Oh, those gay men are at it again. Or is it antibiotic use?
In San Francisco on Monday, it was reported "A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles."
Where did this new horror come from? Was it the gay men themselves that created it?
No.
In fact, "MRSA was first seen in several countries the 1960s. With increasing use of antibiotics, new strains of MRSA have developed over the past 20 years."
And, "The culprit is a form of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bug that was once confined to hospitalized patients but, since the late 1990s, has been circulating outside medical settings, afflicting anyone from injection-drug users to elementary school students."
Wait... gay men having too much sex is causing elementary school students to get it?
I'm confused.
And I'm mad.
I'm mad because, like Sean Bugg wrote, "These kinds of infections have been a problem in medical settings for some time, but when a report comes out that attaches "gay" with "disease," everyone's certain to pay attention."
A quick google search came up with comments and stories from NPR to The Onion, everyone quick to discuss the new findings. Gay men have yet another reason to panic and abandon their wanton ways.
When is anyone going to panic about lesbian sex? I mean, I do. Will I have enough? When will I get more? Today? Tomorrow? Tonight?
Major anxiety.
Instead, lesbians get blamed for tabouli and Birkenstock shoes.
What strikes me, though, is some of the worst abusers of antibiotics are parents of young children. In an effort to keep kids in school/at day care, these parents insist on antibiotics for almost every illness. In fact, the American public is so confused about antibiotics that patients routinely demand them for viral infections. Antibiotics don't kill viruses, people do...
Oh, wait. I forgot. It's about gay men having sex. And always TOO MUCH sex. Maybe Huckabee is right and we should just quarantine them.
Personally, I'm going to go back to being panicked about lesbian sex. We need MORE sex. Much more. And if that makes it out to the general population... well... Ann Coulter better watch out.
This is a serious disease. It comes from a strain of bacteria first found in hospitals, our most "sterile" of all environments. Whenever gay men's sex lives ends up being classified as deadly instead of focusing on the pharmaceutical industries responsibility for the continued growth of new strains of antibiotic resistant infections, I have to wonder why.
The headlines end up continuing negative images, reinforcing stereotypes about gay men. It won't help the problem.
But it's damn sexy, isn't it?