual sex is of “high risk”. Could you please explain to us what makes it “high risk” per se?
June 2nd, 2012 | 1:31 pm
Under Obamacare pregnancy is classified a disease. It requires free mandated preventive care -see Catholic lawsuits.
Mrs. Jackson,
Pregnancy is not classified as a disease. (Does insurance coverage of hospital deliveries imply childbirth is a disease?) And the lawsuits by Catholic organizations do not seek to eliminate the preventive care requirements from HHS regulations. Catholic organizations are seeking a religious exemption from some of the regulations, not an withdrawal of the regulations.
Most insurance already covers contraception as preventive care. The regulations HHS implemented were not an invention of the Obama administration. They were based on a report (Clinical Preventive Services for Women: Closing the Gaps) from the Institute of Medicine.
June 2nd, 2012 | 8:25 pm
David,
Again, you are being obtuse. Willfully so I think. I think you know well the particulars of the argument and could name a half dozen examples of behaviors that folks on the left would generally favor regulating and folks on the right would not and vice versa.
And I think too, that you know perfectly well the contradictions I am alluding too. Abortion (“pro choice!” — “hands off my body”) versus soda serving size (“it’s for the our good!” — “let Nanny Bloomberg decide…”) being just one glaring example.
And I am at a loss as to why you continue to want to talk about particulars when I have said (this is the third time now) it is not the particulars per se, but the impulse (and the easy accession to said impulse) that concerns me. Or do you not think that the fact that the Mayor of your city is so full of ___ (hubris? self-regard? paternalism?) that he really believes his duties should include deciding how much soda you can have in your glass in any way speaks to his character and instincts?
George Weigel characterized this impulse rightly in an earlier article on this website (about the HHS contraceptive mandate) “It is no exaggeration to describe [this] cast of mind as ‘soft totalitarianism’ “. I’m with him on that and I believe that some vigorous push back on this sort of picayune meddling helps remind us of what it means to be a free people.
June 3rd, 2012 | 1:36 am
Sergio, I don’t presume to speak for Mrs. Jackson, but I can tell you why homosexual sex is more risky than heterosexual sex. First, homosexuals (at least of the male variety) tend to be much more promiscuous than heterosexuals. The first AIDS patients had had up to 1,000 sex partners in the previous five years. That’s not necessarily a moral judgement. Most heterosexual men would be just as promiscuous if we could. But we are limited by the tendency of women to be less promiscuous.
In reading your comments, Sergio, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are very young (emotionally and intellectually if not chronologically). Having been young once myself, I can certainly understand your tendency to think that any attempt to “suppress” “harmless” pleasures is “oppressive.” If you are chronologically young, however, as you grow, you will come to realize that those pleasures are not as “harmless” as you think.
June 3rd, 2012 | 2:32 pm
Again, you are being obtuse. Willfully so I think. I think you know . . . .
David C,
I enjoy discussing issues like this with people who have different opinions, but I don’t think there’s any point in discussing them with people who believe I am playing games or making statements in bad faith. It’s only human, I think, to sometimes suspect that people who disagree with what we believe to be self-evidently true are being disingenuous in claiming to believe otherwise. But I don’t see how a productive discussion can proceed unless both sides assume, if only for the sake of discussion, that those with whom they disagree are honestly stating their own views.
June 3rd, 2012 | 7:51 pm
Given the set of presuppositions about the government’s role in personal health choices that Bloomberg is arguing from, I guess we can expect that next he’ll campaign to get Lawrence vs. Texas overturned.
Hurry up, Bloomberg, I’m already popping the (butter-free) popcorn.
June 4th, 2012 | 10:46 am
Fred:
I asked what makes homosexual sex unhealthy per se. I am aware that homosexuals are more promiscuous as a group. But that seems to me as contingent, historical development of homosexuality (more probably, due to the repression that community has suffered for centuries). But that doesn´t mean it has always to be that way, or that there is anything unhealthy about the practice.
On the other issue you commented: I am 34 and I am not sure if that is old or young for you, but certainly my views have little to do with my age. Contrary to what you seem to think, I do not imagine that all forms of pleasure are not harmful; drugs (including legal alcohol) are an example of that. But I also know that the use of coercion to limit the liberty of people to have those pleasures is ethically unacceptable and it usually backfires, creating more harm than the one it seeks to prevent. In any case, I do not think homosexual sex fits into the category of pleasures that cause harm.
June 4th, 2012 | 12:00 pm
It should be remembered that in Africa, it is heterosexual activity, not homosexual activity, that is the chief vehicle for spreading AIDS, yet I don’t think we would say heterosexual sex itself is risky. Also, before antibiotics, heterosexual sex was much riskier than it is now. So I agree with Sergio Méndez. It is not homosexual sex that is risky. It is certain behaviors (like promiscuity) that makes sex risky. If one thinks that, for the sake of public health, all homosexual sex ought to be prohibited in the United States, it would seem to me that one ought logically to maintain that all heterosexual sex be prohibited in Africa.
As I have pointed out before, laws against sodomy, fornication, and adultery were very rarely enforced (or enforceable) when they were on the books.
June 4th, 2012 | 8:21 pm
But, David and others, if it is indeed part of the government’s job is to “do something” in the name of the greater good why just go for such low hanging fruit? Why not direct government sanctions against behaviors that are far riskier and more costly to the society as a whole? I’m not in favor of the approach in general; but for the sake of argument, wouldn’t it be in the very selfsame “public interest” to propose sanctions against high risk sexual behaviors, for example?
The contradiction, it appears to me, is the willingness on the part of some on the Left to accede to and even advocate for state intrusion into all sorts of minimally to moderately harmful behaviors while at the same time screaming bloody murder at even the suggestion that the state might have a stake in seeking to eliminate or at least severely restrict certain much more obviously high risk behaviors?
Yes, but the cheap foods eaten by plebs are an crime against all that is tasteful and pleasing to the senses.
Gluttony (even if it’s only food being overindulged) can be an important part of living well and is an essential freedom, but only if it’s done with panache. Big Gulps are unhealthy because they are offensively prole, and therefore they should be criminalized.
June 5th, 2012 | 1:14 pm
David,
Okay, to reengage for a moment. I am confused by what looks like two different arguments coming from you that seem to me hard to hold together.
I think we agree that “enforceablity” is not the only reason to make a law. In your discussion of the “big soda” ban you say that the government has an interest in “promoting public health”, which is, I think, to say that the law has a pedagogical function — that it is there not just to sanction but to teach what a society holds as a “good” regardless of whether or not the law is ever enforced. Peter Kreeft (the moral philosopher) makes that argument when talking about abortion. He says, for instance, that we have laws against suicide, even though such laws are in the strictest sense unenforceable (as one cannot prosecute a “successful” suicide…) So we are on the same page as far as that goes, correct?
Why then do you seem to be saying something else when it comes to laws regarding sexual behavior? Let’s leave fornication and homosexuality aside and only consider adultery. Is it not clearly the case that adultery is bad for society? Aren’t there adverse and clearly measurable public costs associated with adultery? If the law has a teaching function don’t we want to “teach” married couples by legal sanction that it is bad/wrong to betray their partner sexually? Yet you seem to be saying that such laws should not be made because they are not enforced or enforceable. Wherein lies the distinction for you?
If laws were only made based solely on prudential reasoning — ie on the likelihood of their being obeyed and or being enforced, we would not have very many laws at all. But the law is more than that, it is the expression of a social compact, a secularized “moral code” if you will.
The argument often comes that we can’t “legislate morality”. It’s a silly argument. All laws legislate some sense of what the state believes is the “best” way to live. Which brings us full circle round to the question I started with: what is the best way to live? Who decides? How? What roles do freedom and personal choice play? All of those questions (I think we would agree) are not trivial. So a law or regulation that touches on those questions — even in a silly way (like Nanny Bloomberg’s soda size ban) nevertheless has at it’s heart a very serious set of questions/assumptions and can be an indicator for us of the mindset of the one(s) making it.
June 5th, 2012 | 1:35 pm
Sergio,
I am confused. You seem to be saying that promiscuity (at least amongst homosexuals) is the result of societal “oppression”. This argument, by the way, is much the same argument that is made about the high frequency of out of wedlock birth in the African American community — ie: that the legacy of oppression (slavery) has made the African American family much more prone to instability.
Both cases seem to me to be (incredibly) contrary to the facts on the ground. If it were the case that these pathologies (or signifiers if you prefer) are the result of some form of “oppression” would we not expect to see those behaviors ~decrease~ as said oppressions are lessened and even eliminated?
Thomas Sowell makes this point occasionally. If the African American family was made unstable by slavery, why has the stability (as measured in out of wedlock births) of the black family not ~increased~ in the last fifty years?
Is it your argument that the there is ~less~ sexual promiscuity now than fifty or a hundred years ago? I sure would like to see a statistical metric confirming that. Certainly we’ve seen nothing of the sort since the dawn of the ‘sexual revolution’ (with its rhetoric of freedom from oppression) amongst heterosexuals…
June 5th, 2012 | 8:25 pm
David:
I do not know how it will work with the black community (and I am not even sure if blacks could have stable families during the time of slavery or racial segregation). But the way I see it, homosexuals, being ostracized and denied by social (and for years legal prohibitions and persecution) to openly have stable partners, ended in an underground ghetto culture, were sexual repressed instincts manifested in promiscuity.
Still, I have yet to see an argument that shows homosexual sex is unhealthy per se. Do you have any to show me?
June 6th, 2012 | 12:26 pm
Sergio,
Well I don’t know about risky “per se” as I am not quite sure what you mean by that. But consider this from the gay advocacy Bilerico Project blog (citing a report from the National STD Prevention Conference) At the (2010) National STD Prevention Conference ….. the CDC released some astonishing data regarding rates of infection among MSM (Men who have Sex with Men). The data indicate that rates of HIV infection among gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) are more than 44 times higher than rates among heterosexual men and more than 40 times higher than women. Rates of syphilis, an STD that can facilitate HIV infection and, if left untreated, may lead to sight loss and severe damage to the nervous system, are reported to be more than 46 times higher among gay men and other MSM than among heterosexual men and more than 71 times higher than among women.
I think that any neutral observer would consider an infection rate for STD and HIV that is ~at least~ 40 times higher than amongst comparable heterosexual populations to be a very significant “risk to ones health” wouldn’t you?
June 6th, 2012 | 12:50 pm
David:
Ok, if you don´t know what I mean by “per se”, I will ask it this way: What is inherently unhealthy about homosexual sex? As I said before, I never denied that homosexual comunity has a higher health risk than other groups, but I contend that has is not inherent to gay sex itself, but to contigent historical issues.
June 7th, 2012 | 3:06 pm
Sergio,
Scratching my head here. If you think it is not the sexual acts between homosexuals per se but the (oppression determined?) frequency of them, then how do you account for the very real statistical differences in STD and HIV transmission between comparable groups of homosexuals and heterosexuals? After all, if it is not an issue of frequency (and the statistics are corrected for such) then what is the difference?
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