A question about how the media frames monkeypox: "men who have sex with men"

[Stinky The Clown]

Why that phrase and not the usual "gay and bisexual men?"

The only thing we can figure is using labels like gay and bisexual is about groups of people. Men who have sex with men talks to an action.

Does that make sense?

[Vinca]

1. No. Every time I hear one of them say it, I snicker. Maybe they've been getting

death threats from those who think if you don't say "gay and bisexual" it doesn't exist. It's really stupid.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. That's a thought! Maybe they're cowering before DeSantis, et al?

[Johnny2X2X]

2. It sounds silly

Just say gay. People will get what that means and might also include bisexual and other men.

[Midnight Writer]

3. At least it's clearer then "having close contact with someone infected", which is pretty vague.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

5. Because they don't want to frame this as a "gay disease"

[Hugh_Lebowski]

12. Yup. That phraseology is both more accurate, less offensive, I applaud that framing

Gay/Bisexual refers to whom one has the capacity to fall in love with.

You don't contract the disease because of who you fall in love with. It's the sexual act that spreads the illness.

Anyone can have sex with either gender, you don't have to have the ability to fall in love with people of their gender to sleep with them. I myself have been hetero-flexible at times, but I don't 'love men', I've never kissed one or dated one, let alone spent the night with one.

So 'men who sleep with men' is rather perfectly descriptive (leaving aside the sleep euphemism involved ... it really means 'have sex with', and everyone knows it).

[Srkdqltr]

6. But then not all men who have sex with men are gay. Probably bisexual. Or just into sex

No matter who?

[NCDem47]

7. I think they're trying (rightfully) not to stigmatize the words gay or bisexual

Yes, this is long way of saying it, but it descibes the act and not the overall sexual preference or identification. Hope that makes sense.

Also...married "straight" men run around secretly with side hustles.

[Sympthsical]

8. Sensitivity shouldn't trump science

I'm gay and I don't feel stigmatized.

When the rate was 95% gay men, hell yes I wanted them to make a note of it and get the word out to the community.

It's like we learned nothing from AIDS.

The SF AIDS Foundation just pissed me right off. Dore Alley was coming up (a fetish festival, lots of anonymous sex - I've been several times). And they told people to put band aids over their sores, but don't let that stop the good times!

My partner about hit the fucking roof. Guess what his next month is going to entail? Yep. Dealing with monkeypox with the rest of his pharmacy system

I'm pissed that people think using words a highly specific way was more important than actually getting a disease under control.

Just unreal. Completely. This is looking glass shit.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

13. Still ... 'being gay or bisexual' is not why anyone contracted AIDS

It was the sexual acts between them, specifically (most commonly) anal sex.

You don't HAVE have anal sex as a gay man. You don't HAVE to have any sex at all, in fact.

Outside of rape, nobody does, no matter who they're inclined to fall in love with.

Ergo 'men who have sex with men' is the actual, scientifically correct description here.

BTW, do you really want another illness branded as 'the gay plague'?

[Sympthsical]

15. No, but clearly communicating risk is what should be top priority

And they didn't clearly communicate it. They talked over, around, and under because they didn't want to be insensitive. They fouled up the messaging so bad, people thought it was an STD. "Well, if I just throw a condom on . . ." Not how the disease works, my dude.

Could you imagine the Twitter shitstorm if someone said what should've been said? "Hey, gay men. Take a break from Grindr for a month. Stop the Spread." As someone who has used Grindr in the past, it would have been more than called for.

But no one had the fortitude to do it. They didn't want to get ratio'd or called homophobic.

I will believe people are taking something seriously when they behave like they are taking it seriously. They haven't since the beginning. They decided Twitter politics was more important than disease prevention.

That is nearly criminal. The people making these decisions should be sacked. We do not have this luxury. We had this window where it could have been far more contained what it was, and they spiked the ball because of the look of the thing.

If your politics are more important than stopping an epidemic, that's not allyship. That just empty signaling with a body count.

Hard, hard pass.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

16. The specific framing in the OP is that of 'the media' here ... like MSNBC and such.

Not what, say, local public officials should focus on in their community messaging.

If THAT were the context, I'd perhaps agree with you somewhat

BTW I've been on Grindr before, but do not consider myself gay or bisexual because I have 0 capacity to fall in love with a male. I'm hetero-flexible, but I would be at risk if I was out screwing around right now, because what matters WRT transmission of the disease is the SEX part, not the GAY part.

And there's absolutely zero gay males who would be confused about the fact that if they are sexually active with males, they fall under the prescribed category of 'male who has sex with males'.

You're railing about this phrasing being used entirely for political correctness is off base IMHO. Way I see it, it's used primarily because it's ACCURATE ... the political correctness is just a side-benefit for the MSM news anchors and pundits.

[Sympthsical]

17. John Oliver nailed it last night

The whole thing is worth watching. He hit every single thing about the disease that's been enraging me for the past two months. Every part.

(I think you'll find your concerns addressed as well)

[Hugh_Lebowski]

21. That was great, I LOVE Jon Oliver.

I feel like we're having two different debates here though.

I'm only saying that for the M$M to use the specific term 'men who have sex with men' instead of 'gay/bisexual' men ... which was the context of the OP ... is fine by me. In that context it's more accurate (although it's certainly NOT the only way it's spread). That's it.

[Sympthsical]

25. We might be

I'm really heated on this topic this month, so I just walked away from the conversation yesterday. I could tell I was about to devolve into counterproductive snarking.

My problems with the wrestling over word choice is that people who should have been acting spent a lot of time debating that instead of targeting the LGBT community with a laser focus from the start. They were too worried about what it would look like. I'm in an LGBT gaming group with maybe a thousand members, and I know the leads were trying to have these conversations with people way back in late May, early June before Pride stuff. Just tons of disinformation or an underestimation of the dangers or a cavalier "I'll just get a shot."

Because the centers of information that should've been reaching out and informing the community weren't. Because they didn't want to "stigmatize" anyone. When the SF AIDS Foundation came out with their guidance . . . yeah. I could feel the aneurysm forming.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. Some men who have sex with men don't consider themselves gay or bisexual, and could

conceivably ignore a warning aimed at gay/bi men.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

14. Exactly. Correctly used, those terms refer to who one has a capacity to fall in love with

not who they have sex with.

It's the sex that's spreading the disease, not 'the capacity to fall in love with your own gender'.

[Mosby]

20. And the phrase included sex workers

Who might not be gay or bi.

[kirby]

10. They don't want to offend Lindsey Graham...

I noticed that wording too...probably as you say it is the specific action that correlates with the risk, not the labeling of the group.

[femmedem]

11. Celibate gay men aren't at high risk.

I like the specificity: the risk is associated with an act, not someone's sexuality.

[Jose Garcia]

26. Nor are bisexual men who are in monogamous relationships with women

[newdayneeded]

18. I don't understand this monkeypox thing

There is way more man/woman sex going on then gay sex.

Men and women rub there bodies together during sex......a lot.

So why is it not spreading faster among straight sex having people? It seems like it's more guys getting it. Doesn't make sense to me.

[iemanja]

22. Seems to me it's about casual sex

from what I've heard. That's typically People who have sex with multiple partners. Why they've decided that is particular to MM sex doesn't really make sense.

[Mad_Machine76]

19. I guess I don't understand

why is this an exclusively gay/bisexual men thing? As I understand it, it's spread by close contact (i.e. through sex) and gay and bi men are not the only people having sex, are they? I'm confused.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

24. I'm not sure but some potential explanations would be ...

That the first few cases (for some reason?) were among gay men. And it's spread from there ... to other gay men. Who tend to not have sex with women, ergo, the illness hasn't spread to the straight community nearly as much (yet?).

There's also a possibility that straight females are statistically more likely to see a lesion on a partner and go 'get the hell away from me' than a gay/bi male might be.

And I haven't checked but it could be the sort of disease that men are more prone to than women. There's a fair number of such diseases in the world, favoring men (or women) by some margin.

I understand the confusion and I don't know the answer, but I can see 'possibilities' that might explain that question.

[brooklynite]

23. Monkeypox is passed by skin to skin contact...

Being Bi or Gay and NOT having sexual activity would limit the risk of exposure.

[sir pball]

27. It's not just the media, I have a good friend who got the MP vax just cuz he's gay.

He's got a fiancé and a nice house in DC and a job with DHS after his tenure with Swalwell – he's even more settled down than my heteronormative ass, but he was able to go up to NYC and claim he was a "gay man with a history of promiscuity" (yes true but not since like 2015) and get a vax.

Meanwhile I can't find one to save my life, which is utter bullshit because smallpox vax's protect against monkeypox and we've never ever had a shortage of smallpox vaccines, just a reluctance to distribute them.

Anyway, rant over