09 August 2007

Death by numbers

Alan Chin once more goes on his crusade against the "gay lifestyle" with pseudo-scientific aplomb. Full essay.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

'I feel that not enough has been done to warn our youth that leading a ‘gay lifestyle’ is not cool. On the contrary, it is very unhealthy. There is a very high risk of contracting not only HIV but also a slew of other sexually transmitted disease.' - Dr Alan Chin

I read Dr Chin's article, however, don't target gays, safe sex applies across the board. Dr alan Chin, you are the Ann Coulter provocateur against gays, and your DISCRIMINATION against gays is an unfair 'rule of thumb'.
It would be interesting to see who you 'really speak for'?

Anonymous said...

Why don't Mr Alan Chin suggest banning sex altogether? Even if his so call figures are factually accurate, it is ridiculous to blame a minority for the problems of the majority

It is not just this writer in the forum alone, but the abundance of such views on gays in the papers may reflect more on the prejudices of the Straits Times rather than what the govt defines as the moral majority.

Kai Khiun

HanSolo said...

"A survey conducted in the United States has shown that 75 per cent of homosexual men have more than 100 sexual partners and 28 per cent of them have more than 1,000 partners."

This is a very strong argument against discouraging MSM, he is not simply hyperventilating. 75% is a huge proportion by any measure. Most people would agree that having more than 100 sexual partners is unhealthy and immoral.

OK, so you talk about safe sex. Let's assume that the proportion of safe MSM is the same as the general population. But because their frequency is so much higher, and anal sex is riskier than vaginal sex, they're still at higher risk of contracting STDs.

You might be able to dismiss his numbers, but you can't dismiss his argument.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for another brilliant article, YB. I had entirely overlooked the mathematical impossibility of getting 15:1 ratio from 8 or 9 people. It's good that YB opens our eyes to it.

Apart from the purely numeric errors in Alan Chin's article, I also feel he's entirely wrong on a non-numeric matter. Alan Chin tried to insinuate that a high incidence of HIV in MSM is relevant to the review of the Penal Code relating to Section 377A. I would suggest that it's the exact opposite.

Section 377A is specifically about consensual sex in a private room. Nobody of sound mind can disagree that in a comparison of use of condoms in a private room versus sex in public staircases, under the flyovers etc, it is quite obvious that there is a better chance that condoms are used when sex is in a private room. So logically, I would argue that repealing Section 377A would naturally encourage gays to move from public areas to the safe haven of their own private rooms and thereby promote the use of condoms.