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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   3492 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Weird question. When I was in 4th grade, in the early 90s, we did a multi-day segment on AIDS, where they just went and scared the shit out of us.

So in my 20s any time I did something remotely risky, I'd freak out and go to the doctor. And they'd always ask if I was gay. And when I said no they seemed like they stopped taking seriously the possibility that I contracted it.

And looking back on it it finally just hit me. Was the whole program I went through in 4th grade a massive psyop aimed to stop gays from being stigmatized?

If so I feel honestly betrayed. It feels extremely wrong to use children in that way, even if the end seems like a good one.

Unless you went to an all-boys school, I assume that half of your classmates were female. The risk of male to female HIV transmission is much higher than the risk of female to male transmission.

That's 12% and 20% of people getting infected after regularly having unprotected hetrosexual sex with an infected person. Yes 20% is higher than 12% but those are both pretty low in the context of the parent post's point.

Those are actually very, very high numbers from the perspective of an educator who is concerned with the long-term health of his or her students.

That's after the 1 in 200 chance of picking someone for a long term relationship who has an active HIV infection.

Most of whom are not in normal people dating pools because they’re sex workers/gay/drug users/etc.

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