One of the most baffling things about the recent monkeypox outbreak is the nearly unanimous refusal of public health agencies to declare it a sexually transmitted disease. On the one hand, monkeypox is above the break at the CDC's sexually transmitted disease page — along with COVID-19:
On the other, it doesn't make the big list at the bottom. Moreover, the CDC continues to insist that "anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, who has been in close, personal contact with someone who has monkeypox is at risk." The WHO website is even worse on the subject of transmission, saying, "While close physical contact is a well-known risk factor for transmission, it is unclear at this time if monkeypox can be transmitted specifically through sexual transmission routes."
Careful researchers will always need to make sure they aren't fooling themselves, it's true, but a CNBC news story today highlights exactly how illusory is the politically-motivated desire of public health officials to omit gay male sexual behavior as the primary mode of transmission:
In recent weeks, a growing body of scientific evidence — including a trio of studies published in peer-reviewed journals, as well as reports from national, regional and global health authorities — has suggested that experts may have framed monkeypox’s typical transmission route precisely backward.
…“A growing body of evidence supports that sexual transmission, particularly through seminal fluids, is occurring with the current MPX outbreak,” said Dr. Aniruddha Hazra, medical director of the University of Chicago Sexual Wellness Clinic, referring to monkeypox and to recent studies that found the virus in semen.
Consequently, scientists told NBC News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health authorities should update their monkeypox communication strategies to more strongly emphasize the centrality of intercourse among gay and bisexual men, who comprise nearly all U.S. cases, to the virus’ spread.
It will likely take a while for this to pervade the CDC et al., because their cosmology does not admit that gay male promiscuity never entirely went away, even after after the AIDS crisis, and is loathe to criticize LGBT+ individuals for any reason. While it may be true that a comparative minority of gay men are promiscuous in this way, young gay men especially are more likely to have multiple partners than either older gay men or straight people of either sex. The lessons of AIDS have been frequently forgotten by the current generation.
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